How are the cleans on a Vox AD100vt?

[cap'n'crunch]

I just picked up a new Vox AD100VTH (chrome grill) for cheap. My first ever modeling adventure. I managed to come across a couple of crunch and heavy rock tones that are quite nice but, I can't seem to get any cleans out of this thing. All the Fender and Vox models seem to have some undesirable grit to them and they seem way too lifeless and muddy. Even with the Gain all the way back and at lower volumes. It won't clean up. Is that normal for the AD (chrome grill) models or is there something wrong with my particular unit?

Thanks

[Shane Sanders]

You've probably already discovered this, but there's an attenuator on the back of the amp. If it's set too low, your headroom is gone, hence the early breakup.

Anyway, just a theory for what might be going on. I can get some pretty good cleans on my Valvetronix AD50.

[steve108819]

I've never played with the attenuator much on my AD50. It's always stayed on about 90% full. That being said, I've never had any problem getting the sparklies out of mine. It can go clean to the point of sterile if I roll back enough gain.

[Roach72]

I have a DA 20 I recently picked up for a small bedroom practice amp. I have the same issue with there being no really clean channel, but if you back off the gain ...about 50% and roll the vollume on the guitar off a bit it cleans up nicely. What I do find nice about this is that you can get that edge of breakup sound . Wich is more or less non existant in most solid state amps.

[brian4d]

There are two things that are always recommended on the valvetronix.net board for the symptoms you are describing. First, use contact cleaner on the "input" jack and the "headphone/line out" jack. Also, the contacts in the "headphone/line out" jack may not be may not be making a secure connection. People who leave headphones plugged in seem most prone to this. Several people have found that you can remedy the situation by plugging and unplugging headphones several times.

I've never had either of these problems with my AD30VT but you definitely should be able to get good cleans on the Boutique Clean and Blackface models.

[eyeball987]

I had this issue with my Tonelab LE on the clean models and eventually tweaked it out. The manual says to dime the VR gain on the clean models that didn't normally come with a master volume for authentic tones. I pull my VR gain back to about 7 or 8 and then keep the volume below 3. Use the program volume to get the desired level to match the gain tone patches.

If you are using hot humbuckers, you still may need to roll the volume back on the guitar just a touch. With singles, you should be fine. Also, the models have some nice touch sensitivity so if you are slamming the strings, the models respond accordingly. You might need to lighten your touch if using hot pickups.

[eyeball987]

I just stumbled across Valvetronix.net and they have lots of settings for your amp posted there. Try that out.

[cap'n'crunch]

Thanks guys. I've been using some pretty hot humbuckers. I just tried playing my strat through the Ad100VT and the cleans are a lot nicer.