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I never kept a guitar with humbuckers., though I did keep a Duotone that I swapped the hums for PhatCats.  When I play, or at least when I used to play, I always found myself dialing in a very clean tone - both amp and guitar.  I don't like the fuzzy dirty sound.

But I love the thick, round, smooth, creamy sound that humbuckers can produce (think Santana's "Smooth").  If and when I start  trying to play again, how do I get that tone at bedroom level volumes and with no fuzz?.

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Distortion is signal over-driving any (or many) of the amplification stages.  Pickup "overpowering" the pre-amp tubes, pre-amp tubes overpowering the output tubes, and full on amp overpowering the speakers themselves.

So, amp with headroom, pre-amp gain low.  Turn down the pickup's volume knob from full. 

I like playing mostly clean driving into breakup- As you experiment, you'll find a sweet spot where the tones are clean until you start playing harder and you drive the signal chain into breakup.  

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On 7/10/2020 at 1:07 AM, m chops said:

though I did keep a Duotone that I swapped the hums for PhatCats.

Phat Cats are pretty much driving IMO.

On 7/10/2020 at 1:07 AM, m chops said:

I don't like the fuzzy dirty sound.

A lower than PAF wound humbucker would do the trick for you, I think. I prefer a lot of clean playing on the neck pickup with my Standard Custom and don't like distortion on that level too. It doesn't have the crispness of a P90 or single coil, but certainly not fuzzy dirty sounding.

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On 7/9/2020 at 7:20 PM, Toadroller said:

Distortion is signal over-driving any (or many) of the amplification stages.  Pickup "overpowering" the pre-amp tubes, pre-amp tubes overpowering the output tubes, and full on amp overpowering the speakers themselves.

So, amp with headroom, pre-amp gain low.  Turn down the pickup's volume knob from full. 

I like playing mostly clean driving into breakup- As you experiment, you'll find a sweet spot where the tones are clean until you start playing harder and you drive the signal chain into breakup.  

There are some notable exceptions.  The Trainwreck Express/Liverpools start distorting at the -power- tubes first. As you increase the (only) volume knob, the preamp tubes then start distorting in -reverse- order.  I've built one of each myself; same circuit topology, just some tweaks to accomodate the different power tubes (el34 vs el84). 

Set the amp volume at one oclock and control all from your guitar.  The clean and distorted output levels are the same volume. As you roll the guitar volume knob up, you can hear as each gain stage kicks in.   Its a unique, and some what limiting design(loud), but ever since then, I've been in love with pure powertube distortion.

My nick pic is of the preamp stage in my express. 

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