The New Tone Thread

[JDOD]

JDOD: Clip sounds good man, I know you're not to the mixing stage yet, but I'd like to hear those vocals up in the mix dude, I'm impressed....
D.

Haha, miner, mate! The vocals are fucking shocking, you can even hear me get more tired, quieter and lazier by verse 3. I was reading verse 2 and 3 as well which makes them sound even worse.

 

[Greg_L]

Greg: Pretty cool man, I like the 2nd clip best with the fx dude...While I've never tried to cop a Hendrix tone myself, I'd say you're in the ballpark & then some with both clips man...You should've stuck a little wah in there too.....

Haha thanks. Yeah, forgot the wah! Maybe I'll do a wah clip too, then put the guitar away.

I actually really like the first clip. The pickups have that single-coil low-output attack to them, I really like that. Pair this setup with a meaty fuzz pedal and there is some seriously good tone in there. I think that'd make a great texture to use in a song, just as a contrast to the humbucker/P90 sound. Don't dismiss the Strat so easily, I say keep it on deck for those times when you need a part to "klang" a little.

The 2nd clip is kind of in-between for me. Not clean enough to be chimey and sparkly, but not dirty enough to have attitude. Although it sounds better when you dig in a bit in the upper register. I do like the tremolo though

Thanks man. This Strat has seen a lot of action on my earlier recordings. I was never very fond of it, but it was a good rhythm contrast to the SG. Maybe it'll find it's way back into regular use eventually. I need to do a lot of work on it.

 

[Lt. Bob]

greg .... they don't really sound very Jimi-like to me .... although anytime you have a strat thru a cranked Marshall it's gonna be in the ball park.
However, Jimi mostly 'dimed' everything ...... no mere '7' would do for him on the volume!

I actually like both clips .... the second one is pretty cool in fact.

The first clip would work in 'Fire' but it needs (to my ears) a bit more gain or, better yet, a fuzz face driving the amp a bit.

The second one is really nice ..... what's the trem?

Neither clips sounds right for you though ....... they might be useful for a different 'color' in a recording sometime but they don't sound like 'teh gerg' to me.

 

[Lt. Bob]

Bit of amp tweaking and a re-tracking of We Are The Road Crew, haven't written the outro solo yet - its quite long so might take me a fair bit of fiddling to come up with something that isn't either repetitive or just nonsense.
View attachment 96191
Generally pretty pleased with the tone of the rhythm guitar.

sounds great to me!

I'll take your word that I'm better off not hearing the vox

 

[Tadpui]

OK, these are the uninspiring tones that I've been getting from my 2204S lately. Sorry that each of these samples are a full minute long, I just wanted to play the basic gist of each thing that this amp is gonna have to do in a song that I'm going to record. A little ringing chord arpeggio, a little stabby chording, a little loud chording against a pedal tone, and a little chugga-chugga palm muting. I was experimenting with mic placement, but all of these are an Audix i5 right on the speaker grille, maybe just inside the dust cap (these damn 10" speakers are proving to be impossible to mic for me).

As far as amp settings, I recorded these a couple of months ago and I can't remember. Basically assume that everything is on 5 except the master and preamp, which were probably on 7.

Guitar was an LP Classic with BurstBucker Pro pickups (I believe that the II is in the bridge position).

Here's just the amp, lo input, no pedal:

An Ibanez TS9 set at about 12:00 on everything:

A Fulltone OCD with a little gain and the tone backed off, lo peak switch:

A Fulltone OCD, hi peak switch:

And the 2204S's hi input, no pedal. Probably totally different amp settings, but I can't remember (probably master at 5, preamp at 2):

The funny thing is, they all sound awesome in the room. Loud, punchy, although with too many high frequencies. There is that weird mid-hi noise going in all of these samples, I think that's just my small room being unable to cope with this amount of sound pressure levels. I think that the Audix isn't up to the challenge of dealing with these 10" speakers. I gotta try the SM57 and see how it goes.

 

[Greg_L]

greg .... they don't really sound very Jimi-like to me .... although anytime you have a strat thru a cranked Marshall it's gonna be in the ball park.
However, Jimi mostly 'dimed' everything ...... no mere '7' would do for him on the volume!

I actually like both clips .... the second one is pretty cool in fact.

The first clip would work in 'Fire' but it needs (to my ears) a bit more gain or, better yet, a fuzz face driving the amp a bit.

The second one is really nice ..... what's the trem?

Neither clips sounds right for you though ....... they might be useful for a different 'color' in a recording sometime but they don't sound like 'teh gerg' to me.

