Clean vs Distorted Inconsistencies

[Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame]

On some guitars, when I go from distorted to clean on the same pickup, the volume drops significantly. On most of my guitars, I get about the same output/strength level. On a very few guitars, I actually get a stronger/fuller tone on clean than I do distorted.

This happens across humbuckers and single coils, all kinds of woods,both superstrats and, well, I guess I really don't have much else besides superstrats anymore.

Any ideas why this happens?

[hardheartedbill]

Compression of the dirty tone. Pups w more output will hit a dirty sound and compress. See the OD for a plexi thread dor more.

[tbonesullivan]

To further that thought, this also means that pickups with less output will compress as well, and the volume will go up. Remember that distortion/overdrive basically means you are overdriving the signal beyond the maximum level of power. It gets "clipped" off, at the max level, which means increasing the gain doesn't really increase the volume anymore, just the saturation and level of overdrive/distortion.

so, this really reduces the dynamics of the playing, so loud, soft, or the same all become one volume. This is also why noise is so much more prevalent at high gain: it is amplified as well.

[hardheartedbill]

Its why it feels so good to really od that signal. I never use clean and dirty at once cause my right hand is different for each

[Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame]

Thanks.

[hardheartedbill]

Yer welcome. Its also why channel switching doesnt appeal to me

[Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame]

Yer welcome. Its also why channel switching doesnt appeal to me

Channel switching is how I found out some guitars had this problem.

[tbonesullivan]

how exactly is this a "problem"? different pickups have different output levels, and different tonal profiles. you're going to have to re calibrate if you change the pickup selections on a guitar usually.

[Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame]

how exactly is this a "problem"? different pickups have different output levels, and different tonal profiles. you're going to have to re calibrate if you change the pickup selections on a guitar usually.

Since I have several guitars that I don't have to recalibrate when I switch pickup selections or use a channel select to go from dirty to clean, I consider it a problem if I want to use a guitar that does require extensive recalibration.