Tone tips for the GM36

Thought I'd put this in as I couldn't find anything which seemed to be a general store of info related to getting the best sounds out of the amp when in use. If it is superfluous it will work it's way down the list and die, as all threads are destind to do so!

We have the Tube Rolling thread and we have the Speaker Selection thread. These are related to setting the amp up outside of use, not how to use the thing to better purpose! So if anyone has any suggestions as to how to set it up to give those killer sounds we all brag about to our band mates, (and each other), then put them here. It doesn't need to be complicated or particularly clever, just useful for others who may be new to their GM or even have missed out on something obvious.

Ok I'll go first.

I was using the GM today with the wife out shopping, (bless her!), and did something I don't normally do.  Now normally I use the 5W setting as I find 1W a bit thin.  Somehow with 5W dialled down to the same level as I would use for 1W the sound was better.  That should have told me, how dim can you get?  It had not occurred to me, if that works for 5W what would 18W sound like?  I tried it and, what do you know, it sounded even more betterer init, (to use the current vernacular of the UK).  Now this isn't because I was playing louder.  I kept the guitar level the same, dropped the Master from about 3:00 to 12:00 and used the Volume to rebalance downwards to the same overall level.  The Gain didn't need too much tweaking if at all.

The Clean channel opened up.  The Crunch channel became much more "on the edge" and responsive to playing touch.  The Lead channel became less strident and more "classic" sounding with a real "singing" quality, and you know how I bleat on about that aspect!!!!  And the Ultra channel suddenly opened up losing that strident quality it can have and giving me some of those harmonics I struggled to find.  Every single channel improved markedly without any increase in playing level.

Another thing, the tone controls improved too!  Now I can't really explain that one but it is definitely true, the tone controls clearly began to make much more of a difference to the sound.  Can they somehow be stifled by the levels within the amp?  That would be possible with some circuit configurations.  Without technical info it's impossible to say definitely but the effect is there.

There will be those high gain players who want a very dirty sound who this may not suit, but if you are a blues/classic rock player it may be worth trying, and even the Spandex wearing Hair Bear Bunch players may find it suits.  Whatever power soak setting you normally use, use the one above and adjust down to see how it sounds.  You may open up a new range of tones you didn't know you had.

And just as a final point, this is something I have found before, commented on, and promptly forgotten again!  It's all too easy to drop into the habit of using the power soak on a "perceived level of need" basis!  The best test is, as always, your ears.  And I will point out here, H&K have always said the power soak offers you the ability to open up your tonal palette and create a greater range of sounds.  They do seem to suffer from the old adage, "When I was 16, I knew my father was the most ignorant man in the world. By the time I reached 21, I was amazed at how much he had learned in the past 5 years."

I've gone the opposite direction in the quest for better tone. 36W is too much power for my situation - I was only able to crank the Master and Volume to about 9/10 o'clock which was loud enough to compete with a live drummer yet I was lost in the mix despite bumping the mids up. Thanks to some valuable advice on this forum I did an experiment - drop the power to 18w, turn up the master to compensate for the difference, and wow it sounds great! I'm no longer lost in the mix, in fact it's excellent. My master vol now sits at about noon for live shows. One of these days I'll get around to trying 5w, and I'll be able to push the master up even further... beware!

Another tome I'm afraid but I'm stoked with this one.  I can't believe the difference that 10p and 5 minutes work has made.  It's a must to just consider, and if you love to play it's so simple its untrue.

This is a little tip for those people like me who have reservations about both the touch of shrillness in their top end and the effectiveness of the tone controls in their GM36s and maybe TMs too.  As I've said elsewhere I'm not a real fan of wireless.  It often has a grainy quality to my ears and will let you down when you most need it, and believe me I'm one who is not an overly fussy guy!  So I play through a bespoke in-cable headamp unit with receiver box which I have designed and built myself.  It has about 15m of isolated cable between the headamp and the receiver unit, enough for anything.  It has amongst other things, interchangeable heads with straight or angled plugs to suit both my Les Pauls (Traditional and Junior Special Double Cut) and Strat type guitars.  Now with the cable really shortened to about 18" before the head buffer, there should obviously be a compensating cap in the plug unit before the headamp to add back in the cable capacitance which is now missing.  Maybe if it were just left out there would be a top end sparkle which could be nice!

