Dynamic Hi Gain Sound with the Boss GT-10

Dynamic

In general playing rhythm guitar with high gain sounds is critical because distortion works like a compressor. You loose the dynamic of your playing. Therefore every good sound engineer will ask you to use less gain for your rhythm parts. I know this but nevertheless when playing palm mute riffs I tend to increase the gain in order to get a fat guitar sound.

Unfortunaly my accentuated riffs then sound like an organ. The notes are switched on and off, but there isn't left any dynamic. Then my first action is to increase the loudness because otherwise my guitar is lost between the other instruments.

Gain Stages

In opposite to a distortion stompbox with one high gain op-amp good tube amps consist of several gain stages. Each gain stages amplifies the signal. And each gain stage increases the distortion, however only a bit! The difference between a crunchy Fender and a heavy Mesa Rectifier is the number of gain stages.

Conclusion
A lot of gain stages with little distortion are better than one high gain stage like the op-amps in the stompboxes.

Our Boss GT-10

We need to use as many gain stages as we can get. Therefore the GAIN SW is remains to MEDIUM and we use the Tube Screamer as another gain stage. If the bass strings sound muddy then we'll use the tone modify effect "FAT" in front of the Tube Screamer.
Important: Don't increase the gain of the preamp effect beyond 50!