I'm a country picker, so clean tones are vital to me (I cover a lot of 90s country and such). I've had some trouble getting FAT, BALLSY clean tones from even the simplest of setups. It seems like I don't have enough....sustain?? I play a Nashville B-Bender Tele into the Helix and then usually go direct to FOH, or when creating presets at home, through my studio monitors (IK Multimedia iLoud Micro Monitors). The tones sound thicker and better to me at home, but on the road sound kinda thin and uninspiring.
I've tried a few different amp setups (Deluxe, WhoWatt, AC30, etc) and am fiddling with the Litigator as well. I am using various IRs that I got from 3Sigma and usually run 2 IRs in one patch (lately a 4x12 and a 2x12) and am liking what I hear so far with the litigator.
I use compression sparingly and turn the mix down to around 60-70% and currently have an eq block that boosts the mids (helps it cut through live). As soon as I kick in a drive pedal, the live tone sounds great to me...but I'm still chasing that Holy Grail clean tone sound when the drive is not engaged.
Any help on proper EQ or other suggestions is welcome. I have a few different presets on the go with clean/crunch snapshots that I sometimes dig for a while, but lately have just started creating new presets and fiddling with the amp first and foremost and adding in other effects very sparingly.
Input gate seems to be a must with my damn single coils, but threshold is around -50db with the litigator...