The New Tone Thread

Gentlefolk of the Tone Thread.
I need advice on tone.
Here is a song sketch that I'm reasonably happy with structurally but I'm not sure of the tones of the guitars.

One guitar is just the amp, (that's the rhythm guitar - embarrassingly I couldn't manage down strokes alone at this tempo today) & the other, (highlighting as well as chugging), has some high end added by a pedal in front of the amp.
5 watt amp at about 10 o'clock, Mosrite copy with a P90ish at the neck & cheap hummer at bridge - only bridge on this track.
Bass is my el cheapo viola bass and drums are provided by Band In A Box.
What thoughts re guitar tone?
 
Nice collection ....... I had a Swede .... liked it quite a bit.

Miro .... that Hagstrom III ... the 3 pickup jobbie with a fender looking headstock?
I had a couple of those and they're awesome guitars .... those single coils with the oversized pole pieces out-strat a strat .... crazy fast necks too.
A git I wish I still had ....
 
rayc said:
Gentlefolk of the Tone Thread.
I need advice on tone.
Here is a song sketch that I'm reasonably happy with structurally but I'm not sure of the tones of the guitars.

One guitar is just the amp, (that's the rhythm guitar - embarrassingly I couldn't manage down strokes alone at this tempo today) & the other, (highlighting as well as chugging), has some high end added by a pedal in front of the amp.
5 watt amp at about 10 o'clock, Mosrite copy with a P90ish at the neck & cheap hummer at bridge - only bridge on this track.
Bass is my el cheapo viola bass and drums are provided by Band In A Box.
What thoughts re guitar tone?
Click to expand...

I think that the distortion/crunch level is fine. Not too grimy but not too clean. They just sound muddy to me though. Listening on a consumer grade 5.1 system, so I don't have a ton of detail on tap. They don't have much punch or attack to them, and not much treble detail. What amp are you using?
 
Tapudi,
& anyone else....
Kustom Defender D5 5watt.
It's not particularly loud and is mic'd with a 57 & an e609 - blended.
Maybe I need to work on that.
he bass has a whole pile of bottom end that may be masking/muddying.
Oh, it's all power chords with the octave added so not much top end to start with.
Thanks for the response as it'll give me something to work on.
Here's a tweak - everything's the same except:
I cut off a fair bit of bottom end on the bass
I scooped a few dBs from the guitars at 100khz &
I tweaked the balance between the mics opting for the brighter ones.
 
Last edited:
Lt. Bob said:
Nice collection ....... I had a Swede .... liked it quite a bit.

Miro .... that Hagstrom III ... the 3 pickup jobbie with a fender looking headstock?
I had a couple of those and they're awesome guitars .... those single coils with the oversized pole pieces out-strat a strat .... crazy fast necks too.
A git I wish I still had ....
Click to expand...

I've been wanting a Gibson ES-335 for a long time now. But they're just outrageously expensive. The Hagstrom Viking has been a very attractive alternative...have you ever played one of those? I'm curious if they sound anything like an ES-335. Looks like totally different pickups in them. There are a few vintage '60s ones on Reverb for decent prices. But with foreign made guitars, I have a hard time believing that they were better 50 years ago than they are today.
 
I never tried any of the Hag III models...I kinda just stayed with the Swede since I first bought one back in '75, but I did add three of the new Deuce models, which is just a double-cut Swede, though a tad thinner/lighter. Love them!

They have a reissue that's giving a nod to the vintage Hag II, III, Impala, etc....they call them the Retroscape Series in case you want to check them out. They have all those crazy buttons just like the originals. Not too crazy about the headstock design...but I'm biased toward the classic Hagstrom headstock.

Retroscape Series

I do also have a reissue Viking Deluxe, and I can tell you it will play and sound as sweet as any 335...IMO.
Try one out if you can.
 
