I normally use a mix of Cab volume and Amp volume to get the rigs to unity and Master as a global setting. The level depends from where you are plugging the outs (mic level, line level, spdif...)
Agreed, I use the same technique. There are some user profiles that are just too loud and some that are just too soft to even start tweaking so I have just deleted them from the get go. At this point I give a profile about 30 seconds and make my decision. Again, I have found that Manred Franzkowiak's profiles are usually at a perfect level and very well recorded/profiled. I went through a ton of profiles last night very quickly, probably 100+ in 20 minutes and also compared those to my tweaked profiles and my tweaked stuff sounded like ass vs. Manfred's (dull, not enough top end -- I'm sure I was compensating for using nearfield monitors, dialing out hash) and my volumes overall were much lower volume than Manfred's, but you have to watch the clipping as well.
Right now my Clean Sense is ~5 for my strat and ~6 for my LP. I manually change this and just lock it in place when switching guitars, saving that setting to each profile is tedious. I have not messed with distorted sense, I really don't understand what that does - mine is at zero now???
My guitars are pretty noisey but I keep the NG pretty low ~3. There are some strange things that happen with attack and decay with the NG, but I believe it's just bleed of noise coming in when I'm holding out notes, standard issue stuff, but better than tons of noise all of the time! In my case it is NOT the type of fizz decay problem that I had with a Fender Mustang III.
Here is my plan to perfect my setup and hopefully stop testing/tweaking and get to just playing:
Choose as much from Manfred, Kemper and a few other stock profiles that fulfill my needs. Light tweaking, volume setup for both guitars, add FX to taste, demo through everything I can. In particular I want to spend a little time with that Ampeg profile, I feel like there is a neat character in that amp I should be able to coax out.
Continue to research the absolute best user profiles that I have tested so far (I might even stop downloading new profiles altogether!). Tops for me are sheguitarplayers EVH stuff, I believe he also did this KULICK profile? Check out the KULICK, really neat - might be keepers. I feel like he has also done the best DI profile to date (EVH Clean).
Those Brute and Phatt profiles with some heavy tweaking sound very nice, still need to test those out at volume.
I have had to tweak some of the Orangutan profiles a lot, but they are coming around; interested to test the XITS profiles from Feck.
I still need to work on Marshall stuff,- XPenno uploaded that Plexi that I need more time with and of course pairing with some Tills cabs. What are the best stock Marshall profiles?
I just touched on some of those Bogner's that were uploaded, need more time but there is some great stuff there.
That Crunchy Golub Marshall is pretty great, meaty and chewy - it's higher gain that I thought, I'm hoping it reacts to volume know well.
I'm still searching for more BIG, FAT, ROUND cleans and killer Fender Blackface tones (more scooped than modern for Fender cleans I suppose?). Probably something like a perfectly captured Mesa Lonestar or something modern with 6L6's and then nailed Fender BF cleans. Almost every Fender profile I have tested is too scooped and too thin for my use. I've had trouble trying to tweak back in some meaty mids to the Vibrolux, Twin, etc...
I'm also digging Jonny Navarro's Reason Bambino and Pro Junior? Need a lot more tweaking on those as well.
I haven't even tested FX yet lol...
On the monitoring side I returned my RCF 312A. Things sounded okay, but once I brought volume up half way everything started to sound shrill, plastic, and felt thin when playing. I mentioned before my "analog" setup is EHX Magnum 44 and VHT 1x12 with Scumback H55. The Scumback needs to be broken in bigtime, so today I finally started that process. I have ITUNES running some Hip Hop tunes borrowed from my kids and the cabinet is wrapped in blankets and rugs laying speaker down in the basement. I left it cranked pretty high, a lot of bass material and kick drum booming. I'm all good with the neighbors but my dog is in his crate down there, I hope he doesn't sh*t the bed lol...
