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Post subject: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:15 am
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So, I'm starting to experiment with distortion, in the context of solo guitar tone, nothing really heavy, mostly rock, pop and blues. So my question may sound silly for experienced players, be warned.

So I'm faced with the same dilemma as guitar players in the 60-70's I guess. In my head I can go two ways (in the Mustang world at least):

1 - I can use a hot amp emulation, crank up the amp gain, and increase guitar volume until I get the level of distortion I like. If it get's too loud , just lower amp emulation volume. If I need more sustain, add a compressor stomp to the chain.

2 - I can use a distortion stomp in front of any amp emulation, forget about the amp tweaking and concentrate on adjusting the distortion stomp.

now, the silly question. I learned recently that the reason distortion pedals were invented in the first place is because, either:
a - people did not have enough money to buy tube-amps, so pedals will imitate the natural overdrive of tubes over cheaper solid state amps
b - or because they did have tube-amps but they wanted to have distortion at a lower volume than what would be required using the tube natural overdrive effect.

now, knowing that reasons A and B are irrelevant in the case of the Mustangs (they do emulate amp overdrive, at low volume and without the requirement of artificial overdrive pedals) why would anyone would prefer to use overdrive stomps instead of the saturation of the amp modelling? is there any tone I can not get using the amp modelling overdrive that I could using a stomp overdrive?


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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:34 am
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lol. Awesome thread!!!!

I struggle with the same thing, mainly because of my OCD. I have concluded that it doesn't matter, especially with Mustang 3 or 4, and either one works.

Mustang (and real tube amp w/ pedals) gives you 5,000 different ways to get similar overdriven tone and it's a matter of taste dialing in exactly what sounds great to you and/or what would "cut through" if you're playing with others (perhaps more mids and less bass than what sounds good to you when playing solo).

Just as you say, any of the crunchy models with no pedals, gain at 6 to 9 depending on how dirty you want to get...great. I read here that some guys (gigging pros) use the supersonic model as their crunch and they think that is great tone...no pedals.

Same with 90s american IMO.

Then, as you say, treating any of the fender clean models as a "real amp" and, exactly as you say....with mustang you can get great tone at low volume EITHER putting gain at 7 or 8 (but still cleaner than the marshall models, just like the real thing) OR using overdrive or fuzz pedal and put level and gain to your taste...and really get similar tone.

I've been messing around doing exactly this just to compare asking the same question as your OP.

Perhaps I'm easy to please but basically I find either method good and it is quite easy to get a nice crunch/overdrive tone on mustang. Take any dirty model and put gain at 7 or 8.... or put gain at 2 to 4 and use overdrive pedal with level and gain at 6 to 9 depending on taste.....both ways work.

or just use supersonic model with gain at 6 to 9 depending on taste.

or 70s british or 90s american...... like someone said, it's kind of difficult to get a bad tone out of mustang even if you try (as long as you don't overdo it with reverb on 10 plus a stomp plus a mod with everything on 10 to create watery mush...... basic amp models with gain between 3 and 8.....or a pedal...not with level or presence or gain on 10..you get good tone)

My next step is wondering whether the other thing you say is true...when I get a DRRI, a real tube amp, which is considered too loud for an apartment...can I use a really dirty box in front of it and get it to give me overdriven tone at low volume like the mustang does?

I watched a jazz gig last night live. The guitarist had a Blues Deluxe and some pedals.....I can't play jazz, but my M4 absolutely EASILY could have recreated his tone and EASILY cut through with volume on about 3 (preset volume on 5)....the only reason I'm not in a gigging jazz band right now is that I can't play jazz...it's not my amp holding me back


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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:44 am
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I try to get what I need using the amp model/gain first. If I find I'm still not getting enough, then I'll add a stomp box.

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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 9:06 am
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The best success I’ve had with distortion on my setup is using the Amp gain and then push it with the standard mustang OD Stomp. Sounds real nice. The Super Sonic IMO doesn’t need any help… nice creamy distortion as is.

I’ve found that the note decay on say the black box and orange box is not that smooth to my ears. Maybe I’m just not cranking it loud enough but it seems to sizzle out rather than fade. Ironically I just picked up a Rat 2 yesterday and love this pedal with this amp. It seems to blend well with the Deluxe, Bassman and especially the Princeton so far and the filter knob just helps it sit in right where you need it. The Black Box stomp on the Mustang sounds REAL close when you’re doing the chugga chugga but as I mentioned before, I don’t feel the note decay to be as smooth for leads. I pair that with m 30 dollar Joyo Ultimate Drive (OCD Clone) and I can almost ditch fuse altogether which is my goal. Just to settle on a few clean amp models and set a variation with a little more amp gain and I’m good to go.