Believe me, I didn't feel like teh gerg while doing them!

Did he really literally "dime" everything? I know one thing he did that was pretty cool was use a Y cable. That's a little different than jumping the channels. You get some "ghosting" when jumping the inputs which is supposedly solved with an actual Y cable. I don't know. I'll try it again dimed tomorrow.

The Trem is a Boss TR-2. I like it pretty good.

 

[RAMI]

RAMI: The last clip you posted sounds pretty good to me, especially the rhythm guitars. The intro guitar is ok, but personally I'd like a little more high-end cut, but that's just a personal preference of mine dude...Pretty rockin' tune there Rami.....

Thanx a lot buddy.

I should learn my lesson and stop using the site's MP3 hosting. I can't update what I post, it's there forever. Since I posted that clip, I've re-written and re-tracked that part about 4 times. By the time this is finished, it will sound a lot better than what I posted, as is always the case. i agree with you on bringing down the high end, and I've done that since then.

 

[Greg_L]

OK, these are the uninspiring tones that I've been getting from my 2204S lately. Sorry that each of these samples are a full minute long, I just wanted to play the basic gist of each thing that this amp is gonna have to do in a song that I'm going to record. A little ringing chord arpeggio, a little stabby chording, a little loud chording against a pedal tone, and a little chugga-chugga palm muting. I was experimenting with mic placement, but all of these are an Audix i5 right on the speaker grille, maybe just inside the dust cap (these damn 10" speakers are proving to be impossible to mic for me).

As far as amp settings, I recorded these a couple of months ago and I can't remember. Basically assume that everything is on 5 except the master and preamp, which were probably on 7.

Guitar was an LP Classic with BurstBucker Pro pickups (I believe that the II is in the bridge position).

Here's just the amp, lo input, no pedal:

An Ibanez TS9 set at about 12:00 on everything:

A Fulltone OCD with a little gain and the tone backed off, lo peak switch:

A Fulltone OCD, hi peak switch:

And the 2204S's hi input, no pedal. Probably totally different amp settings, but I can't remember (probably master at 5, preamp at 2):

The funny thing is, they all sound awesome in the room. Loud, punchy, although with too many high frequencies. There is that weird mid-hi noise going in all of these samples, I think that's just my small room being unable to cope with this amount of sound pressure levels. I think that the Audix isn't up to the challenge of dealing with these 10" speakers. I gotta try the SM57 and see how it goes.

Most of those clips are pretty thick and dark to me. I don't know what mid-high frequencies are bugging you, but those are all pretty dark for that Marshall. I think the OCD and high input clips sounds pretty good. What kind of tone are you looking for? Maybe a Marshall isn't the right amp for you.

And I don't really like miking 10" speakers either. They are kind of tough to find the sweet spot if you're looking for a certain something out of them.

 

[RAMI]

greg .... they don't really sound very Jimi-like to me .... although anytime you have a strat thru a cranked Marshall it's gonna be in the ball park.
However, Jimi mostly 'dimed' everything ...... no mere '7' would do for him on the volume!

I actually like both clips .... the second one is pretty cool in fact.

The first clip would work in 'Fire' but it needs (to my ears) a bit more gain or, better yet, a fuzz face driving the amp a bit.

The second one is really nice ..... what's the trem?

Neither clips sounds right for you though ....... they might be useful for a different 'color' in a recording sometime but they don't sound like 'teh gerg' to me.

I agree with this. I actually think the "Fire" clip does sound pretty Jimi-ish, but I'm also probably influenced by the fact that it's a Jimi tune. I'm actually impressed with your soloing, it's pretty cool.

I've also heard that Jimi just put everything on 10.

If you and anyone else wants to do a collab on "Fire", I'm in. I can drum it or sing it, or just do the back-ups in the chorus if you want to drum it while Lt. sings it.....or whatever.

 

[minerman]

greg .... they don't really sound very Jimi-like to me .... although anytime you have a strat thru a cranked Marshall it's gonna be in the ball park.
However, Jimi mostly 'dimed' everything ...... no mere '7' would do for him on the volume!

I actually like both clips .... the second one is pretty cool in fact.

The first clip would work in 'Fire' but it needs (to my ears) a bit more gain or, better yet, a fuzz face driving the amp a bit.

The second one is really nice ..... what's the trem?

Neither clips sounds right for you though ....... they might be useful for a different 'color' in a recording sometime but they don't sound like 'teh gerg' to me.

I was waiting on the Hendirx guru to reply...I know 'ol Bob knows his shit about those tones, & was pretty curious to hear what he thought and/or would suggest to get even closer...