I tried again.
I added a replacement guitar track with the same basic recording set up BUT used my Bruno Royal Artist single coil jobbie for guaranteed more brightness.
Mind you I've not erased any old tracks - just muted them.
I also recognised that the amp gets brighter as it gets louder so I turned it up to 11.30 O'clock and put an SD1 in front of it to push things a little harder but with NO GAIN/drive.
The rhythm gtr is the Guyatone Mosrite copy & the other guitar is the Bruno.

As always - I'm looking for comments and suggestions re tone of the guitars and bass I suppose as well.
The bass is heavily compressed as the only run I play popped up way above the track and it occurred so many times I couldn't be bothered automating vol around it. I will retrack with more care.
Oh, there compressor on the master bus doesn't have auto make up selected so it'll appear a little quieter and more dynamic than the previous tracks but with it on this version became a brick wall catastrophe.
Thanks in anticipation.
 
rayc said:
I tried again.
I added a replacement guitar track with the same basic recording set up BUT used my Bruno Royal Artist single coil jobbie for guaranteed more brightness.
Mind you I've not erased any old tracks - just muted them.
I also recognised that the amp gets brighter as it gets louder so I turned it up to 11.30 O'clock and put an SD1 in front of it to push things a little harder but with NO GAIN/drive.
The rhythm gtr is the Guyatone Mosrite copy & the other guitar is the Bruno.

As always - I'm looking for comments and suggestions re tone of the guitars and bass I suppose as well.
The bass is heavily compressed as the only run I play popped up way above the track and it occurred so many times I couldn't be bothered automating vol around it. I will retrack with more care.
Oh, there compressor on the master bus doesn't have auto make up selected so it'll appear a little quieter and more dynamic than the previous tracks but with it on this version became a brick wall catastrophe.
Thanks in anticipation.
Click to expand...
Damn Ray, I like where that is headed. Where'd you get them drums? Um, the guitars sound very raw and garagey. I really like that, but I think they need more top end. They seem very thick in the lows and mids, kind of dull up top. It's hard to tell though because 6 am on a saturday and I'm listening on headphones cuz my family is asleep, but I mostly trust these things and that whole demo mix seems kind of dark to me. So I'm not sure if it's the whole mix or just the guitars are a little dark.
 
Greg, the drums are Real Player from Band In The Box. I needed something better than a metronome and BITB has a thing where you can put in the chord progressions, mark in the changes, select a drummer from their list then style and it glues together phrases by that drummer to make the drum track.
Not great but better than my wandering drum machine tempo.
Every thing seems "dark" in my rig these days. I'm going to have to check the Focusrite interface as well as settings inside REAPER AND the conversion program I use for MP3s.
I was inspired by your guitars from Faint Aroma. I don't have the sound or elan of your playing though.
I did do the 1st draft of this using your drums from Faint Aroma actually - I wanted that tempo BUT this song has a diff structure and length so had to go with BITB to get something that wouldn't confuse me.
 
I actually liked those drums for the most part. It is better than your usual drum tempo track.

I'm not set up for drumming right now, but I can do some guitar tracks for you again if you'd like. I like stuff like this.
 
Greg, you can do whatever you like.
I'll send you the chords & Progression (intro nicked from Submission).
THe drums aren't bad - definitely better than my usual yes. Sadly a stereo file so almost untweakable.
Check you PMs in a few minutes.
 
Wow! Are those fake drums, Ray? Those are great!!! A little too room-y for my tastes, but probably among the best sounding fake drums I've heard.
 
Clip sounds good to me Ray, I had a listen in 'phones a few minutes ago, but I think the tones are good myself....


And you've roused my curiosity about your fake drums, so I'm gonna go check out BIAB to see what's up with it...

Again, tones sound good to me dude...
 
Ray, I've listened to all three versions, I'm not really qualified to comment in detail but the 2nd version was my favourite.

I'm a big fan of sticking and SD1 with no gain in front of a crunched amp but I don't think it works here - I think it causes the guitar to have a slight "generic rock overdrive" feeling as opposed to the raw punk tone you had before - that's just subjective though.

Drums - fuck me, I need to know more about where you got those. I have to struggle with fake drums and I wouldn't have known they were fake if you hadn't told us.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top