The New Tone Thread

Hey guys .... beta-testing my new website.

If you feel so inclined .... kinda poke around it and see if anything's not working for you.

I have not started the blog yet so there will be nothing an the blog page.
Also .... I have to write a page about the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. But everything else should be working..

Louisiana Steve-Home

Looks good to me. But now do we call you 'Steve-Bob'?
 
thanks guys ..... guess it's time for it to replace my old site ... and I'll start blogging I suppose.

Feel free to call me Steve if you wish but everyone on the webs at all my sites know me as Lt. Bob except at A&A where I'm Lt. Boob

So all the buttons seemed to work? Like to the Gallery and Songlist and such?




















.
 
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Everything I tried on the site worked. Careful or you might have some of us bozos heckling you at your gigs :) like maybe at the Pirate Festival... I still don't like reverb, even for leads. But in a way I'm consistent - the only time I'm not playing overdriven is when I'm playing acoustic, and my acoustics don't have reverb.

I'm kidding a little - I do session playing sometimes with clean passages, and then I joyfully mix those tracks with reverb if I haven't already included it while playing - they'd sound like ass if I didn't. But as an aggressive player most of the time, it just throws me off and it's not something I've had built into any amp except for my Blues Jr. that I don't like or play through very much, and now my Deluxe Reverb, which I *love*
 
The site looks good, Bob...er, Steve...er, I don't know what to call you any more BobSteve! Next you're going to tell me that you're not really a Lieutenant, aren't you?!? Lance Corporal Steve? It's just not right.

Seriously though, nice layout and overall appearance. Very slick and contemporary. The last band website I made was on AOL, back when they hosted sites :D
 
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Shan, this is a similar mix to what you've heard on the SoundCloud but with some minor EQ tweaks on the guitar. I'm now very happy with the tone. Any extra tweaks you can come up with would be helpful but I don't want to fuck with this much more.

View attachment 95862

I don't hear anything in the guitar tone that I could complain about. I can hear everything that's going on, no grating frequencies. The distorted guitars could use a little air...either a little 5kHz bump or maybe a slight touch of room reverb. Nice tones from that Blackstar though. And I assume that these tracks are from the new custom Tele?
 
Here. Hopefully this works. I was having some trouble with. Old Punk Ska band from the 90's. rerecorded in the last two years or so. Details about the track are in the summary in the link if you wanna know more.

I did the bass tracks and some production. Enjoy.


Very good song. I think that the guitars need to come up, and they need some midrange bite to them. They're all low-mids and upper mids, and no meat in the middle.
 
I don't hear anything in the guitar tone that I could complain about. I can hear everything that's going on, no grating frequencies. The distorted guitars could use a little air...either a little 5kHz bump or maybe a slight touch of room reverb. Nice tones from that Blackstar though. And I assume that these tracks are from the new custom Tele?
I think I have a slight reduction at 5k 'cos there was a natural bump there! Will check later.

Yeah, this is the Blackstar, Gain, Preamp Vol and Master Vol all at about 12 O'Clock - its a sensible recording volume that's loud in the room but isn't making shit vibrate. (I don't have a dedicated recording room - my set up is totally portable). I just have a Super Overdrive on 10/0 going into the front of the amp with barely any reverb.

Its all through the bridge pickup on the Crimson Custom.

Thanks for the feedback though, Tad. I'm leaving the tracking on that one now, might make some more EQ tweeks (tit lifts). I'm just gonna work on the vocal until the drum tracks arrive! I've got verse one done but I want a scream into the chorus which I'm struggling with.
 
Bob, your website is awesome.... and your repertoire is impressive to say the least!

Would love to see you live if you manage to organise a London bar tour!
 
Hey guys .... beta-testing my new website.

If you feel so inclined .... kinda poke around it and see if anything's not working for you.

I have not started the blog yet so there will be nothing an the blog page.
Also .... I have to write a page about the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. But everything else should be working..

Louisiana Steve-Home

On your About page, after all the verbiage you have some pics at the bottom for Days In The Life. Sharpers Harp is unclickable but the others are clickable and return a 404 page not found error. That's all I've found so far.
 
"I just wish I knew more about the gain circuit works in the Blackstars - they're secretive fuckers."

Too right! Have you SEEN the Behringer clones of the HT-5 and HT-20S? Why make it any easier for them?

Anyhoos I CAN tell you a bit. Peeps look at the PCBs and say "Huh! Diode clipper circuit!" Well for a start a "clipper" is a different configuration and for another about 90% or more of the OD sound comes from the inter stage triodes (as anyone with a genny, scope and the nonce to use them can confirm). The diode feedback stages are there mostly to control the drive to the valves. You can overload a distortion stage you know! Then it sounds ***T!

The ISF is not a gimmick but is perhaps badly explained? Not often told, it is very interactive with the MID control.

Yes the amps seem to have gained a reputation for reliability. I am not surprised! I was the main guy trying to break them!

Fact of life..."Done matter how good the effin' tone if it done effin' work on the night!"

Dave.
 