I have always wondered how I was able to get better sounds at home on rare odd days then not find them again during rehearsals even with virtually the same settings.  The penny has just dropped, of course it's the cable.  Mostly I would hook up via my box to sit at the opposite side of the room and play which would sound good.  But sometimes if "she who must be obeyed" wanted to do something in the room at the same time I would hook up closer with just a plain old 3m cable.  Now that has a higher capacitance and I have just this morning wondered if that could somehow be the factor that made the sound great.  Today I checked and in my haste to get that headamp unit up and running a long while back I appear to have forgotten to add in the little cap to the jack plug.  (That's what happens when you work alone!  Ok, and you're getting on a bit!!!   )

So I played around with adding caps in to put that right and what do you know?  It doesn't sound a totally different amp but it is undeniably creamier and this factor is obviously another of those things to get right to remove that criticism of the TM/GMs being a bit shrill at the top end.  This has definitely made an easily identifiable improvement in that aspect for me.  But what is an absolute revelation is that the tone controls have suddenly started to work as they should!  I have theories but can't yet prove why, but the treble control in particular has just sprung to life.  Now I can remove all of the treble and get a much flatter sound, and it has a much better relationship with the Presence control which was previously a better treble control than the real one.  Too much extended top end apparently doesn't seem to help this situation.  Restricting the response to just what is needed seems to remove an out of range conflict somewhere.

So if you are considering whether your TM/GM does suffer from that upper end shrillness this is another little wrinkle.  First sort out your speaker choice, then sort out your preferred valves, then if you feel you still need to, consider that one tiny little cap.  I went for 470pF in the end which was higher than I was expecting but it is inside the range which is usually considered to be best, up to 1000pF.  Different guitars will prefer different unique values, so even using a standard cable, putting in an additional tiny cap in the jack plug may be a great way of trimming your top end.

This once again proves to me how thorough the original design work is, and hats off to them not making this a huge issue when people like me have reported a weakness in that part of the circuitry on their FB page.  I've posteds this there too and passed on my apologies for the unwarranted criticism.  Mojo is great, but nothing beats coming to an understanding of what is behind something and bringing that bit of mojo into the realms of engineering.

I should have pointed out to maybe those less experienced, that cable capacitance is NOT a bad thing to be avoided at all costs, it needs to be there in the right amount.  The added capacitance is actually an integral part of the pickup frequency response shaping block.  This includes the pickup's own inductance, capacitance, resistance and magnetic Eddy currents in the metal work (look that one up, for the most part it's an unknown factor!), the volume control, tone control, tone capacitor and the cable capacitance and resistance.  These all interact to produce a resonant peak in the upper middle of the frequency range which gives the guitar its particular sound.  The cable is an integral part of the guitar in electrical terms and needs to be factored in during design time.

The frequency of the peak is a result of the interplay between the inductance and capacitances, and its height is set mainly by the resistance hung across it.  The resistance of a pickup is almost universally quoted as though it is the most important factor to identify the sound it will give.  It just plain isn't!    It's the least important.  Inductance is much more important, setting the frequency of that characteristic peak as it does.  The resistance gives an idea of how "hot" the pickup should be, for the same thickness wire more resistance = more turns = more output, but it tells you very little about the character of the sound you will get.

So sometimes the idea of criticising a particular guitar/pickup is a contextual thing and the cable affects that in a big way.  As I have just learned in Spades and posted above!  Here is a link for anyone who wants to know more:  Secrets of Electric Guitar Pickups.  It's technical but is amazingly accurate and complete and that's what we need to get to grips with this.

Not an "amp" address, specifically, but one that drastically changes the character of it none the less is the strength of the signal you`re feeding it. Dial back just a tick on the guitar volume knob and the GM36 warms up like nobody`s business. Usually associated with cleaning up the dirty channel I have found that rolling the guitar back a tad warms up the clean channel to a degree that makes me miss my Legacy III less (for those that don`t know, the Legacy III has one of the most legendary clean sounds in the industry).