 

[RAMI]

Christ, this place goes from nobody posting clips to everyone posting within the same hour. I'll try to catch up and listen to JDOD's, Bubba's and Tadpui's clips later tonight.

 

[minerman]

Thanx a lot buddy.

I should learn my lesson and stop using the site's MP3 hosting. I can't update what I post, it's there forever. Since I posted that clip, I've re-written and re-tracked that part about 4 times. By the time this is finished, it will sound a lot better than what I posted, as is always the case. i agree with you on bringing down the high end, and I've done that since then.

I actually meant the intro guitars needed a little more high end Rami, but again, that's just personal preference man. I'm pretty sure you were trying to get a different tone for that guitar for contrast against the others. For me, that's hard to do sometimes, without all my guitars sounding the same...

Clip still rocks man, should kick ass when you finish it up...

 

[Greg_L]

I agree with this. I actually think the "Fire" clip does sound pretty Jimi-ish, but I'm also probably influenced by the fact that it's a Jimi tune. I'm actually impressed with your soloing, it's pretty cool.

I've also heard that Jimi just put everything on 10.

If you and anyone else wants to do a collab on "Fire", I'm in. I can drum it or sing it, or just do the back-ups in the chorus if you want to drum it while Lt. sings it.....or whatever.

Haha thanks. I don't know if I wanna do this. You'd drum it better than me, and I'm probably the last guy that should try playing guitar on it. So I don't know. I'm really not a fan of the Jimi. This was actually the first time - ever - that I've even entertained the idea of trying anything Hendrix.

Anyway, I'm gonna try to do some crack internet research on what his settings were, if there are even any actual settings. Maybe he did dime everything. That' pretty awesome, if so. Although that's kind of a myth with most people. Everyone says "cranked Marshall", but not many people literally dime everything. Maybe that's why he went through so many of them....besides the usual smashing them to pieces. His tone doesn't sound that dirty to me. It's wild for sure, but when I was listening I didn't think "everything on 10".

 

[minerman]

Tadpui: I like the 4th & 5th clips best, in that order. The first 3 are pretty murky/dark to me, without much high end. I am guilty of having too much high end, but I think the first 3 need a little more myself... I'm guessing those 10" speakers are harder to mic because you've got less of a sweet spot to find...The last 2 clips sound pretty good to me man...

---------- Update ----------

I bet a collab between you guys would kick some serious ass....

 

[RAMI]

I actually meant the intro guitars needed a little more high end Rami,

Ah ok, sorry. You said "Could use a little more high end cut", so I thought you meant I needed to cut the high end more. Cool.

Haha thanks. I don't know if I wanna do this. You'd drum it better than me, and I'm probably the last guy that should try playing guitar on it. So I don't know. I'm really not a fan of the Jimi. This was actually the first time - ever - that I've even entertained the idea of trying anything Hendrix.

Yeah...Well we could do it even faster and make it a pukier version. Now that I say that, I seem to recall someone doing a really fast version of "Fire", but I might be mistaken.

Maybe he did dime everything. That' pretty awesome, if so. Although that's kind of a myth with most people. Everyone says "cranked Marshall", but not many people literally dime everything. Maybe that's why he went through so many of them....besides the usual smashing them to pieces. His tone doesn't sound that dirty to me. It's wild for sure, but when I was listening I didn't think "everything on 10".

Yeah, it could be one of those myths that just gets passed around until it becomes the "truth" even if it ain't true. It could also be something he did live but never in the studio. Or it's just total bullshit. Who knows.

 

[Lt. Bob]

Maybe he did dime everything. That' pretty awesome, if so. Although that's kind of a myth with most people. .

I played for some years with Gregg Wright way before he ever went near Baton Rouge and back then he was into 'being' Hendrix ...... and as a Jimi fan I can say that he did it better than anyone ..... he actually WAS Hendrix back then. Left-handed .... big 'fro ... way cool.

He had massively studied Hendrix although back then you didn't have the 'net and Youtube .... but he had every song/tone/stage-move/clothes .... all down pat .... sounded exactly like him .... he used a full stack and sometimes two and he would walk up to his amp and take his finger and *zipppp* along the knobs ..... everything dimed.

I've never heard ANYone sound as close to Jimi as Gregg could.

 

[Tadpui]

OK, in the name of hopefully, Un-KISSing this thing, I re-wrote that opening riff. I had to re-track it anyway, since it was out of tune. So, hopefully I killed 2 birds with one stone.

I'm not sure if I like the snare now, it's a little box-y. I might re-track the drums, too. But that's not what this thread's for, just sayin'.

