Have you ever watched Michael Romeo's instructional, Guitar Chapter? He uses a Malmsteen like sound there.Again you can clearly see that he has gain too low.I dont know what equipment he used but he has The drive knob at 5 or even lower.You can hear that.As you lower the gain you clear up the sound,but you lose ''solo power''.If i put the drive knob at 5 or below i just cant solo properly.I have a good technique and i can even tap easily with a no-distorted sound,but it just sounds weak.You can see that Romeo taps or legato with minimal gain without any true effort in the fingers and it just sounds loud as if he had full gain.
So, that's what i try to achieve.Compressor helps ,yes, but its not the same result.Plus compressor doesnt help for the sound to be clear ,it adds some noise when you play.At least i have played with 3 types of compressors and i get that result.
I have a v-amp2 and i am pretty satisfied with it.Before that i used a zoom multi-effects unit ,and before that 3 pedals.A boss dist,an equaliser and a compressor.Oh, and a noise gate pedal.So far with these setups i havent been able to achieve a crystal clear full blown solo sound.I ask too much,i know, but me thinks that the secret lies soewhere in the punch knob or at a good compressor.The problem is that none of my equipment has a punch knob.
I am saying it again,when i tried a preamp some time ago,the Sansamp PSA-1 preamp at a friends house, i played with the punch knob and the result was similar to the one i am describing.Low gain but enough sensitivity and loudness at the strings to play a full blown legato solo.
I am a bit confused by the description of the ''punch'' as mentioned in the above posts.It souldnt do something like this but it does...