Also, my 6 strings` pickups are MUCH hotter than my 7 string, and it pushes the amp right into shrill/bright territory very quickly. The amp responds quite drastically to the volume knob on the 6 string (Dimarzio D-Activator in the bridge, Liquifire in the neck if anyone was wondering)

Waddya know! Funny you should say that Jeff, I've just come across an old H&K Blog Of Tone article which described something similar to that. I have been playing with getting it right for a couple of days now. I hadn't picked up on the Clean channel responding too, I've only looked at the Crunch channel so far. I'll give that one a try out for sure.

Hello Guys, I have the Precursor exchanged in v1 = RT080, V2 / V3 = RT011 Mullard Style, a 1x12 TTRex box with Dumple Back in poplar and a Greenback Heritage G12H-75 Hz, 15ohm, 30 Watt (rearloaded), and i have a Killertone with factory presets 2/3 and 3/3. The Cannabis Rex and WGS Black Hawk, Mod12, are to dark to my Ears. The V30 sounds good, was much better than written here and the Reaper HP sounds very good, but the absolute Killertone with the Grandmeister is available with the above Greenback to my taste, because the tastes are different.

Got to say i am going in the exact opposite direction in terms of power soak.

I tried 18 watts and it was simply to loud.

I have been running at 5 watts but can only get the master to about 9 o clock before the band start telling me t turn down! I am only using a 1x12 with a celestion creamback 65!

I recently tried the 1 watt mode - same "channel" volume but i cranked the gain to 12 o clock (normally at 9 o clock at the most) and turned up the master volume to 1 o clock and i got a heavenly saturated marshall ish sound!

I'll be trying this for the next rehearsal (as we mike up a lot) and ill let you guys know how i get on

GEAR

Grandmeister 36 head
2x12 Orange cab loaded with celestion vintage 30's (used when we backline it) or my 1x12 loaded with a celestion creamback g12m 65 (when we mike up)  
Les Paul Traditional (MY NEW GUITAR!) - I have named him the GENERAL)
spark boost mini overdrive
ocd overdrive
dc brick to power everyhting
mini tuner (poly noir) by tc electronics
mini wah (dunlop)
monster fuzz (npn)  

rock ON !!

ConradK, just curious where your channel volume is set, when you say you're at 5w and the band starts complaining when your master goes past 9:00.

I just want to compare this to my own situation. I had gone from 36w to 18w to allow myself to push the master from 9:00 to 12:00 (and thus get better tone). But my channel volumes have remained in the 9:00/10:00 area.

Thanks man!

channel volume is always set at 12 o clock

H and K say that this channell "volume" should not be used to control the volume /output of the amp but rather used to set relative volume between patches / channells ? (from what I have read in the manual)

So i tend to leave it at 12 o clock - got to say though (now that you are asking the question) i am wondering why I haven't bloody well ignored the manual and lowered this whilst increasing the master volume - ill go try this now and advise

Yep I use the channel volumes to strike the right relative balance between different patches.

Initially I followed the recommendation to keep the channel volumes at about noon but that meant I couldn't turn up the master past 8:00/9:00 without being too loud. One of the best pieces of advice I got on this forum was to lower the channel volume and raise the master (in conjunction with lowering the wattage if needed). So I went from 36w to 18w, lowered my channel volumes to the 9:00-ish area, and then I was able to raise the master to about noon when playing live. The improvement in tone is fantastic.

Agree with Bordonbert - My #1 strat sounds best with an 18 foot George L. A buddy hates that same cable with his shredder Floyd Rose with EMG 81s. Cable capacitance/inductance does matter, particularly with low/med output passive pickups, especially single coils. That being said, I gig with the Line 6 G30 wireless - mic my amp, stick thru a large PA with a random sound guy, add in large band, some of the subtleties get lost.

I use an external power soak (I've being doing electronics for decades, heat is the enemy of all but tubes) on 36W mode. 36W seems to sound fuller than 18W - but that is very subjective. Master sounds best around 12-1 o'clock - amp opens up but can get noisy about 2 o'cock. My channel volumes average 12 o'clock - that does seem to be the sweet spot. In other words, it you average out all of my patches, I shoot for the average channel volume to be 12 o'clock.

