The New Tone Thread

[Greg_L]

Multiband compressors are the worst. In all my years of mixing I've never found one valid use for a multiband compressor. That's just me though.

 

[rayc]

Cool vid of the Venture Nippon gig.
MBC - can't get my brain around them anyway.

 

[minerman]

Multiband compressors are the worst. In all my years of mixing I've never found one valid use for a multiband compressor. That's just me though.

I get that dude, I do find them useful in some situations where I don't wanna mess with the high end, but control the lows on some things, like a bass track where the high end is fine, but the lows are a little boomy, or maybe even palm mutes on a distorted/dirty guitar sound...that still comes back to the source though...


Not my kind of guitar at all, but how much do you think that Mosrite bass is worth???

 

[Greg_L]

I'm not sure. It's been repainted and the pickguard is not original. But all the hardware is right and the neck/body has handwritten date codes on it. Probably written by Semie Moseley himself. It's also in the original hardcase. So I'd guess probably around $2500-3000. It sounds and plays amazing. The sound is deep and plucky. Not a whole lot of sustain. It definitely has a vintage bass kind of natural tone to it. It's nothing like a P or J bass.

 

[minerman]

I was just curious because while I don't know much about 'em, that thing looked to be in really good shape to be made in '66...

Myself, I just never got into those kinda guitars, I know Kurt Cobain & Jerry Cantrell played 'em at times, I just never got into 'em...I've always been more into the super-strat/pointy guitar thing until I started hanging out here with you guys & got my Lester.....

 

[Greg_L]

Haha, I've NEVER liked superstrat or pointy guitars. When I was a kid, like little kid, I knew about Strats and that was pretty much it. My dad had Ventures records and I'd listen to them and look at the pictures. I was fascinated by the shape of their Mosrites. I didn't know what they were. They looked like backwards retarded Strats to me. And those sounds on those records resonated with me. It was nothing like the RATT and Journey shit being played on the radio. I didn't know the Ventures were already 20 years in by that time. Then a few years later I discovered the Ramones and was blown away forever. And lo and behold, the guy in the Ramones with the bowl cut was playing one of those funny looking backwards guitars. So it was just meant to be. I'm a fan of Mosrites. They're classic and unique and to me the sexiest guitar shape there is. And to this day I still prefer "classic" looking guitars. Gibsons, Gretsch, the offset body Fender stuff, weird Jap shit, etc. Nothing shreddy or metal.

 

[minerman]

Cool story man....here's how I got where I'm at today with the music I like/listen to/play/whatever.....This is a pretty long post, so I apologize in advance, but here goes....

About '75 or '76, I discovered Elvis Presley...Yeah, I was that fat little kid who listened to, bought books, everything Elvis...Gotta gimme a break though, I was only 5 years old....My old man had an old Fender P-Bass copy with a little small amp (which he didn't even know how to play btw, I really don't even know why he had it), & he would occasionally break it out, just acting silly, beating the shit out of it while dancing around...He'd flip it over with the strings toward him & just beat on it in time with whatever music was playing...That was it, that was the start of my musical journey...

From that point on, I pestered the fuck out of my parents for a guitar, pretty much daily...

So, I'm in my room with my 8-tracks & my sister's 8-track player just like this:


Dunno why, but I started looking around through her tapes, & found KISS "Rock & Roll Over"...."WTF is this?" I said to myself, where has this been all this time??? How do these guys make these cool sounds??? From that day on, Elvis was gone forever, replaced by KISS...

That made me want a guitar even more, so I kept on with the pestering...I kept on checking out the other 8-tracks my sister had, & discovered AC-DC, Foreigner, Black Sabbath, The Who, Queen all kinds of stuff...

In September of 1979, the sister who's 8-tracks I'd been listening to, took me to my first concert, AC-DC's Highway To Hell, in Johnson City, TN, & it literally blew me away (yeah, I was 8 years old when I saw AC-DC...corrupted at an early age...)I became obsessed with music, guitar, the whole shebang...

Around the spring of 1980, my Mom had me out, & we stopped at a little shop called "Rogers 5 & Dime", little Mom & Pops store that had a little of everything, & there it was...A little acoustic guitar for $40...That was a lot of $$$ then, especially for parents to spend on something they weren't for sure their kid was gonna stick with, but they bought it anyway...I've still got that guitar btw, & wouldn't take anything at all for it...

