Heavy distorted guitars

  • Thread starter Thread starter ecktronic
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The Marshall 2000-DSL's have great distortion ... but I don't really think of them as being "Deftones" style at all.

To me, the 2000's actually have sort of an earlier / classic rock vibe to them.

For that general kind of distortion you're looking for ... I might actually steer someone more towards a Peavey 5150, or even one of it's predecessors, the VTM-60. Not that those are really modern or anything, but they have a great deal more crunch and sustain to them, and I think they have that capability of sounding the way you're envisioning.
 
ecktronic said:
Does anyone have any tips, on what to do to avoid getting an overprocessed recoding of heavy distorted guitars?

Eck
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here's some things to try.

Low pass Filter around 6.5KHz to 8KHz. a must

Narrow Q filter cut around 2K. hunt for ice picks

Hi Pass Filter around 80Hz to 120Hz

Optional if the bottom is woofy - Multiband compress below 270Hz start with Atk: 10ms Rel: 50ms ratio: 2:1 to 4:1

those guitars on Soundclick are really grainy. they sound more preamp gain than preamp and power section. reduce the gain some, turn up the power section and keep doing this until a balance is reached based on what the mic hears.

try two mics side-by-side. one pointed right at the cone-dustcap seam and the other mic angled 45 degrees. now mono mix these two for more tonal options. one mic will be bright and the other more body. make sure they are time aligned for minimal phasing.
 
chessrock said:
For that general kind of distortion you're looking for ... I might actually steer someone more towards a Peavey 5150
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the guitar stuff on white pony does sound very 5150'ish.
 
Yea, it didn't sound like a really "smooth" kinda' distortion at all. It sounded like more of a "rip your head off" with a chainsaw kind of distortion ... but only with about 100 layers of it so as to blur the sound and make it less gnawing.

It's a really interesting texture they have going on there. I like it, but I can't imagine reproducing it with an EL-84 based Marshall amp. I dunno ... maybe if you were to crank the master volume as high as it can go before the speaker craps out, but I've just never envisioned that kind of sound to be it's strong suit.

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chessrock said:
Yea, it didn't sound like a really "smooth" kinda' distortion at all. It sounded like more of a "rip your head off" with a chainsaw kind of distortion ... but only with about 100 layers of it so as to blur the sound and make it less gnawing.

It's a really interesting texture they have going on there. I like it, but I can't imagine reproducing it with an EL-84 based Marshall amp. I dunno ... maybe if you were to crank the master volume as high as it can go before the speaker craps out, but I've just never envisioned that kind of sound to be it's strong suit.

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that def tones sound is a million miles away from any "old" style marshall sound that i've ever heard. most of the old school marshalls had el34's or kt66's and the lower wattage stuff had el84's. i think some of the mesa's sound smooth but i agree, the def tones sound is'nt smooth. it's a tight sound but not smooth. the 5150's don't have a ragged gain like the old marshalls and are'nt smooth like some of the mesa's. they're some where in between, have a distinctive mid range that cuts, and a tight gain (with alot of it).
 
I agree. But I definitely think they can be tweaked to go in either direction. It takes some time and experimentation, but if you just completely disable that gawd-aful "presence" knob, and from there just work with the gain and EQ ... I think one can get really close to a Mesa sound. Or you can do the opposite and crank the gain, cut some mids and dial in a little presence, and there you've got more of a modern, high-gain, solid state/new metal vibe.

But as far as a clean sound goes ... forget it. :D For a really good laugh, just try and get a good fender-like clean tone out of it sometime. It ain't pretty. At all. There are few things in life that I can think of that can be any uglier than a 5150 trying to do clean.

The VTM's are money, though, and I'm surprized more people don't use them. I think they smoke the 5150 in many ways, and might just be one of the best amps ever made, and I'm not joking. You heard it here: for the book and on the record ... the Peavey VTM's are absolute money.

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I saw a VTM sit in a shop for a few years when I was a kid. It did'nt have enough knobs for me back then so I never tried it out. It had a rediculous price tag on it so that's probably the reason it never moved. The only knob I really need these days is a "no suck" knob.

I agree about the 5150 clean. It's sounds hard...........like a fuckin brick wall. Hit your strings hard = brick wall. Softly strum your strings = lower volume brick wall.............and the presence knob might be the 5150's "less suck" knob. I can't bitch too much. I'm using a borrowed one for gigging and I already knew that it was'nt my thing.
 
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