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Last edited by captainc on Thu Oct 10, 2013 11:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 9:46 am
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What I've found to be a best practice with outboard Dirt Pedals (particularly a decent Overdrive pedal) is to use them to add additional "Color" to your Tone and to enhance the sustain without the "Fizzy" issues.
Have been using an MXR Classic OD mostly. Adds cream over the top of the Gain/Dirt I dial in via the Mustang itself. Works nicely. I don't rely on the stomp to necessarily supply the dirt in the signal... just to enhance it :wink:

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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 11:22 am
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Her Wanna wrote:
My next step is wondering whether the other thing you say is true...when I get a DRRI, a real tube amp, which is considered too loud for an apartment...can I use a really dirty box in front of it and get it to give me overdriven tone at low volume like the mustang does?

Yes you can get an over driven tone using a dirty box at low volume with a DRRI but it does not sound good. I have to crank the amp up too loud to get that sound. That is what I love about my Stangs. Although, I wish *all* of the amp models had a *MASTER* volume in the Advanced Amp section of FUSE.

Also, on another note and no pun intended, I have yet to find my tone for lead *soloing* without my outboard stomp before the Mustangs, but I have reached sonic nirvana and believe me when I tell you i have been on a tone quest for decades especially at lower volumes. I have many stories to tell but will spare you from boredom.

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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 12:07 pm
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HIO wrote:
Her Wanna wrote:
My next step is wondering whether the other thing you say is true...when I get a DRRI, a real tube amp, which is considered too loud for an apartment...can I use a really dirty box in front of it and get it to give me overdriven tone at low volume like the mustang does?

Yes you can get an over driven tone using a dirty box at low volume with a DRRI but it does not sound good. I have to crank the amp up too loud to get that sound. That is what I love about my Stangs. Although, I wish *all* of the amp models had a *MASTER* volume in the Advanced Amp section of FUSE.

Also, on another note and no pun intended, I have yet to find my tone for lead *soloing* without my outboard stomp before the Mustangs, but I have reached sonic nirvana and believe me when I tell you i have been on a tone quest for decades especially at lower volumes. I have many stories to tell but will spare you from boredom.


Ya that's what I've heard. I hope they don't take your suggestion about master volume (no offense). Master volume is master volume...I don't use fuse at all and I don't want any preset "invisibly" changing master volume...that's what preset volumes are for. master volume is master volume...with an analog dial like a "real" amp. I can look at the black knob and see what the master volume of the amp is....preset volumes can differ.

you seem to be my "friend" here with mutual love of mustangs, and this is not jumping on you, but if I'm reading you correctly, why would you say that? master volume is master volume. you don't want a PRESET changing MASTER volume "invisibly" and I say "invisibly" because it would be like with other preset settings....EQ etc....where the actual settings might not reflect what the physical black knobs are showing,...which if fine for preset settings. what you say about having master volume for presets in advances section of fuse makes no sense to me.....have a preset override the master volume on the amp?

if that's what you mean, it would make the amp much less usable...having to guess what volume jump might happen based on a preset? presets have a volume assigned to them and master volume is a real "analog" dial that I can see and control the entire amp manually....what if your preset has master volume of 7....it overrides the real dial and I can't turn the master volume knob to zero to cut off all sounds, such as when messing with presets or standing too close with a high gain setting on?



I have actually hoped fender does not take *many* of the suggestions that are sometimes posted here.....no offense, just IMO....I think they got it right the first time with a lot of stuff.

another example is that people seem to want to be able to have a super distorted high gain tone and yet have it be dead silent at idle when they are sitting one foot away with their guitar plugged in. that's low volume bedroom playing thinking... well... that would NOT be modeling the real amp or stomp pedal...which are also noisy and even feedback if one is standing in front of it with one's guitar...see Hendrix, Cobain, and Mayer doing that on purpose for examples. I actually think fender got it right with v1 before taking all the feedback from people, a lot of which is overcomplicated or is asking fender to make the amp NOT model what the real amp does.

