The New Tone Thread

minerman said:
antichef: Sorry it's taken so long to reply about your tones dude, just a lotta shit goin' on here.....First clip sounds really vintage-y man, like the late 60's, sounds pretty damn authentic IMO...and it's my pick out of the 3, they're all pretty good, but the first clip has more clarity & definition, so it's my pick out of the 3...

JDOD: That doesn't sound bad at all man, maybe a little eq to give the rhythm guitars a little edge, but it's not bad....I actually liked the lead tone a lot, did you add the fx in the daw, or did you record 'em from the amp??? Either way that lead tone I think is pretty good....
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Yeah, I like that lead tone, I've just added a bit of reverb from ReaVerb. Nothing else.

I'm not entirely happy with the rhythm tone either, I've pissed about with the EQ on it, maybe I've fucked it up, I was eqing the tracks individually and they don't seem to work. I quite like the slightly fucked cleanish tone though.

Thanks for listening again though, miner. Gonna have another play with the EQ, will probably sound better without anything.

Edge... Cheers for the tip miner. There's a bump in my guitar track at about 4.7k, normally I've bee tailing off my EQ towards the top but this time I decided to accentuate this bump and it sounded great, my laptop immediately ran out of battery though and the charger is in the office. But I'll remember that one.
 
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JDOD said:
Great, can you explain to me exactly what the gain knob and the preamp vol. do on the drive channel. Its odd. At low vols, the gain sounds like shit (very distortion pedalish), at high vols but low gain, sound tends to become quite harsh but medium gain and medium volumes the two knobs tend to play off eachother quite well.

So, how does the ISF interact with the mid?

Do you find the amp generally quite dark sounding? I think this is a lot do with the the speaker so was thinking of upgrading to a V30 to make my own Studio 20 SE. You think this is a good idea?

Cheers,

JD
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What can I tell you ? The voicing of any amp is a choice. What frequencies to boost/cut, where in the signal chain and hpw much OD to give them. Yer pays yer money and tweaks the knobs! Some people will get THE sounf they are after, others will not.

Dark? Yes, been said before. Again, designer's choice, Try an EQ pedal in the FX loop wiith a 6-10dB boost at 2-3kHz. HT-20 speaker? The Rocket 50 is generally reviled, almost anything else is better and the 20 is not an amp that delivers much power over specification (NB. Other Blackstars do!) so a 25W Greenback would be safe in there.

ISF and MID pot? The filter has less effect as MID is backed off.

@Ocnor. The clones do not come ashore here. If they did Blackstar could sue but they are quite a small company and don't have the resources for worldwide litigation. Glad in SOME ways they are shit but then they LOOK the part and could damage the brand?

I would urge you all to audition the new Artists? A "refined" HT version and rather different voicing I am told. Many who did not like the Blackstar "house sound" have been won over...A bit!

Dave.
 
Lt. Bob,
I sussed out your site. Other than the lack of content to links referred to, it looks really good and navigates really well. When i read the songs lists within genre/gig style all I could think of was WOW - SONGPAEDIAMAN.
I look forward to hearing/seeing more.
You play AND sing don't you?
I assume so but it's not explicit in a quick look over the site.
 
JDOD, you're monitoring in the same room as the amp, right? Loud, cleaner tones sound harsh when you're right next to the amp, to me anyway. If you could get at least a door between the amp and where you are playing, it might sound different and better in the headphones.
 
ecc83 said:
What can I tell you ? The voicing of any amp is a choice. What frequencies to boost/cut, where in the signal chain and hpw much OD to give them. Yer pays yer money and tweaks the knobs! Some people will get THE sounf they are after, others will not.

Dark? Yes, been said before. Again, designer's choice, Try an EQ pedal in the FX loop wiith a 6-10dB boost at 2-3kHz. HT-20 speaker? The Rocket 50 is generally reviled, almost anything else is better and the 20 is not an amp that delivers much power over specification (NB. Other Blackstars do!) so a 25W Greenback would be safe in there.

ISF and MID pot? The filter has less effect as MID is backed off.

@Ocnor. The clones do not come ashore here. If they did Blackstar could sue but they are quite a small company and don't have the resources for worldwide litigation. Glad in SOME ways they are shit but then they LOOK the part and could damage the brand?

I would urge you all to audition the new Artists? A "refined" HT version and rather different voicing I am told. Many who did not like the Blackstar "house sound" have been won over...A bit!

