Compressed high gain sound

Quad Cortex
1

I´m looking for a high gain sound with great clarity and a fair bit of compression to compensate for my lack of technique when it comes to hammer-ons, tapping etc. I´ve tried pretty much every amp block and also in combination with overdrives and compressors but I´m still not there yet. On Kemper I had a Soldano SLO 100 profile that was perfect for the purpose but none of the SLO captures I´ve tried has made the cut yet. Also, a lot of the high gain amps are bit boomy and wobbely if that makes any sense. I think I´m looking for the sound of a cranked Marshall but with the compressed feeling that almost makes it plays itself. :stuck_out_tongue:

Please, help me out!

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  • Inserting a low-cut directly after the input helps in most modelers to get a tighter and less muddy amp sound.
  • In addition, you can experiment with the mix control when using a compressor in front of the amp block / drive block. Setting the mix to e.g. 50% will preserve a good amount of the dynamics when playing harder but at the same time the compressor will elevate lower signals and provide longer sustain.
2 Likes
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As a starting point for a very heavy and very compressed sound, did you have a look at Kiko Loureiro’s Megadeth presets?
(Main rhythm, main lead)

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Cool! Will try, thanks!

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I’d say in general you can handle a lot of the boomy low end by adding one of the overdrive pedals before the amp, put the drive on zero and push the volume to full, tone to taste. This really tightens up the boom and 90% of players do this before going into a tube amp. You can test the different drive pedals but the most common would be the green 808 and the SD1. Try those before the amp and see how it fixes things. I wouldn’t worry too much about a compressor before the amp if your playing ain’t so good, it still won’t fix everything for you and over time you’re just avoiding the real issue. Just play more and you’ll react to the amp better. Otherwise use more gain on the preamp itself and less on the master.

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A pretty agressive low-cut did the trick for me, suddenly I SLO 100 capture that didn´t work earlier was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

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You’re welcome.

BTW, I’m wondering why low cut circuits are rarely found on guitars. AFAIK L&G has something like this. In high gain scenarios a low cut pot would be much more useful on a guitar than the usual tone pot.

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Totally agree. I barely use the tone, like never. It’s useless for me. I actually see a bigger use of a high/low cut. What if it went both ways, in center position it does nothing, clockwise it’s a low cut and counter clockwise it’s a high cut. :grinning:

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I might have seen something like this on active bass guitars. But it’s more of a high cut on one side vs. active treble boost on the other side.

Here’s what G&L does passively with two separate pots:

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