What are these settings on a Peavey Nashville 400?

[Brandon Keene]

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Very humbly, I need an intro course to this amp.

The picture shows everything that has me stumped. I’ve read some definitions of what these things are in general, but I thought I could get some better clarity from the steel community.

Better yet, those of you who play through these, what are your go-to settings?

[Roger Crawford]

Go to the Peavey Electronics website and do a search for user manuals. The NV400 manual will explain all of the controls as well as give some sample settings.

[Richard Sinkler]

Post gain is like a master volume control. Pre gain controls the volume of the preamp signal going to the power amp. The post gain should be higher than pre gain to minimize distortion. I run my post gain all the way up (for gigs) and control the overall volume with the pre gain.

The shift control centers on a midrange frequency. Most folks I know put it at 800 (hertz). The mid control now determines how much that frequency is cut or boosted. I set my shift at 800 and the mid at about -6.

Presence is a high-high frequency tone control.

The switch you are pointing to is a ground switch. On old tube amps like Fenders, the ground switch would be used to try to stop hum and to stop getting shocked if you touched your guitar strings and a microphone at the same time. OUCH! I find the NV400 ground switch to be totally useless, but I don't sing and don't have the possibility of touching strings and mic together. That may be a use for the switch though.

[Brandon Keene]

Hey, thanks for the walkthrough! This is really helpful. Now I am tempted to set up a mic and see if that is what happens. It might be worth the shock

Post gain is like a master volume control. Pre gain controls the volume of the preamp signal going to the power amp. The post gain should be higher than pre gain to minimize distortion. I run my post gain all the way up (for gigs) and control the overall volume with the pre gain.

The shift control centers on a midrange frequency. Most folks I know put it at 800 (hertz). The mid control now determines how much that frequency is cut or boosted. I set my shift at 800 and the mid at about -6.

Presence is a high-high frequency tone control.

The switch you are pointing to is a ground switch. On old tube amps like Fenders, the ground switch would be used to try to stop hum and to stop getting shocked if you touched your guitar strings and a microphone at the same time. OUCH! I find the NV400 ground switch to be totally useless, but I don't sing and don't have the possibility of touching strings and mic together. That may be a use for the switch though.

[Brandon Keene]

Thanks for the tip! I did find this manual. https://assets.peavey.com/literature/ma ... 370379.pdf

It does explain things, and it's helpful to have it in lay terms as well.

Go to the Peavey Electronics website and do a search for user manuals. The NV400 manual will explain all of the controls as well as give some sample settings.

[John Talbott]

In case you're interested, here is the link to the aforementioned manual:
https://assets.peavey.com/literature/ma ... 370379.pdf

[John Talbott]

Ooops ... I missed the "you found it" DOH!

[Jon Jaffe]

The settings labeled NASH were the settings Jeff Newman used in 1982.

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[Lane Gray]

Instead of cutting the high mids, Curly Chalker boosted the low mids.
I've found that, no matter where you set one of the two midrange knobs (mid and shift), they sound best when they oppose each other as if in a mirror. You can look up the settings other people use, but I really think you should get to know what the knobs do to your tone and how to find YOUR tone.

For all of the Peavey steel amps, I've got a procedure I recommend for dialing in the sound that pleases you, but you should do it in two stages with a quiet break in between, because you can lose discernment (called "ear blindness"), especially if you play at gig volume, which you need to do here, because what sounds good quiet won't be the same onstage..

Set everything to noon, and play a bit AT STAGE VOLUME as you boost the lows. Turn it up until it gets "woofy" and then back it off a touch.

Ignore the mids for now, as they define the flavor of the sound from sweet to nasal and "honky" (tonk sold separately)

Play a bit as you turn the highs up until you get the brightness you want, but get ready to turn it back down a bit.

Now the Presence is an ultra-high (I want to say the highs are centered at 2500 Hz, and presence at 5K, but that's from memory and doesn't matter much if I have the numbers wrong). As you turn it up, you'll notice a glassy sheen at the top end, but you'll probably want to turn the highs down as you crank this up.

When you're happy with the bottom and top, take a break because you want to be fresh for defining the flavor of your sound.

Play as you turn the mid down and the shift up (and Curly's sound didn't suck, so try the other way) but most of us end up near either 10 and 2 or 2 and 10. When you get close, fiddle with one knob or the other as you play some, moving the shift a little while leaving the mids alone, or moving the mids whilst leaving the shift.

It only takes forever the first few times, because you'll get used to the rough shape of your tone.