The Middle knob can also be thought of as a sort of "gain" knob since most of the guitar's energy is in the
middle frequencies. So if you want the gainiest sound possible, run the Middle knob high. But if you want
a less gainy sound run it lower. Which means you might also want to run the Treble and Bass knobs even
lower to balance things out.
The Treble knob is an important knob. Circuit-wise, it is actually a sort of "mixer" control, mixing between
the treble side and the middle/bass side. So if you want a less bassy sound, not only would you turn the
Bass control down but you might also want to turn the Treble control up to "mix" less of the middle/bass
frequencies into the sound.
There are many approaches to setting the tone knobs. You could start with them at noon and adjust from
there which is probably what most people intuitively do. Nothing really wrong with that. But, also try this
approach - start with all the tone knobs at the their minimum. You'll hear that the pedal is producing full
frequencies but they just aren't getting out. That's because on a Marshall, the tone circuit is after the first
two gain stages in the preamp, and the DLS follows this same basic architecture but using JFETS instead of
tubes. In contrast, a black- or silver-face Fender has its tone circuit way up front, after just one tube stage
and before the volume knob. Anyway, so start with the tone controls at minimum and then bring up the
Treble control to where it feels like you have enough highs, then bring up the Middle tone control to where
the tone is filled out enough. And finally by the time you get to the Bass control you may find you don't
need to add any Bass at all. I find that setting the tone controls this way, I end up with them not turned up
as high. This approach is particularly effective if you're trying to find that elusive clean/crunch sound where
it is just starting to overdrive and is really touch sensitive. Now, if you're going for maximum brewtal gain-
zorz, then try setting the Treble and Middle controls at their maximum and the Bass control at minimum
and fine-tune from there. In fact, a great AC/DC sound can be found by setting Treble and Middle at full and
Bass at zero and setting the Pre-Amp around 2:00 with the pedal in Super Bass mode.
To elaborate on the differences between the tone controls in SL and SB mode:
In SB mode, the Treble knob will control a higher slice of Treble frequencies. In SL mode, the Treble knob will
have more upper-mids present as you turn it up. So the Treble control is "fuller" sounding in SL mode.
The all-important Middle knob. In SB mode, you'll find that it boosts more of the low mids and in SL mode
more of the upper mids. This accounts for a big part of the difference in tone between the two models.
The Bass knob let's a LOT of low end through in either mode. In SB mode, the lows boosted are deeper. And
in SL mode the lows affected are up slightly higher, right in the "thump" zone. So in SL mode, you get
prominent upper mids from the Treble and Middle controls and thump frequencies from the Bass knob -
perfect for a rock sound that is full yet cuts through the band mix! No wonder Super Leads were used by,
um, almost everybody!
So spend time exploring the tone controls in both SB and SL modes to get a feel for their unique character-
istics!