Hello - I’m fairly new to playing guitar seriously. I have a fender fat strat (Hss) and a fender blues junior amp. Any suggestions on getting a clean tone? For now I’m practicing the basic open chords and some left hand exercises but would love to hear that clean Strat sound as I practice.
Hmm
People suggest dial the volume of the guitar down to 6-7.
The volume low and the master volume high
It’s a relative one trick pony amp6
The other suggestion seems to be but a Princeton…
And welcome to the forum!
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I suggest:
- Keep your preamp volume (that’s “Volume”, rather than “Master”) on the lower side of the dial. This is the biggest key to keeping the tone clean.
- Fat switch off (this is another key to keeping it clean)
- Master volume to taste (like all of us, you’ll probably perceive louder as better)
- Start with amp tone controls (bass/middle/treble) at around the 12 o’clock position (i.e., between 6 and 7). You can adjust these to taste, later. As a side-note, on a Blues Jr. putting all tone controls in the middle like this gives you more of a scooped tone than a flat tone, which is not an intuitive result, but it’s how the Blues Jr.'s tone stack is set up.
- Reverb on 3 or so. (That’s the value 3, NOT the 3 o’clock position. Again, you can adjust this to taste.)
- I’d start with your guitar on its neck pickup. That’s subjective, but a Strat’s neck pickup is a great foundation for beautiful clean tones. (It’s worth noting that single coils usually have a lower output compared to humbuckers, and lower output pickups have more “head room” before they start making the amp dirty. All that depends on the exact pickups in question and the rest of the rig, though, and I’m definitely not suggesting you can’t play clean with a humbucker…)
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A tubescreamer pedal into this amp offers lots of variety to your sound. In fact fender clean amp, strat single coils and a tubescreamer is one of the classic sounds.
All the advice given is really useful-its a nice amp that can go from clean to dirty with a role of your volume pot.
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Appreciate all the info and yes im happy with what i was able get frm the amp after reading through all your comments!.. well happy for now 
thank you!
oh great. i do have the ibanez tubescreamer
If you have a tube screamer try something like this:
- Set your amp up clean, as I talked about above.
- Then raise the amp’s Volume knob until the tone just starts breaking up.
- Now back off your guitar’s volume off until the tone sounds clean, again.
- Then try playing softly, then with a harder attack on the strings, and note how you can change the tone and amount of breakup with just your playing.
- Then try playing and rolling your guitar volume knob up and then back. Again, note the impact on the tone and breakup.
- Roll your guitar volume back so the tone is clean, again.
- Now turn on your tube screamer. As a starting point, try the tube screamer volume at around 1 or 2 o’clock, the tube screamer drive at around 8 or 9 o’clock, and the tube screamer tone around noon. Repeat experiments with the guitar’s volume knob, and play with the tube screamer’s controls, too.
Dear sir, you just opened up a window and let in a whole lot of fresh air. Someone here with a tube amp? Dig it!
First off let’s start with dialing in a tube amp:
I’ve been following these steps for years and have never looked back. Dial in your amp with this approach and keep up with your practice routine, and enjoy. Report back when you are ready for some next steps.
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