I got the dream rig alread. Fender Yjm guitar and fender od pedal and the mentioned DSL1. I got good sound from it…almost. When i use Yngvie od settings evrything on max and lower gain on them its getting unnaturally compressed and bassy. Its same for Dod pedal clone. Reducing volume on guitar makes it better. Even if you set gain or 1 or 2 it will get odd on neck pickup while playing something bgda low E strings. I have tried combo, different guitar and pedal. Lowering the gain on amp makes issue worse. I am thinking about swap for Origin 20 or SC20. Maybe there is a mod wich helps. I like the sound of DSl. There is no issues on bridge pickup.
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If you post a sound clip of the issue, that might help us to better understand what is going on 
SndUp | Post Info So there is example
First i show pure od channel 10 50 and 100% od.
Then i put Fender OD and gate. The lower gain on AMP is set the problem is worse.
Its probably some bass/low mids tones this amp cannot get. For example if i stack 2 OD’s pedal i can get rid of it, also lowering guitar volume helps.
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Thanks for posting the clip, thats really helpful!
Have you tried playing with the EQ controls on the amp and pedal(s) you are using? If you’re finding its getting too bassy, could you try turning down the bass control on your amp, especially if it is currently set quite high?
You might find that you get closer to Yngwie’s sound by using different EQ settings compared to what he might typically use due to the fact that the gear you’re using isn’t identical.
Overall though, I thought the tone you had in the recording sounded pretty good! The notes sounded fluid, but there was still lots of pick attack present, and for me that is a big part of Yngwie’s tone
However I do appreciate that the lower, bassier frequencies can be more overwhelming in the room, so try playing around with the EQ and see where that gets you.
Also, if stacking 2 pedals gets you the sound you want, why not do that? There is no wrong way to get a good tone
I hope this is useful!
I played with bass 0 tb mid on 10. The issue is not on EQ side. Its starts somewhere on the input before hit eq in circuit settings.
Its not speaker, guitar, or pedals. Its something else there. I think the gain stage is just strange. Sound is decnet on violin strings, decent on bridge pickup.
I will try slightly higher strings action on GDAE , i will try also put V1 tube with lower gain, maybe i can find also brighter sound a bit.
The 2 ODs trick is getting rid of issue but sound generally worse and its hard to play with volume pot. I would rather try some kind of compressor or limiter to do the job.
Elmo had some issues too.
https://youtu.be/pY2RHopqbPM?t=388 even witth origin 5c.
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When you tried playing with a different guitar, was the problem only on the neck pickup? I know that the neck pickup often sounds less tight and has more low end than the bridge pickup, which might be part of the problem.
If you feel that the problem is to do with the amp not coping with higher gain settings, then the bridge pickup on your guitar should in theory make the problem worse as it has a higher output than the neck pickup, albeit only slightly (I am assuming you’re using the Seymour Duncan YJM fury pickups)
If you have another amp you could try, or have an opportunity to try another amp in a shop, maybe that will help you determine if it is the amp that is the problem.
Also, If you have an EQ pedal lying around, you could try that to have a more extreme effect on the EQ, but you could also try putting it into the effects loop, so you can alter the EQ more after the signal has hit the preamp section of the amp
Yes i tried HH fender, i tried before combo dsl and was the same. The easy way is to buy just either Origin20h or SC20. But really i would prefer to stay on low watt and small thing. Neck pickup is weaker, but signal is higher due to amplitude of strings. Its even lower a bit. I wll try get maybe no load pot on neck or just disconnecting the the tone completly. Sound generally is decent,. If i set max max gain on pedal and amp role volume guitar to 8 its goin goin to dissapear, but i like the tone better with guitar vol10. The other trick i do is to put EQD Grey clone pedal before run it with rolled volume to match the guitar signal and gain 0. It helps but tone is better without this trick. Looks kike this amp boosting some harmonics in unnaturall way.
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If you do decide to change amps, i think both the origin and sc20h have in built attenuators which allow the wattage to be reduced to 5W and even 0.5W on the origin. However, you said that the issue was also present in the video of the origin 5c, so I don’t know if this will solve your issue. Maybe having more headroom from a higher wattage amp would help though.
Your best bet is to probably try out one of those amps just to check that it is the amp which causes the problem before you decide whether to buy one
Out of interest, what were you using before you had the DSL1 and strat?
