Many guitars and many amp profiles

    Ok, I have that guitarist problem, where I have too much choice. I have 17 guitars (Les Pauls, Strats, EVH's, Semi-hollows, Arch tops, Ibanez's) none are the same in sound or pickups. So I have the dilema of trying to wade through hundreds of amp profiles, to find what works. Some profiles lend more to single coil, some to humbuckers and many grey areas. But the choice is overwheming and try to find a system so I can find those profiles that worked for that guitar again.


    I am looking for tips, maybe share a bit of what I do and learn from others.


    - So first step for me is setting my input sensitivity for each guitar. I use a db measuring tool to get in a familiar range, then go by ear. Save for each guitar
    - then I search for a good clean sound that works or is close to what I want.
    - then I set my ouput EQ to dial in the clean sound I want, then save for each guitar. So now when I change guitars, I recall my saved input and output settings.
    - then I search for my dirt sound(s) for what I want to hear and also compliments the clean sound.


    so now at this point it starts getting harder, since you now need to adjust the EQ a bit for that dirt profile so that sound works, and need to save a new profile.


    so I tend to limit my choices for number of profiles and add a designator at the end of the profile name for the instrument, or type. I.e. LP
    on top of that I need to setup the footcontroller so I can find those patches. Bank one f five LP profiles, bank two five Strat profiles, etc.


    Since it is a daunting task, I have named my controller patches to show the guitar name, So I can remeber what is where.
    I think with the new Remote releasing, I may want to rename my profile name to my guitars.


    Anyone else have any tips, ideas or suggestions?

    I suggest a simpler approach: If you were using one conventional amplifier, would you write down 17 different sets of volume and tone control settings for each channel of the amp, and change all the knobs each time you picked up a different guitar?


    For live use, rather than make multiple rigs, I volume balance my humbucker guitars to each other by adjusting the pickups, and adjust the single coil guitars to each other. The single coil guitars provide brighter, lower gain sounds, using the same Rigs as the humbucker guitars.

    ditto what Paults says,
    I struggled for a year or so with lots of input sense settings with multiple guitars for live use.
    I could never get it to work predictably.
    A couple of months ago, I set clean sense to handle my highest output guitar and distortion sense somewhat neutral….haven't touched them since.
    About 10 gigs later I'm much happier and much less confused ;)


    Here's a thread I started about it...
    Balancing input sense settings for multiple guitars

    Gizmo, thanks for that link. I had done a search but did not see that. Maybe its time for me to go back to the drawing board and simplify. I will try with the hottest output guitar I have and get that set first. If that works, it would simplify things and save time.


    Maybe my approach just needs to be finding a couple of amps for the sound I want. Need to get out of the tweak everything mentality.

    I use 3 main guitars LP strat & Jazzbox each with their own input settings and dedicated rigs.


    I keep mysel organized by setting a prefix ST or LP or JB on my best dedicated rigs, I also have 3 separate subfolders for them in my rig manager. Searching in the rig manager with the prefix also sorts them.


    Other guitar fit in these, tele on ST, humbuckers on LP and so on ....


    I also think this is the best approach.
    Actually when you create different input settings you diminish the differences
    that are inherent to different guitars.

    I've been using for each song one (or more) separate Rig (slots in Performance mode) and the Performance Mode. Slots get the name of the song or the part of the song (intro, Rhythm, ..)
    I have numbered our songs and the performance has the name of the song contained numbers.
    Thus, each RIG / slot matches the used guitar.

    I used the same approach of setting all the guitars to the same relative output level but have since changed it back. I found that my guitars respond to pick squeals, etc if the pickups are as high as I can get them. Maybe it's all in my head lol. I only use 2 guitars live, too much of a nightmare with not a lot of bang for the buck to add more than that. Both my guitars have coil taps.

    Ok, so I went and adjusted the CS for my hottest guitar, then tried swapping between that and my strat (lowest output). I noticed on some of the rigs, I still needed to add an EQ as a boost for my strat. Otherwise it sounded really low and washed out. I noticed that Andy with his TAF rigs also has added some EQ as a boost (had to turn his down a touch). For when he had a low output strat.


    My goal is not to have a large volume jump, so I Can manage live playing easier. Especially on smaller gigs with no sound man. So as I do with my tube amps I add a little boost to my strat.

    Edited once, last by drog ().

    Like 1

    I've found that the best boost is a studio equalizer in the X slot. Gives me volume (and maybe some mids) without changing the gain.


    I also confess to trying a couple of external pedals…jury is still out on that.


    Quote from drog

    My other thinking is to add a couple of different OD/boost slots in the stomps area, to add what I need for different instruments.

    Okay, after hours of playing around, here is what I have.
    I have two different input settings. One for very low level guitars (strat) and one for my higher gain humbuckers. I Went this way because using the EQ as a boost worked well, but I would have to turn it on after each patch change, or save a new rig. Setting the input eliminated that step.


    I also lowered my DS a bit, as I was finding too many rigs sounding woofy/muddy. This made everything a ton better, I am now hearing the kinds of sounds I expected.


    Here are my input settings:
    Low Level guitars
    CS 0.1db
    DS -1.4 db


    Humbucker guitars
    CS -1.7 db
    DS -1.4 db


    Not a lot of change, as I still wanted to keep the instruments individual differences. Note that I kept the DS for both the same.But it has a made huge difference so far. One patch in particular became useful again "TAF HIWATT CRANKED" :thumbup: . It was so muddy before, now I can play my HiWatt!!!
    one other thing, I keep the main noise gate down to 4. That way I can use my guitar volume to clean up the amp.
    Going to keep playing around.

    Edited 2 times, last by drog ().