After playing both channels with an a/b back and forth I'd really like to get a touch more natural overdrive out of the channel 2 so I could set channel 1 as a cleaner sound still a hint of pushed, any ideas ?
I'd rather not use a pedal or the effects loop, are there any values I can play with or anything like that?
Hard to say. Both channels are very vintage, Channel 2 is 51 years old in its design...it's straight out of a 1958 AC-15. That amp was the first amp ever designed specifically for distortion at a time when the rest of the industry was constantly trying to clean up their amps. So, it's a dirty channel in a very "old world" fashion, nothing compared the dirty channels that were invented along with master Volumes.
Roll off the cut, this is sort of a reverse presence control. Turning it down will add some aggression in the high end. And play with settings on the master volume.
Not much you can do for it tube rolling, you have the one EF86 to play with. The original overdrive pedals of the late '60's and early '70's were just clean boosts that were designed to hit the first gain stage with a lot more signal for a more saturated overdrive. It's what people use boost peoples for now, no outside-the-amp clipping, just more gain 9gain and sitorion are not the same thing).