The New Tone Thread

minerman said:
Crazy shit goin' on man...I might be a ass-backward country boy, but I know a lot of places I could go that a lot of folks would have no fuckin' idea where I had disappeared to if it came to that...That is one advantage of living in Deliverance-ville my whole life, & there are thousands of people like that around here...
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To me, actual country folk are fine. I love em. Hillbillies, cajuns, bumpkins, whatever. Good people, mostly. A little weird, but thy're good people for the most part. These urban redneck cowboy wannabes with their giant 4x4s that have never seen a speck of dirt are a different breed of douchebag. They make me want to beat them to death with their own oversized belt buckles. But if something crazy ever happens locally, they'll be on the front lines fighting like banshees for God and country. They can die first. :D

But I'm sorry for even bringing it up. Back to tones please....
 
Greg_L said:
You Aussies need some home grown amp builders.
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Oh we've got them, but no mass builders - with only 23,000,000 people in a country the same size as the US, the logistics are slowly defeating most manufacturing businesses of any sort - besides, musicians are inherently conservative - they all want Marshalls, Fenders and Mesas because that's what their heros play.

I just found a booootique 25W combo from a local (Sydney) amp builder for (only) $3300. LOL - and I just realised that was a 2008 price. I'm sure it's a great amp, but ...

Also found a page listing all Australian amp builders, and the page is 4 years old and 2/3 of the links don't work any more. Ce la vie...
 
Vargis don't build anymore - they had great tube amps - I used one in 76. They went to dust mid to late 70s. Eminar went SS as soon as they could and Jands have been almost exclusively SS but they disappeared as well.
 
Paul Kossoff's tone:
Gibson LP " including a now-fabled late-era sunburst model, which was later stripped and painted black, as well as a black three-pickup custom" straight into a Superlead head, (though often used Superbass & Super PA), into 4x12 Marshall cabs loaded with bass speakers. I assume he played loud.
I've read in a few places that he liked the "rounded" tone of the bass speakers. He definitely didn't have an ice pick tone.
 
rayc said:
I assume he played loud.
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He didn't have a whole lot of choice. There's no turning those amps down.

That's what's so amazing to me about Johnny Ramone using Plexis in CBGBs. Sure, at an outdoor festival, use Plexis. No problem. In a bar the size of a shipping container? He must have been just murdering people's faces with guitar awesomeness.

I know he learned his lesson those first few gigs with the Marshalls though. He went to a single bottom cab pretty quickly with the other cabs as spares/dummies..
 
1970 an awful lot of sound still came from the stage.
I remember, in the late 70s, The Knack - sullied little mob but feted as being the next Beatles by some writers - making a big issue of the fact that their sound balance came from their instrument volume on stage and that they, as individuals, were responsible for that. Funny that they had a PA and crew and the singer didn't sing through an amp he controlled on stage.
I read somewhere that Blackmore had a Aox AC30 stashed inside a Marshall 4 x 12 and that was mic'd rather than the wall.
The image of a wall of amps is fundamental to about 20 years of rock and I can't think of a vid or pic of the Ramonoes once established without them.
 
It's a fine line to walk as a little guy playing clubs and bars. There are so many factors that come into play. The sound...I don't need to go into how much I hate soundguys. It's pretty well documented by now. I don't ever want to be too loud for the stage or for the room, but I need to hear myself over a drummer that hits hard. Since most soundguys can't give me a decent monitor mix, I have to walk that line between too loud and just loud enough. I always feel and play better when I can hear my own amps behind me. They don't have to be deafening, I just have to hear it. I don't want to rely on the monitors....and I definitely don't want to rely on a flunkee soundman. Another line to walk, for me, rock and roll has to have a look, and a little combo on the floor does't cut it. Halfstacks look rock and roll. Full stacks scream rock and roll. I know no one wants to lug gear and shit, but it truly matters what you look like on stage. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that people freak the hell out when we roll all of those Marshall 8x10s on stage. It's just part of the deal. We're a nothing nobody band that looks like we're about to blow the place apart, and that excites people.
 

The Return to my Tone Quest.
The link is to a track I'm working on at present.
I did drafts with a DI'd guitar but today began the task of replacing those bits with mic'd cab tracks.
Guyatone Mosrite copy bridge pickup into H5 Kustom Defender into Marshall 4x12 but from the wrong era.
To help with the lack of sparkle I used a BBE Sonic Stomp.
Shure 57 into a Focusrite 8i6.
No EQ or compression on the guitars.
I did add a third guitar = Epi Sheraton II for sustained open chord feedback during the verse but it's pretty low in the mix - as in barely audible except at the end of the verses.
There's a simple 4 bar intro before V1.
I THINK I've worked out the basis of my problem - I play too many power chords rooted on the bottom E.
The verse is mainly rooted on the A string and sounds much brighter.
Thoughts & suggestions please.
 
Well Ray, it's certainly not dark anymore. I don't think that Sonic Stomp is doing you any favors though. Sounds kind of harsh and squashed and bright to me. Too much distortion. But it's also kind of cool in the old garage rock tone kind of way. Shave some of the very highest fizzy highs off of it and it might sound pretty cool for the song.
 
