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Post subject: Figuring out the Mustang - it pays to tweak
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:51 pm
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I've had my Mustang II since last October, and have been working on and off when I had time refining tones and have learned a few things that didn't occur to me when I first got the amp.
Don't judge your tone using headphones! I had tweaked and worked to get what I thought were some good sounds using a pair of good earbuds - but, they are still earbuds.
When I took them off and started using the speaker, it was a real eye opener; nothing sounded as good without changing settings all over the place. For example, with the earbuds on, reverbs seemed fine; with them off, the settings were all way over the top.

This also plays in another way - at first, I thought that the Bassman sounds were not to my liking. But then, I started playing the amp with the speaker to get real settings. Now, the Bassman sounds I have are pretty much my favorites. I still think the Twin sounds are the closest to the real thing, but I have come up with (for me) great sounds with the Deluxe, Bassman and Twin models. Much better tones for playing for an audience rather than just practicing.

Lastly, the down side to all this - I am now wanting to get rid of the Mustang II and get a III, to get the better speaker and the better interface on the amp itself.

This is probably nothing that hasn't been posted before, but I thought I'd share anyway. Hope this helps somebody else.


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Post subject: Re: Figuring out the Mustang - it pays to tweak
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 6:33 pm
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Funny, I can't stand the Bassman sounds. They're dull, lifeless and midrangey. I like 60's Sparkle, the SS is pretty cool (with the Gain waaaaay backed down), the Twin, etc but everytime I hit the Bassman model it's like...ugh. Lemme outa here.

Update: Found a great Bassman-based user-made preset on the Fuse site which really turned me around. I couldn't make the Bassman work, but HE could!


Last edited by Musicmaster2 on Fri Jun 03, 2011 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Figuring out the Mustang - it pays to tweak
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 7:07 pm
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Musicmaster2 wrote:
Funny, I can't stand the Bassman sounds. They're dull, lifeless and midrangey. I like 60's Sparkle, the SS is pretty cool (with the Gain waaaaay backed down), the Twin, etc but everytime I hit the Bassman model it's like...ugh. Lemme outa here.


I felt the same way at first, but once I started messing around with the settings, I found a couple of settiings that I really like. One is a sort of hollow body jazz kind of tone, and the other is a great cranked sound using a overdrive pedal. With you on the Twin though; that might be the best sound overall in the amp.


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Post subject: Re: Figuring out the Mustang - it pays to tweak
Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 7:34 am
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With you on the Twin though; that might be the best sound overall in the amp.


Funny, the twin setting hasn't really been doing it for me... perhaps it's that I can A/B it with my TRRI and have never been able to get a tone out of the Mustang close to the twin. I'm not bagging on the MIII, I love it. Perhaps, as was suggested, more tweaking is needed to find the tone I'm after. I've spent most of my time dialing in the 65 Deluxe...far and away my favorite setting.

I'd like a better sound for the bassman as well... I just need to keep experimenting with it. I don't have a computer which can handle fuse so I just have to tweak stuff until it sounds good.

Cheers


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Post subject: Re: Figuring out the Mustang - it pays to tweak
Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 9:54 am
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Once you break the speaker in, the 60s Vox sound is probably about the best sound on the amp. It's one of the only models that doesn't fart out when you put a pedal in front of it, can do a great rock to hard rock/classic metal sound, great cleans, great break up, great low gain tones. The Cut control is super useful going from sparkly jangly with a fuzzy/fizzy edge to a darker more "Orange"/NTB like tone. I just wished the TB switch worked, but it's not a big deal with the Cut knob as that seems to more or less blend them.


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Post subject: Re: Figuring out the Mustang - it pays to tweak
Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 9:30 pm
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I swear I get a better Marshall tone out of the 60's Vox than the Marshalls themselves!


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Post subject: Re: Figuring out the Mustang - it pays to tweak
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:40 pm
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I'm just getting to running through the FUSE/Community presets. Much more edifying than running through the stock presets. Some good stuff in there. It turns you on to some models you may have rejected on your own.


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Post subject: Re: Figuring out the Mustang - it pays to tweak
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 9:37 am
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CharlesTY wrote:
Don't judge your tone using headphones!

yeah, I discovered this too. I've started creating two versions of my favorite presets, one for headsets and one for live. I'm just guessing, but if you have a pair of high quality monitoring headphones, you can probably close the gap a little.

Also, in my experience, I can tweak an awesome sounding tone coming out of the speaker but when I record via usb, the recording sounds like it just sucked all the life out of the tone. But if I tweak a good sounding tone in my headphones its sounds a lot better when its recorded.


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Post subject: Re: Figuring out the Mustang - it pays to tweak
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 10:07 am
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Musicmaster2 wrote:
I'm just getting to running through the FUSE/Community presets. Much more edifying than running through the stock presets. Some good stuff in there. It turns you on to some models you may have rejected on your own.


In searching through the presets on FUSE, I've found some great sounds. I guess when they created some of the stock presets, they wanted to show off the effects. I like the idea that on the Mustang III, they have just the plain amp settings for each model available.


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Post subject: Re: Figuring out the Mustang - it pays to tweak
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 4:30 pm
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Yeah those are good starting points. I immediately want to add compression, delay and reverb, but just a taste, not this EFX and overdrive lolapalooza they've got garbaging up the presets.


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