The quarantine preset reorganization

Well, after i spent time with my new British full lead tone and finding that i really digit in, i needed a sweet spot in the memory of the mustang.

Long story short tell, after last renaming and sorting, after adding a pedalboard and sticking will a lower number of preset, i decided for a reorganization.

Reason are 2:

1) i like the naming i was using but it is not much evocative in the long term
2) actual system was not functional, and you need to be conmfortable, to enjoy your playng experience.

I did a lot of thinking on it i like the result so far:

Some of the main preset retain its old slot, basically:

ORANGE is near or less Dream Theater presets
GREEN is an all of classics
RED is for Metal

the basic idea is that the extarnal triplets (ABC and FG#) are in the same family, sorta of complete sets. DE are used for leftovers.

RED ABC is my allround core. 2K METAL is my trash roaring tone that can do everything, coupled with the clean compressed chorused and the new lead tone. It can cover a lot of terrain.

RED DE is my guns and roses set, i need an external wah to complete.

RED FG# is my set of Megadeth (alternative to the 2K METAL) with a random clean tone.

GREEN ABC is Satriani set, in fact i could do without the B when i have the external wah in the chain but i like having the 2K WAH around. Was a good peset!

The rest of the bank is raising from clean (#) in to blues (G) in to hard rock (F) in to a pushed britsh tone (E) in to a modern high gain cutting thin (D) that is the Mustang replica of my pre-mustang tone.

But i my kick off the BRIT 2K LEAD since i dont use it. The JCM FULL LEAD would have sit nicelyu also here.

ORANGE ABC is a Dream theater set and G# is another.

ORANGE DEF is a work in progress, i think the now renamed MB LEAD FULL (originally my "liquid" tone) will be retaired since the JCM FULL LEAD has that spot now. MB CRUNCH X i really do not remember what is for!

I will keep updated!

Marshall Britsh Lead Tone

Recently i've seen this Tom Quayle video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BRU7Hd_3dI

and some more in the past months. It uses a Solo tone that is sorta of a British High Gain Lead Mid pushed solo.

Many other instrumental guitar player uses similar tones. Marco Sfogli comes to mind.

So i decided to make my try with my trusty Fender Mustang I.

This is my take:

First thing first i maxed out both the Gain in the Amp and the Fender Overdrive Stomp. All tones on the amp are up but the trebles that are 9 out of 10 and also the presence is backed up to 3. I wanted to be rounded and not to aggressive in the high frequencies.

The result is a good tone for solo and hard rock. In the video Tom control the gain with the volume knob of the guitar. I think i used to much gain here so you wont do that!

FX are my standard settings, all packed for a classic solo ambience.

Enjoy!

Review Mustang LT25 from Fender

So i decided to write a post with some consideration on the new Fender Mustang LT25 from the point of view of a long time Mustang I user.

Why?

Because i think that this new model will take the spot of the Mustang I, so i guess someone is considering to "upgrade", many are choosing between the old and the new and are very temped to the new one. Well, it's new!

This is not a comparision between the tones of the two. We will not find out witch one does the better modeling thing.

They are the cheaper modeling amp of the line, they are supposed to be good , not perfect. And i think you can get great tones from both.

But what about features, twakability and other factors?

Let's get deep into it.

The LT25 is infact a cut down version of the new iteration of the Fender modeling, the GT line.

We got a 25w single speaker guitar amp. My personal opinion is that the closest the speaker is to the classic 12 inch the better. In that sense i  like better the single 8' from the LT25 than the two 6,5 of the GT40. The LT25 sound slightly better than the GT40 to me.

The old Mustang I was 20W, dont expect to be much difference, if there is difference it must be more in the efficence of the amp and the build of the cabinet. To hear some real difference you should get at least double the power.

As you may already have heard a 25w solid state amp has an headroom similar to a 5w to 10w real valve amp.

To my taste, it is already load for home usage.

The LT25 knobs layout is similar to the Mustang I: we still missing the mid knob. If you are an hold style dude you would have preferred a mid knob. The midrange twaking is doable via the menu on the panel, anyway.

About the menu on the panel. On the old MI the effect selection was done on the panel with a very limited 2 knob system. I will not go in deep on the old system but it was very limited and i think the on board effect where really usable only with the computer connected. There was no way to tweak the really useful Overdrive from the panel! Now there is a display and you can do ANYTHING from the amp panel. This is a real step ahead. If you dont like to have your amp connected to the computer the LT25 is seriously a better option than the MI.

On the other side consider that tweaking with the computer is faster, and once you have nailed your preset the time you spent tweaking will drop drammatically.

The thing i did not like on the MI is already there on the LT25: 1 footswitch with 2 channel selection.

To be clear, with both amp, during a song, your amp is a 2 channel amp. This is ok if your amp is only an amp. But this is also a multieffect and 2 channel becomes really limiting. this is the reason why i mainly use my MI as a pedal platform today. And i am really happy with it. I think that we really need a small and cheap amp with a 3 channel selection (at least we can have clean, dirt and lead) and the ability to change the combination with a fast menu selection, like banks.

That would have been cool. The GT40 has a better channel/patch selection, but i dont need the extra power and i am not fully convinced by that stereo speaker, as i've said before.

Modeling selection: the LT25 has some more model than the MI, but to be honest i dont think it really matter that much. You have a good selection of basis that you can tweak to go where you want.

Effect selection. Here we have a slightly better selection. Now we have the tube screamer, the klon and the RAT clones, plus the classic fender overdrive.  I like what we have, but i think that a good metal distortion and maybe a crunch box clone would have made things perfect.

I noticed that the selection of delays and reverbs has decreased, so if you are a fan of this category of effect just skip the LT25 or consider the opportunity to put a nice Zoom Multistomp in front of it like i do.

A big lack is the Pitch shifter. I made an heavy usage of the PS to double my guitar tone. Especially on dirt really made an huge difference. Since you now have to use the delay for it this is really limiting.

The final thing you need to pay attention is this: the effect chain is now locked

Presets number and quality

send return