The New Tone Thread

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Lt. Bob said:
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.
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Ok I'll give it a try. I like to dime the tone controls, but both volumes dimed is usually rough. But....I never did it with a strat.
 
Greg_L said:
Ok I'll give it a try. I like to dime the tone controls, but both volumes dimed is usually rough. But....I never did it with a strat.
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well, and you'll have to use one of your primitive Marshalls ..... none of that multi-channel stuff.
 
I'd never heard of Gregg Wright before Lt. Bob mentioned him (this has been a pretty good while back IIRC), but I gotta say the guy has his shit together when it comes to Hendrix. Crazy accurate in every department, sound, look, everything...
 
Holy freakin tones batman. You guys just come out of the woodwork with the tones when i disappear. So much stuff to listen too. Where do i start. HaHa!!
 
A "bonus" tone. A messy mix of vintage Jazzmaster through a '68 Deluxe Reverb reissue. Probably too much bass in the mix, and I was playing with hardware compressors on the drums. And I slammed it through Waves L1, so sorry if it's too loud. It was a quickie, so I didn't even get all of the guitar and bass parts agreeing on timing.

 
Lt. Bob said:
well, and you'll have to use one of your primitive Marshalls ..... none of that multi-channel stuff.
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Well yeah, of course! I love diming all of the tone controls on the 50w Plexi. Sounds awesome to me. I tweak a little more with the 100w. The 50w pretty much stays that way. I usually keep the volumes around 3 or 4 with all of the tone controls pegged. I had a dude come up one time as I was tearing down and ask to see my settings, so I showed him, and he said "no, for real". :laughings:
 
Tadpui said:
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".
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That's the nature of 2204s. They're crunchy. In fact, most 50w Marshalls have that midrange crunch and it happens pretty easily. It's just the nature of the amp. You've got a preamp section that distorts pretty easily, and a loose power section that distorts pretty easily. That's why 2204s are darker, more crunchy than their bigger brother 2203s. 2203s have a tighter, more headroom sound. 2204s are fatter and crunchier. That's probably why more people generally prefer 2204s.
 
Greg_L said:
That's the nature of 2204s. They're crunchy. In fact, most 50w Marshalls have that midrange crunch and it happens pretty easily. It's just the nature of the amp. You've got a preamp section that distorts pretty easily, and a loose power section that distorts pretty easily. That's why 2204s are darker, more crunchy than their bigger brother 2203s. 2203s have a tighter, more headroom sound. 2204s are fatter and crunchier. That's probably why more people generally prefer 2204s.
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Excellent, good to know! I wonder how much is the nature of the amp, and how much is the nature of the 4x10 cabinet? I've got a mission now, just like I did with my DSL40C. I'm gonna bend this thing to my will, even if that means changing my will :)
 
Tadpui said:
Excellent, good to know! I wonder how much is the nature of the amp, and how much is the nature of the 4x10 cabinet? I've got a mission now, just like I did with my DSL40C. I'm gonna bend this thing to my will, even if that means changing my will :)
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I think your natural, no pedals, low and high input clips sound pretty much like a 2204 should. Compared to my own, it's in the ballpark. So you might just be hearing something in your head that you're not finding with that particular amp or cab. One thing about those amps, since the power section breaks up so easily, you can trade off some preamp gain when going with big volume. You mentioned the master was up around 7? That's cooking pretty good for that amp and you're way into the power section at that point. Roll back the preamp gain and you'll still have a mighty crunch with less mush....if that's what you want.

I would think your 4x10 would be pretty tight and bright out in the room. I use 8x10s with my band, and they're very tight and midrangey. Even with all that internal space they don't have the punch an chunk of a 4x12. But miking up close should negate much of that. You just need to find your happy spot on the speaker. Like I said, for me, 10s are a little tougher to mic than a 12 for super loud rock and roll recording. Don't set your tone for what you're hearing in the room. The mic will hear things differently.
 
Greg_L said:
I think your natural, no pedals, low and high input clips sound pretty much like a 2204 should. Compared to my own, it's in the ballpark. So you might just be hearing something in your head that you're not finding with that particular amp or cab. One thing about those amps, since the power section breaks up so easily, you can trade off some preamp gain when going with big volume. You mentioned the master was up around 7? That's cooking pretty good for that amp and you're way into the power section at that point. Roll back the preamp gain and you'll still have a mighty crunch with less mush....if that's what you want.