Dave.
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Cheers, I'm happy with the tone I'm getting out of it now, just took a while to dial in, not for listening to in the room, it was always fine, but for recording. I think I'll just upgrade the speaker when I have spare cash, it's fine for now.

So, it's the preamp vol just pushing the preamp valves harder and the preamp gain a clipping circuit?
 
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So, it's the preamp vol just pushing the preamp valves harder and the preamp gain a clipping circuit?"

Jeeez! Whadaya want Taff? Schematics and response plots? Ain't gonna happen.

AFAIK some ten years ago the guys at Bs developed some key circuits and had a good deal of success with them. Not everybody's cup of Tetley's I know but that is true of every guitar amp ever built!

The other string to their bow and one that has seen then through some bad times is an almost anal devotion to reliability. Amps are put on test at +10% mains input (253V here) and run at full power in a 5 min on/off cycle (or continuously for traff heat rise tests) until something fails. Invariably a valve or fuse. These tests are the equivalent of years of hard gigging usage.

There is no hype in the engineering, just engineering! Lots of BS has been washed away and a few sacred cows hamburgered!

I am very proud to have played a tiny part in the companies' success in the early days. Would that I was 20yrs younger with two good minces!

Dave.
 
Yes! That's exactly what I was after. Nah, not really, just a better understanding of what those two knobs do in tandem with eachother. It's very interesting and a bit of a black art dialing them in. There or thereabouts now though
 
Lt. Bob said:
nice ..... greg's a good collab'er too huh?

No surprise there ..... that sounds good man .... really does.
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Thanks, SteveBob. You don't think anybody's any good, so that's a great compliment.

minerman said:
[

Bubba: This is actually pretty damn close to the original. I'd never heard this song, so I did a quick search, & it's really close man. At first I thought the guitars were kinda buried, but they're like that in the original, so good job on getting the song where it is...I'm impressed!!!
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Thanks very much, minerman. I'm not sure the mix is quite there yet. I'm probably a bit reticent regarding processing Greg's tracks. They sound great and I want to keep them that way. But in the end it's all about the mix, isn't it?


JDOD said:
Bubba, that sounds great. The guitars work perfectly with the rest of the band around them. Good strummer impression. I just really enjoyed listening too it, just like I would if I had the original on... Which I have on a lot!
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Thanks, mate. This is my last Clash song for the time being. I've mined out that particular seam now. :)
 
I messed around with micing my Fender amp making cleaner sounds today for quite awhile, and ultimately discovered that a condenser microphone backed off a foot and a half or so (or more) is doing what I was trying to do with a bunch of different dynamics. Here's something (with bass and drums - I wish I could play drums). I'll edit this post soon with the details

View attachment 2016-01-31.mp3

here we go: Charvel Surfcaster with switch in middle position (both pickups) volume: 10, tone: 10 - tone knob pulled out to maybe put the pickups out of phase with each other -> Fender Deluxe Reverb - vibrato channel input #2- gain volume: 2, treble 5, bass 4, reverb 4 (no vibrato) -> Oktava MK012 (slightly modified by me) with cardioid capsule -> CLM Dynamics preamp with gain about 9 o'clock -> Lynx Aurora.

The clip also has some Valhalla Plate reverb going on.

I think I'll play with some large diaphragm condensers next.
 
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Totally off topic but in keeping with clash stuff... I thought this was kind of cool. Obviously doesn't hold a candle to Bubba's and Gregs, but still. I can respect what he is doing. It's cool.

 
ShanPeyton said:
Totally off topic but in keeping with clash stuff... I thought this was kind of cool. Obviously doesn't hold a candle to Bubba's and Gregs, but still. I can respect what he is doing. It's cool.

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Pretty cool - he has a good Mick Jones twang to his voice. :D
 
ShanPeyton said:
Well i thought they were cool.
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well they are .... just not to me.
I don't ever sit in judgement of other music .... I can only address what I like and don't like. And I have strange taste too ..... to be fair ..... I thought the looper guy was aight ..... it's just that loopers tend to get rerititous.

Now I feel bad ....... I don't want to be dismissing music you like.
:(
 
hahah. not at all bob. My sarcasm got lost in translation. do not feel bad in the least!! it was more meant like

"Well i thought they were cool" said with my hands in my pockets kicking some rocks around in the dirt.

It wasn't so much the music that i liked as much as it was the creativity of being a one man band sort of thing anyways.

All is well.


Greg should be back on board soon i reckon?
 
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