On TS's, gain structure and tone!

[Heady Jam Fan]

First:
So I had been trying to get mild OD by slightly rolling back my guitar's volume knob and using the TS set to more of a boost/lower drive. I found that the tone gets too warm with the volume knob set there and loses presence (might be that I need a different treble bleed resistor). Today I tried the TS set to more distortion and got some great variations of in-between drives!

Funny the things we (or I, at least) never think to try!

Anyway, I was loving the first TS (lower drive, more boost) for completely clean and with my guitar volume maxed (its full gain), but the 2nd TS (set to more distortion) was where its at for really mild overdrive - seems counterintuitive.

Do any of you find the same thing? Should I really probably have a different resistor for a treble bleed?
Getting those in-between dirt variations was my reason for starting the volume pedal thread - I still like having a variable control rather than a boost though.

Second:
I was using my Fromel Shape EQ for a midrange boost for a little extra on solos, but I have been feeling like my amp has too much bass (its a '65 Bassman) with my neck pup, and sometimes lacked a bit in presence, which I mostly noticed when I did a recording recently, but it is apparent other times, like how Trey gets those bright, slapping sounds in the presence range.

So today I set the Fromel for a presence boost, a bass cut and a mild treble cut. Really nice tone shaping - tamed the bass a bit, achieved more presence. Now I am wondering if I need to add a presence knob to my amp and mod it for slightly less bass (which I heard was an easy change). I just feel like an always on EQ is a bandaid...

Third:
I have been running a volume pedal between my TS's and comp and I was feeling like my level between the TS's and comp is attenuated (funny thing), so I had turn the compression up a bit. Today I was feeling like it still wasn't back to where it had been, so I cranked it. I was pretty surprised that I didn't hate having it that high, the results were pretty good actually. Not surprisingly, more sustain, but there was no more noise than before either and the feedback was actually more controlled; it was really more of an extension of the note than before, no random cases of ear-splitting harmonics, very natural sounding and focused.

Summary:
I was just taking a break between 2 research proposals, a psych eval report, etc to play for a few minutes and I think I had the best tone in a while (though maybe it was just new and thus interesting). But I felt like I was setting things up ways that wouldn't normally occur to me, so I guess the idea is to try things that might not be immediately intuitive!

Has anyone found any of the same results? Since I made a lot of changes, anything you would have done differently?

Tying this all together: I am also going to try the Pigtronix Philosopher's Tone compressor. It will be a tonal change from the Ross, which I am not sure I will like, but they claim great sustain and maintenance of unity volume despite changing the guitar's volume knob, so it might make cleaning up the TS easier without needing the volume pedal. If I dislike the tonal change and I do decide to keep the Fromal for an always-on tone shaper, then I could always back the bass and treble down more and hope that matches the tonal effect of the Ross-style comp...

[Brian27]

What output transformer is in your Bassman?

[Heady Jam Fan]

Original from 65, it's great, but 'hefty'
I heard thou can change a resistor to decrease bass

[Brian27]

Thats what i was reading about just a few mins ago. Also presence control on a bright sounding amp is a must i think.

[Heady Jam Fan]

With a solid body, I turn the treble the whole way up and role back the tone knob, keeps the treble in check, but adds presence, but doesn't sound as good with the hollow body

[the_great_lemon]

Second:
I was using my Fromel Shape EQ for a midrange boost for a little extra on solos, but I have been feeling like my amp has too much bass (its a '65 Bassman) with my neck pup, and sometimes lacked a bit in presence, which I mostly noticed when I did a recording recently, but it is apparent other times, like how Trey gets those bright, slapping sounds in the presence range.

Maybe you could adjust the height of the pickup on the treble and/or bass side of your neck pickup to try to get the prescence you want? I've recently started adjusting the pickups on my Paul and it has fixed a couple bugs.

[Brian27]

lol or maybe have the same pickups in both the neck and the bridge position. Who knows.

[Heady Jam Fan]

Yea I thought about adjusting the pups, but they seemed balanced, maybe I'll the treble side of the neck pup

[Heady Jam Fan]

Ended up cranking the tone knob up on the TS's and fixed everything: got 'em about 80-90% of the way up. I also tried turning them the whole way down and turning my amps treble way up, also worked, flip of a coin.