Satriani Amp query

[dixiedregs]

Hi,new to this particular forum, but maybe somebody could shed some light on the following?
I recently saw Joe Satriani at the Hyde Park Festival in london and was immediately impressed by his very smooth,fluid tone,which to me sounded way better than I remember hearing on his albums.Now,I am very aware of his signature JSX amplifier,and have played through one on many occasions and I am very familiar with all it's functions and characteristic tone,but the tone Joe achieved at the London gig was markedly different from the tone of a regular JSX,which normally has a slightly 'grainy' character on the drive channels.
I was too far away from the stage to see what effects were being used,but I was close enough to see that one of his three amps had no channel light illuminated (which,in itself is odd,as even in standby mode the channel status is still normally indicated),and the two remaining amps were permanently on the clean channel(indicated by a green LED).
This leads me to the somewhat inevitable conclusion that he was using some sort of outboard overdrive/distortion for his lead and crunch tone.The official Satriani website is not very helpful in this regard,as it says that he sometimes uses a Boss DS1 Distortion,but to my ears that is not what I heard at the gig. If he is using some external pre-amp and running his amps as basically clean power amps,why go to the trouble of developing a signature amplifier with all it's unique features,and three specially voiced channels and not use the amp to it's designed potential.If he was indeed using a DS1 then maybe my ears need re-calibrating!
If anyone can enlighten me I'd really appreciate it,thanks.

[a-near-jaded-heart]

Could well be a Keeley Modded DS-1.

As for why have a signiture amp and not really use it, it's called being paid a shed load of money

[strings&things_custom]

i've had this experience .... i chalk it up to live sound vs. recorded sound ....it's never quite the same ... and it changes from show to show .... venue to venue ....

as for the amp without the pilot light on -- my best guess is that it was a spare amp

[SimonBradley]

Also, and this isn't necessarily applicable to Joe, the amps these guys actually use may be slightly different to the associated signature models you and I would see and buy.

A mate of mine was working with a band that was supporting Bon Jovi on one of the latter's enormo tours.

Sambora had six or seven full Fender Tonemaster stack but, round the back, was a single Mesa Boogie Mk IV combo, all miked up. Go figure...