Torpedo Live Makes My Amps Distort

[djd100]

Regarding Strat pup balancing, one method is to add a bridge pup tone control if you don't have one, set the rig up for the neck pup, then roll off some highs on the bridge pup to suit.

Another strategy is to use different settings or different stomp boxes with the different pups (or one set differently via presets etc), possibly along with the above bridge pup tone control as well.

Another option is to wire the guitar's volume control in what's commonly known as 50's style (as many/most Gibson guitars in the 1950's came wired this way), which is just hanging the guitar's tone pots off ot the volume pot's wiper instead it's input. This allows many more toanal options including increased high-end retention as the volume control is lowered without a treble-bleed setup, so in this scenario you could run the neck pup with the volume backed off slightly to make it brighter (the neck pup is often a bit louder than the others which lets this work well in many cases).

Good luck...

 

[cpiquette]

So I wanted to revive this thread... Ive now had the TL for over a year. Within the last 4-5 months, I really started to start digging into my clean channel with a band I had been filling in with. In some settings, the cleans sounded perfectly pushed, but I've started to dislike the amount of saturation that i am getting from this. I decided to start researching this topic again and stumbled across the answer to the help ticket I had submitted last year...

"What to do if I hear added distortion with the Torpedo Live ?
Solution
If you are hearing added distortion at the output of the Torpedo Live, here are a few things you should check :



In the Setup menu, check that the "Output" parameter is set on Wet/Wet. For more details about this, you can refer to this article.
Check that the red clip LEDs don't light, on the front of the Torpedo Live. If they do, first lower the In Level potentiometer until the input clip LED turn off, then turn the Out Level until the output clip LED turn off.
In the Edit menu, turn the Power Amp simulation off. This simulation can add distortion.
In the Edit menu, check that the Miking simulation is on, and that a speaker cabinet is selected.
The Torpedo Live, by suppressing the direct audio feedback from the speaker cabinet, can lead to play the amp louder, or hit the guitar harder, and so, to make the amp saturate more. If you can, connect a speaker cabinet into the Thru output of the Torpedo Live, and check the direct sound of the amplifier, in order to see if the distortion is coming from the amp or not.
Finally, the miking process can produce what we call a "magnifying effect" : some components of the sound may be more present, while others may be reduced. It is therefore possible to notice some components in the sound that were already there, but were not noticed. To study this, if you can, do a double miking of the amp, both with a real microphone in front of the speaker cabinet, and with the Torpedo Live, set with approaching parameters (same cabinet (or similar), same microphone, same positionning). You will be able to compare the two and see if the distortion comes from the amp or the Live."

The section that I put in bold is what i am interested in. It addresses that this could happen, but doesn't really offer a solution. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[djd100]

Clean tones have a lot more dynamic range than distorted tones, so check that your pick transients aren't clipping someplace in the chain (a compressor can help that on the clean tones as well).

Other than that, down with the amp's front end gain gain and/or guitar/pedal levels into the amp.

 

[guillaume_pille]

The section that I put in bold is what i am interested in. It addresses that this could happen, but doesn't really offer a solution. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

It simply says that when you don't have a cabinet screaming at you, you tend to push more the master volume.

The solution: lower the master volume and see what happens then. )

 

[cpiquette]

So I hooked all my gear up and tried your suggestion regarding the master volume, and perhaps the added saturation has subsided, but my amp just seems/feels lifeless now. Damned if ya do, damned if ya don't. I decided to flip thru a bunch of IRs again and feel like my ears are rather fatigued now. I walked away not feeling like I made much progress, and Im a bit more frustrated now... oh well, good time to walk away for a bit and let the ears rest. All I do know is that my amp is way too dark even with the treble and presence dimed on a bridge pickup of a strat! Im thinking I need to look towards some alternate tube selections. The quest continues...

 

[cpiquette]

The section that I put in bold is what i am interested in. It addresses that this could happen, but doesn't really offer a solution. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

It simply says that when you don't have a cabinet screaming at you, you tend to push more the master volume.

The solution: lower the master volume and see what happens then. )

So after going out and buying some new preamp tubes and meticulously trying out different combinations and not seeing a huge difference (They were still 8-9 years old, so they were due for a change anyways...), I decided to try drastically cutting back the master volume on my amp and goosing the input signal of the TL. It definitely changed things in a big way! I would typically run my master volume around 11 o' clock (6 o' clock is the off position...), but ran it closer to 8 o' clock. I wasn't too happy about losing some sonic qualities and feel of the pushed clean channel of my Shiva, but suddenly i could roll back my treble and presence control without sounding too dark on channel 2! Its hard to tell after only one night in a live band setting, but it seemed as though this added brightness allowed my neck pickup to open up a bit more. Definitely didn't sound like a dark big muff type of tone like i had the previous show. I think a bit more tweaking is in order, and i definitely don't want to jinx myself, but i might be getting closer to what i have been seeking out for the past year out of the TL.