Hey, I'm late to the party. Can we get it up and going again? Here's my contribution:
What is it?
Tele-clone, bridge P/U, tone 100%, vol maybe 70%
-> Alesis NanoCompressor (1/2U rack-mount), used not so much for compression but for about 18dB boost (maybe clipping 1db off the tops of the peaks, very fast)
-> Vox ADVT30 amp using the "Black 2x12" sim, treble/mid/bass all about halfway up their respective ranges, but bass bumped down a bit, mid bumped *up* a bit, and treble bumped up a bit more than the mid; gain was about 70% (nice and gritty all by itself, but not too much), vol 100%, and I used the built-in soak to drop the volume to loud bedroom levels
-> mic'd with an AKG P170 (small-diaphragm condenser) about a foot in front of the grille, pointed straight at the center of the (10") speaker
The amp is good for practice, but in the 3-4 years I've had it, I've gotten a tone I really liked exactly two other times. Two! And then tonight this; I'd never thought to use the make-up gain knob on the compressor just to drive the signal harder into the pre-amp. The amp is not great sounding overall, I think due to it's age and generation of modeling (pretty early), and also to the 10" speaker. But tonight the sound was really "on".
Let me know if I'm just imagining it sounds good, or if I just got lucky, or if it seems like I could make getting decent tones out of it a repeatable process.