Claude · Music by Design · Tonepack

Tonepack 01 · Four Guitars · Twelve Tones

One Guitar A Week

Three tones per guitar — a clean, an edge-of-breakup, and a screamer — built from the pedals you actually use: the Butter Machine, the Jan Ray, the Broadcast and the DCX, with the Venus as the eject button. Nothing here needs a pedal you don't reach for. Four weeks, one guitar each. Week 1 is the Suhr Custom Standard.

Design note. The mistake with a four-guitar board is running the same patch into all of them and wondering why only one sounds right. Each guitar here gets read as a physics problem first — what the wood and the pickups already do — and the tones are built to either finish what the guitar started or supply what it can't. The Custom Standard lacks bark, so its edge tone is the only one in the pack built on the Broadcast's low-cut. The PRS has bark to spare, so its edge tone leaves the low-cut off. Same pedals, opposite jobs. Rig assumed: Badger 18 MkII into the Suhr 2×12 deep (dry, Mobius in the valve loop), Mesa 5:25 wet with TimeLine → BigSky in front, DCX as the desk before the splitter.

00The Constants

Things that don't change across the twelve tones, so the cards below only list what moves.

Element	Setting	Why
Broadcast	on in every tone unless stated · gain barely open · level unity	the through-line — the console-preamp glue that makes the four guitars sound like one player
DCX	unity · flat · treated as a desk, not a boost	lift it only where a card says so
Badger Power	home: 9 o'clock · with Ironman for anything above	the drive tones want the power section working
Badger Bass / Presence	Bass 11 · Presence 1 o'clock	the 2×12 deep supplies the low end; don't add more
Wet side	BigSky as named per card · TimeLine as named · Mesa clean, vol 3	wet is 30–40% of the room on cleans, 20% on screamers
Mobius (Badger loop)	off unless the card names it	post-preamp chorus is a clean-tone tool; it smears drives

CARD LEGEND: teal = clean · amber = edge of breakup · rust = screamer · chips show the chain: amber chip = on, teal chip = in the Badger loop, struck-through = off · all knob positions are clock positions

01Week 1 · Suhr Custom Standard

Body chambered okoume · Board Indian rosewood · Neck SSV single-coil · Bridge SSH+ humbucker · Character the most refined of the four; the chambers add sustain and compression, okoume is warm and midrange-forward, rosewood softens the attack, the SSV is the smoothest Suhr neck pickup there is. Net: it rounds off the first 20ms of every note and the 1.5–3kHz band where bark lives. Plays the best. Barks the least.

Setup first · raise the SSH+ a half-turn on the treble side · 10s on this guitar if you're on 9s elsewhere · the chambered body wants more string energy than the solidbodies

Clean · The Chamber

Let the guitar do what it does

This is the tone you bought the guitar for, so don't fix anything. The chambers give you sustain and compression for free; the Jan Ray supplies the top-end sparkle the SSV and okoume can't make; the Mobius after the preamp turns the whole thing into the Landau clean, but rounder than the Suhr S can be.

Broadcast · barely openJan RayButter MachineDCX liftVenusMobius · chorusBigSky · plate

Guitar	neck SSV · tone 8 · volume 7 (roll to 5 = jazz box, 10 = edge)
Jan Ray	Vol 1 · Gain 9 · Bass 11 · Treble 1 · Saturation trim 2 o'clock — run as a hot clean
Badger	Gain 10 · Drive 8 · Treble 1
Mobius	chorus · rate slow · depth 25% · mix 30%
Wet	BigSky plate, decay 4s, mix 35% · TimeLine off

Edge of breakup · The Bark

Fix the one thing it lacks

Bark is upper-mids and attack, and this guitar rounds off both. The Butter Machine and Jan Ray round things further, so they're off. The Broadcast's low-cut strips the okoume's low-mid bloom and leaves its push exactly where the guitar is missing energy; the DCX adds the top. This is the only tone in the pack where the low-cut is on.

Broadcast · LOW CUT ON · gain 1Jan RayButter MachineDCX · treble liftVenusMobiusBigSky · spring

Guitar	bridge SSH+ · tone 10 · volume 10
Broadcast	Gain 1 · range LOW · low-cut ON · level unity
DCX	output just above unity · treble +2 · bass flat
Badger	Gain 11 · Drive 9 · Treble 2
Wet	BigSky spring small, mix 20% · TimeLine off — keep this dry, it's an argument

Screamer · The Fusion

The chambers as a feature

Chambered compression is what stops a stacked drive falling apart, so this guitar takes the Venus better than the others. Butter Machine with the Sparkle trimmer up — reverse of the room advice, because the okoume already brings the low-mids — Jan Ray as a clean boost in front, Venus on top for the eject. Henderson on the neck, comping on the middle.

