What EQ settings should I set my amp to for a 50's-60's Rock tone?

therevivalsband

therevivalsband

The Revivals
I'm playing guitar for a high school play, but I don't think my punk amp settings are gonna fit in with the 50s theme. I'd love some pointers or Treble/Mids/Bass/Gain settings.
 
Well, 50s-60s covers a lot of territory from the nearly the beginning of Fender Champ time to Hi-Watt stacks. So, going from early country-rockabilly (Carl Perkins) to the genesis of stadium rock (think Cream), you might need to be more specific on what you're looking for. And, style and technique will get you a long way. Go see Bill Kirchen and what he does with a Tele, Fender Deluxe and maybe an overdrive pedal (or two ;)).

Mostly, whether you're talking smaller, open back amps like Princeton/Bandmaster or a Hi-Watt stack, those amps were often dimed or close to it, and typically had minimal tone controls, maybe just "treble and bass" the guitar volume and tone did a lot of the control. Having a modeler would be useful, especially if you're covering a lot of that timespan. My 2¢.
 
keith.rogers said:
Well, 50s-60s covers a lot of territory from the nearly the beginning of Fender Champ time to Hi-Watt stacks. So, going from early country-rockabilly (Carl Perkins) to the genesis of stadium rock (think Cream), you might need to be more specific on what you're looking for. And, style and technique will get you a long way. Go see Bill Kirchen and what he does with a Tele, Fender Deluxe and maybe an overdrive pedal (or two ;)).

Mostly, whether you're talking smaller, open back amps like Princeton/Bandmaster or a Hi-Watt stack, those amps were often dimed or close to it, and typically had minimal tone controls, maybe just "treble and bass" the guitar volume and tone did a lot of the control. Having a modeler would be useful, especially if you're covering a lot of that timespan. My 2¢.
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Thank you, I should've been more specific but this still helps.
 
People think of specific 'tone' for eras, or genres, but it's been really just about players. 50-60s pop music was more about purity than treatment. You tended to find that everyone had minimum distortion as an aim and a 'nice' tone. So a bright Strat would have the top rolled of, but Gibson acoustic needed top adding to restore the norm. The venue size often mean more amps being turned up, so in-amp distortion crept into the sound, and for some, became part of the sound of the band. If you buy an AC30, you can sound like the Shadows, or Brian May with extra gizmos. I don't think there has ever been in the past, some kind of setting for these things. It's a recent phenomenon.
 
rob aylestone said:
People think of specific 'tone' for eras, or genres, but it's been really just about players. 50-60s pop music was more about purity than treatment. You tended to find that everyone had minimum distortion as an aim and a 'nice' tone. So a bright Strat would have the top rolled of, but Gibson acoustic needed top adding to restore the norm. The venue size often mean more amps being turned up, so in-amp distortion crept into the sound, and for some, became part of the sound of the band. If you buy an AC30, you can sound like the Shadows, or Brian May with extra gizmos. I don't think there has ever been in the past, some kind of setting for these things. It's a recent phenomenon.
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Thanks man, this helps.
 
Something that hasn't been mentioned is that what you hear on the records isn't necessarily what was used at a concert. At a concert where you have a few thousand screaming fans, you might need a Dual Showman or Twin Reverb and turn it up all the way. Very few studios let you crank up an amp, especially in the late 50s and early 60s. Guys like Scotty Moore and Buddy Holly would have been running clean, usually with Fender amps, from the Princeton and Deluxe to the Showman and Bassman. Remember too that you didn't have 50 different overdrives, chorus, compressor and wah pedals. There were maybe a dozen companies making fuzz pedals back then, like Maestro, Roger Mayer's Fuzz Face, Mosrite FuzzRite, Jordan Boss Tone, and the Dallas Rangemaster. You had a couple of wah pedals, and a couple of oddball pedals like the Shin-Ei Univibe, and Roger Mayer's Octavia. Most of those came along between about 65-68.

Satisfaction was a major departure from the standard guitar sound (at least the fuzz part). The rest of the guitar is still clean. Go back and listen to early Beach Boy albums, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Hank Marvin, Ventures, Chuck Berry, Roy Obison and Duane Eddy records. You'll hear clean guitars with reverb and tremolo as the effects, (except for Link Wray's shredded speaker on Rumble).

It wasn't until 65/66 that you had folks like Hendrix, Clapton, Townshend, Beck etc changing the overall sound of the guitar with massive overdriven amps. That's when you start seeing Marshall and Hiwatt stacks on stages. Even then that might not be what was used in the studio. Joe Walsh famously used a puny Fender Champ turned all the way up to get the sound of Funk 49.

So as others have said, you really don't have a "sound" over those 2 decades, especially since it was period of massive change in music.
 
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therevivalsband said:
I'm playing guitar for a high school play, but I don't think my punk amp settings are gonna fit in with the 50s theme. I'd love some pointers or Treble/Mids/Bass/Gain settings.
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It might be good to specify what you’ll be playing.

