How to get a clean tone on any amp

Headroom comes first

Headroom is how loud an amp can get before it starts to distort. Every setting below assumes you stay under that point, so the first job is to find it: turn the gain low, set the volume where you will actually play, and strum as hard as you do in a song. If the chords start to fuzz at the edges, there is not enough headroom yet.

On an amp with gain and master volume, lower the gain and raise the master. On a single-volume amp, more headroom only comes from less volume, a more powerful amp or a more efficient speaker. Solid-state and modelling amps behave more like the first kind: their clean settings stay clean at most volumes.

EQ for a clean tone

Start with bass 5, middle 5 and treble 6, then change one control at a time. Single coils usually want the treble a step lower than humbuckers, because they already have more top end; humbuckers often want the bass a step lower so the low strings stay clear.

If the clean sound is harsh, take the treble or presence down before anything else. If it is dull or woolly, raise the treble a step and check that the guitar's tone knob is fully up. A clean tone does not need scooped mids to sound full; turning the middle down tends to make it thin once a band plays over it.

Pickups and your hands

The neck pickup gives the roundest clean and the bridge the brightest. On a guitar with three single coils, the in-between positions, where two pickups play together, add a hollow, glassy quality that plenty of clean parts are built on: Mark Knopfler has said the Sultans of Swing sound is his Strat's switch jammed between positions, and Hendrix set his between the neck and middle for the rhythm of Little Wing.

Pick attack changes a clean tone as much as the EQ does. A lighter touch keeps an amp near its limit clean; digging in pushes it over. The guitar's volume knob does the same job from the other side: rolling it back to 7 or 8 cleans up an amp that is just starting to break up.

Compression, chorus and reverb

A compressor evens out the difference between soft and hard notes, which helps fingerpicked and funk parts sit level. Keep it gentle; heavy compression flattens the dynamics that make a clean tone feel alive.

Chorus is a clean-tone effect first. Nirvana's Come As You Are is built on an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone, and the Roland Jazz Chorus has its chorus built into the amp, on channel 2. Reverb around 3 adds space without washing the notes out; Wicked Game uses much more, with a subtle delay as well, because the space is part of that song.

Clean settings by type of amp

Single-volume valve amps, such as a Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb: volume only as high as it stays clean, treble 6, bass 4 to 5, reverb around 3. Master-volume valve amps: gain 2 to 3 on the clean channel, master for loudness, EQ as above.

Roland Jazz Chorus: channel 1 is a plain clean channel with its own volume and EQ, and channel 2 adds the reverb, chorus and vibrato; keep its Distortion at 0 for a clean sound. Modelling amps: pick the clean amp model before touching anything else; on a Boss Katana that is the Clean type with the Gain at 2 to 3.

Clean settings for a specific song on your amp

These positions are a starting point for any clean sound. A particular song adds its own pickup choice, effects and EQ on top, and the numbers shift from one amp to the next. When you want positions for one song on the amp you own, Tonelify writes them for the controls that amp actually has.