I'm almost afraid of v2 for that reason...like even the stupid font is less classy now on v2...the italics....and they put the words in front of the knobs because people complained. now it looks more like a toy. I like the look of V1...more classic and "mature"...more like the look of a real twin (the 4 with 2X12 anyway)

there is one mustang lover on here who seems to be from italy who has all sorts of suggestions that I hope fender does not accept... I think fender got it right the first time


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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 12:18 pm
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Her Wanna wrote:
another example is that people seem to want to be able to have a super distorted high gain tone and yet have it be dead silent at idle when they are sitting one foot away with their guitar plugged in. that's low volume bedroom playing thinking... well... that would NOT be modeling the real amp or stomp pedal...which are also noisy and even feedback if one is standing in front of it with one's guitar...


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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 1:23 pm
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Her Wanna wrote:
HIO wrote:
Her Wanna wrote:
My next step is wondering whether the other thing you say is true...when I get a DRRI, a real tube amp, which is considered too loud for an apartment...can I use a really dirty box in front of it and get it to give me overdriven tone at low volume like the mustang does?

Yes you can get an over driven tone using a dirty box at low volume with a DRRI but it does not sound good. I have to crank the amp up too loud to get that sound. That is what I love about my Stangs. Although, I wish *all* of the amp models had a *MASTER* volume in the Advanced Amp section of FUSE.

Also, on another note and no pun intended, I have yet to find my tone for lead *soloing* without my outboard stomp before the Mustangs, but I have reached sonic nirvana and believe me when I tell you i have been on a tone quest for decades especially at lower volumes. I have many stories to tell but will spare you from boredom.


Ya that's what I've heard. I hope they don't take your suggestion about master volume (no offense). Master volume is master volume...I don't use fuse at all and I don't want any preset "invisibly" changing master volume...that's what preset volumes are for. master volume is master volume...with an analog dial like a "real" amp. I can look at the black knob and see what the master volume of the amp is....preset volumes can differ.

you seem to be my "friend" here with mutual love of mustangs, and this is not jumping on you, but if I'm reading you correctly, why would you say that? master volume is master volume. you don't want a PRESET changing MASTER volume "invisibly" and I say "invisibly" because it would be like with other preset settings....EQ etc....where the actual settings might not reflect what the physical black knobs are showing,...which if fine for preset settings. what you say about having master volume for presets in advances section of fuse makes no sense to me.....have a preset override the master volume on the amp?

if that's what you mean, it would make the amp much less usable...having to guess what volume jump might happen based on a preset? presets have a volume assigned to them and master volume is a real "analog" dial that I can see and control the entire amp manually....what if your preset has master volume of 7....it overrides the real dial and I can't turn the master volume knob to zero to cut off all sounds, such as when messing with presets or standing too close with a high gain setting on?



I have actually hoped fender does not take *many* of the suggestions that are sometimes posted here.....no offense, just IMO....I think they got it right the first time with a lot of stuff.

another example is that people seem to want to be able to have a super distorted high gain tone and yet have it be dead silent at idle when they are sitting one foot away with their guitar plugged in. that's low volume bedroom playing thinking... well... that would NOT be modeling the real amp or stomp pedal...which are also noisy and even feedback if one is standing in front of it with one's guitar...see Hendrix, Cobain, and Mayer doing that on purpose for examples. I actually think fender got it right with v1 before taking all the feedback from people, a lot of which is overcomplicated or is asking fender to make the amp NOT model what the real amp does.

I'm almost afraid of v2 for that reason...like even the stupid font is less classy now on v2...the italics....and they put the words in front of the knobs because people complained. now it looks more like a toy. I like the look of V1...more classic and "mature"...more like the look of a real twin (the 4 with 2X12 anyway)

there is one mustang lover on here who seems to be from italy who has all sorts of suggestions that I hope fender does not accept... I think fender got it right the first time


No offense taken but why limit ourselves in anyway. Mustangs are modellers and you refuse to use Fuse which is ultra powerful. One can tweak his tone, volume, noise gate, bias, sag, cab, and what have you. Where is there wrong in that? Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Here is an example which happened in my recording studio just late yesterday afternoon using the Floor. One patch i created using British 80's was way too loud in comparison to all of my other presets. I tried turning down the gain and volume from the amp and the overdrive stomp's gain and volume. This is not my outboard stomp and I am trying to dial in a rhythm crunch. I lose the overdrive and try a compressor along with dozens of variations of the amps gain and volume. The sound sucked in comparison to what I had.

