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→Pre-EQ or Boosting
A more powerful approach is to use the Studio EQ effect. It gets you both a more transparent sound (the Screamer tends to add a little compression/color) as well as greater control over exactly how frequencies are manipulated. This features 2 fully parametric bands, plus low and high shelves. Sometimes it's as easy as boosting a parametric band by about + 4-6db, lowering the Q down to like -2 or -3, and then sweeping the frequency to find the sweet spot. Usually it's between 800 and 3000 HZ. You can use the low shelf to trim some woofy low end - I find a -3db cut around 150 HZ to do the trick. If this isn't refined enough I like to use the other parametric band for this purpose. I'll set the frequency to about 40 HZ, gain to about -4 db, and then lower Q until I can hear the lows start tightening up. Then you can start trying different settings to refine. Sometimes, you may need to also trim some extreme high end with the high shelf if you get a harsh, crackly distortion in the high frequencies.
The Treble Booster effect also works well as a boost, but I find it doesn't offer enough control - it's basically a high shelf. It can be a bit more transparent than the Screamer and doesn't cut any high end, so the tone can get quite harsh if used excessively. The Lead Booster canis more tame in that it is more of a hump than a shelf, taming both highs and lows; however, I find again that it is a bit too limited for my purposes. The Pure Booster only boosts the signal level, similar to adjusting the Gain knob. It is only really useful to toggle on/off to switch between cleaner and dirtier levels of distortion.
