Tighten up that bass end

Hey Guys,

had the GD40 for quite some time now and I really love it. What I noticed over the time is that somehow the bass end is really loose and flubby, especially in the lead & ultra channel. Also, using OD pedals is kinda awful too, from what I've experienced. I tried to use a SD-1 to get a different kind of OD sound but somehow it didn't quite work out the way I wanted. In the crunch, lead and ultra channel the sd-1 made my bass end so flubby it was really disgusting, which is kinda weird since the sd-1 is famous for cutting too much bass out of the signal.
Using the Resonance und Bass potis on the amp doesn't solve the problem imo; it cuts bass and thins out the tone, but it does not really tighten up the sound.

The sd-1 worked well with the clean channel but that's not the sound I was going for. My aim is to tighten up the crunch and lead channel but without using the in-built boost of the GD40. I mean it does the job but especially in these two channels it adds that distinctive H&K sound, that cutting cold high end, which is nice for modern sounds I think.

I thought about getting the Horizon Devices Precision Drive, since it really does a nice job of tightening up the bass end, but it is kinda overkill, since I wouldn't need the inbuilt noise gate of the pedal.

Just wanted to ask you guys if you have some experiences with pedals and the GD40 that tighten up the bass end, so that you can use your neck pickup with a little higher gain setting on the lead channel without the bass end falling over itself. I hope you can follow my utterly bad describing of the sound I want to get rid of haha   . Really want to have that mid to high gain strat neck sound without having too use the in built lead boost of the GD40, since the boost changes the character of that channel a lot.

Greetings,
Flo

Perhaps the GM40 just doesn't match well with some pedals.

Maybe it's worth taking your GM40 to a music shop, plugging into an amp and trying a load of OD pedals with it?

What speakers are you using the GM40D with Flo? If it is a combo then they should be Vintage 30s specially voiced for H&K by Celestion. All of the H&K GM and TM amps are very fussy about what they are asked to drive. That is a much much more important decision than worrying about which valves to put in, which most younger guitarists are led to believe is the burning question to answer.

Also, I would learn a bit about the GM40D's input stage which I keep on pushing in posts. It has a built in buffer which acts perfectly clean up to a point, then goes into gentle assymetric clipping on one side giving sweet even harmonic distortion, then at higher input levels it clips on both sides. This is before any amp controls and responds only to the guitar's volume control, the Boost switch which gives a step in gain to allow it to go into overdrive more easily, and of course the output levels from any pedals you use. It is independent of the amp's Gain control which only affects the level after the buffer into the valve stages. If you are using a distortion pedal with its output set fairly high then you will get the pedal's distortion, the input stage distortion and the valve distortion all compounding. This could sound like a cacophony! (But, hey what do I know, that might be just what you are after although it is still a good thing to check out the range of sounds from lower input signals with lower Gain settings.)

If you want your pedal to give you your overdrive character then you must make sure its output level is sensibly low and feed it into the Clean channel or the Crunch channel with not too much Gain. To use the Lead/Ultra with high gain settings just because it is there is not clever. It doesn't matter what you use to get the sound as long as it is the correct sound and easing off on the number of points where distortion is added is better for clarity. You might just find that, once you learn where to set your input level to add some overdrive from that front end to the distortion of the valve stages you can get the sound you want without any pedals at all. That is certainly how things worked out for me.

Choose your cab wisely. Not just the speaker but can too.

I used my GM36 through closed back. When I sold it, the guy brought his Orange PPC212OB to test it. Sounded very different and much better. Tight and focused. V30’s open back the difference? Wood the cab is constructed from? Air space in the cab? All worth checking.

Well, thank you all for the advice!
I rarely use a cab, I use the RedBox 99% of the time. If I use a cab it‘s the TM112 which sounds lovely.

@bordonbert: I‘ve read your various informations to the input buffer and I experienced that at a low volume/level setting pedals sound as they should into the clean channel. I guess I‘m going to play around with that more and see what happens.

I‘ve ordered a MXR six band eq to shape the sound even a bit more and to tame that bass end a bit. I‘ll let you know how it works out.

Greetings,
Flo

I have a Maxon and it cleans everything up really nicely.
I only really use the ultra channel so I can't say how it is on lead.