Gear Snob Alert! You Want Good Tone???

  • Thread starter Thread starter ametth
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I'm really glad I'm a horrid guitar player and wouldn't know a good tone if it bit me on the arse. I can plug into a POD, solid state, tube Marshall - get a sound that I like - and play. Ain't it great to be tone-deaf and musically stunned. ;)
 
psmith66, you must lead a stress free life and sleep good at nights. Your going to live to be a geat old age! you lucky thing you :D
 
I have a Pod, and a blackface Fender Bassman.

I never use the Fender Bassman.

This is a comparison that sells me on Pod.

But I still think you guys are glossing over a very important point.

WHAT SPEAKERS ARE YOU USING?

SPEAKERS, ARE MORE DETERMINENT OF THE SOUND, AND TONE, THAN ANY OTHER COMPONENT!
 
hmmm...

I think its possible to get some allright tones out of modeling, I did so with the Ampfarm in protools... some cool clean sounds, not really "normal" sounds, but cool..
but..
if ANYONE thinks they can get a better crunchy sound through ANY modeling device than what I can get with my mic'ed up Dual rectifier in tube rectifier mode with Vintage 30's, well, I'll gladly accept a bet of any amount of money. :)
If I could get equal tone from a POD for $300, I'd certainly take the POD over my $2000 amp setup.
Theres no way its happening...
 
Want an example of good tone?

Check out a Canadian band - Wide Mouth Mason. Their CD is entitled "Stew". I believe I read somewhere the guitar player uses a Les Paul via a 59 Fender Bassman Reissue. When I think of "tube", that's the sound I think of. In particular, the track "Ease Your Mind" - great sounding fills. Heard one note on the radio and had to buy the CD. And I buy about one CD a year.
 
Tone... schmone...

I can play a no-name flea market guitar from someones attic with the strings 3 inches off the fretboard through a little plastic battery-powered Fender 4' tall pink practice amp and still kick your ass.
If your tunes suck, all the tone in the world wont save you.
 
123

Another thing I'd like to touch on... wondering if anyone will agree.. a tube amp that is properly mic'ed and tracked just seems to sit better in a mix, like it was born there, and sound more, well, natural, than a pod or whatever....
Anyone agree?
 
Re: 123

tubedude said:
Another thing I'd like to touch on... wondering if anyone will agree.. a tube amp that is properly mic'ed and tracked just seems to sit better in a mix, like it was born there, and sound more, well, natural, than a pod or whatever....
Anyone agree?
Click to expand...

Yes.
 
Re: Tone... schmone...

S8-N said:

If your tunes suck, all the tone in the world wont save you.
Click to expand...


Thats a given..but having good sounds helps.
 
Joe Perry just smashed my "Cort-strato-noise-o-caster" against my Peavey Bullet and ran over the peices with his car on the way outta the driveway!
I was going to put them in a yard sale anyway, but damn, Joe!

Shoulda brought his POD! :D
 
Like it or not, solidstate amps have been around a lot longer than anyone "here" on this BBS (cept mabey monty). There's still a lot of great player's out there that wouldn't change if their life depended on it, and I'm talking about country musicians for the most part. If it sounds good, hell it SOUNDS good..solidstate,tube, or the new modleing amps, they all have their place and their not going away anytime soon. You will not see many if any good rock bands or metal etc.. bands, using solidstate amps, and I'm 99% sure I won't own one again. But if I played a lot of country type stuff..yeah I might have one for that vein of music. And you can bet your ass if I was running a "real" studio their would be one on the floor.

For me though a good sounding tube amp is the ticket, and I swear by-em. I bought one of the Johnson amps when they first come out..1400.00:confused: and the first two wks I was like wow this thing sounds pretty good...then the next nine months I hated myself, but still found some useable tones out of it. All in all though it's your loss if you think everything solidstate sucks, but I respect anyones opinion, and in return I seek the same. Well it's 9:30..time for a beer.
 
Re: Want an example of good tone?

psmith66 said:
Check out a Canadian band - Wide Mouth Mason. Their CD is entitled "Stew". I believe I read somewhere the guitar player uses a Les Paul via a 59 Fender Bassman Reissue. When I think of "tube", that's the sound I think of. In particular, the track "Ease Your Mind" - great sounding fills. Heard one note on the radio and had to buy the CD. And I buy about one CD a year.
Click to expand...

Wide Mouth Mason is a good example of the newest technology, 'genre modeling'. That band reinvented the word fake. No offense psmith66! All in good fun.
 
if I posted unmarked recording samples of the same material played through a tube amp vs DMA at various levels of distortion and with minimal effects, half of you would guess wrong. think you're up for the challenge?

now I realize that both can be made to sound equally crappy, and one recording can be much more lousy than the other, but it is implicit that we're talking about reasonably good quality recordings under very similar conditions. the only thing that couldn't be quaranteed fixed in such a shoot-out would be mic placement and slight variation in playing technique from one take to the next.

of course this would be a far cry from comparing live sound, but it is the recorded sound which ultimately counts since that's how most of us enjoy music (hey, we can't be attending concerts all day long)

face it, we would not be able to discern the two! I'd also bet that the naysayers would be wrong the most often. who is ready to lose their credibility on this forum?
 
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pchorman- I would love to take that challenge, even though I probably couldn't guess which is which. I listen to MP3's everyday and many times I am fooled when someone tells me how he achieved that sound. I probably couldn't be fooled as easily if the songs were on CD and I was listening through my stereo system, instead of my computer speakers.

If you post it make sure you don't smother the sound in effects, or better yet just use a small bit of reverb and nothing else.

There are at least a dozen of these things on the market. J-Station, Pod, Sansamp, V-Amp, VG-88, DG-Stomp, RepliTone, zenTera, GT-5, etc. I'd love to have all of these in my studio for a couple of weeks and see what they're all about.
 
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Re: Re: Want an example of good tone?

Emeric said:
Wide Mouth Mason is a good example of the newest technology, 'genre modeling'. That band reinvented the word fake.
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Not gonna comment on that - but don't you think that's a decent tone? I think he's a fine soulful player - great finger vibrato.

Almost as good as the Poison guy. :D
 
Well I made a couple of short samples (DMA vs Tube) that are sure to stump most of you. They involve only distortion and a bit of reverb. The only problem is they're about 250 KB each and this forum limits us to about 100 KB. When I figure out a place to post them, you'll be asked to demonstrate your ears and state your preferences.

I found this a very interesting exercise.
 
pchorman said:
Well I made a couple of short samples (DMA vs Tube) that are sure to stump most of you. They involve only distortion and a bit of reverb. The only problem is they're about 250 KB each and this forum limits us to about 100 KB. When I figure out a place to post them, you'll be asked to demonstrate your ears and state your preferences.

I found this a very interesting exercise.
Click to expand...

I would be glad to host them..can you email them to me? I'll put them up asap.
 
Y'know, I kinda disagree with having to tweak the crap out of something to get a good tone. I mean, what the f? If the designers can't get a good base tone for people to audition the amp in the shop, how can they magically get a good tone somewhere buried in tons of parameters? It makes them seem incompetent.
 
BBB said:

Y'know, I kinda disagree with having to tweak the crap out of something to get a good tone. I mean, what the f? If the designers can't get a good base tone for people to audition the amp in the shop, how can they magically get a good tone somewhere buried in tons of parameters? It makes them seem incompetent.
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I agree

IMO:

Tweaking is for achieving variations in tone. You shouldn't have to tweak extensively to get a good tone in the first place.
 
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