Broadcast · barely openJan Ray · boostButter MachineDCX liftVenus · ejectMobiusTimeLine slapBigSky · hall

Guitar	middle (neck + split bridge if the push-pull's there) · tone 7 · volume 8 · neck for solos
Jan Ray	Vol 2 · Gain 8 · EQ flat — a boost, not a drive
Butter Machine	Vol 12 · Gain 1 · Bass 11 · Treble 1 · Low-Mid trim 12 · Sparkle trim 2 o'clock
Venus	Vol 11 · Gain 1 · Tone 11 — step on it with the Butter Machine still on
Badger	Gain 12 · Drive 10 · Treble 1
Wet	TimeLine 320ms, 15% mix, 2 repeats · BigSky small hall, mix 25%

◈ Week 1 · Focus Protocol · Custom Standard

Mon / Tue — The Chamber. Pack 06 Law 04 triad walk and the slash chords (D/E, F♯/E, G/E) on the neck pickup. Volume knob only: 5 → 7 → 10. Learn where the compression starts.

Wed / Thu — The Bark. The three sliding runs (Ladder, Diagonal, Long Slide) into this tone. Then a 12-bar in E with the low-cut on. If it still doesn't bark, it's the pickup height, not the pedal.

Fri / Sat — The Fusion. Pack 05 Law 06 dim7 displacement and the tritone-sub bars of The Proof. Venus only in bars 9–10. The Long Note practice on the neck pickup to close.

Sun — The Steal. One Landau clean track, one Henderson track, into The Chamber and The Fusion respectively. Which tone gets closest? Write it on the card.

02Week 2 · Suhr S

Pickups ML Standard single-coils — the Landau wind · Character the solidbody with the glassiest, most open-top-end single-coils you own. Everything that the Custom Standard rounds off, this guitar hands you raw. Bark is free; warmth is the thing to add. This is the guitar the Jan Ray and Butter Machine were designed around, literally.

Clean · The Coast

The Landau clean, as built

Neck-and-middle, Jan Ray as a hot clean with the treble lower than on the Custom Standard because the ML pickups already supply it, chorus in the loop, big plate. This is the reference tone for the whole rig — the one every other clean is measured against.

Broadcast · barely openJan RayButter MachineDCX liftVenusMobius · chorusBigSky · plate

Guitar	position 4 (neck + middle) · tone 7 · volume 8
Jan Ray	Vol 1 · Gain 9 · Bass 12 · Treble 11 · Saturation trim 1 o'clock
Badger	Gain 10 · Drive 8 · Treble 12
Mobius	chorus · rate slow · depth 30% · mix 35%
Wet	BigSky plate 5s, mix 40% · TimeLine 380ms, 10% mix

Edge of breakup · The Stack

Jan Ray into Butter Machine, the actual Landau chain

Both pedals on, both low, the volume knob doing the gain. Butter Machine Sparkle down and Low-Mid up — this guitar has more top than a room needs. The Broadcast's low-cut stays off: you want the S's low end kept, not stripped.

Broadcast · barely openJan RayButter MachineDCX liftVenusMobiusBigSky · plate

Guitar	neck · tone 8 · volume 6–8 (the knob is the drive control)
Jan Ray	Vol 1 · Gain 10 · Bass 12 · Treble 11 · Sat 12
Butter Machine	Vol 12 · Gain 11 · Bass 12 · Treble 11 · Low-Mid trim 2 o'clock · Sparkle trim 10 o'clock
Badger	Gain 11 · Drive 9 · Treble 12
Wet	BigSky plate 4s, mix 30% · TimeLine off

Screamer · The Fire

Hendrix through the Suhr

Single-coils into a fuzz-shaped scream: Venus with the gain up, Butter Machine underneath to keep it from going fizzy, bridge pickup, tone rolled off to 6 so the ML top-end doesn't spray. This is the one screamer in the pack that wants the Thornicus swapped in for the Venus on a Hendrix day.

