HSSdave
New member
I use a Boss Katana 50 with a fairly minimal pedal setup (MXR Smart Gate + BD Blues Driver). For this particular HSS guitar, I was looking for mostly hard rock and rock applications, though like all my guitars, it has to be able to do metal in a pinch, lol. I've been using the Blues Driver to drive the amp and blend distortion (level at noon, tone at 1, gain at 11), with the Katana itself on the Brown channel with moderate distortion (11 o'clock), mids at noon, bass 10, treble 11, using parametric EQ to filter out some of the low-end flub and high-end fizzle. Pretty happy with the result. The BD adds an organic grit to the dirt that I couldn't get using the Katana on its own (even with the modeling boosts). The Demon really pops out the more you drive the amp. It's got this woody, percussive tone that I really dig, but it's not super-hot, so the balance with the Classic Stack single coils is fine. Splitting the Demon with the middle gives you very nice Skynyrd tones. Haven't experimented as much with the bridge-neck position, but that's coming.
Very helpful, with so many variables and possibilities it's nice to see how you dialed in a tone you enjoy. Finally got to mess with something similar to your settings and I feel like I'm making some good progress.
