The New Tone Thread

rayc said:
THis is the next step in my latest song.



Feedback in the clinic is mixed so I wonder if the guitars, as has been mentioned in there, sound a) a too dark, b) too loud or c) too widely panned.
This is the TONE THREAD after all & I want the tone to work now I have a vocal in the mix.
Any thoughts?
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I like the guitars okay, but I'd decrease the gain. I'd like to hear a raw-ish clean tone just breaking up. I think that would be cool for this song. The loudness and panning are fine to me. I'll have your drums to you this week!
 
I like the tone of the guitars in rays tune just the way they are. If anything i might turn them down just a little tiny bit to let the drums come through a bit better.

Very interesting note about Rays guitars is that riff part around 0:38 to 0:50ish sounds similar the Misfits tune 'Hollywood Babylon' and the guitar tone also has some similarities. Really cool.
 
Greg_L said:
Ha, good reviews. Those Rockerverbs are killer. I've lost track of all the Vox AC models. Some are legend, some are bargain basement models. They should call them something different. But I guess keeping the AC name with some weird suffix gets them sales. The real ACs kick ass.
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I think the moral of the story is that you get what you pay for (as ever). The Orange was hands down the best of the bunch I tried, but was a good chunk over £1,000. If I could have got a nice cleanish sound out of the Fender, it would have made it great value in comparison, but I'd need to try it with a decent guitar to find out, I think.
 
jonny deep said:
I think the moral of the story is that you get what you pay for (as ever). The Orange was hands down the best of the bunch I tried, but was a good chunk over £1,000. If I could have got a nice cleanish sound out of the Fender, it would have made it great value in comparison, but I'd need to try it with a decent guitar to find out, I think.
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Some of those cheap Epis can make anything sound bad. In general I think modern Epiphones are pretty good, but dude, the bad ones are so bad.
 
Greg_L said:
Some of those cheap Epis can make anything sound bad. In general I think modern Epiphones are pretty good, but dude, the bad ones are so bad.
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It didn't play bad, but the electronics weren't great. The coil tapping was pointless, it sounded so bad. Maybe they're trying to do too much with a sub-£300 guitar.
 
Oh hey minerman, I think my attenuator might get here tomorrow.

I used the 50w Plexi at band practice last night - for one song. No attenuator, no PPIMV, just as the amp is supposed to be. Holy fuck it blew everyone out. Lol. It was a lot of me, some faint drums, and not much else. We went through the first song, stopped, laughed a little bit about how insane that amp is, then I switched to my 2204 because it has a master volume.

The guy that sold it to me kept telling me "It won't be that loud, it's only 50 watts. Other 50 watt amps don't keep up." I knew he was wrong, but I didn't argue with him. I have no idea what kind of crack he's smoking.
 
Ray: I think the tones sound pretty good on that song dude, but they need a little clarity...Maybe back off on the gain a little, or add some brightness to make 'em cut a little more...they're not bad though, at all....But, I'd wait until the Gerg sends you his drum tracks to see if that makes any difference or not....It may/may not, just sayin'....

Greg_L said:
Oh hey minerman, I think my attenuator might get here tomorrow.
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Cool man, be sure to give all us a review & some clips with/without if/when you can dude....

Greg_L said:
I used the 50w Plexi at band practice last night - for one song. No attenuator, no PPIMV, just as the amp is supposed to be. Holy fuck it blew everyone out. Lol. It was a lot of me, some faint drums, and not much else. We went through the first song, stopped, laughed a little bit about how insane that amp is, then I switched to my 2204 because it has a master volume.

The guy that sold it to me kept telling me "It won't be that loud, it's only 50 watts. Other 50 watt amps don't keep up." I knew he was wrong, but I didn't argue with him. I have no idea what kind of crack he's smoking.
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Greg, I really don't know a damn thing about any of your amps, except what models you have, & they sound great recorded, but I'm telling you the difference between my DSL & Ceriatone is amazing...The DSL on about 4-5 is as loud as the Ceriatone in it's sweet spot (about 7 or so), even in plexi mode....Of course, the Ceriatone ain't gonna keep up in modern or 80's mode, it's a Jose master volume mod, but again, the DSL is one loud-ass amp man...
 
I still don't understand why your Chupa is so much quieter than the DSL. I don't get it. 50 watts is 50 watts, right? Even with wattage and headroom differences, I don't think your DSL should be that much louder than the Chupa. It must be something with all those gain mods.
 
Greg_L said:
I still don't understand why your Chupa is so much quieter than the DSL. I don't get it. 50 watts is 50 watts, right? Even with wattage and headroom differences, I don't think your DSL should be that much louder than the Chupa. It must be something with all those gain mods.
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I dunno either dude, maybe it's just me....but there's a pretty big difference between 'em...I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the mods, but even with all the switches centered (which pretty much puts it into "stock" plexi mode, which has the most volume/headroom), the DSL still kills it volume-wise...

If I had a real SPL meter, I could get all tech-y but I don't....I had one on my cell phone, but I'm sure that thing isn't too accurate...

It's really not a big deal, & to be honest, I actually like that the Ceriatone is quieter, that makes it a little easier to get the tubes working without killing me....
 
Greg_L said:
I still don't understand why your Chupa is so much quieter than the DSL. I don't get it. 50 watts is 50 watts, right?
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has to do with power supplies. A lot of perceived volume comes from the initial attack. If a power supply is capable of putting out a LOT for just a few milli-seconds for that initial attack, then an amp sounds louder than one with the same power rating but with a less potent power supply.
So one 50 watter might have a power supply that momentarily can supply 200 watts and another might have a power supply that, for just a millisecond, can supply 500.
The 500 will be perceived as louder.
I dunno if I have the numbers exact but just as an example.