I would think your 4x10 would be pretty tight and bright out in the room. I use 8x10s with my band, and they're very tight and midrangey. Even with all that internal space they don't have the punch an chunk of a 4x12. But miking up close should negate much of that. You just need to find your happy spot on the speaker. Like I said, for me, 10s are a little tougher to mic than a 12 for super loud rock and roll recording. Don't set your tone for what you're hearing in the room. The mic will hear things differently.
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Thanks Greg. I really do appreciate your input and support. I'm gonna head downstairs and fiddle with this amp for a while. Today was national margarita day, and my 2nd wedding anniversary so I may not get much accomplished. But I'm gonna make some noise in the name of the tone thread. Fortunately for my marriage, my studio is relatively soundproof (except for when it comes to 50 watts blasting through 4 speakers). But she's a heavy sleeper, so I'm golden :)

I'll report back tomorrow with any findings.
 
Tadpui said:
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.
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Cheers, Tad. There's no effects or anything on the guitar tone on this one. Only need miner tweaks if anything now.

I just clicked the "live vocal" setting in Reverbate in Reaper. I've got no idea how to use a reverb like that - I don't really know what to do with it. I've gotta re-sing it anyway. It's a pretty patchy performance. I just did two takes whole song and mostly kept the first one. They both get progressively shitter.
 
Tadpui said:
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.
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Hiya, mate. I have an OCD and you're getting really similar results to me. Sounds much better on the hi setting. You also seem to be having a similar drawback with the OCD to me; sounds great for chords and generally rocking with it but it sounds shit when you try and do a palm muted chug with it.

Given how much palm muting I use I've never recorded my OCD as my main tone. I use it as just a tone to enjoy when I'm chilling and I've used it live for a really saturated solo.
 
RAMI said:
Awesome man. Happy Anniversary! 2 years is a long time to be married! :D

Enjoy, but be careful. Marriage is the leading cause of divorce. :eek:
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Haha, it's actually been a delight. Although I was having trouble remembering if we'd been married 2 or 3 years. I told my wife that maybe it's because time flies when you're having fun...she gave me a very skeptical look. turns out it was 2 years, not 3 :D
 
JDOD said:
Hiya, mate. I have an OCD and you're getting really similar results to me. Sounds much better on the hi setting. You also seem to be having a similar drawback with the OCD to me; sounds great for chords and generally rocking with it but it sounds shit when you try and do a palm muted chug with it.

Given how much palm muting I use I've never recorded my OCD as my main tone. I use it as just a tone to enjoy when I'm chilling and I've used it live for a really saturated solo.
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Cool, thanks for the listen. yeah, the OCD is good at some things, not so good at others. Weird that in the room, I like the LP setting best. But on "tape" the HP is much more exciting. And I was surprised at how well the hi input on the amp handles palm muting. It stays pretty damn tight. Gotta experiment some more tonight.
 
JDOD said:
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.
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Yep, pretty good tones there, especially the rhythm guitar. I was looking for some thickness in the lead tone with more of a cutting edge, too - the tone was a little middly and one-dimensional for me. like it was both high-passed and low-passed. The rhythm tone kicked butt, though. :)
 
Greg_L said:
Yup. And then like 2 years later....they got a lot better.
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Tommy's drumming is much improved. His hi-hat playing is fluid, with less effort expended. He looked like he was having a siezure on the first clip. :D
 
I saw them live in New Orleans around '92 or so ..... at the time I wasn't able to appreciate them ..... I was way into jazz and New Orleans funk and that stuff just irritated me.

But my daughter wanted to go so we went ..... I regret not being able to be interested.
 
Bubba po said:
Tommy's drumming is much improved. His hi-hat playing is fluid, with less effort expended. He looked like he was having a siezure on the first clip. :D
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Lol. He probably was. He was no drummer. He taught himself to play because no on else in their little world could at that time. Joey started as the drummer, but he was no good, so they made him the singer.

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

Lt. Bob said:
I saw them live in New Orleans around '92 or so ..... at the time I wasn't able to appreciate them ..... I was way into jazz and New Orleans funk and that stuff just irritated me.

But my daughter wanted to go so we went ..... I regret not being able to be interested.
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Hey I was there too! I saw them in N.O. in 92.
 
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