Some of my favorite artists tones are from Slash, SRV, & KWS. My personal tone using my XXX head has a Slash type "in your face" punchy distortion that cleans up to a nice overdriven bluesy tone, and also a real fat boogieish metal distortion on the other channel. My classic 50 tone is a real fat creamy bluesy type tone when using the neck pup on the PRS, and great classic to 80's rock when distorted. Once I build my custom strat I will be able to achieve all the tones I desire, that I can't quite get yet. As far as my clean tone goes, the XXX is a little more punchy and aggressive(if that can be associated with clean) than the buttery warm tones of the classic 50. besides my amps and my guitar I use chorus, delay, and reverb to achieve my "3 demensional translucent" clean tones. Oh, and another thing that helps me achive certain big and fat rock tones is my marshall 1960a cabbinet.