Broadcast · barely openJan RayButter MachineDCX liftVenusMobiusTimeLineBigSky · spring

Guitar	bridge · tone 6 · volume 10 · neck for the Little Wing bits
Butter Machine	Vol 12 · Gain 12 · Bass 1 · Treble 10
Venus	Vol 11 · Gain 3 · Tone 10
Badger	Gain 1 · Drive 11 · Treble 11 · Ironman engaged
Wet	TimeLine 400ms, 20% mix, 3 repeats · BigSky spring, mix 15%

03Week 3 · Suhr Modern Plus

Pickups HSH — SSV neck · V60LP middle · SSH+ bridge · Character the Swiss-army Suhr. Split positions 2 and 4 are the glassiest cleans in the collection; the SSH+ bridge is the tightest, most modern drive voice you own. It has no bad position, which is its problem: it's the guitar most likely to sound like nothing in particular. The tones here each commit to one pickup and stay there.

Clean · The Glass

Position 2, no drive at all

Neck-and-middle split gives a quack the Custom Standard can't make and the S makes too aggressively. Jan Ray off — this is the one clean in the pack with no drive pedal, because the split positions are already bright and adding a Jan Ray makes them brittle. The DCX does a small mid push instead.

Broadcast · barely openJan RayButter MachineDCX · mid pushVenusMobius · vibeBigSky · hall

Guitar	position 2 or 4 (split) · tone 9 · volume 9
DCX	unity · bass +1 · treble −1 — warm it slightly
Badger	Gain 9 · Drive 8 · Treble 11
Mobius	vibe · rate slow · depth 20% · mix 30%
Wet	BigSky hall 6s, mix 40% · TimeLine 450ms, 15% mix

Edge of breakup · The Henderson

SSH+ bridge, tone rolled back, Butter Machine

The Henderson trick is a bridge humbucker with the tone knob at 4–5, so the pick attack stays but the fizz goes. The Butter Machine at moderate gain gives it the sing; the Jan Ray in front lifts it. This is the tightest of the four edge tones because the SSH+ on a solid body doesn't bloom — it snaps.

Broadcast · barely openJan Ray · boostButter MachineDCX liftVenusMobiusTimeLine slapBigSky · room

Guitar	bridge SSH+ · tone 4–5 · volume 8
Jan Ray	Vol 1 · Gain 8 · flat
Butter Machine	Vol 12 · Gain 12 · Bass 11 · Treble 12 · Low-Mid 1 · Sparkle 12
Badger	Gain 12 · Drive 9 · Treble 1
Wet	TimeLine 300ms, 15% mix · BigSky room, mix 20%

Screamer · The Modern

The only tone that uses the Badger's own drive channel properly

The SSH+ into a genuinely driven Badger is the one high-gain sound the rig can make without it turning to mush — because the pickup is tight and the body is solid. Butter Machine as a tight boost into the amp, not as the distortion. Venus for the lead lift. Keep the wet side almost off; this tone is all about the 2×12.

Broadcast · gain 11Jan RayButter Machine · boostDCX liftVenus · leadsMobiusTimeLineBigSky · small

Guitar	bridge SSH+ · tone 7 · volume 10
Broadcast	Gain 11 · range HIGH · low-cut off
Butter Machine	Vol 2 · Gain 9 · Bass 10 · Treble 12 — a boost
Venus	Vol 12 · Gain 12 · Tone 12
Badger	Gain 2 · Drive 12 · Treble 12 · Presence 11 · Ironman engaged
Wet	BigSky small hall, mix 10% · TimeLine off

04Week 4 · PRS Custom 24 Core

Pickups 85/15 humbuckers · Character the only non-Suhr, and the only guitar whose humbuckers are voiced bright. The 85/15s are PRS's clearest pickups — more top than most humbuckers, more bottom than any single-coil, and a midrange that barks without asking. It's the opposite problem to the Custom Standard: the job here is control, not supply. The 25" scale and maple cap make it the snappiest guitar in the room.

Clean · The Bell

Neck 85/15 with the volume at 6

A PRS neck humbucker at full volume is too much for a clean — it darkens and thickens. At 6 the 85/15 opens up and rings like a bell. Jan Ray with the bass down to keep the low end from piling up in the 2×12, and no chorus — the 85/15 clean has enough going on.