Since in my setup the gm is driving a resistor, I think speaker maybe matters a little less? Anyway, I use neo speakers because I'm old and I like light weight. I found the Eminence Lil Texas to be my fav so far with this amp - but I'm doing southern rock.

I rolled tubes again, I put that in the tube rolling thread.

Hey guys

Tried that last night and must say I fully agree!

I pushed the master to 12 and my channel volume at 8-9 o clock - 5 watts - this REALLY opens up the amp - my new Les Paul is simply barking through this setup.

Wireless - yes i use a line 6 as well and must say I have noticed a very slight difference in tone but it really is small - not enough to bother me - i prefer the freedom of wireless. You can simulate a long cable on these wireless systems but i've never tried it as the new guitar, creamback speaker and the outstanding tone pot on this guitar mean that i no longer am battling shrillness in any way or form! Rolling back the tone knob and/or adjusting presence gets me a myriad of bountiful tones.

Yesterday i also dialled in a 1 watt very gain saturated patch and it is really marshall esque

i used the "modern rock" patch as a base (ultra channel)
amp at 1 watt
master at 1 o clock,
channel volume at about 8-9
gain at 1 o clock (highest i have ever used on this amp)
spark boost mini engaged - (level barely on)

Beautiful saturated tone ( can be a little fizzy but to be honest I am liking that) for this sound

(Your last post came in just as I was sending this Conrad so some of it may have been made a bit redundant with what you have written. But I'll post it anyway and read your own post afterwards.)

I think we are maybe missing something here.  I don't know about anyone else but I have always felt that the Channel Volume and Master Volume are just that, two volume controls in series connected directly to each other.  It seems daft to say that but you should remember that the Channel Volume is storable in the voice setting and the Master is not.  We all know that but we don't always take it into our thinking when we set up our sounds.  Of course, if there is actually a gain stage between them then what I will point out may not hold.  

You can't drive the power amp harder by setting the Master Volume higher and the Channel Volume lower or vice versa!  If they are just series pots then you just end up with exactly the same signal in either case and there will be no difference whatsoever in tone or feel, 500mV is 500mV!  How hard you drive the power amp for tone is purely down to how high the signal going into it is, and they will both drop or lift that signal in exactly the same way.  (Unless pots have joined the ranks of other linear passive devices having the mystical magic ability to bend tone since I last checked my Hogwarts' Mojo Almanack. )  The power amp can't discriminate which is doing which.  It's identical to the power amp to have the Channel low/Master High or Channel high/Master low, both of these will send the same signal level to the power amp without changing it in any way.  As I mentioned, tone will only be affected by these two controls if there is some amplifying stage between them which would be driven harder by the level of signal which is put through it before having that cut back down to match after it.

So why set things up that way?  Well the idea is that the Master Volume is settable for the general overall level for that session at that venue and this does not need to be stored, it will vary with every place you play.  You need to view it as a "set and leave" thing and as we all know you want to get it into your particular magic zone for tone, offering you the tone and responsiveness you want from overdriven (or not) output stages.  But there is another factor here, we have the Power Soak to play with.  The PS gives us the ability to set up an amp voice so that it has exactly the same preamp contribution to the sound but with a varying amount of power amp drive added to it without greatly affecting the overall loudness level.  You can have a Clean channel preamp tone matched with either a 36W PS setting and a low Channel Volume or a 5W PS setting and high Channel Volume.  These give a super-clean sound or a classic power amp overdrive tone but at the same loudness level without having to adjust the Master Volume to balance them.  You simply balance them up for loudness with the Channel Volume then store them at that level.  When you lift or drop the overall loudness level with the Master both of these will go up or down in volume together staying balanced.

And of course this gets more relevant if you are matching Ultra high gain voices against Clean low gain voices.  I can't help thinking that that Channel Volume combined with the Power Soak is very misunderstood and, in my own case at least, very underused.  Yes, there is always the temptation to just "be playing" at a rehearsal where time is at a premium and not address setting up your voices accurately in a definite way, and that's a shame as there has been a lot of thought put into giving us these flexible tools to get the best out of our amps.  How many people have a range of voices with different power soak settings dotted about amongst them?  Or are you like I was until very recently, with a set all of 18W and somewhere else in the memory the same set but at 5W?  It takes a lot of thought and playing around with every control to get a feel for some of the things they can offer.  Try out what I have said and see if it makes any difference to the range of sounds you can get and, like most things, even though you think you will only have a couple of voices you will ever use, you will find that you see opportunities to use them once you know they are there.

