High pitched amp Settings

I want my amp to have a real hi-pitched setting with lots of distortion. The problem is, I dont have an effects pad. I was wondering what some people would put there amp settings on to obtain this sound. The dials on my amp read as following: GAIN, EDGE, LEVEL, LOW, PARAMID, SHIFT, HIGH (Which is cranked by the way) PRESENCE, GAIN (again) REVERB AND VARIABLE CROSSOVER. I am fairly new with the amp and to be honest not sure what all these knobs do. Some help or advice would be sweet, thanks. :confused:

What brand and model amp is it? Also, do you have an example song of the sound you're going for?

Its an older model peavy, but the thing is it was bought off a pawn shop, and im no good at amps at all. The only things i can tell you is its about two feet tall and 2, 2 1/2 ft wide, weighs bout 80 pounds. I wanna try to make it sound like Slayers-spill the blood after the song goes through the intro. X-mass presents without instructions blow.

I'm at work, so I can't give the song a listen right now, but I'll give it a go when I get home this afternoon.

Does the amp have a name on it anywhere other than Peavey, or a model number somewhere? How many speakers are in it? I'm guessing it has 2-12" speaker's because of it's weight. Also, it it a tube amp or a solid state amp? Sorry for all the question, but your description of the amp has peaked my interest.

I should thank you. There was a plate that belonged on the back of the amp to mark what it was but it was gone. Looking for an i.d # i found the label to it. then looked into it. Its a session 500. It's alot better of an amp then i thought havent found up much to make its sound the way i want though. Check out the specs here --> http://www.fmsystems.net/sp_session500.htm

That's quite an interesting amp, and I'm sure you can get pretty close to the tone you're after with it. The only thing that I can see where you might have a problem, is the distortion. I don't believe that amp was intended for high gain tones. But, what you might want to do is get an overdrive (not distorion) pedal and run it along with the amps distortion. I do this quite often with my amps, as it's like adding another channel to the amp. I personally use an MXR ZW-44 overdrive. Or, you could go all out and get a full on distortion pedal. I can't really recomend any, because I only have experience with a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone, and that didn't work out too well for me.

Hey there

I agree with PrsPlaya, that amp doesnt seem to have been built to make evry hi-gain sounds...You will need a pedal. If you go with an overdrive pedal, then you will use it at the same time as your amp is on its distortion channel, this means you can effectively have three stages: clean, amp drive, and off the wall drive from your amp and pedal.
You could also get a distortion pedal, from the sound you want, I think the Boss Metal Zone would be ideal(although the sound of this pedal is an aquired taste...and PrsPlaya seems to agree). Otherwise you could get a Boss Od20 twin pedal, which has about 20 different overdrive and distortion sounds, including the Metal Zone and maybe even an Mxr overdrive.

as for you amp, it sounds like you would want high,gain and presence to be almost full-up...it is not a guitar tone I like much, but that should get you a very "sharp" sound.

Thank for your help and advice, i think ill take it and start lookin at a pedals.

well, first just go and set your high control well up, then your presence and gain almost as high...see if maybe you can get as much gain in your amp as you want...if you can, there is no point in buying a pedal...except the diversity it'll give you...adding more sounds to the ones you can make.