Trouble cutting through with an Uberschall

[Heritage Softail]

You say potato, I say tomato...we'll have to agree to disagree on genre. Thank you for the videos, I do hear the difference, but tonight I think I found it. I'm still going to replace the preamps since the tungsols seem to be problematic. It was in the EQ all along as most of you suggested. It was the treble; I dropped it down to 9-10 o'clock and boosted the mids to 3 o'clock and guess who came back! I'm anxious to gig it Friday night to hear it in a more open area, but I'm thrilled to be using her and cutting!

Thanks for all the advice,
Jonny Mac

Yep! The treble counterclockwise thickens and adds more mids. It thins the tone out between 12 and 2 and then adds sharper high end past that.

Sounds like this will be an amp to spend time bonding with.

 

[leib10]

Most definitely. I've had mine for about 6 months now and I'm still finding new tones. It seems like such a simple amp too...

 

[moltenmetalburn]

Damn this thing is so versatile with these quirky knobs! Found a few sound I like quickiy! Def all in the settings of th mid and treble controls the cut can be dialed in or out easily there.

 

[Ventura]

You say potato, I say tomato...we'll have to agree to disagree on genre. Thank you for the videos, I do hear the difference, but tonight I think I found it. I'm still going to replace the preamps since the tungsols seem to be problematic. It was in the EQ all along as most of you suggested. It was the treble; I dropped it down to 9-10 o'clock and boosted the mids to 3 o'clock and guess who came back! I'm anxious to gig it Friday night to hear it in a more open area, but I'm thrilled to be using her and cutting!

Thanks for all the advice,
Jonny Mac

Yep! The treble counterclockwise thickens and adds more mids. It thins the tone out between 12 and 2 and then adds sharper high end past that.

Sounds like this will be an amp to spend time bonding with.

Agreed, a very counter intuitive EQ on this head... Not something to mess with drunk

V.

 

[glip22]

You say potato, I say tomato...we'll have to agree to disagree on genre. Thank you for the videos, I do hear the difference, but tonight I think I found it. I'm still going to replace the preamps since the tungsols seem to be problematic. It was in the EQ all along as most of you suggested. It was the treble; I dropped it down to 9-10 o'clock and boosted the mids to 3 o'clock and guess who came back! I'm anxious to gig it Friday night to hear it in a more open area, but I'm thrilled to be using her and cutting!

Thanks for all the advice,
Jonny Mac

Yep! The treble counterclockwise thickens and adds more mids. It thins the tone out between 12 and 2 and then adds sharper high end past that.

Sounds like this will be an amp to spend time bonding with.

Agreed, a very counter intuitive EQ on this head... Not something to mess with drunk

V.

It sounds great just about anywhere on the dials. You only have to dial when you want to play with some other amps or a bass player.

 

[Death by Uberschall]

The Presence knob is the key.

 

[glip22]

The Presence knob is the key.

It's a weird presence knob that adds mids.

 

[FourT6and2]

Yes, the presence knob on the Uber is key.

Turn up the presence.
Turn down the gain.
Turn down the bass.
Turn up the mids.
Turn up the channel volume and turn down the master slightly.

 

[moltenmetalburn]

Took the uber to jam some deft ones style rock with some friends.

It was The first time i had it in a band setting.

It destroyed the triple rec my buddy was playing. With all eq knobs set to noon no less! Sliced right through like a knife. Clear and crisp never mushy.

I love this amp more and more each day. I used the fx loop with no noticeable volume drop at my settings, awesome! The fx loop does alter the sound a little bit but It was no enough for me to care and i came from a diezel loop.

All of the sounds inspire me. The cleans are more than useable i actually really like them. I had a clear woody vibe going on tonight.

The gain side of channel one was awesome for the rhythm stuff. I used channel two here and the but the mid focus was a bit much for the style we were playing. It did sound killer also though!