For example, the band I am in plays 'All Right Now' by Free, (yeah of course it's trite but it's such a great track, one of the best 3 singles ever in my opinion, so doesn't every band at some time)?  I used to set up an overdriven tone for the solo sound and just adjust my guitar volume to suit in the background support portions.  Now I have a supporting sound based on the Crunch channel with medium gain into a medium driven power amp with high PS and low Channel Volume, and solo sound as a Lead tone with lowish gain into a harder driven power amp with the PS down a notch and the Channel level balancing them up for loudness.  The chunkier cleaner supporting sound is much closer to the original than the usual "same sound as the solo but turned down a bit".  And do you know what?  I can hear my own 2010 LP now sounds much closer to that legendary one that Kossoff used!  What an investment!

Bordonbert

These are all excellent points, as usual

I did play between both of these settings extensively (increasing master and decreasing the channell volume) and my personal feeling is that the amp just sounds better with the master pushed and the channell volume lower. Just sounds like it has slightly more "girth" to it. Tone is subjective however and as we both know you'll often hear exactly what you "want to hear" when doing these things so i'm not disputing your facts.

Got to say I set up my amp the way you described this morning.

I set up 5 sounds

Clean and lead
dirty clean and lead,
rock and lead,
crunch and lead
fuzz tone and lead

I am finding 5 watts is plenty for miking up, so i am primarily using 5 watts for MOST patches.

I then adjusted each patches channel volume to allow for the different voicing (eg crunch for some reason always sounds softer than the others so i made this one louder) Must also say at this point that i have tried the clean channel at 18 watts and it does sound lovely. Its a little too much for me as we predominantly mike up but lovely nonetheless.

I then created a super saturated 1 watt rock rhythm patch (explained earlier) with lower wattage and a much higher volume and a deep metal patch on 18 watts with the channel volume really low -once again super saturated for the overdrive bit in "zombie"

I am now using my eq pedal in the loop however its function has changed - Instead of using it to cut the upper mid frequencies which were bothering me, i'm using it I am using it exclusively as a volume boost for lead work. I was finding setting up each lead patches volume (relative to rhythm and for different venues) was becoming a pain in the backside. I was always to loud or to soft!

I now set up all my patches (rhythm and lead) at the same channel volume and program the lead patches to switch on the fx loop. This way i can play my first solo of the night step up to the eq pedal (on top of my amp head), adjust the volume mid solo and then leave it for the rest of the night!

Yes you are right: If you are not using the power soak, volume programming capability and the loop, then you are missing a trick as this amp has soooo much to offer.

I have been playing this amp for 7 months and i am still learning about it! The longer i play it and tweak it the better my sound is getting - i am slowly but surely reaching tonal satisfaction! I have looked at other amps (as one does when one has GAS) but i keep thinking - "no need as with a little tweaking i can make my amp sound like that"

I am also finally starting to find each channels sweet spot and the amps sweet spot with the various pedals I occasionally use

ROCK ON

Dude, there are way worse songs than All Right Now. Paul K had legendary tones and I'm not surprised you can come very close. And of course Mr Rodgers is..

And you are right about channel Volume and Master being semi-redundant - and your description of how to use them is how I do it. I just make sure all patches average around 12 o'clock so I know I have volume range for every patch.

I've tried the "drop the power to get super saturated" thing, but I haven't dug any tones I got that way. Plus I never need an super saturated tones. Probably all my Clean patches the Gain is at 10, for all other channels the gain never reaches 12 o'clock (like ConradK stated). Even for my Warren Haynes Soldano tone, just switch to Ultra, Gain low, Boost on, bingo. One of the few times I use the Boost. That's probably the one patch I'll upload, because I'm interested to see how others get Soldano...

And with many patches available, get creative. On one song, I do rhythm on Crunch and lead on Clean with a tube screamer.

