Amp Settings for the Best Sound and Tone?

Jeffery Mercer · Posted 15 Jun 2024 4:05 am

Greetings to all…I’ll try my best to make this Understandable & Quick…
My name is Jeffery Mercer, I’ve Been a member of this Wonderful Community for about 6-7 years, now (may be even longer at 69 my memory isn’t all that great) plus the fact that unlike Clinton…I did INHALE!
I love Pedal Steel Guitar, now having said that, I want my Pedal Steel to sound as great as it can when being played, I realize that a lot of sounding good has to do with your equipment, and your knowledge of your instrument, such as touch and feel, The amp I’m using with my steel is the Boss Amp that I purchased when they first came on the scene, it has 2 X 12” Spkrs. and pushes around 100 watts, what I’m lookin for is another Steel player who uses the same type amp, and can give me some direction as far as my settings go such as treble, bass, reverb, delay, all that good stuff,
I’m basically a bedroom player (as I’m just learning) I’ve got great equipment right down to my stainless Steel Hoffmeyer finger Picks! BJS TONEBARS, Zirconia Tonebar, mogambi cords, you get the picture…please can someone help me with my amp settings ?
Thanks, ( I now await yer thoughts, suggestions, butt chewing) what ever you can offer!
Jeff Mercer in Mentor Oh, on the Lake Erie Shores!

* Guys, I want you to know that I Sincerely Appreciate all of your, input, the sharing of your wisdom & Knowledge, your licks, your advice, your all a great and Beautiful, Wonderful Group of Guys(and Gals) what I appreciate the most from all of you is your Dedication, Kindness, your Patience, and Longsuffering with us New guys who constantly ask you questions, and for advice…God Bless everyone of you!
Jeff
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Jeffery S Mercer

Chris Brooks · From: Providence, Rhode Island

Jeffery, many of us roll off the mid range on our amps. Peavey has 2 knobs for this. One specifies the frequency; the other cuts or boosts in that frequency range.

Try setting bass and treble "neutral" and scooping out the mids. Too much mid makes the instrument sound "honky," in my opinion.

(I play a Carter through a 112.)

Tim Whitlock · From: Colorado, USA

If you do a search for "Boss" or "Katana" in the Electronics section, you will find several discussions about the amp and settings like the one below:

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=343567&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=boss&start=0

Larry Ball · From: Airdrie, Alberta, Canada

Hi Jeffery,

I have both , Boss Katana 100 Mk11 and Peavey Nashville 112. I use the Acoustic rather the clean setting on the Boss. Then I make all the adjustments for my tone requirements based on my ear and venue. The Nashville 112 is adjusted more on the mids and gain controls. I think a lot of responses will include personal preferences so make these adjustments based on yours..
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Mullen SD10, Sho~Bud SD10 LDG, Show-Pro SD10 LDG, Peavey Nashville 112, Boss Katana 100 MK11, Telonic's F100 Multi-Taper Super Pro V/P, Wayne Brown “Custom Designed Amp”

Pat Moore · From: Virginia USA

Hi Jeffrey,
For the best tone to YOUR ears, put your guitar at a comfortable volume level, turn all the tone knobs to 0, & one by one turn up each knob individually starting with treble, mid then bass until each parameter sounds good to your ears. The amp tone should be close, but play it some incase you might need to slightly tweak them.
I've done this during all my time playing 6 string & steel and get a lot of complements on my tone.
Many other pro players I know do the same.
Just a thought for you.
Best,
Pat

Patrick Huey · From: Nacogdoches, Texas, USA

Roger Dillingham · From: Kentucky, USA

Jeffrey. I don't have any experience with the Boss Katana or any of the Boss solid state amps (I'm a Peavey guy) but the Peavey popular amps which were designed with the steel guitar in mind; i.e. Session 400, LTD 400, Nashville 400, Vegas 400, Session 500, most of them (except their 6-string guitar amps) had Bass, Middle, Treble, Presence tone controls which could be utilized to normally achieve a pretty good tone overall by cutting the midrange significantly and some of the amps also included a "shift" control which would basically allow the midrange control to focus on the specific frequency which the operator would like to filter out or "cut". I have never heard of any steel guitar player wanting to increase the midrange tonal setting; it would almost always be cut and normally quite significantly. Also, due to the range or thinness of the steel guitar sound, there would be very little use for a treble control since most steels can slice through any mix into whatever crowd or surrounding walls, drapes, carpet, etc. The bass control is probably the most needed control to help add some bottom or "balls" to sound and make it seem smoother. Just don't turn bass up enough to sound "woofy". The midrange would require very little on the control, and if it is the style Peavey used where you can boost or cut the volume in the midrange frequency, you would be better to have it on the "cut" side and then if there was something like a "shift" parametric control you would probably want the most significant cut for mids in the 600-800hz range. Treble or Presence would need to be very low or possible not even cracked open at all. Bottom line, as others have stated the end result is probably where the amp sounds best to you. You will probably need to just experiment with all of the tone controls you have available and see what suits you. But please keep in mind, a steel guitar has the capability of sounding extremely thin and abrasive to many ears, even if it's someone who normally likes steel guitar music, if you can't tame the beast and keep it slightly pulled back or restrained it will come through to some like an ice pick in their ears. Please for the sake of your audiences don't go there!
Good luck!

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