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Post subject: mustang III help out!
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 8:04 pm
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Umm i bought the mustang III 100W about 3 weeks and Im still having problems getting a nice distortion tone out of it. The clean tone is perfect.Like what kind of knobs should i turn or amp models should i put it on, or anything that will get me a better sound out of it. How much good will the new firmware do. Im kind of thinking that it was a bad choice of an amp to buy. I mean I love it but its just not a good distortion sound. If anyone can help feel free please.


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Post subject: Re: mustang III help out!
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 8:26 pm
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Depending on the amp model you pick the distortion is controlled mostly through the initial gain setting. Even for the models without pre-gain stage, it sets how "hard" the first gain stages are driven. Even the Twin Reverb can be overdriven if you set the first gain control above say - 4.
There are 2 sets of menu controls for some amps including master volume, for the preset, not the MUSTANG III, and such things as channel blend, Bias (set it higher for more power amp distortion) and sag. Experiment with speakers - you usually can chose 1, 2 or 4. The beauty of the modeling is that the various control work very close to how they would on a real amp. The British 70's/80's work a lot like classic Marshalls, I think one amp is a Peavy 5150, one looks like a Mesa Triple rectifier, etc. to get a great sound, you have to play with the controls. The magic is there, but you got to work for it. I spent the better part of 2 days dialing in a JCM45 with just the right amount of grind and crunch - for me. Still working on Cream.

Also, the FUSE "community" has been posting presets. Want a EVH sound - there are several. Want "Black Dog," its there. Load it, and then see how the various control interact to get that sound.

Let's face it. If you had gone out an bought the most classic Marshall stack, a "handwired" Vox AC30, or MESA, or Randall, you couldn't just take it home, plug it in, and get "The Tone." You'd fiddle with it, turn this way, change this. Why would you think the MUSTANG III is any different.


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Post subject: Re: mustang III help out!
Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 9:07 pm
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thank you saransk. i mean i know that i cant just bring it home and plug it in and get a good sound. i was just stumped. but thank you now that i know what bias i just dont know what the knobs do i guess is what my problem is.


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Post subject: Re: mustang III help out!
Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 8:14 am
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Set the volume to 3 or 4, set your guitar to 5. Gain anywhere from 5-7. Then adjust the breakup with your guitar volume. Finally adjust the master volume last for actual room volume.

Mustang has the best distortion I've seen. The problem is all the distortion presets are set incorrectly. The volume is set really high which muddys the sound far too much. You can get bluesy/GnR dirt, Nirvana dirty grunge to full on doom metal with the Mustang. It does everything distortion wise. Just have to tinker! The key is the volume setting, don't crank it, keep it low and keep the guitar volume halfway initially.

You can fine tune it further with the bias and pedals and gain (small increments).

I am not sure if this is how "real" amps act or not. I have owned the Vypyr 30 andstill own the Tonelab ST and I do not have to adjust the volume settings nearly as much. The Mustang is VERY sensitive to the initial input from the guitar and the amp modeler volume for some reason. At least compared to any other modeling amp. Judging from the endless waves of questions from people questioning the distortion on the Mustang line, I think the Mustang is more "unique" in this regard.

Once you dial it in like how I described, you will be amazed.


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Post subject: Re: mustang III help out!
Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 9:57 am
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It would help to know what kind of distortion tones you are looking for...that would at least help us to steer you to an appropriate model and gain settings.

I don't have my Mustang yet, and I've only tried the III briefly in the store, but I was pretty impressed with the distortion tones I could dial in, and did that pretty quickly. My main amp is a Marshall JVM, so I'm obviously partial to Marshall-style distortion sounds, and I was pretty pleased with what I heard from the III. But all of the high gain models sounded pretty useable to me...the Supersonic model seemed to have some potential.

In the store, I was just using the knobs on the amp...so wasn't doing any of the deep editing (bias or sag or pedals), so I'm thinking you should be able to dial in something that sounds good just from the knobs themselves. And I had my guitar volume all the way up...you can do turn it down if you like, but there's always some treble rolloff that happens when you pull back on guitar volume that you may or may not like, so keep that in mind.


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Post subject: Re: mustang III help out!
Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:48 pm
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Don't know if you've solved the problem or not, but I just got my Mustang I last night, and I found that on the high gain models, changing the Sag to "Less" or whatever the lower setting is, really helped...made a much bigger difference than I expected. So if you're still having trouble, I'd say try that.


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Post subject: Re: mustang III help out!
Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:50 pm
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Another option is using fender's great warranty (5 years). I had a great experience with getting my amp replaced. They are realy great to deal with.


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Post subject: Re: mustang III help out!
Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 7:09 pm
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pippers thank you i tried out your solution right away. i love it. i messed with i for a few days and im getting the sound i want now. i think i am getting the hang of it thanks. im enjoying my amp more than my friends Vyper. thanks for help


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Post subject: Re: mustang III help out!
Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:19 pm
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I was thinking the same thing after I got the IV home and was messing with some of the distorted sounds. Crud, I bought a turd! It takes a bit of tweaking to figure it out. You can't go with just the original cab all the time. Change bias, sag, etc. also. You will find you can get some kick $@! sounds! Just takes a bit of tweaking is all. I run my mp3 player or computer through my amp and try to dial in some of the songs we do in the band to get some of my presets. Gets them pretty close. Then just fine tune when playing out. The real trick to fine tuning is to get all your presets the same volume too. It's harder than you think. Cleans and lead sounds the same sometimes is a pain. One trick I learned is to get a decibel meter. They're fairly cheap at radio shack. Just match up the numbers of the presets and let your ears be the ultimate judge.

You can also get some good presets from the fender community as well and they are tweakable too. Don't forget to backup your sounds in case you lose your settings!!! I always have a backup amp when playing a gig as well. Don't trust ANY piece of equipment.

Also another tip. Take a break playing. Your ears get used to the "sound" and it gets harder to dial things in sometimes. When you do, you'll find that a preset you tweaked earler might not sound as good or sounds better than before! Just some thoughts!


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