"the true secret to great amp tone"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike_J
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I don't like attenuators. They mess with the load on the OT in a way that doesn't sound right. Plus, I like my speakers rating pretty closely matched to the output of the amp. That way, you get the speaker breaking up a bit too, which is NICE! You don't get that with an attenuator.

The TRUE secret to great tone is to use an amp that is the right size for the room so you can crank it up. The reason people don't like that idea is that while you DO get great tone that way, you don't necessarily get a consistent tone (which doesn't bother me a bit - things are going to be different night to night anyway, and I like it that way), and of course you have to own an amp for every sized room you play. Of course, if your amp is always being miked up, that's not an issue. Get a small amp that you like, and let the guy with the PA do the work.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Tadpui said:
I just hate it when guitarists drown their guitar and amp's tone with too many effects. It's like the cook who can't help but throw fist-fulls of cayenne, cumin, chili powder and paprika into the chili pot. I call it the "POD syndrome" :) Too many effects at your disposal frequently results in the urge to use them all at once.
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Haha, this is exactly why I don't own a multi-effects unit, I'm afraid I'd get hooked. :D I've got a delay I use to add some light ambience to solos because I'm a total delay junky, and a TS-9 I put out front of my Recto tor eshape the input tone a little a la Andy Sneap, but that's the extent of it (and even then half the time I turn off the Tube Screamer).

That said, the problem with this advice is that in the wrong hands, a 10-band EQ is a dangerous thing. If you actually know what frequencies in your amp you just aren't digging, then go to town, but I've heard too many GC kiddies doing the "gain 10, treble 10, mids 0, bass 10" thing even without an external EQ to think that it's necessarily a hot idea to hand them out indiscriminately. :D

Anyway, again, there's no "one" secret to good tone, just a whole bunch of things worth trying. Hell, sometimes even the GC Kiddie tone is the right sound for an overdub...
 
At what cost???

The Secret to GREAT TONE
by Chazba


The secret to great tone is simple but not easy. Great tone comes only when someone is born with the gift of musicianship. Without that gift, any hardware driven solution is gonna end up at the pawn shop with a bad rap and clearisil stains all over it. Musicianship, however central, is not the only ingredient required. The next item is obsessive practice. Hour after hour , day after day, week after week. This at the expense of girlfriend, best friend and parents. Best friends are the hardest to lose, but unless they share your obsession, they soon fall by the wayside. Sometimes you are able to re-kindle the friendship in later life, but don't count on it. Parents...well, they are gonna be proud of you some day, but only if you are VERY successful. Girlfriends???If you practice hard enough, you will have all the GF you want, even lacking the social skills to maintain the relationship, but...you can always get another.

chazba
 
chazba said:
The Secret to GREAT TONE
by Chazba


The secret to great tone is simple but not easy. Great tone comes only when someone is born with the gift of musicianship. Without that gift, any hardware driven solution is gonna end up at the pawn shop with a bad rap and clearisil stains all over it. Musicianship, however central, is not the only ingredient required. The next item is obsessive practice. Hour after hour , day after day, week after week. This at the expense of girlfriend, best friend and parents. Best friends are the hardest to lose, but unless they share your obsession, they soon fall by the wayside. Sometimes you are able to re-kindle the friendship in later life, but don't count on it. Parents...well, they are gonna be proud of you some day, but only if you are VERY successful. Girlfriends???If you practice hard enough, you will have all the GF you want, even lacking the social skills to maintain the relationship, but...you can always get another.

chazba
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You're kidding, right?
 
chazba said:
The Secret to GREAT TONE
by Chazba


The secret to great tone is simple but not easy. Great tone comes only when someone is born with the gift of musicianship. Without that gift, any hardware driven solution is gonna end up at the pawn shop with a bad rap and clearisil stains all over it. Musicianship, however central, is not the only ingredient required. The next item is obsessive practice. Hour after hour , day after day, week after week. This at the expense of girlfriend, best friend and parents. Best friends are the hardest to lose, but unless they share your obsession, they soon fall by the wayside. Sometimes you are able to re-kindle the friendship in later life, but don't count on it. Parents...well, they are gonna be proud of you some day, but only if you are VERY successful. Girlfriends???If you practice hard enough, you will have all the GF you want, even lacking the social skills to maintain the relationship, but...you can always get another.

chazba
Click to expand...

what the hell are you talking about
 
I haven't read that before but it certainly makes sense. If you read up on the schematics of preamp and OD/dist pedal designs, placing EQ boosts in the circuit before and after clipping stages is a time tested and classic method to voice drive. This is applying that same principal to an effects chain. I think I have some experimenting to do...
 
I just want to chime in and say the best tone I have ever heard was a Les Paul though an 18watt Dr. Z via an analog man serviced tube screamer. Rockin!
 
WhiteStrat said:
If I had that, that's how I'd play it.
. . . (Was that a random hypothetical--the 64 strat & 66 'verb? Or is that your rig? 'Cause I have a friend with that EXACT rig and it's every bit of perfect just like it is! Hey--are you him?)
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Yes it's one of my rigs. And it really works great for a whole host of stuff (but definitely not anything requiring some serious distortion).

I didn't say it was the only great rig - but it surely is one of the great ones.
I do have salt and pepper in my spice rack - and if you think of the reverb as the garlic, that's all you need for a great steak - no A1 needed if the meat is 'all that'.

Effects can be really cool - but only if you use them in tiny amounts - like spices to continue the food analogy. For example, a certain D. Gilmour gets a lot of mileage out of a little overdrive and some reverb and delay. And a few well-placed notes.
 
Wow-this makes me glad that I practice and record in the basment of my remote forest compound, where nobody complains about noise, or at least not for very long...

After reading that article I realized I had been essentially following his rules unintentionally, and I do love my tone. What kinds of bass EQ pedals have people had success with? I'm always looking for ways to smoothly boost my mids for more bite.
 
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