Before YJM I did use Fender Boxer Strat. Same issues but i used this guitar a bit different way so did not suffer from it. I back to guitar after 10-15years.
Before i used to be mor hi-gain guy. I used Ibanez RGs, Jem , ESP Eclipse, Jackson SLSMG, Jackson RR24. The amps … MG, JVM , Laney GH50l, Carvin Legacy, VHT. I used those amps mostly with TS type pedals, tried some DS types and DOD308 but i did not like them at that time. I tried also modelers but never like them.
JVM was the best amp for sure, Laney GH was good and Carvin best sounding imo but not playable even in small venue :).
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Wow! Thats quite a lot of gear!
You definetly have more experience than I do with different amps
Before yes. The Laney GH was my first pro amp. This amp get 1,5 channel. Mainly clean with active boost. Hard to set for live playing, but you could get any tone decent. Especialy if you are going for PGM /Racer X stuff. Was very cheap , with TS you just get there. Carvin was good for cleans, drive was not so good for getting Vai tones imo. Carvin was very loud and unplayable unless you go for hall. JVM was thee best, you can dial good tones at almost any volume. If they revamp 410 for like 20 watt with all those things i will insta buy it. I forgot how this amp took pedals. But if i good remember i played without single pedal. I used probably EMG85/81 with those amp.
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Sounds like the amp hasn’t enough headroom. Lower wattage does that: it lowers the headroom. When you stack two ODs you compress the signal hard on entry, so there isn’t as much low end and the problem is gone. Which is also why higher wattage amps don’t have as much of an issue: they have more headroom. Not all amps like to be cranked, even when they have tubes.
I’d get a bigger amp with a good Master Volume, or with a good attenuator like some of the Two Notes products. Or live with it I guess, it’s not the end of the world: that’s the price to pay when you have an amp with very low wattage.
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I do not think the headroom is problem, becouse i run this volume low anyway, not even going close to 2/10. Now about gain knob, its getting worse if i roll it down. When running everythin max on pedal, and gain max on the amp,… i just need roll guitar volume to 7-8 to get rid of the effect. However i do not like the violin EBG sound like this. I would much prefer to roll down a gain knob on the amp to like 3-4. There i get the best sound of it. I also got EHX Signal PAD wich i use as master volume. Putting ULTRA Gain ch volume either on 1 or 10 does not affect this “effect”. I also got DOD250 with 6 clipping options. 1 stage is without any clipping diodes and this stage got… no issue but also is not so rich on violins. Its very rich on bass and way to dark to use with this amp. The darkness of this amp is not even issue when recording. I can just put MIC into cabinet and done ;).
The best amp for me to change is either SC20 or JVM410. This 2 will do the job i need. I cannot afford them becouse they are to loud and 410 will force me to 2speaker cabinet or 1 G100speaker or something. I also hate playing loud…I work in school… i hate loudness now :D:D:D.
I will try maybe EQ pedal, or just lower gain tubes like ecc81 or 82.
It doesn’t matter, you can have headroom issues even at low volume. There are amps with a lot of watts that have a great Master Volume and can stay clear even when whisper quiet. And there are amps with few watts that just fall flat on their faces at low volume. It happens.
That being said and to be honest, I like the sound of your recording personally and don’t see too much of an issue, so you know…
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Have you tried adjusting the height of the neck pickup? How does this guitar sound with other amplifiers?
This video is excellent at showing the effect of various pickup heights within a normal range:
This video is less concise, but is good at showing what happens when you go outside of normal tolerances and offers a possible explanation for your specific situation:
lowering the pickup will increase low-end clarity and note separation, raising it will increase volume and low-end warmth, but at some point it will increase low-end boominess to a point that you may not like it.
(Note that what the second video describes “boominess” when the pickup is too high is actually excess mids, not excess lows — as the first video illustrates, lowering the pickup causes a scooped EQ.)
Yes i done this right now. It helps of course at some range. I was set before to YJM spec, now i let like 3mm space. I set also some angle to match output for strings. Anyway it help but it was not and issue. Now i do not need roll volume on guitar but still losing the “richest i get before” I do not know how to describe it. But if i put all max (guitar, dod/yjm, pickup height 1,5-2mm, gain on amp) i got something like rich sound on violin, it feels like it have something more. I would like keep those effect.