The little acoustic guitar kept me busy for a while, but I still wanted an electric guitar & amp....So, the pestering continued, & for my Christmas present in 1984, Mom & Dad bought me a Gibson SG Jr., & Fender Bronco amp for $300 from my uncle...I've looked for years, but only have saw a couple/few like it, it was made like this, except it had a LP style pickguard, & the p'up didn't have any pole pieces:




With this setup, I could make clean sounds, unless I cranked the little amp, which I couldn't do very much. But, I noticed if I kept playing while I turned the amp off, it sounded beautiful as the sound faded out...I finally realized I either needed something done to the amp, or needed more/different gear...I even took it to the local tv shop to see if he could make the amp sound like that, but he couldn't....Looking back all those years ago, I wanted a master volume or some sort of PPIMV on that amp......I did end up getting an Arion Metal Master distortion pedal a little later on though, & that cured my GAS for just a little while...

Christmas/birthday of '86 brought me a B.C. Rich Warlock & an original Marshall Micro-Stack, & I could then get a lot closer to the sounds on the tapes I was playing along to...

I started playing in a band around that time, & ended up getting an Ibanez Sabre 540, which was a great guitar...I didn't look so out of place on stage with this guitar compared to the B.C. Rich (especially since the band I was in played country music too, around here it's a have-to thing, but I wanted to play so bad I didn't give a fuck)...lol...It was identical to this:


All the gear I've talked about here is gone, except for the little acoustic. The SG & Ibanez were sold by my lovely first ex-wife to support her drug habit while I was at work. She actually cleaned the whole house (literally), & sold everything we owned for little to nothing while I was at work one night...I ended up trading the little micro-stack off after I blew the speakers with a Randall amp at an outdoor gig...I've thought about getting another SG & Ibanez, maybe I will someday, but it won't be the same at all because those were gifts from my parents when I was a kid...

Myself, I've just always liked different guitars, but the first Ibanez I got when I was a teenager just made me appreciate the versatility of the super-strat guitars....I always loved the body shape, but I could have humbucker/single coil p'ups, Floyd Rose, etc, all in one guitar...I actually couldn't stand Les Pauls up until just a few years ago. I thought they were boring, out-dated, heavy-ass relics, but things change...

Sorry for the long-ass post, I just got on a roll & threw this out here...

 

[Greg_L]

Damn that's a cool as shit SG. Single P-90? Yes please.

 

[Lt. Bob]

I started on sax first in 1962 .... and my dad bought my brother a guitar at the same time.
Mostly because my brother was developmentally handicapped ( still is ..... ) so they wanted something to get his interest and I was given strict orders not to touch it because they feared I would 'take that away from him'.

But after a few months it was clear that he wasn't going to do anything with it so I was allowed to fool around with it.
After about 6 months it was obvious I wanted to play so they bought me my first electric.

This would have been around 1963 you whippersnappers!!

It was a Silvertone and mine was red.
I'm sure it was a piece of crap but it had four p'ups!!!

lord, would I love to have it back now just because.

 

[minerman]

This would have been around 1963 you whippersnappers!!

Pretty funny man....

lord, would I love to have it back now just because.

This ^ x1,000,000,000,000,000 and then some.....

Bob I remember a kid down the street from me having one of those, or it was pretty similar....Actually, it was his dad's....And yeah, the things I'd love to have back that got away from me years ago....



So I've been digging around trying to find out the exact model SG I had all those years ago, & from what I can find, it was a 1972 Gibson SG 1....Pretty cheap/low end guitar really, read a lot of talk it was a model that Gibson had pretty much stripped down to make a profit (of course...)...Here's a few pics that look exactly like the one I had:








I remember looking at the back of mine, & my cousins/uncle's kids had apparently used it for a writing table, there were scribbles embedded into the body, like one of those kids had put a piece of paper on it & scribbled away...

This is the same guitar, with the 3 on a side (made together) tuners, LP style pickguard, funky jackplate, & Fender style knobs...

I don't think it'd be worth a lot of $$$ or anything, but damn I'd love to have it back just because the old man bought it for me all those years ago...

 

[Greg_L]

Shit I like that SG. Never seen one with an LP pickguard.

Lt Bob, I learned drums under almost the same circumstances as you and your brother's guitar. I was already started on guitar and my sister got some drums from our cousins. Needless to say, she never played them. She just liked being able to say she had drums. She was one of those dumb 80s rocker chicks. Huge hair, lots of make up, 10,000 bracelets on each arm, shoulder pad jackets, etc. Like an uglier Kelly Bundy. But every time she'd leave the house, I'd bust in her room and I taught myself to play them. After a few months I was keeping steady time and playing actual beats. She caught me one day, complained to mom, and mom made an executive decision - the drums became mine.

