Just Discovered How to Get Great Cleans From a 5150

[Josh Burgess]

My 5150 had no output when I turned it on yesterday... I thought I might have blown the output transformer, because I accidentally turned it on without the speaker cab connected the other day... I know, I know... Well, I was busy and tired yesterday so I didn't get around to checking it out more until just now... so, I plugged a guitar straight into the FX return to test the output section of the amp by itself to see if my transformer was fucked up, and it turns out it wasn't. I guess it's just a bad preamp tube somewhere.

So, I'm happy it's not the transformer, but besides that, I accidentally discovered how to get a great clean sound out of a 5150. For some reason, I have never thought to try just plugging straight into the poweramp... but turn the presence knob up and it sounds very good. You can still use all your effects if they accept an instrument level input.

Guitar -> Delay pedal (or whatever) -> FX Return

Turn the presence knob (for the poweramp) way up to get a nice, bright, shimmery tone & use the volume knob on your guitar to control your overall output.

I think it'd probably be a hassle to figure out a way to do this in a live situation if you want to use the preamp for high gain stuff and poweramp only for cleans... but for recording, it sounds pretty great. If you only have a 5150 and no dedicated amp for clean tones, try it out!

 

[JakeAC5253]

Yepp, I've used that before, works for clean bass tones in a pinch as well.

 

[Nimvi]

Jup, I use a boss gt-10 with 4cable method the same way. When switching to the clean patch, I bypass the preamp section and send the output straight to the powersection.

I will add though: when trying this, keep in mind that you are also bypassing the post-gain! Don't blow up your ears.

 

[Trevoire520]

That's a good idea man, I might try this with my jet city as on that amp the eq section is actually after the fx loop anyway!

 

[Josh Burgess]

Jup, I use a boss gt-10 with 4cable method the same way. When switching to the clean patch, I bypass the preamp section and send the output straight to the powersection.

I will add though: when trying this, keep in mind that you are also bypassing the post-gain! Don't blow up your ears.

Yup, the post gain knobs aren't poweramp master volumes... so you gotta use your guitar's volume knob... but if you like very clean clean tones, then you'll probably dig it.