I have been browsing through these similar topics as my situation seems quite strange. For pretty much all the clean sounds I have to dial the input down a lot. Actually all the way down to -12dB. And still my PRS manages to distort the front end if I hit highest string very hard. However, the same happened with my actual Mesa. I had to dial down the quitar volume or use pedal. But the strange thing is that I still have to dial down the QC input (preferrably to -12dB) with all my guitars. The previously mentioned PRS with passive pups, ESP with active, Les Paul with passive and even with Strato with passive single coils. With all of these the input meter doesn’t go to red with 0dB input regardless of how heavíly I hit the strings, but the clean sounds are almost impossible to dial in. And whatching youtube videos of different sounds show that the sounds are similar only when dialing down. But the input meter barely shows anything anymore. With Strato it doesn’t show anything anymore, except a little if I bang it really hard. But the sounds are ok. Could anyone give a tip where to check what the heck is going on. I connect directly to QC without anything in between. 