Obsessed With Live Tone:

Inspector #20

Inspector #20

Ambassador of Tone
Fallen Star
Country flag
As our band nears completion of its first album, I am more driven than ever to create the best live tone - and the best musical character - that I possibly can.

I been up swapping tubes in the VS265, in hopes of getting more gain from the low out Gibson 57 Classic Plus, without relying on a lengthy pedal chain...

Character wise, I feel as though my tastes have settled on a cross between Tombstone's Doc Holliday and Tony Iommi.

Very ornate Victorian period dress, my old Mark Kendall style hat with a super thin, full face balaclava.

I have even found a firm that makes all manner of steam and diesel punk eyewear with your personal Rx.

While I dig the mask effect, such as those used by The Nameless Ghouls, I wanted something simple that did not use any existing masks, something that would impart mystery and anonymity and be easy and cheap to maintain.

So, I am piecing this look and tone together as we move along.

Currently testing a genuine Soviet Genelex Gold Lion T12AX7 in the Valvestate.

More to come...
 
Live tone can be tricky for sure. No matter how great you dial in everything in the luxury of your practice space there are always surprises in the actual venue. Standing waves, resonances, a room full of people absorbing certain freqs...etc

My rules of thumb are - however much gain I have been using in practice I back it off at least 1/4 for live volume and if I am going to be mic's through a PA I dump pretty much all the bass.
 
Excellent points. Gball!!!!!

This morning I stumbled onto a tone I didn't expect. It's heavily colored by boosting and cutting mids to give a kind of thick tone that still retains a cutting-edge on the g/b/e.

The Genelex Gold Lion T12AX7 really improved both gain and presence with the 57 Classic Plus.

On the amp, I cranked the mids, then rolled them back a little with the contour control, then again altered the mids on the Boss GE-7.

The resulting tone has enough bass to move air and rattle pictures on the wall, yet never gets muddy even at high volume levels.

Here's a snapshot of the settings:

2018-08-15 09.47.07.png 2018-08-15 09.46.43.png IMG_20180815_25127.jpg IMG_20180815_47110.jpg

This is the best tone thus far from the stuff I have laying around anyways...
 
Robert Herndon said:
The resulting tone has enough bass to move air and rattle pictures on the wall, .
Click to expand...

That's usually the problem I have found. Rattling walls with the guitar ends up competing for sonic space with the bass player and results in mud through the PA. I guess it's all specific to your rig so YMMV, but my experience has always been that I have to pull way back on bass because the bass player will overpower you and win if you start a volume war, and you will lose your headroom in the process.
 
gball said:
That's usually the problem I have found. Rattling walls with the guitar ends up competing for sonic space with the bass player and results in mud through the PA. I guess it's all specific to your rig so YMMV, but my experience has always been that I have to pull way back on bass because the bass player will overpower you and win if you start a volume war, and you will lose your headroom in the process.
Click to expand...

Exactly correct, but its not a bass-like speaker movement, its more a a presence from the volume level and when you play chords, its deceiving because you dont expect the g/b/e to have that sword clanging edge...its a tone our bassist and producer have been cultivating.

It may also have something to do with how mid-rangy our bassist is.

I will try and record a sample later!
 
And another unexpected thing...the VS265 has some noise present...and it has done this for years...but when I switch on my Boss CS-3 and Boss GE-7, it actually quiets the amp down!!!! And with the Boss NS-2, its nearly silent....and that's not running anything through the effects loop just straight into the front of the amp.

Now all of my Boss effects have been modded by Modest Mike, so that may have something to do with it too, but its crazy how things get quieter when I switch on those effects...
 
I seem to remember a time when bands just played so loud the audience's ears went numb and they couldn't hear much less tell difference in tones. I think it was called the 60's, hmm, maybe it was the 70's. Now that I think about it maybe it wasn't how loud the music was after all. Never mind...
 
It cuts through cleanly on your recordings and sounds good in our live mix...can't wait to share the new music!!!!
 
Drumoid said:
I seem to remember a time when bands just played so loud the audience's ears went numb and they couldn't hear much less tell difference in tones. I think it was called the 60's, hmm, maybe it was the 70's. Now that I think about it maybe it wasn't how loud the music was after all. Never mind...
Click to expand...

Listen to Gary Moore live. Hella loud and yet very articulate and defined...

 
Drumoid said:
Gary Moore - a great guitarist to say the least...
Click to expand...

The very least! What an amazing player.

I just found his later material so...boring. Same tired old white blooze, over and over. The music seemed like such a waste of his talent to me.
 
gball said:
Live tone can be tricky for sure. No matter how great you dial in everything in the luxury of your practice space there are always surprises in the actual venue. Standing waves, resonances, a room full of people absorbing certain freqs...etc

My rules of thumb are - however much gain I have been using in practice I back it off at least 1/4 for live volume and if I am going to be mic's through a PA I dump pretty much all the bass.
Click to expand...

If you check my settings, i have cranked the mids on the VS265, and then rolled them off a little with the contour control. Then I add just a little edge with the tone control on the compressor, and the, on the EQ, I have a very slight bass boost on the '100' band, '200,' '400' and '800' bands slightly pulled back, 1.6k is just above middle....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top