Broadcast · barely openJan RayButter MachineDCX liftVenusMobiusBigSky · plate

Guitar	neck · tone 8 · volume 6 (this is the whole tone)
Jan Ray	Vol 1 · Gain 9 · Bass 10 · Treble 12 · Sat 12
Badger	Gain 9 · Drive 8 · Treble 12 · Bass 10
Wet	BigSky plate 4s, mix 30% · TimeLine 400ms, 10% mix

Edge of breakup · The Growl

Bridge 85/15, Broadcast on high range, low-cut OFF

The mirror of the Custom Standard's Bark: same pedal, opposite settings. The PRS has bark already, so the Broadcast runs its high range with the full low end kept, and the tone does the growl the Suhrs can't. Butter Machine off — it'd smooth the one thing you want.

Broadcast · HIGH range · gain 12Jan Ray · liftButter MachineDCX liftVenusMobiusBigSky · spring

Guitar	bridge · tone 7 · volume 8
Broadcast	Gain 12 · range HIGH · low-cut OFF · level unity
Jan Ray	Vol 12 · Gain 9 · Bass 10 · Treble 12
Badger	Gain 11 · Drive 9 · Treble 11 · Bass 10
Wet	BigSky spring, mix 15% · TimeLine off

Screamer · The Wall

Everything on, once

The one tone in the pack that stacks all three drives: Jan Ray boost → Butter Machine → Venus, into the Badger with the drive up. It only works on this guitar because the 85/15s stay clear under gain where the SSH+ gets congested. Wet side nearly off. Ironman on. This is the "I have a 2×12 and I intend to use it" tone.

Broadcast · gain 10Jan Ray · boostButter MachineDCX liftVenusMobiusTimeLineBigSky · small

Guitar	bridge · tone 8 · volume 10 · neck for sustain solos
Jan Ray	Vol 2 · Gain 8 · flat
Butter Machine	Vol 12 · Gain 1 · Bass 10 · Treble 12 · Low-Mid 12 · Sparkle 11
Venus	Vol 11 · Gain 1 · Tone 12
Badger	Gain 1 · Drive 11 · Treble 12 · Bass 9 · Ironman engaged
Wet	BigSky small hall, mix 10%

4BThe Amp Sheet · Badger 18 MkII & Mesa Express 5:25

The pedal cards above only give the Badger a line each. This is the full pass: every control on both amps, for all twelve tones, and the logic behind the numbers so you can correct them.

How the Badger actually works

Gain is the preamp, Drive is the power section, Power is the room

Three controls people treat as one. They are not.

Gain sets how hard the preamp valve is hit. Below 11 it's a clean channel; 12–1 is where the pedals start to hear an amp instead of a wire; 2+ is the amp's own crunch. Drive pushes the phase inverter and the EL84s — it adds compression and bloom without adding fizz, and it's the control that makes a drive pedal sound inside the amp instead of in front of it. Power scales the output stage: at 9 o'clock you can run Drive at 12 in a Norfolk house and get real power-valve sag; at 3 o'clock you need the Ironman. Presence is post-EQ top end — it's what makes a scooped single-coil sound "expensive" and a humbucker sound harsh, so it moves in opposite directions for the Suhrs and the PRS. Bass at 11 in every tone except the PRS ones, because the 2×12 deep cab is already adding the low end you'd normally dial in.

The rule for the whole pack: cleans are Gain low, Drive low. Edge tones are Gain ~11–12 and Drive up — the amp supplying feel, the pedal supplying voice. Screamers are Gain up, Drive up, Ironman on. The pedal cards never change what the amp is doing behind them by more than that.

Tone	Gain	Drive	Bass	Treble	Presence	Power	Loop	Ironman
CS · Chamber	10	8	11	1	1	9	Mobius chorus	off
CS · Bark	11	9	10	2	2	10	—	off
CS · Fusion	12	10	11	1	1	10	—	optional
S · Coast	10	8	11	12	11	9	Mobius chorus	off
S · Stack	11	9	11	12	11	10	—	off
S · Fire	1	11	11	11	10	12	—	ON
MP · Glass	9	8	11	11	11	9	Mobius vibe	off
MP · Henderson	12	9	11	1	12	10	—	off
MP · Modern	2	12	11	12	11	1	—	ON
PRS · Bell	9	8	10	12	10	9	—	off
PRS · Growl	11	9	10	11	10	10	—	off
PRS · Wall	1	11	9	12	9	1	—	ON

Read the columns, not the rows. Presence goes 1–2 on the Custom Standard (it needs the top), 10–11 on the S (it has the top), 9–10 on the PRS (85/15s are already bright). Bass drops to 9–10 on every PRS tone and the Bark, because the humbucker and the 2×12 together pile up under 150Hz. Power sits at 9 for cleans and climbs with the gain — never run a screamer at Power 9, the output stage isn't doing anything and the tone is all preamp.