Greg,
Ta, I used the Sonic to get more top end because I was afraid I'd end up without enough.
I'll retrack tomorrow and do it without the thing - just the guitar to amp. I had backed off the sonic high end to about 1 o'clock because it struck me as harsh maxed out.
BUT I'll also EQ some of the fizz off what currently exists as you suggest & do an AB.
 
miner, the blues clip sounded good. But, I wouldn't discribe it as "clean". It seemed to have a good bit of breakup when you dig in a little harder. Not a bad thing but to me clean is like a fender twin...clean no matter how hard you dig in.
The red is, like Greg pointed out, a tad harsh. It could be smoothed out and would be bad ass though.
 
Ray...
cool tune. It seems to be lacking in bottom end. I'm not hearing bass guitar or much kick. It may not have bass in it...if not it sounds alright. Maybe a bit too bright though.
 
I was going to post a "cowpunk" song last night. It had my best drum performance to date (because it's my first LOL). Anyway, the mix sounded great in Cubase but when exported to wav...the wav sounds like shit. There is an under current of digital distortion...like from clipping. There weren't any clips though because I set a limiter on the master channel to catch any hot peaks. Also, when it clips a red clip indicator lights up and stays in until you turn it off. The light never came on. I did have some individual channels getting in the red though.
Well anyway, I'm heading to New Orleans, with the family for some much needed R&R. I guess I will try to figure out what going on with the distorted wavs when I return Fri.
 
jimistone said:
I was going to post a "cowpunk" song last night. It had my best drum performance to date (because it's my first LOL). Anyway, the mix sounded great in Cubase but when exported to wav...the wav sounds like shit. There is an under current of digital distortion...like from clipping. There weren't any clips though because I set a limiter on the master channel to catch any hot peaks. Also, when it clips a red clip indicator lights up and stays in until you turn it off. The light never came on. I did have some individual channels getting in the red though.
Well anyway, I'm heading to New Orleans, with the family for some much needed R&R. I guess I will try to figure out what going on with the distorted wavs when I return Fri.
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Try exporting the WAV file at the same sample rate as your project. I run into troubles when rendering if I "downsample" sometimes. Some VST plugins just don't like to render at certain sample rates. So if using the same sample rate as your project doesn't work, might be worth trying a few different ones and see if it'll render more accurately.

I've been hammering away at a video for the last few nights so I'm behind on the tone thread madness. I'll try to catch up tonight!
 

Same track and recordings with the top chopped of the guitars.
Jimistone - I haven't done anything apart from tracking so the lack or bottom end will be addressed when I have guitar tracks worth mixing. Thanks for the observations.
 

AND our In Search of Tone microphones take us to the same song with guitars retracked and I revised intro.
NO Sonic Stomp.
One side is 2 tracks of my single coil semi acoustic, (one cleanish & the other dirtier), and on the other is my Guyatone Mosrite copy which, because of the placement of a humbucker in the bridge position, is rather dirtier still.
The only processing on the guitars is a tiny bit of "glue" compression on the guitar group buss.
Any/all distortion on this and the previous version is from the amp.
How does the TONE compare folks?
This is to an MP3 in case the soundcloud process is killing things (unlikely)...
 
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rayc said:

AND our In Search of Tone microphones take us to the same song with guitars retracked and I revised intro.
NO Sonic Stomp.
One side is 2 tracks of my single coil semi acoustic, (one cleanish & the other dirtier), and on the other is my Guyatone Mosrite copy which, because of the placement of a humbucker in the bridge position, is rather dirtier still.
The only processing on the guitars is a tiny bit of "glue" compression on the guitar group buss.
Any/all distortion on this and the previous version is from the amp.
How does the TONE compare folks?
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The tone sounds fine to me, but a little dull/flat. Not even necessarily flat EQ-wise, just a little...I don't know...weak?

Just 2 curiosities:

1 - what all do you have on the master bus of the mix, particularly for "loudifying"?
2 - how hard do you strum when you play guitar? I get the sense that the left-side guitar is a little limp-wristed (no connotations implied)

I'd be curious to hear this without any master bus (or other bus) compression/limiting just for shits and giggles, and if you tried that cleaner left-side guitar just punching the holy living shit out of the strings with your pick hand. Or, well, at least giving it another go with a little more gusto, so to speak.
 
Tadpui,
There's nothing on the master buss.
L guitar tracks are single coil as mentioned.
One is all down strokes, (that can't be done softly), and the other up n down.
R guitar is up n down.
I may retrack - is the sensation of limpness in the original version defizzed?
 
I just listened to the original version (post #11929). That does sound like too much mid-hi on the right side, just a little too much in the "right where it hurts" range, but it sounds a lot livelier than the last one that you posted. Jeez, I'm not sure what to suggest. Hell, maybe even taking your original mix and just turning down the right-side guitar and let it support and blend those hi-mids into the dark left-side guitar instead of being such a feature in the mix?

I'm trying not to let my mind spin away with too many "try me" kinds of things. But my gut says go back to the original mix, turn down the right-side guitar, and pan both guitars more towards center. And for the chorus, add a couple of super-wide panned guitars or pan the existing 2 guitars way out wide like they already are. I just feel like the original has too much dominance of the super crispy BBE guitar, but I miss that crispy sound in the most recent mix.

Jeez, it's late and I'm not doing a very good job of explaining...
 
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