The Controls of the Dirty Shirley Back Panel
5. INPUT GAIN:
If you want to drive the input of the Friedman preamp harder or softer you may ad-
just the input gain to your liking. Some single coil pickups from older or vintage gui-
tars may deliver low level output that can be compensated with the INPUT GAIN.
The opposite goes for a lot of heavy metal style humbuckers. If you have recorded
the DI signal too hot or if you are using other plug-ins before entering DS40 you may
want to dim the input signal.
With most standard guitars you can and should leave the INPUT GAIN at 0 (zero)
though.
6. Internal POWER SOAK:
In the real world power soaks are being used to reduce the volume of a guitar power
amp. This way you can crank up a (tube) guitar power amp to drive it until it starts
clipping, and still record at a volume which will protect your hearing and keep the
neighbors friendly.
A clipping tube power amp adds distortion and harmonics to the guitar amp signal
and is something most guitar players love. A fully cranked up tube guitar amp tamed
in volume with a power soak will sound different than the same amp with the master
volume turned down.
We have modeled the behavior of the Friedman tube power amp, so you may
experiment with different settings of the Master of the amp and the internal POWER
SOAK. We recommend a setting of roughly -10dB for most scenarios.
7. PRE-AMP and POWER-AMP Activation:
BYPASS PRE:
With the BYPASS PRE switch you can switch off the Friedman preamp completely,
which may be wanted if you record your own hardware (tube or solid state) guitar pre-
amp with the DS40.
In this case you may still use the internal POWER AMP and speaker / REC CHAINS
simulation and will be able to achieve amazing results recording your guitar sounds
without using an external power amp and speaker.
Switch up: Preamp is bypassed (off), Switch down: Preamp is active (on).
BYPASS POWER AMP:
If you want to use only the distortion of the Friedman preamp you may switch the power
amp simulation off. This may sound cool if you use the Friedman plug-in to distort other
signals than a guitar. For a realistic guitar recording we recommend leaving the power
amp on, as it is an integral part of the overall sound of the amp.
