Setting up an amp and processor - Ailsean

Here's the method I've settled on for getting a decent tone, using whatever processor and amp I'm using, so this applies to anyone interested:

note: This guide assumes you can play. If bad tone is coming from your fingers, no amount of buying gear or changing its settings will help. Go spend some quality time with your instrument. A good guideline is to see if you're happy with how it sounds when you play it with no amp at all. If not, the problem could be somewhere between the guitar and the strap.

Set all the EQ knobs on the amp and EQ adjustments on the processor to halfway (this is probably "5," but all the knobs on my amp go to 12, and my processor adjusments go from 0-30, so work out what halfway is on your stuff).

Make sure, as has been mentioned before, that the processor's speaker emulation is switched off, because running simulated guitar speakers into an amp and real guitar speakers is probably not going to sound very good.

Bring the amp volume up to a reasonable volume and bash out some chords, adjusting the amp volume and gain so that the sound stays clean even when you're playing pretty aggressively (this mostly applies to single-channel amps, since for two/three-channel amps you generally just set it to the "clean" channel and not be too worried until you're cranking the thing up so much that the power amp starts distorting).

Choose your amp model on the processor and dial in an appropriate amount of gain for the sound you want.

Play through it like that.

Listen to the tone.

Listen some more.

Seriously. Keep listening. You need to know what the base sound is like so you can decide what needs adjusting in the next step. Too boomy? You'll be killing some bass. Too thin? You'll be adding bass. Muffled? Add highs. Hissy and shrill? Cut highs. "HONK HONK HONK?" Cut mids. Is it hard to tell the pitches in chords? Try adding some mids.

Now adjust the EQ on the processor. LEAVE THE AMP'S EQ ALONE FOR NOW. You'll PROBABLY be setting the bass about 3/4 to full up, the mids to between 1/8 and 1/2 way up, and the treble... well, the treble varies HUGELY from one type of processor and amp to another, so just get it to where the highs are clear, but not too hissy for your own tastes. Those are just general settings, so don't be shocked if you go outside them. For a clean jazz tone, for example, you may just leave everything at 50%. And for a bright country tone, you may have the bass much lower to keep things crisp.

Add any effects you want on the processor and make fine adjustments to its EQ as needed.

Certain effects like Wah, Pitch-Shifting, and Ring Modulator (and others) can make some pretty severe changes to the sound, and may necessitate some re-adjustment of the EQ as a result.

You SHOULD be able to get at least a resonably good tone just by doing the above. Once you've gotten close to the ideal tone, start adjusting the amp's EQ controls to put the finishing touches on the sound. Note that you should probably not be making super-huge adjustments. For example, my amp's EQ knobs are roughly 60%, 35-40%, and 45% for Bass, Mids, and Highs, respectively. Keeoing in mind they all started at 50%, you can see none of them get moved a whole lot. If you find yourself needing to adjust an amp EQ knob a LOT, you should probably see if you can make that adjustment to the processor's EQ instead. The goal is too have the amp's EQ as close to flat as possible (I'll explain why later). Of course, sometimes this just isn't possible, but at least try not to have anything on the amp all the way up or all the way down if it can be avoided.

Save your preset and enjoy your tone. Or realize that you're not going to get the sound you want with the setup you're using.

Repeat this process for any more presets you want to set up, but leave the amp EQ settings how they ended up after making the first preset. You don't want to have to go changing the amp's EQ every time you switch presets, right?

explanation:

Why make sure the amp doesn't distort? Try running a standalone reverb into a distortion box sometime. While the results can be interesting, they aren't generally desirable. Also, you're using your processor as a preamp in an effort to simulate a certain type of amp sound. Having the actual amp distort the signal can pretty much derail that effort by altering the signal.

Why try to get the amp's EQ flat? Think about what your gain and EQ does on the amp. It's the PREAMP, which goes into the power amp. Using your processor as a preamp and then having extreme settings on the amp's EQ is generally just begging for an "over-EQ'd" sound. The idea is to use the processor's EQ to make the changes for each preset, then to use the amp's EQ as a sort of "overall" adjustment. For example, I listed how I have my amp EQ set at home in the room where I record. When I take the amp to a job, I change the settings to account for the acoustics of the room I'm playing in. If the room is super bright, I can take out a little treble on the amp, and not have to make any changes to my presets, because they were all set up with the same amp EQ, and any change I make will cause the same result on every preset. Similarly, if the room makes the tone sound muddy, I can pull out some bass and/or add highs, and likewise not have to adjust any of my presets. And if the room is small, I can pull out some mids so the guitar won't kill people's ears.

"But I have the bass and treble maxed on my processor and amp, and have the mids cut all the way down on both, and I LOVE the sound!" Maybe you have an insanely mid-heavy amp? That or you're going to have an amazingly difficult time getting your "awesome" tone to sit in the mix with other sounds. Have fun.

"Are you saying my tone smells funny?" Nah. I do the same thing for my practice tone sometimes :) But I wouldn't recommend inflicting that sound on some poor soundman if you want him to even TRY to make you sound good.

Why not leave the processor's EQ flat and make the adjustments on the amp? It would seem at first that this would be just as good, doesn't it? But the EQ on your processor is taylored to work with the amp models in the processor, while your amp's EQ is taylored to work well with your amp. So generally, you'll get better results by using the processor's EQ to adjust the sounds of the amp models, since that's sort of what it was designed to do. Also, you may want to have a ridiculous EQ setting on a particular preset, like maybe a preset with cranked mids and no low or highs (add a little overdrive and you get that "recorded through a telephone" sound). Since the processor can save its EQ settings on a per-preset basis, whereas the amp cannot, you won't be able to have as much room for customization on the individual presets if you primarily use the amp's EQ and leave the processor flat.

OK, so this has taken far too long to write out. I'm going to stop now. Hopefully this is informative and useful or something of that nature.