Sustain, distortion, and overdrive

[greiswig]

Hi, all,
I've got a Hot Cat 30, which has a pretty nice clean channel and good distortion on the overdrive channel. But it is a little less "organic" sounding than I'd like...I like to hear the string itself, rather than just the amp. So I end up turning the gain way down on the overdrive channel. It works to a point.

Then I hear something like Normster's great clips here:
https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.ph ... ? Thanks!