Use a part you already know, and play it both softly and hard as you go. The difference between the two is where this amp comes alive.
Set the input
Strum your guitar lightly and watch the input meter. With a single-coil pickup, set the input so the meter reads in its bottom third. With a humbucker, set it to read in the top two thirds, short of the very top. If you want your single coil to push like a humbucker, feel free to go further up the meter.
Set the output
Set the output to whatever is comfortable for your monitoring or the rest of your signal chain. It won’t change your tone at all.
Start with headroom
Turn both Drive knobs down and dial in your clean tone. This gives you a reference, so you can hear what the distortion adds.
Find the edge of breakup
Bring up the pre-amp Drive until you hear a little crunch at the start of your strums and plucks, where the signal is loudest. This is the edge of breakup. It’s a popular tone because you control the distortion with your playing: play softly for a clean sound, dig in for distortion.
Try the power amp
Power amp distortion has a different character. In a studio you only hear it when the amp is truly very loud, but here you can explore it freely. Bring the pre-amp Drive back down and turn up the power amp Drive. This is where you’ll hit sag and note bloom: dig in and the attack squashes a little, then the note swells as the amp recovers. The Sag knob sets how much the power amp gives under your playing.
The manual covers every control in more detail.
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