IV. Uberschall

The Uberschall gets us into true high-gain territory. We don't need to crank power amps or use boost pedals to get a saturated distortion tone. It has a very creamy sound, which can sound great for a lead tone or some modern hard rock. But it's also a bit muddy and a little fuzzy. Without a lot of tweaking the Uberschall won't give you a tight, djenty metal tone. However, with tweaking, it sounds pretty awesome.

You can't get the distortion characteristics of this amp on any other models. The Park and Marshall models sound 80's-ish, while the Mesa, ENGL, and Elektrik sound quite modern. This sits somewhere in between. Until Line 6 adds a Soldano SLO, 5150, and/or Mesa Mark, this is probably the amp to use to get as close as possible to those tones.

Many forum members claimed that Line 6 "broke" the Uber with firmware version 1.2, because the newer version was WAY muddier. (Of course, they brought back the old Uber as the Line 6 Elektrik later on, leaving little room for complaint.) I like the changes to the tone - I think it sounds more like a real amp. But from all the clips I've heard of the real amp, I don't think it sounds like a real Uberschall. And I do not think the presence knob acts like the real thing (while the Elektrik does ironically).

You have to add a strong EQ to your signal before the tone hits the amp to get the tone where I feel it belongs. There's quite a few ways to do this. My favorite is to use a Mid-Focus EQ. You can set the high-pass frequency to around 40-60%, really dialing out the muddy low-end. With the low-pass, you can set it to 100% to keep all the searing high frequencies, or you can move it downwards making the tone more and more creamy and vowel-y. An interesting trick is to boost the low pass Q. This actually creates a resonant peak at the cutoff frequency, so you can boost the exact frequencies you want to draw out the exact distortion tone you want.

You can also use a Studio EQ, such as with Low Freq 75 HZ, -5.5db and High Freq 800/1500 HZ, +6 db. I found good results from doubling up two Studio EQ's, so you can fine-tune the punch and mids frequencies too, to keep the tone thick while keeping it mud-free. Or you can just use a Parametric EQ to boost the center frequency you want. Or use combinations of EQ's. I like using a Mid-Focus to trim the mud and grit, and use a Parametric EQ to boost the upper mids/treble with the perfect Q.

You can alternatively use a Tube Screamer and turn down Bass while cranking Tone, but leave Treble around 50% (for the Classic Distortion, turn up Filter to around 70-75% and turn up treble just a bit).

The EQ controls behave a little strangely. Mids seems to also affect the highs - I like to turn it up high and use EQ effects to really dial in the midrange response I want - usually I'll cut around 750 HZ a bit. Treble gives you good control over dialing in just the right amount of sizzle on top. Presence behaves more like a traditional presence control than the midrange-peak sweep on the actual amp, but watch out because strong settings will strongly affect the tone.

I tend to leave the DEP's alone or near 50%, with the exception of Bias X. I used to adjust Hum to about 70% which seemed to change the tone a little, but then I noticed there's this faint digital sounding tone in additional to the main guitar tone - it's most audible when doing slow bends on the higher strings. So I now leave it closer to 50%; however, you have more wiggle room as long as you keep Master around or lower than 50%. Bias X I like to turn up, which gives notes more of a blooming type sound and makes the amp more expressive. However, too much makes the tone sound a bit fake. I usually settle around 65-70%. If anything I'll reduce Sag a bit, but this will make the tone less djenty and more percussive. Bias can change the mid-range response heavily and make the tone a little more gritty at higher settings. The Master DEP alone doesn't seem to have a very strong effect on the tone, other than compressing the tone at higher settings. But in combination with the other DEP's, it acts to amplify or diminish their effect. So I treat it like a compressor, which comes in handy for tones where you don't want a heavily-saturated distortion, but you want good sustain. However, I balance the other DEP's against it, keeping them more conservative if I boost this. For a super smooth tone, I find 40-45% is good. Anything lower starts to lose tone. Anything higher introduces a bit of roughness.

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