Background ambience in a 50s style? Or actual songs? If you’re doing songs, at least you can go find it and analyze that particular song.
 
TalismanRich said:
Something that hasn't been mentioned is that what you hear on the records isn't necessarily what was used at a concert. At a concert where you have a few thousand screaming fans, you might need a Dual Showman or Twin Reverb and turn it up all the way. Very few studios let you crank up an amp, especially in the late 50s and early 60s. Guys like Scotty Moore and Buddy Holly would have been running clean, usually with Fender amps, from the Princeton and Deluxe to the Showman and Bassman. Remember too that you didn't have 50 different overdrives, chorus, compressor and wah pedals. There were maybe a dozen companies making fuzz pedals back then, like Maestro, Roger Mayer's Fuzz Face, Mosrite FuzzRite, Jordan Boss Tone, and the Dallas Rangemaster. You had a couple of wah pedals, and a couple of oddball pedals like the Shin-Ei Univibe, and Roger Mayer's Octavia. Most of those came along between about 65-68.

Satisfaction was a major departure from the standard guitar sound (at least the fuzz part). The rest of the guitar is still clean. Go back and listen to early Beach Boy albums, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Hank Marvin, Ventures, Chuck Berry, Roy Obison and Duane Eddy records. You'll hear clean guitars with reverb and tremolo as the effects, (except for Link Wray's shredded speaker on Rumble).

It wasn't until 65/66 that you had folks like Hendrix, Clapton, Townshend, Beck etc changing the overall sound of the guitar with massive overdriven amps. That's when you start seeing Marshall and Hiwatt stacks on stages. Even then that might not be what was used in the studio. Joe Walsh famously used a puny Fender Champ turned all the way up to get the sound of Funk 49.

So as others have said, you really don't have a "sound" over those 2 decades, especially since it was period of massive change in music.
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woah thanks man
 
In general, I'd say err on the side of less gain than you think. I hear people playing those 50s/early 60s songs with WAY too much gain, and it just doesn't have the same punch or impact.
 
If you're doing a high school play, I would assume that you've put together a song list. Look at the list, then look up the artists who played guitar and see what they used.

Buddy Holly - Strat
Chuck Berry - Gibson ES350 in the early days. ES-335 /355 later days
Duane Eddy - Gretsch and Guild big body guitars
Scotty Moore = Telecaster / Super 400 / Chet Atkins / Gibson L5 (among others)
James Burton - Telecaster
Freddy King - ES335/345/355
Hank Marvin - Stratocaster
George Harrison - Gretsch Country Gentleman and Tennessean, Rickenbacker 360/12, then many others later (Strats, Tele, SG, Casino)

Those are the headliners... the stars.

But then you get into the session musicians like Tommy Tedesco who often played a Telecaster, but had everything from Les Pauls to big box jazz guitars. He's probably been on more records that you ever imagined, from the Beach Boys to Frank Sinatra, to Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis, Barbara Streisand and Frank Zappa! Then there's the stuff like the themes to tv shows, Bonanza, MASH, Twilight Zone, and Green Acres. Look up the Wrecking Crew and you will get a good idea of who is REALLY playing on a lot of those 50s and early 60s records. Tommy played on literally THOUSANDS of records. Don Peake played on a slew of records. The public never knew that there was a core of musicians that put out all those records.

Motown had the Funk Brothers. Eddie Willis, and Joe Messina, Robert White on guitars. All those soul records by the Supremes, Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Four Tops, etc. Again there was a core group of musicians who went in, would lay down the tracks behind the "artist" and move on to the next session.

Lots to think about. But it starts with the song list.
 
Amplification back in the days for live performance had lots to do with the sound produced. The Stones, Johnny Winter and others used Ampegs, Hendrix and Page used Marshalls. Clarence White, Justin Haywood and tons of others used Fenders. The Ampeg SVT was probably the king on the rock scene for bass back in the day but I heard some darn good "Acoustic" bass amps. As far as getting the sound you want, listen to what you like or think it is and duplicate it. That is what I have been told by two good engineers.
 
I thought Johnny Winter was mainly using Fender Twins until he got his MusicMan amps. Bass and Mid controls all the way down, treble cranked up. I wasn't a huge fan of his live tone.

I remember quite a few bassists using the Acoustic amps. The blue stripe was very distinctive, almost like Kustom's tuck and roll.
 
TalismanRich said:
I thought Johnny Winter was mainly using Fender Twins until he got his MusicMan amps. Bass and Mid controls all the way down, treble cranked up. I wasn't a huge fan of his live tone.

I remember quite a few bassists using the Acoustic amps. The blue stripe was very distinctive, almost like Kustom's tuck and roll.
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I saw him twice, ampegs, I just did a quick search and from what I read you are correct but both times I saw him he was using an ampeg?
 
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