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find the tone too thin with the gain control down
either take some of the high end off with the
treble control, or alternatively, bring the clean
gain control up until you achieve the depth of
tone you want and then control the volume of
the amp with the ‘master volume’ control.
3. Clean Treble, Mid, Bass
These controls vary the E.Q. and voicing of the
Clean channel.
✪ User Hint - These controls are early on in the
amplifier chain and as such not only control the
tone of the Clean channel, but also how the clean
channel reacts ‘gain’ wise. For instance, if the
mid control is advanced (especially with higher
gain control settings) the sound will become
more ‘singing’ in a blues/traditional rock kind of
way. But if the mid control is backed off
towards (or even) zero the gain emphasis is
placed on the treble and bass controls and gives
more to work on, especially on cleaner, lower
gain settings, as would be the case for country,
jazz, or good old chord strumming.
A good starting point is to set these three
controls to their ‘midway’ position and by
experimenting with the ‘feel’ of how they
interact with the amp, build up a wide palette of
tones for future use.
4. Channel Switching
The channels of your DSL201 or DSL401 can
either be switched from the front panel, or via an
external footswitch - connection of the
footswitch is described later.
DSL201 - The front panel switching
arrangement consists of two LEDs and a single
pushswitch, to switch between either the clean
(Green LED) or Overdrive channels (Red LED).
Switch out is Clean, switch in is Overdrive.
DSL401 - Here the front panel switching
arrangement consists of three LEDs (Green =
Clean, Yellow = OD1, Red = OD2) and two
pushswitches, marked CLN/OD and OD1/OD2.
To select Clean the switch marked CLN/OD
must be released to its out position (Green LED
will be on). To select either OD1 or OD2, push
the CLN/OD switch in and select either OD1 or
OD2 by pushing or releasing the switch marked
OD1/OD2 and the appropriate Yellow or Red
LED will illuminate. To revert back to Clean,
release the CLN/OD switch once more. Do not
worry, you do not have to go through OD1 to
reach OD2, these channels can be pre-selected.
✪ User Hint - These functions are repeated on
the footswitch. Remember that plugging the
footswitch into the amp will override the front
panel pushswitches.
5. Overdrive Gain
This controls the amount of gain drive available
for the overdrive channel, from mildly almost
clean crunch to super-saturated overdrive,
depending where this control is set, i.e. lower is
less and higher is more. Wherever this control is
set is going to give you a wide palette of tones to
work with, depending on the type of guitar, EQ
settings, how hard you push the power amp, etc.
Note: the difference between OD1 and OD2
(DSL401 only) is approx 20dB more gain on
OD2. The DSL201 is preset to the gain levels of
OD2 and does not have the OD1 facility.
✪ User Hint - Due to the immense amount of
gain and saturation available on the preamp of
the DSL401, particularly when using high output
humbucker pick-ups, the 20dB difference
between OD1 and OD2 may become less
apparent. In this case, back off the settings of
the gain control slightly until the difference
becomes more useable again.
✪ User Hint - One of the beauties of using a
lower power amp is that it makes the power amp
distortion more easy to use and by lowering the
input gain control and bringing up the channel
volume control will give you a whole new load
of tones to play with, as well as making the amp
run quieter, especially if you use the ability of
the ‘master volume’ to emulate a lower powered
amp.
6. Overdrive Volume
This control adjusts the level of sound coming
out of the overdrive preamp channel and allows
you to balance it against the Clean channel.
✪ User Hint - To achieve the normal Marshall
style heavy rock ‘punch & crunch’ especially at
lower volume levels, this control should be used
to keep the volume down and the output Master
Volume should be kept higher. To achieve a
squashier type tone, great for lead work, then use
this control higher and bring the level down on
the output Master Volume.
✪ User Hint - When using the less gain/more
level way of driving the power stage, keep the
overdrive gain low and use this volume control
to drive the power amp.
7. Overdrive Treble, Middle, Bass
As opposed to the ‘Clean’ channel, these
controls are placed after the distortion generating
circuitry of your amp and as such affect the
texture of the tone, rather than the gain of the
channel, especially when using high levels of
preamp gain.
✪ User Hint - Although many textures are
available from this relatively simple
configuration, a good starting point (again) is to
set everything midway. For a more modern