I've read of 100watt per channel stereo amps that can put out 1000 watts for just that very small amount of time.
So that's one big reason why amps of the same rated wattage can sound dramatically different as far as how loud they seem.
 
Lt. Bob said:
has to do with power supplies. A lot of perceived volume comes from the initial attack. If a power supply is capable of putting out a LOT for just a few milli-seconds for that initial attack, then an amp sounds louder than one with the same power rating but with a less potent power supply.
So one 50 watter might have a power supply that momentarily can supply 200 watts and another might have a power supply that, for just a millisecond, can supply 500.
The 500 will be perceived as louder.
I dunno if I have the numbers exact but just as an example.


I've read of 100watt per channel stereo amps that can put out 1000 watts for just that very small amount of time.
So that's one big reason why amps of the same rated wattage can sound dramatically different as far as how loud they seem.
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Wow, interesting. By "power supply" do you mean like the actual power transformer? I know a lot of Plexi guys freak out over different power supply voltages. Or do you mean the output transformer kicking out above it's rating?
 
Greg_L said:
Wow, interesting. By "power supply" do you mean like the actual power transformer? I know a lot of Plexi guys freak out over different power supply voltages. Or do you mean the output transformer kicking out above it's rating?
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well the tranny matters but there's more to a powersupply than just the tranny.
In this case probably the more important part would be the capacitors .... the big ones.
They're there to smooth power delivery but they also store large amounts of 'lectricity that can be dumped into the amp when high current delivery is needed .... like on a transient.
So if a power supply has lots of capacitance for energy storage .... it can deliver larger amounts of juice for a very brief period, milli-seconds only, since the caps discharge very quickly.

That's why in the audiophile world amps very often give capacitance as one of their specs and high end amps will have huge numbers of caps so they can store large amounts of juice so the amps don't run out of steam for transients.

gigtime .. later
 
Lt. Bob said:
well the tranny matters but there's more to a powersupply than just the tranny.
In this case probably the more important part would be the capacitors .... the big ones.
They're there to smooth power delivery but they also store large amounts of 'lectricity that can be dumped into the amp when high current delivery is needed .... like on a transient.
So if a power supply has lots of capacitance for energy storage .... it can deliver larger amounts of juice for a very brief period, milli-seconds only, since the caps discharge very quickly.

That's why in the audiophile world amps very often give capacitance as one of their specs and high end amps will have huge numbers of caps so they can store large amounts of juice so the amps don't run out of steam for transients.

gigtime .. later
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I see. Thanks. There are a lot of hardcore Plexi guys that worry about things like that. They'll reduce power filtering and try to drop output transformer voltage to "squish" up the attack and stuff.
 
Interesting stuff guys, but I do admit it way over my head....I do find it kinda strange the 2 amps have such a different volume level, but like I've said before, it's not a big deal to me, & I actually kinda like the Ceriatone being that way, because it gets into the sweet spot without blowing the windows out of the house...
 
So this thing showed up last night.




Haven't tried it yet. Looks and feels really well built. The knobs are connected to these gigantic wire wound ceramic rheostat things that kind of scrape when you turn them so it's like something from Frankenstein's lab. It has a very industrial kind of feel to it. And there is indeed a speaker coil with no cone inside of it. Pretty cool. We'll see how it goes later on.....
 
Ahh.....I see you finally went for the Mass. :)

So...I guess the 200 version automatically lets you connect any speaker impedance...?
The smaller Mini Mass units have a toggle for 4/8/16
 
miroslav said:
Ahh.....I see you finally went for the Mass. :)

So...I guess the 200 version automatically lets you connect any speaker impedance...?
The smaller Mini Mass units have a toggle for 4/8/16
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Well I haven't quite figured that out yet. It seems that no matter what cabs are hooked up to it, it presents a 16 ohm load to the amp.

I hooked up two 16 ohm cabs and normally that would be an 8 ohm load at the amp. But through the Mass it's still 16 ohms, verified with a multimeter. I don't get that, unless the Mass's internal speaker motor makes everything a 16 ohm load, which in reality is just fine with me.

So until I figure that out, I just tried it hooked to one 16 ohm cab and man this thing exceeds my expectations. It doesn't really affect the tone at all until you really crank it down to whisper levels.
 
Congrats Greg, looks to be a good piece of gear there....I'd love to try one out to see what it does with my amps....
 
That's kinda cool where it does the impedance thing for you...


I'm assuming you can run any cab(s) you want, as long as the cabs are the same impedance, right??? (IE: 2 - 16 ohm cabs.....2 - 8 ohm cabs...)???
 
Greg_L said:
Well I haven't quite figured that out yet. It seems that no matter what cabs are hooked up to it, it presents a 16 ohm load to the amp.

I hooked up two 16 ohm cabs and normally that would be an 8 ohm load at the amp. But through the Mass it's still 16 ohms, verified with a multimeter. I don't get that, unless the Mass's internal speaker motor makes everything a 16 ohm load, which in reality is just fine with me.

So until I figure that out, I just tried it hooked to one 16 ohm cab and man this thing exceeds my expectations. It doesn't really affect the tone at all until you really crank it down to whisper levels.
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It looks pretty cool too! I might have to see if I can get hold of one.
 
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