Originally Posted by: John Vacher

So I could play(when Im good enough) Unforgiven, with its clean intro, turn the volume on the guitar up and blast out the overdriven rhythm and lead parts while never having to touch the amp.

Hope this helps.

A few years ago, I was recording some tracks with Mike Keneally (he plays in Joe Satriani's band), and he was playing through my Axe FX. I was adjusting the gain settings on the amp model -- he pointed out to me that he was actually controlling a lot of that with his volume knob. I was surprised at how much nuance he puts into that, dynamically as he is playing.

Our instructor Mike Olekshy does this all the time when we shoot our song tutorials, too.

(Also: I *think* there are different types of volume pots you can install that increase this capability, so there's not a hard roll-off, making an even smoother transition between clean and dirty. If I'm not mistaken, our instructor Anders Mouridsen had this done?)

But I'm a dummy, so I tend to turn it up and leave it at 10! :)

-Carl.