Tip: Achieving Flat Frequency Response on a Marshall or Fender

I was listening to the Tone Mob podcast the other day, and I was blown away by something their guest for the week, John Snyder of Electronic Audio Experiments, had to say about getting a flat frequency response out of most Fender and Marshall amps.

To paraphrase: Set the mids on ten.  Set the bass and treble to zero.
GTFO.

I had to try this as soon as I got home, thinking that there was no way that the little DSL1-C would sound anything but silly at those settings.  I started on the clean channel, with both the gain at 75%, the volume at max, and the power soak OFF.



Son of a... What a great sound! Nothing at all like you'd expect out of a Marshall.  I've always found the clean channel on this thing anemic, and this is probably why.

As it to be expected then, it didn't sound as great on the lead channel.  Maxing out the bass and the mids, while leaving the treble at zero, seemed to balance things out better.  With that tiny 8 inch speaker, who needs to add highs anyway?

Now I wish I had a Blues Junior or something to further test the theory...


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