 

[Heritage Softail]

Yep, agreed, unusual amp to dial in. I have had a few Mesa amps and they are choosy mothers as well. My TJ came in Saturday and I played it at home for about 6 hours and then 4 hours of band practice yesterday. No probs at all cutting thru. I don't think I am a bass player though and kept the bass and foundation dialed back a bit. I bet this thing would be huge with a 2x15 cab if one was to want to slam heavy riffs. It is tempting. A quick Sad But True was proof it does have a great percussive thump. I have an old Ibanez Sabre and the Ube seems to just ooze out a near hair metal on steroids tone. I can see a 10 band EQ in the loop to jump from modern to old metal.

All in all, IMO, if you identify the freq band or whatever you want to call your sonic turf, the Ube has no prob cutting. If you want to be a second bass player, you will sound masked behind the real bass player since most guitar cabs will not compete with a high wattage bass rig. Just gotta carve out your own sonic space, and own that bitch....

So far, the Ube is pretty killer...

 

[leib10]

+1 on the EQ in the FX mix. That and a tube screamer out front. Adds a whole new level of versatility to the amp. You can get literally the most scooped, evil-sounding tone to nice mid-heavy thrash tone. Here's my rig as it stands:





Another thing to remember is that the gain knob can be kept relatively low (like 11-12 o' clock) and it has plenty of gain while having a bit more note separation. If you're into hard rock, it's a good place to keep it. I also like keeping the treble high, which adds a lot of cut to the amp.

 

[fretpresser]

Try using both amps through a stereo 4/12 cab. is that a boss compressor? there's your problem

 

[ericsabbath]

Yes, the presence knob on the Uber is key.

Turn up the presence.
Turn down the gain.
Turn down the bass.
Turn up the mids.
Turn up the channel volume and turn down the master slightly.

exactly this

the uber has a strange sort of preset presence on the circuit, and then a presence control that cuts upper mids along with the top end
just dial them back by using a higher setting

I had a similar problem with my main rig, which consists in a '73 les paul custom through a heavily modded '73 JMP 50w
my guitar is quite bassy, and my amp is VERY bassy, soft and saturated, like a Shiva x OD50 mix

first I had to find the right pickups for that guitar, and after a dozen pickups, I found that the right lower output pickups just sounded clearer and don't get mushed up with the high gain... these were riff raff and mule pickups, by bare knuckle
then a booster that will add the extra upper mids and cut the bass
I use mostly a ts9dx on ts9 mode, but a sd-1 does the job pretty well
I had a vintage maxon eq as a booster and it sounded even clearer than any overdrive
a non-basscutting pedal like a MXR CAE overdrive, OCD or lovepedal superlead simply won't do the job if your goal is cutting through, although they might sound great playing alone

then, I had to completely change my amp settings
don't be afraid about rolling off too much bass
you're a damn guitarist, not a bassist
if the amp is too bassy and the bass knob is anywhere above 0, there's no reason not to lower it
I use the bass on 1 (0-10, not clock time), sometimes 2, depending on the cab
and I'm talking about a 50w amp, which probably has much less low end than an uberschall
I crank the mids up to 10 (unless it's a meteoro cabinet, which is nasal as frak and sounds like crap), treble to taste, usually around 6-8
the presence knob doesn't suck much mids like the uber, but it gets VERY dark if I go lower than 5
I usually have it around 7-8, as it only gets spikey over 9 (unlike stock marshalls, that can get spikey at much lower presence settings)
other thing was to lower the gain a lot, to the point of a semiclean/crunch setting (around 4 on my amp)
if I set the gain up to 7, it's already Mesa levels of gain, and that will get things lost
so I set it to a soft crunch and then set the ovedrive pedal to level 10 gain 4 tone 6

all things combined = great midrangy present and thick but not farty high gain tone with just the right amount of clear picking response

EDIT:
oh
and one of the most important things
if you want compression, abuse the CHANNEL volume, but if you want a punchy and cutting sound, lower the channel and try getting the MASTER volume as high as possible
just don't go too low on channel volume or things might get fizzy and thin on the drive channel

 

[ericsabbath]

damn, I just noticed this a damn old thread
I feel stupid




information still might be useful for future generations, though
alright, I'm stupid