I went and posted without really realizing how many others have posted after the long dead period! Trying to catch up...

I love the midrangey rhythm guitars. Maybe experiment with a little less preamp gain, just to see if they still hold together. I usually try to use as little gain as I can get away with, without it sounding like a chore to play the part. Bass sounds awesome as well. The solo guitar works well in the middle solo, but sounds a little boxy on its own in the intro.

I didn't listen to the original version, but I don't hear any Kiss in here, if its any consolation

 

[RAMI]

I went and posted without really realizing how many others have posted after the long dead period! Trying to catch up...

No, it's all good man. I was joking....

I love the midrangey rhythm guitars. Maybe experiment with a little less preamp gain, just to see if they still hold together. I usually try to use as little gain as I can get away with, without it sounding like a chore to play the part. Bass sounds awesome as well. The solo guitar works well in the middle solo, but sounds a little boxy on its own in the intro.

I didn't listen to the original version, but I don't hear any Kiss in here, if its any consolation

OK, no more KISS. awesome.

I'll take all that into consideration. I'm with you on trying to get away with as little gain as possible and still having it hold its' own.

I mis-read some comments earlier, thinking that the intro guitar had too much high end. So, I ended up probably cutting too much high end and now it sounds little box-y. Anyway, it's far from finished, but you guys set me on the right path. I'll probably re-post it when I have some vocals on it. Thanx, man.

 

[Tadpui]

Bit of amp tweaking and a re-tracking of We Are The Road Crew, haven't written the outro solo yet - its quite long so might take me a fair bit of fiddling to come up with something that isn't either repetitive or just nonsense.
View attachment 96191
Generally pretty pleased with the tone of the rhythm guitar.

I do like that rhythm guitar tone a lot for this song. It's more gain that I would play with, but it works here. It holds together really well in the palm muted sections, doesn't get spongey, sounds tight. It's got a stoner rock kind of feel to it. Maybe a little more high frequency excitement on the solo sections? It's weird to hear a tone and think it doesn't have enough highs in it when my own tones are so obviously lacking in that region! I think that guitar/amp combo of yours will end up working out very well. You've been working hard to get it dialed in, and I think that you're pretty much there.

I'd turn the wet/dry on the vocal delay way down though.

 

[Tadpui]

Tadpui: I like the 4th & 5th clips best, in that order. The first 3 are pretty murky/dark to me, without much high end. I am guilty of having too much high end, but I think the first 3 need a little more myself... I'm guessing those 10" speakers are harder to mic because you've got less of a sweet spot to find...The last 2 clips sound pretty good to me man...

Thanks Miner. Agreed now that I listen back to them, they're pretty murky. I'm having trouble reconciling what sounds good LOUD in the room, and what sounds good to a microphone. Between my first 10" speakers, my first head/cabinet, and my first closed-back speaker enclosure, it's throwing me for a loop. It's just so ear-piercing in the room, I keep dialing the highs down. I'll dial them back up and see how the mic likes it.

Most of those clips are pretty thick and dark to me. I don't know what mid-high frequencies are bugging you, but those are all pretty dark for that Marshall. I think the OCD and high input clips sounds pretty good. What kind of tone are you looking for? Maybe a Marshall isn't the right amp for you.

And I don't really like miking 10" speakers either. They are kind of tough to find the sweet spot if you're looking for a certain something out of them.

Argh, the 10" speakers are quickly becoming my enemy. It sounds just right in the room. Maybe the distance at which four 10" speakers all start to sound like a "team" is part of my problem? Up close, apparently, they're less bright. Out in the room, they're ear-splittingly bright. Plus, I'm playing loud in a pretty small room (about 13x17). Those highs just bounce around the room, even with my room treatment. The mid-high thing that's bugging me is some sort of distortion that I hear, most prevalent in the no-pedal lo and hi samples. Not really a "fizz", it's not that high. It's like a "crackle". Admittedly, I do like a dark-ish guitar sound, but mixing those kinds of tones are nearly impossible for an amateur. I'll go and try to brighten up things a bit and post the results.

I'll take all that into consideration. I'm with you on trying to get away with as little gain as possible and still having it hold its' own.

I mis-read some comments earlier, thinking that the intro guitar had too much high end. So, I ended up probably cutting too much high end and now it sounds little box-y. Anyway, it's far from finished, but you guys set me on the right path. I'll probably re-post it when I have some vocals on it. Thanx, man.

Honestly I don't think that they have too much gain. I was just curious how they'd sound dialed back a bit, just as a try-me. It could be the gain that's giving them that nice midrange saturation that I like so much.