So far the only channel I've really enjoyed hitting with an overdrive or tube screamer has been the Clean channel. I've done/still do it on others a little, but I get the most gratification with that on the Clean channel.

I really was looking forward to people starting to upload patches to the thread that we created for that. I've been surprised that it hasn't kicked off yet. They can just be typed in manually or as an attached txt file or as a GM36 app .GM36 file, (which is really the same thing, just with a specified format for the data).

The app I am writing to manage the .GM36 settings files on a PC/laptop is progressing but I'm now hampered by the fact that my home programming setup is now out of date, (WinXP based and VS 2005), so it doesn't produce completely reliable visual results on other systems, there may be display glitches and I don't want it to give problems in use or people will never trust it. It works fine here but I'm having to apply work arounds as I identify issues. And before someone suggests updating my VS, I would have to update Windows first @ £140ish, then VS @ £810ish! That's a lot of outlay for a free app. It was easier when the companies I worked for supplied the software for development. I'm looking at Eclipse which I've used in Linux work but it isn't a patch on VS.

I'd love to get my hands on your Soldano tone setting, you must get it up in the Sticky thread even just as a series of numbers. That boutique "choked throatiness" does elude me a bit and my old Vox Valvetronix did it brilliantly so I miss it!

Namklak wrote:Even for my Warren Haynes Soldano tone, just switch to Ultra, Gain low, Boost on, bingo.

Woah there Neddy, that all sounded a bit too 'metallic' for me!!!!  But on your resommendation I've just been and tried it.  Your reputation was hanging in the balance for a while.  

I've always been of the mind that for my preferred type of sound, (classic blues rock from the 70s/early 80s no spandex no eye makeup no big hair sprays no reptiles no pouting genitals no tossers), there is too much gain in the Ultra channel.  But I reckon that must have been a hangover from before I fitted my 5751s.  (Or maybe I'm just a bit dim!)  Wow does that work Namklak!  With the Gain down and surprisingly, the Boost on, that gives me an amazing Leslie West Mountain tone for numbers like Mississippi Queen and Travellin' In The Dark if I use the P90s on my Junior doublecut.  And the Boost really changes things tonewise not just drivewise.

So there, apparently, is another area I've just missed completely by having preconceived ideas of what the amp can do and how to do it.  It never hurts for any of us to put out the simplest of ideas, there is always someone who will benefit from them.  So thanks Namklak, I'm Working On It, (and that's a GREAT Chris Rea track for you).


EDIT: Still want your full setting for that though, get it up there in the Sticky!

Bordinbert share the free and Lesley west settings mate

I use the ultra channel for most of my Rock tones ! I discovered that channel with low gain is buttery and smooth - try a spark boost mini with this and it'll blow your mind

Ultra channel
Gain no more than 9 o clock
Spark boost mini at 8-9 o clock
Gibson Les Paul with classic 57 humbuckets

It's an awesome tone !!

I must admit I discovered that tone by accident, because I too rarely use Boost. I just loaded V2 with a tube with a gain of 90. Put the Gain on 20/255 on the Ultra channel, and accidentally turned on Boost from my midi controller. Very singing buttery tone.  I've been meaning to upload that patch...

Bordonbert, do you use real P90s with that much gain?

ConradK, I don't have a spark boost, but I'll see what I can come up with....

ConradK wrote:I use the ultra channel for most of my Rock tones ! I discovered that channel with low gain is buttery and smooth - try a spark boost mini with this and it'll blow your mind

Ultra channel
Gain no more than 9 o clock
Spark boost mini at 8-9 o clock
Gibson Les Paul with classic 57 humbuckets

It's an awesome tone !!

do u use it in front of the amp before the preamp or have u put it in the loop (after the pre amp ,before power )so that you can recall it via the foot controller?If you have tried both tell us your impressions!

I use it in front of the amp as in the loop it serves more as a straight volume boost - i use my eq for that -

TC electronic recommend if you are going to use it for a little extra gain then do it in front of the amp, which is how i have always used it as it sounds excellent.

Saying that ill try it in the loop and advise my findings

I asked you that cause with this way you can leave it always on and recall it via your loop midi function!But this is functional only if it adds gain to the sound not volume(which i think is impossible!).I am waiting for your conclusions!