Ahh, so THAT’S how you strip a guitar sound of its native character!
Got it. I was wondering how to do that!
REAL HIGH gain
- Thread starter eSGEe
- Start date
Ahh, so THAT’S how you strip a guitar sound of its native character!
Got it. I was wondering how to do that!
I owned a Engl Fireball for a short while, while it had great saturation it was so over compressed it couldn't cut through the band making it virtually useless for what I wanted it do.
This is the combination I used for a couple years...... The TriAmp was killer with the Marshall.
The Soldano and Splawn were very good too.
Never played one in a live band setting, so I can't comment on that, but it was great in the studio
My 50 watt Origin is so loud and cutting I have to run a Weber 100 watt attenuator to keep from blowing the other guitars out of the mix.
syscokid
Ambassador of War & Peace
Pretty much any high gain amp set to massive amounts of overdrive or distortion will neutralize a guitar's native character. Or in other words, for that crushing hardcore metal sound, it's more about the amp than it is the guitar.
Totally agree.
Even with the wide variety of stuff that I'm playing now (as an instructor) i doubt you would never hear the guitar even if there is zero gain. I'm running chorus 100% of the time as a signature aspect of my tone, plus a compressor and reverb. There's more coloring there than you might imagine.
Maybe if you just plugged straight into a 1950 Masco MU-5 amp, then you could hear the character of the guitar, but that's a very dry tone, Man...
I use chorus quite a bit, as well as delay and reverb, but my overdrive and distortion are usually not set too aggressive. True, they do color the tone. That’s why I use them! But, I can tell the difference between the sound of different guitars pretty readily even with those effects, and other people can, too. Then again, I don’t overdo them, either.
I agree that any effects will color and mask a guitar‘s tone, and the more you use the more the guitar‘s sound is affected. But, under normal circumstances, heavy distortion has the most singular impact on a guitar’s native character. This is simple physics. As a waveform is overdriven and saturated in the tubes (or transistor stages or clipping diodes) greater and greater portions of the waveform are clipped off, leaving less information of the original signal.
Of course, this is assuming relatively mild and normal use of the other effects! If you use something rather extreme like a ring modulator or a Moogerfooger, all bets are off! The same is true if you cascade a lot of effects and keep them on.
So, I don’t disagree with your comment, as you’ve worded it. I’m only making the point that heavy distortion will more immediately affect the character of your guitar’s sound than other effects, depending on how you’re using them.
I don't hear much difference in my humbucker guitars. My EMG81TW sounds almost identical to my custom DiMarzio Neanderthal 16.5k passive AlNico9. They sound the same played clean too.
Here's the two waveforms, Schecter EMG81TW on the left and DiMarzio Neanderthal 16.5k passive on the right.
In general, I like to have a tremolo for some songs, like 'Cult Of Personality,' or 'Out In The Fields,' but for lots of string bending, like in 'Hotel California,' or 'All Along The Watchtower,' I prefer a fixed bridge.
The main reason I use two guitars is because I am so rough on them, but when I switch, because of a broken string, etc., I don't want to be forced to readjust my rig...
@MitchPearrowSJMP has been at Primo Rehearsal Studios in Riverside, California and watched me switch between two Les Paul's, a DoubleNeck and a Humbucker Strat and nobody could perceive any difference in tone.
I also put a ton of effort into the rig, to where I am able to sit in front of my amp - close enough to touch it - with the master volume on 8 and never turn the guitar volume down and have no buzz, hum or squeal.
For me, repeatability and controllability are what pays the bills.
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I agree. I wouldn’t expect you’d hear much difference between those. I know I don’t when I’ve listened to them in sound tests. But, that’s just YouTube!
By the way, the waveforms in Audacity aren’t very useful for really examining frequency response, especially zoomed way out. A tighter resolution would be more useful, but, even then, a display from a spectrum analyzer would be more beneficial. The waveforms in Audacity don’t show harmonic content.
Just a minor point to ponder, as if you don’t have enough to think about already!
I don't think I really use that much gain, do you???
Generally, I use more volume than anything else.
I agree. I wouldn’t expect you’d hear much difference between those. I know I don’t when I’ve listened to them in sound tests. But, that’s just YouTube!
By the way, the waveforms in Audacity aren’t very useful for really examining frequency response, especially zoomed way out. A tighter resolution would be more useful, but, even then, a display from a spectrum analyzer would be more beneficial. The waveforms in Audacity don’t show harmonic content.
Just a minor point to ponder, as if you don’t have enough to think about already!
Audacity is just a convenient tool and most certainly not the best.
We did examine some of my waveforms in Cubase Pro as well, just for fun. There's so much consistency in my gear that when I switch guitars, the engineer never notices.