So I go back to my original too loud patch setting similar to British Steel and lowered the Master volume in advanced amp settings and it was perfect. Perfect! Other people agreed as i was too loud before but now the sound still sounded really good.

I hope we can still be friends on this one; I'll buy if we can agree to disagree. :)

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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 1:41 pm
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HIO wrote:
One patch i created using British 80's was way too loud in comparison to all of my other presets. I tried turning down the gain and volume from the amp and the overdrive stomp's gain and volume. This is not my outboard stomp and I am trying to dial in a rhythm crunch. I lose the overdrive and try a compressor along with dozens of variations of the amps gain and volume. The sound sucked in comparison to what I had.


Why not just adjust the amp volume and leave the amp gain and stomp alone?

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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 1:45 pm
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I have used fuse some, and you can tweak all of that from the mustang if it's 3 or 4. (including sag, bias, cab, everything you mentioned). only thing you can't control the same as in fuse from the amp itself is putting effects before or after the amp.... no I have not taken the time to see how that little tweak would matter (such as putting delay pedal after the amp instead of before)

I still don't get what you are saying...it's like you are calling preset volume "master volume" which it would be as it relates to a particular amp like a deluxe (real deluxe has one volume knob, and that's what you can set in fuse, for the particular preset using that amp).

so you are saying you *can* do what you want to do in fuse? you can assign a volume to a particular preset. okay... and "master volume" is the knob on the far right of the amp that controls the master volume for the entire amp regardless of setting....each setting's volume allows variances between settings...but master volume is a true master volume that goes to zero if I put it on zero.

you want two different volumes, amp volume and master volume, for each preset? then it's not master volume anymore.

I admit I read what you wrote fast...I will re-read again later.


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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 1:47 pm
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strings10927 wrote:
HIO wrote:
One patch i created using British 80's was way too loud in comparison to all of my other presets. I tried turning down the gain and volume from the amp and the overdrive stomp's gain and volume. This is not my outboard stomp and I am trying to dial in a rhythm crunch. I lose the overdrive and try a compressor along with dozens of variations of the amps gain and volume. The sound sucked in comparison to what I had.


Why not just adjust the amp volume and leave the amp gain and stomp alone?


this. each preset does have its own "master volume" as I understand you to be using that term.....but it's just volume for that preset, which can be varied in relation to other presets, like for loud-quiet-loud nirvana style..... but "master" volume is on the amp.....controlling everything, but letting variances between settings remain.

this is what I'm saying and/or I don't understand what HIO is saying


Last edited by Her Wanna on Thu Oct 10, 2013 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 1:53 pm
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The “Master Volume” he’s referring too is emulating the Master Volume that is Post Gain but pre-power amp. Handy knob to have and I too wish they all had it.

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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 1:57 pm
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Her Wanna, I think what HIO meant was the Master parameter in Advanced Amp settings available through FUSE. That Master parameter emulates the difference in sound you'd get if you had a tube amp set with different master volume. So low master = low master volume from tube amp, high master = high master volume from tube amp and the sound changes accordingly (it gets a bit more overdriven, etc.)

It does not override your master knob on the amp itself, instead it is just another one of parameters that emulate tube behavior (like sag and bias are) which also happens to alter the volume of the amp. You save the preset so you can easily turn down the volume of amp and make it more tube-like by setting master in advanced settings higher and retain the volume level you want.

However master parameter is only available for those amps that Mustang emulates that are tube amps and you can't equalize other amps via master parameter in advanced settings. This is what HIO wants. Although I agree it would be useful (although myself, I'd prefer a volume EQ that goes beyond that and can objectively say which presets are louder and for how much - after all the effects and amp parameters), I'd say it's best left out as you'd try to emulate SS amps the same way as tube amps.

So master parameter in advanced amp settings will not change your master volume knob on the amp itself - it will remain at the setting you want it to remain, the master parameter will only emulate more cranked up tubes and will give a higher and more coloured output (and again, you can lower the output to what you want by setting a smaller amp volume parameter).

As for the pre-amp, post-amp - try it. The difference is huge. Might not be as apparent with delays and reverbs, but will definitely be very obvious with stomps and modulation effects.

EDIT: Ahh I see others have responded before me as well

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Post subject: Re: Newbie question about distortion
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 1:59 pm
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^^^ Sweet GIF

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