PollyWaffle said:
i agree, what is your set up please?
Man, its tricky. Technical Ramones useless trivia coming right up:
Being a Ramones-o-phile for over 20 years now, its pretty obvious to me that Johnny had 3, maybe 4, distinct tones through the years. The first 4 albums have the classic Ramones buzz thats the hardest to duplicate. Its a single-coil sound through vintage tubes, but not using a whole lot of gain - just enough to get a buzz going. Their early amps didn't have master volume and gain controls, so he had to crank it to 10 to get it to distort. Johnnys guitar was junk, but his amps were awesome, so I use my strat using the bridge pickup only through my digitech processor set to a JCM800 sim. I run that through my amp on the clean channel and mic it center. It gets reasonably close to the early Ramones sound.
Their middle crop of albums from about 1980-83 were way overproduced, so Johnnys tone was pretty mangled. For those songs, I typically use the same setup as I would for the early tone, but with maybe more reverb.
After having their equipment stolen several times, Johnny finally settled on super-lead type Marshalls with master gain and volume controls around 1984. You can hear the difference on the later albums up until their retirement. His tone got a lot harder, but still maintained that classic Ramones feel by his continued use of his classic white Mosrite guitar. By this time he had installed a fat-strat single-coil p/u in the bridge. This 'modern' Ramones tone is the easiest to duplicate as you can use a lot of gain and any Marshall simulator can create the right sound. You still need to use a single-coil guitar though. Humbuckers don't give the right kind of sound for a Ramones tone.
Anyway, I know this is a long rambling post, but if you want to do a Ramones cover justice, the right guitar tone is CRUCIAL. Johnny's guitar and Joey's vocal style made the Ramones sound. Noone can sing like Joey without sounding dumb, but if you can successfully copy Johnny's guitar tone, you've won half the battle. I do a lot of covers (hell, I only do covers), and while Ramones songs are super-easy and fun to play, getting the 'vibe' right is harder than anyone elses stuff I've done.
You just have to spend time via trial-and-error. I wish there was a 'Johnny' pedal or something, but there isn't. You have to just find it for yourself. It's tough.
P.S. - A few months ago I played an actual, original Mosrite Ventures II through a JCM900 at Guitar Center. It was the PERFECT vintage Ramones sound. I almost cried. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm gonna break in there and steal that stuff.
If no one else says anything then I'd not wory about it. 
Cool!