On your About page, after all the verbiage you have some pics at the bottom for Days In The Life. Sharpers Harp is unclickable but the others are clickable and return a 404 page not found error. That's all I've found so far.
thank you .... the others are not supposed to be clickable either, right now so we'll get on that.
 
"I just wish I knew more about the gain circuit works in the Blackstars - they're secretive fuckers."

Too right! Have you SEEN the Behringer clones of the HT-5 and HT-20S? Why make it any easier for them?

Anyhoos I CAN tell you a bit. Peeps look at the PCBs and say "Huh! Diode clipper circuit!" Well for a start a "clipper" is a different configuration and for another about 90% or more of the OD sound comes from the inter stage triodes (as anyone with a genny, scope and the nonce to use them can confirm). The diode feedback stages are there mostly to control the drive to the valves. You can overload a distortion stage you know! Then it sounds ***T!

The ISF is not a gimmick but is perhaps badly explained? Not often told, it is very interactive with the MID control.

Yes the amps seem to have gained a reputation for reliability. I am not surprised! I was the main guy trying to break them!

Fact of life..."Done matter how good the effin' tone if it done effin' work on the night!"

Dave.
I'm a fan of the amps, myself.
Now .... I'm primarily a 'live' player so those are the conditions and requirements that I judge amps by.

I'm really not that concerned with recording aspects.

But for live use I think they're very good bang for the buck.
 
"I just wish I knew more about the gain circuit works in the Blackstars - they're secretive fuckers."

Too right! Have you SEEN the Behringer clones of the HT-5 and HT-20S? Why make it any easier for them?

Anyhoos I CAN tell you a bit. Peeps look at the PCBs and say "Huh! Diode clipper circuit!" Well for a start a "clipper" is a different configuration and for another about 90% or more of the OD sound comes from the inter stage triodes (as anyone with a genny, scope and the nonce to use them can confirm). The diode feedback stages are there mostly to control the drive to the valves. You can overload a distortion stage you know! Then it sounds ***T!

The ISF is not a gimmick but is perhaps badly explained? Not often told, it is very interactive with the MID control.

Yes the amps seem to have gained a reputation for reliability. I am not surprised! I was the main guy trying to break them!

Fact of life..."Done matter how good the effin' tone if it done effin' work on the night!"

Dave.

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
 
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.

This is the way that most valve amps behave, in my experience. At low master volumes, the power section and speakers aren't really involved in the breakup. It's all preamp saturation, which is a fizzier type of saturation. And at extreme master settings, the power section and/or speakers are overtaxed and go into some nastier sounding clipping. But in the middle, when the preamp, power section, and speakers are all working hard but not overtaxed, that's the sweet spot.

I've played a couple of amps that defy this though. My JCM800 actually has a pretty good preamp saturation, and it only gets better as the master is increased. And the DSL40C that I had would resist power section breakup until all but the most painfully loud master settings. But my Traynor, Fender, and Mesa amps all have more of a "sweet spot" between the pre and master gains.
 
thank you .... the others are not supposed to be clickable either, right now so we'll get on that.
Bob, I think your site looks great man...I really like the custom Stinnet (did I spell that right??? LOL), it just looks like it would almost play itself, beautiful guitar man...

This is the way that most valve amps behave, in my experience. At low master volumes, the power section and speakers aren't really involved in the breakup. It's all preamp saturation, which is a fizzier type of saturation. And at extreme master settings, the power section and/or speakers are overtaxed and go into some nastier sounding clipping. But in the middle, when the preamp, power section, and speakers are all working hard but not overtaxed, that's the sweet spot.

I've played a couple of amps that defy this though. My JCM800 actually has a pretty good preamp saturation, and it only gets better as the master is increased. And the DSL40C that I had would resist power section breakup until all but the most painfully loud master settings. But my Traynor, Fender, and Mesa amps all have more of a "sweet spot" between the pre and master gains.
The way you described the DSL40 is exactly how my DSL100H is, the power section stays pretty clean until you get it wound up to about 8 or so on the dial, & by then, it's painful to be in the room with it, it's a loud-ass amp, & I'm sure the 40w version is loud as fuck too, as they're basically the same amp...

FWIW, I had a Blackstar HT-5 combo, but didn't keep it long enough to really give it a fair shake. The HT-5 was my first amp when I decided to go that route, & I didn't keep it long enough to really learn what it was capable of...
 
Gents, tone of the day. This is an old song of mine that I've been dying to get around to re-tracking.
View attachment PD 2015.mp3
Actually wrote this when I was 15 (yes, that's 20 years ago!) hence the genericness of it.

Got a cool idea for a guitar solo for this, quite Bowie/Frippesque - I touch on it in the first couple of seconds of this but then adlib something generic.
 
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....
 
Have you SEEN the Behringer clones of the HT-5 and HT-20S?

Those clones may look like Blackstar amps but they sound like total ass. The real Blackstar HT-5 is a decent little practice amp. My son plugged his HT-5 into my Marshall 1982 cab and it sounded surprisingly good. The mic sim out into a P.A. also sounds usable.
 
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