Silly questions on making my John Mayer DSP sound better! (Fender Mustang, 3RD Gen Scarlett Solo, Indie rock tones)

Hi everyone!

I recently got the John Mayer Neural DSP plugin, and while I can tell it has a lot of potential, I’m struggling to get it to sound good in my setup.

My chain is:

Fender Player II Mustang → Focusrite Scarlett Solo (3rd Gen) → Neural DSP (John Mayer)

I read that on the Scarlett Solo you’re supposed to:

•	Set the input to Instrument (INST)

•	Turn the gain very low (or all the way down)

But when I do that, my guitar sounds really thin — no body, no sustain, kind of lifeless. If I raise the gain, it sounds fuller but unpleasantly distorted, but I’m worried I’m doing something wrong gain-wise.

I’m mostly going for:

•	Edge-of-breakup tones

•	Clean indie rock tones

•	Lots of reverb and delay

•	Some chorus (from other plugins)

I also have physical delay and distortion pedals, but running them into the interface doesn’t sound great either.

A few questions:

1.	How should I properly set gain on the Scarlett Solo for amp sims?

2.	Should the input knob actually be all the way down, or just low enough to avoid clipping?

3.	Is there something specific about Mustangs or lower-output pickups I should account for?

4.	Any tips for getting more “body” and sustain from the John Mayer plugin?

I feel like I’m missing something basic in my gain staging. Any advice would be super appreciated