THR10 Amp Settings

[Findedeux]

I am a complete newbie when it comes to guitar.

I have been playing Rocksmith for a few weeks and just bought the THR10.

I am having trouble understanding how the amp settings function despite reading the manual.

My biggest confusion is the gain setting. It is supposed to increase distortion but I can't seem to get any volume out of the amp unless I increase the gain. This is true even on the "clean" channel where presumably no one wants distortion anyway. It's also true even when master and guitar volume are maxed.

I also don't really understand the difference between the master volume and the guitar volume.

Finally, if the bass middle and treble are all at Zero, is that the same effect as if they were all midway?

Thanks for any clarification!

 

[lefty73]

Think of the Volume as a master volume, where it controls how loud the amp gets overall, regardless of the amount of distortion (sometimes known as, or referred to, as gain),

Gain is, well, gain. Different amps have very, very different gain structures. A Fender Twin is designed to be a louder-than-loud clean sound. In this context, it's OK to have a clean amp and ratchet up the gain - you might get a meatier sound, or some slight overdrive that lends itself to blues-y tones and riffs.

On the other end of the gain scale, you have high-gain amps like Mesa, modern Marshalls, you name it - setting these to "10" might not be the ideal setup. You'll get tons of gain, but very little note definition. Your chords, and maybe even some of your single note lines, will sound mushy. In this case, with those amps, you might want to back the gain off to, say, 5 and see how that sounds.

Regarding the EQ dials, I think with the THR10, the "flat" EQ is straight up at noon. I browsed the specs after searching for it on Google and it doesn't appear to have PA-like active EQ. General rule of thumb when you're setting up an amp sound is to set the bass, mid and treble knobs at noon, play for a bit, then boost or cut depending on what your ear is telling you.

Good luck, welcome the forum, and let us know how it goes! Happy picking!

 

[Findedeux]

Thanks for the very helpful response!

 

[lefty73]

You're very welcome! As the saying goes, "if I knew then what I know now"... just trying to pay it forward. If you have any other questions, you can post 'em here or send me a message directly. I'm not a THR10 owner, but I'll do my best to help you out. Happy pickin' and rock on!

 

[StormJH1]

Hi! I also just got a THR10 last week, but my background is a little different - I've played intermittently for 20 years (still very much an amateur/hobbyist) and owned a number of small solid state and tube combo amps. I've also used a HUGE variety of headphone practice amps and modeling programs that simulate real-life amps. So, I can be of some help if you have any questions. And NO question is too dumb - these forums exist, IMO, precisely for the purpose so that you can seek out and find people who know more than you about a particular subject, and they can help you along the way.

http://www.soundhouse.co.jp/images/shop/prod_img/y/yamaha_thr10_3.jpg

@lefty73 answered the basic question, but I can go into some more specifics as a THR10 owner. The first thing to note is that no matter what volume you intend to play with, the "Guitar" knob under output should be all the way up. This and the USB/AUX knobs only exist for balancing against one another, since one of the intended uses of this thing is to plug in an MP3 player or other source into the 1/8" audio jack and play along with your guitar. If you are just using it as an amp, there's no reason to have that volume on anything other than 100%. It took me a second to figure that out when I first tried out the THR10 also!

As explained above, the gain structure can vary wildly from amp to amp, and the THR10's 5 primary amp models were and picked to cover the whole range. The "CLEAN" setting is supposed to be a Fender Twin. That's an amp that stays basically clean for most of the gain settings. You may get some light overdrive/breakup if turned all the way up. It is true that on the clean setting, the gain needs to be higher to even have audible volume. That fooled me too because with both knobs at noon, the amp sounded almost off. But it actually gets quite loud and full sounding as you turn it up.

CRUNCH is a Vox AC30. The lower gain settings will be clean, but get quite overdriven as you turn it up. If you think about Brian May of Queen's sound versus The Edge from U2, they both use an AC30, so you can see the range of sounds based on gain settings.

LEAD is a Marshall Plexi, BRIT HI is a Marshall JCM800, and MODERN is a MESA/Boogie, and they trend toward higher and higher gain/distortion in that order. The BRIT HI, in particular, seems to be louder than the other amp models at similar knob settings. And I second @lefty73's suggestion to start with the tone knobs all at "noon" and work from there. A Yamaha rep also noted that the impact of the tone knobs is also modeled to the circuitry of the real-life amp, so they have less noticeable impact on Marshalls than they do on the other amps!

As a final note, well freakin' done on the purchase. Not sure if you read the forums, reviews, or just talked to a sales rep somewhere, but for someone with little prior knowledge of amplifiers, you managed to skip over a lot of cheaper/inferior alternatives (not to mention things that physically look more like what an "amp" is supposed to look like) and got yourself a very well-regarded home modeling amplifier. The THR10 is only a few years old, but already has a huge reputation among beginners and pros alike as one of the best sounding portable amplifiers for generating quality tone and bedroom and talk-over levels. So, stay patient, ask questions, and enjoy the heck out of it!

 

[pkrip]

Soooooo helpful. Thanks. I've owned this gem of an amp for about a year and absolutely love it. Your explanation of settings will help me enjoy it even more I suspect.

I unfortunately kicked it over one day breaking he on off switch. The part itself is $70 plus labor. That was a bummer and still need to make the repair but I most definitely will as I really love it.
Tks again
Pkrip