I lower the pups for now. Yes it helps, on full gain amp its good right now. But when i roll gain down its back again. So i need roll volume guitar and amp gain together seems.
I can’t get your clip to play for some reason.
But, I’m trying to make sense of what you’re describing here, and I’m struggling a little. Let me see if Ive got it.
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You GENERALLY are happy with the sound of your Yngwie Strat into a DSL1, which elsewhere it sounds like you have dialed in with base on 0, treble and mid on 10.
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You DON’T like the sound you get when you start to use a Fender OD pedal of some sort in front of the DSL, no matter where you set the amp gain, unless you turn down the guitar volume. You’re using Yngwie’s own preferred settings for this, which it sounds like are maxing the gain and output of the OD pedal.
Is that all right? If so, while I’m no expert on Yngwie’s preferred rig, he did use some sort of older Marshall as I recall, and it’s one that probably doesn’t put out NEARLY the amount of gain as a DSL, which is a pretty high preamp gain amplifier. Yngwie’s amp was very likely pretty clean at the preamp, with likely some poweramp sag and compression, but I suspect he was mostly relying on the pedal for distortion rather than the amp. If so, taking a “distorted” pedal setting and feeding it into a “distorted” amp is probably going to sound, well, kind of fuzzed out and indistinct.
Try two things.
- if the DSL1 has a clean channel or mode, try using Yngwie’s pedal settings into that.
- If you want to use the DSL’s gain, then boost it with a pedal the way most people use a overdrive as a boost in front of a high gain head - set the gain on the pedal very low/almost off, and the output on the pedal somewhere between neutral and all the way up, but adjust to taste. I’m more familiar wiith people doing this with a Tube Screamer, but there the norm is the gain somewhere between 0 and 1, and the output between noon and all the way up, depending on how pronounced you want the boosting to be. The idea here isn’t really to add a ton of extra distortion, so much as to use the pedal as a bit of a pre-eq, and to shape where the preamp is distorting a little, i guess, and to focus it a little better.
I’m still not sure I understand your post, but it kinda sounds like you’re using a hammer and wondering why it won’t turn a screw.
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Its not pedal or guitar issue related. As i said the problem i expecting is something weird at preamp. If you set the low gain/clean on amp the problem is worse. Thats the point. Even with tubescreamer and different guitar i couild not get rid of it. If you want use pedal for boost you need to set max gain on amp. Other ways neck pickup will sound strange on mid and bass strings.
The another problem with it is actually amp is really dark by itselft . Would you guys swap cabinet speaker from Celestion 70/80 to G12T75?
I still don’t really have a good handle on the problem, except that you don’t like the sound of the amp and pedal together.
- Do you like the sound of the amp alone?
- Do you like the sound of the overdrive on other amps?
- What IS the overdrive pedal, and how are you setting it?
- Have you tried other settings (like the ones I suggested, using it as a clean boost rather than a major source of saturation of its own) and if so does it sound better?
It’s hard to make out for sure, but it SOUNDS like you’re running the overdrive pedal with both gain and volume maxed out. If so, depending on the model of the pedal (did I miss that somewhere? you mention Fender at one point but that’s it) that could be absolutely overloading the front of the amp, in ways that DON’T sound all that great, and paradoxically you’re just better able to hear it at low amp gain settings because the whole front end is degrading into basically square wave overdrive as the amp gain comes up, and is sort of masking the ways the pedal is making the amp sound bad when the amp gain is lower. So, I suspect it’s something in the way that you’re using rhe pedal that’s making problems for you, in part because again I may have misunderstood you but it sounds like you have pedal gain and pedal output maxed out… but that’s a guess and I’m not sure I exactly understand what you’re doing with the pedal.
Have you got a way to check if it is the preamp specifically that is the issue?
You could either do this by testing the electronics yourself to ensure they’re working as expected, or by taking it to an amp tech to see if they can find any issues with it. Alternatively, you could try a completely different amp and see if the issue goes away.
Like @Drew is saying, there are lots of variables here that may be causing the problem you are hearing. If you want to test if the amp specifically is the problem, the best way is to change the amp and keep all other variables the same (or alternatively check it out/get it serviced).