 

[JDOD]

mom made an executive decision - the drums became mine.

Excellent - and all was well in the shire.

Anyway, got up early and was playing with my metal tone and came up with an idea. Hung out with friends, went for a surf, went for a pint etc. The metal riff turned into this:
https://soundcloud.com/brother-number-one/cfam

Almost completely clean - but I like it - will try to metalize it later in the song. Any hints or tips welcome as usual.

 

[minerman]

Shit I like that SG. Never seen one with an LP pickguard.

Yeah man, I wish I had it now...That was my first electric guitar, Mom & Dad bought it & that little Fender amp for me Christmas of '84 for $300...

 

[rayc]

That Teisco/Silvertone is gorgeous Lt. Bob. Very, VERY sought after these days and often on fleabay for upwards of AUS$1K.
The Gobson looks very cool and its raw simplicity works a treat I bet. For me though I'd grab the MIJ 60s machine.

 

[ShanPeyton]

Man i have missed some serious show and tell. That Mosrite bass is pretty cool looking. Like if a star wars storm trooper had to play bass that would be the bass it played. Chances are it would never hit any of the right notes? HA! Is that bass a legit 1966 bass or a reissue of a 1966 bass that that ventures would have used. Either way it looks slick as snot. Just curious is all.

So i am in a bit of a pickle with that orange. I have tried just about every possible mic set up on that (1 mic) and i can't seem to zero in on a location that gives any more presence than that one spot Even took all my good sweet spots and backed the mic off up to an inch or two. That really didn't do me many favors. I think this rig needs to be mic'd on the grill. I might have to end up adding the sparkle via Eq. I might try a few more mic set up's but i have a feeling i could be procreating with the proverbial expired horse. So rather than screw around with it any further i might just as well finish this song and say it is what it is. Unless anyone else has any further guidance or wisdom.

 

[ShanPeyton]

Brain Fart.

I am going to push my preamps on my interface a little harder. I may not have been letting them do what they are supposed to do. It seems i had it turned on enough to to make it light up green around my interfaces gain knobber but it may have been low enough still to downsample my audio stream. More to follow after this short intermission. I may be onto something here. A little hotter might get me where i need to be possibly.

 

[Lt. Bob]

So i am in a bit of a pickle with that orange.

Orange amp or cab?
I have a Tiny Terror and there basically isn't any sparkle to that thing. It's great for certain things but the top end (brightness/presence) is non-existent.

 

[Schwarzenyaeger]

Orange amp or cab?
I have a Tiny Terror and there basically isn't any sparkle to that thing. It's great for certain things but the top end (brightness/presence) is non-existent.

That's a pretty good way to describe that amp. I feel like it doesn't do either extreme very well, neither lows or highs. It's still one of the best low wattage valve amps if you ask me.

 

[ShanPeyton]

Orange amp or cab?
I have a Tiny Terror and there basically isn't any sparkle to that thing. It's great for certain things but the top end (brightness/presence) is non-existent.

Amp and Cab. The more i try to push the sparkle and presence i just seem to add to the fizz. But the preamp on my scarlett thing seems to add just a smidge of higher end deliciousness to it. A smidge. And that's about it.

I'll get a sample up in the next little bit. I think i could live with it how it is now really. It doesn't have that same rigid stiffness it had in previous attempts and i have steered a little further away from that boxxy milk carton kind of sound that i really do not like. I may just call it good at this juncture, and EQ to taste.

I also got my first "neighborly inquiry" 15 mins ago

 

[Greg_L]

Man i have missed some serious show and tell. That Mosrite bass is pretty cool looking. Like if a star wars storm trooper had to play bass that would be the bass it played. Chances are it would never hit any of the right notes? HA! Is that bass a legit 1966 bass or a reissue of a 1966 bass that that ventures would have used. Either way it looks slick as snot. Just curious is all.

Supposedly it's a legit 66. It's been refinished.

So i am in a bit of a pickle with that orange. I have tried just about every possible mic set up on that (1 mic) and i can't seem to zero in on a location that gives any more presence than that one spot Even took all my good sweet spots and backed the mic off up to an inch or two. That really didn't do me many favors. I think this rig needs to be mic'd on the grill. I might have to end up adding the sparkle via Eq. I might try a few more mic set up's but i have a feeling i could be procreating with the proverbial expired horse. So rather than screw around with it any further i might just as well finish this song and say it is what it is. Unless anyone else has any further guidance or wisdom.

Shit just EQ some air in there. It aint that big a deal. Kudos for trying things, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. It's weird to me that you can't get it brighter though. Ah, I know, get a Marshall.