How the Mesa actually works in this rig

It's a clean wet amp with TimeLine and BigSky in front — that changes every setting

The Express 5:25 was designed as a two-channel drive amp. You use one channel, clean, with time-based effects hitting its input. So the settings are the opposite of the manual's.

Channel 1, Clean mode, always. Crunch, Blues and Burn are never used — the wet side has no business distorting, and if it does, the repeats fur up. Gain stays at 9–10 o'clock across all twelve tones: enough to hear the amp, never enough to hear the preamp. Master is the wet/dry balance control — it's how loud the room is relative to the Badger, and it moves per tone (higher on cleans, lower on screamers). Contour is a mid-scoop that sounds great in a shop and terrible under a Badger — it's off in every tone, because the wet side needs mids to be heard behind the dry. Mid is the most important EQ control on this amp for you: it's what keeps reverb tails from turning into fog. Reverb is off — the BigSky is the reverb, and two reverbs in series is the fastest way to a wash. 25W not 5W for the wet side: the 5W mode compresses, and a wet amp that compresses swallows the delay repeats. The 10" speaker wants the headroom.

Tone	Channel	Gain	Treble	Mid	Bass	Master	Contour	Watts
CS · Chamber	1 · Clean	10	12	1	10	3.5	off	25
CS · Bark	1 · Clean	9	1	1	9	2	off	25
CS · Fusion	1 · Clean	10	12	2	10	3	off	25
S · Coast	1 · Clean	10	11	1	11	4	off	25
S · Stack	1 · Clean	10	11	1	11	3	off	25
S · Fire	1 · Clean	9	11	12	10	2	off	25
MP · Glass	1 · Clean	10	11	1	12	4	off	25
MP · Henderson	1 · Clean	10	12	2	10	3	off	25
MP · Modern	1 · Clean	9	12	12	9	1.5	off	25
PRS · Bell	1 · Clean	10	12	1	9	3.5	off	25
PRS · Growl	1 · Clean	9	12	1	9	2.5	off	25
PRS · Wall	1 · Clean	9	12	12	8	1.5	off	25

Read the Master column as the wet/dry mix: 4 for the big cleans, 3–3.5 for the edge tones, 1.5–2 for the screamers. Mid climbs to 1–2 on cleans so the tails carry, drops to 12 on screamers so the wet doesn't fight the 2×12. Bass never goes above 12 — a 10" combo with the bass up and a BigSky in front is mud, and the Badger cab is already doing the low end for both amps.

Balancing the Two Amps — the 30-second check

Set the tone on the Badger with the Mesa muted. Bring the Mesa's Master up from zero until you hear the room get wider, not louder. The moment it gets louder, back off a hair. That's the number. Do this once per tone, write it on the card, and it'll be within half a number of the table above. If the Mesa is ever audible as a separate amp, it's too loud; if you switch it off and nothing changes, it's too quiet.

05The Four Weeks

One guitar per week. The other three stay in their cases. The point is to learn what each one is before you learn what it can do.

WEEK 1

Custom Standard

Chamber · Bark · Fusion. Fix the bark on Wednesday. Don't touch it Monday.

WEEK 2

Suhr S

Coast · Stack · Fire. The reference clean. Compare it to Week 1's Chamber on Sunday.

WEEK 3

Modern Plus

Glass · Henderson · Modern. Commit to one pickup per tone; never wander.

WEEK 4

Custom 24

Bell · Growl · Wall. Volume at 6 on the clean is the whole lesson.

The Weekly Protocol

Mon/Tue clean · Wed/Thu edge · Fri/Sat screamer · Sunday The Steal into the closest tone. Each session opens with the three sliding runs into that day's tone, because the runs are the fastest way to hear whether a tone is right across the whole neck — a tone that works at the 5th fret and falls apart at the 17th is a tone with the wrong treble setting. Write the corrections on the card. By Week 4 this document should be wrong in twelve specific places, and those twelve corrections are your actual tonepack.

The Thing To Notice

The Broadcast appears in every tone and never does the same job twice: glue on the cleans, bark on the Custom Standard, growl on the PRS, a hot front-end on the Modern. The Jan Ray is a hot clean on the Suhrs and a lift on the PRS. The Butter Machine is the sing on three guitars and off entirely on the one with bark to spare. Same four pedals, twelve different chains. That's the design lesson: the tone isn't in the pedal, it's in what the guitar needed.