Clean/Crunch

For some general guidelines on how to use the Pod HD and dial in patches similar to those below, please see my Pod HD tone guide.

The cleanest tone you can get from the Pod HD is to not use any amp models at all, but to use a compressor and EQ to simulate one. I use this approach, but I also want some warmth to the tone. So I use a dual amp patch, but use a Blackface Dbl on one side and no amp on the other. I really thicken up the tone by using a little chorus. A little reverb to add ambiance. You get thickness and sparkling clean at the same time. Works for strumming chords and single-note leads.

A lot of people have complained about getting a good tone from the Blackface Dbl without getting clipping. Here it is. Use Input 2 Variax to hit the front with less volume. I turn the Master Volume DEP down from 100 to 20%. This is essentially like modding the amp and sticking a master volume knob after the pre-amp, but I find it has basically no impact on tone. I also turn up Bias X, which lets the hard strums go through the amp without causing crossover distortion. I add a little reverb and have a classic 60's Fender clean tone, even with high output modern pickups.

Meshuggah's cleans stand out to me as THE pristine, ambient super-clean tone, even though they rarely use them. Very compressed, lots of reverb, and quite bright. A bit of tremelo and modulation as well. I find this tone works poorly for strumming but is good for arpeggios.

Similar as above, but more warm and midsy. Also a bit close to breaking up, which can be done by turning on the Studio EQ to boost the signal going into the amp.

All credit to Paul Ortiz for showing us how to dial this one in. See this youtube vid. It sounds almost identical to some of the clean tones on Tesseract's album. Basically you've got octaves above and below, compression, delay, and reverb. Phaser or tremelo to make it more interesting.

A cleaned up Park 75 tone with a Tube Drive pedal in front to warm up the tone and some reverb behind. This is one of my favorite clean lead tones - a very fat tone just hitting break-up and very responsive to dynamics but still offering plenty of sustain.

I wanted a generic yet classic Marshall crunch tone, mainly for rhythms. Nothing too special as far as tweaking goes here, other than using dual cabs to get a rich frequency response.

I really wanted a slightly broken up Fender tone, as though I was just pushing the amp really hard. Just doing that by itself seemed a bit too harsh, so I use some different cab/mic choices and EQ'ing to make the breakup a bit sweeter.