I came at mine from the opposite end of the specrtum from Hunter - started clean and worked the gain up. First up had to adjust treble down from about 5 to 2/3 compared to Crawler, and ease the mid up a tad. Clean the Apache is superb, real depth, body and clarity from a big round bass to crystal highs, my JCM800 has never sounded good clean, but these do, so looking forward to trying it with more clean friendly amp options :)
As I turned the preamp up it got into really sexy driving chords - I could have banged out open chords for hours its just got that great semi distorted presence and bite (easy to see why 'run to you' is played on a Strat!) Still good clarity, pick more softly and it just oozes out the notes. Playing lead now you really get a lot from pick strength, you can just ease out notes or dig in a bit and get that classic strat snap.
With the preamp full up things got interesting, chords still great, went through my entire Blackmore repetoire, but now when playing lead, its more sensitive - too hard and the snap turns to quack and gets too thin, but you can still ease right off and get back to gentle break up. So I can see why a pedal starts to become essential for lead tones with it - but I required the classic strat clean/chords/blues and for that I reckon it's the bees knees, and I'm looking forward to further exploring its flexibility! :)
All in all very happy and fills a real gap in my tone arsenal perfectly, now I need the rest of the set! and the right pedal to compliment it regarding higher gain lead... (In series with the mid pup gives another great option, so I'm glad I wired that in). I might also step up from 10 gauge strings to 11's on the guitar to fill it out even more :)