Totally agree! They only tell amplitude really…and all zoomed out….well…
I much prefer this mode in Reaper if I’m looking for frequency pileup….
“Spectrogram” mode…good stuff. I used a plug in for this back in the ‘00s….now it’s a native option in Reaper.
ivan H
Ambassador of Tubes & Grooves
I know I'm late to this, but seeing as the tread title is "real high gain", I think we should clarify just what gain is.
Gain is an expression of the "voltage amplification" factor of (either) a single pre-amp stage (or of a pre-amp as a whole). This "voltage gain" is usually expressed in "db", which is a ratio, not a measure.
For a really in-depth explanation of "gain", head over to the Marshall forum, "the workbench" sub-forum & there, 2nd thread title "what is gain" will spell it all out for you properly & without bull
.So is there such a thing as "high gain" & "low gain" pre-amps"??? Of course there is, but I don't think most here need me to tell them that.
Can gain be also called sensitivity, yes, but it's still an expression of voltage gain, not voltage sensitivity.
The triode voltage amplifier, which is what inhabits our tube pre-amp sections, was the very first form of amplification ever developed & definitely pre-dates the phonograph by quite some time.
I won't comment on the rest. Cheers
I know I'm late to this, but seeing as the tread title is "real high gain", I think we should clarify just what gain is.
Gain is an expression of the "voltage amplification" factor of (either) a single pre-amp stage (or of a pre-amp as a whole). This "voltage gain" is usually expressed in "db", which is a ratio, not a measure.
For a really in-depth explanation of "gain", head over to the Marshall forum, "the workbench" sub-forum & there, 2nd thread title "what is gain" will spell it all out for you properly & without bull
So is there such a thing as "high gain" & "low gain" pre-amps"??? Of course there is, but I don't think most here need me to tell them that.
Can gain be also called sensitivity, yes, but it's still an expression of voltage gain, not voltage sensitivity.
The triode voltage amplifier, which is what inhabits our tube pre-amp sections, was the very first form of amplification ever developed & definitely pre-dates the phonograph by quite some time.
I won't comment on the rest. Cheers
Interesting!!!
I'm both fascinated and intimidated by all of this!!!!
syscokid
Ambassador of War & Peace
Don't know what's going on here, but it sure looks pretty!
OP
eSGEe
Ferengi Ambassador of Trade
IS that English?I know I'm late to this, but seeing as the tread title is "real high gain", I think we should clarify just what gain is.
Gain is an expression of the "voltage amplification" factor of (either) a single pre-amp stage (or of a pre-amp as a whole). This "voltage gain" is usually expressed in "db", which is a ratio, not a measure.
For a really in-depth explanation of "gain", head over to the Marshall forum, "the workbench" sub-forum & there, 2nd thread title "what is gain" will spell it all out for you properly & without bull
So is there such a thing as "high gain" & "low gain" pre-amps"??? Of course there is, but I don't think most here need me to tell them that.
Can gain be also called sensitivity, yes, but it's still an expression of voltage gain, not voltage sensitivity.
The triode voltage amplifier, which is what inhabits our tube pre-amp sections, was the very first form of amplification ever developed & definitely pre-dates the phonograph by quite some time.
I won't comment on the rest. Cheers
Gain, of the tone it produces,, has become a lifelong quest for me..
I can recall how absolutely floored I was when I first heard Leslie West's guitar tone on Mississippi Queen about 1974. Growing up in a very conservative family, I had only really heard blues, 1950's rock-n-roll and country music up until that point.
Naturally, after this very early exposure, I began to explore this forbidden world and soon I had discovered five bands that would play a significant role in not only my style, but my tone as well. "The Big 5" were Black Sabbath, Scorpions, AC/DC, Def Leppard and Motorhead.
The years of 1978-1980 was really a very formative period for me as a budding musician, because it was during this time that I really - seriously - took up the guitar. I would spend 8-10 hours a day playing, stopping only for chores and food.
By the fall of 1980, I had gotten good enough that a local bar band (managed by a friend of my Mom) allowed me to sit in with them for a few songs. I was offered a full time job with the band, earning $125/week.
After years of being bullied and never fitting in, Mom saw something change for me when this opportunity presented itself. I was allowed to shorten my school days through work experience and by my sophomore year, I was allowed to drop out completely to play music full time.
I had a 1959 Sears Silvertone and a JTM30 combo. That was pretty much it, and at the time, it worked.
I soon found myself really enjoying/dissecting the tones of Willis and Clark on "High N Dry" and "On Through The Night." When "Pyromania" came out in 1983, that became the tone that I wanted above all else.
Of course, at that time, there wasn't much written about the setup and buying FX was largely done on a trial and error basis, so my tone never really evolved much.
The Headfirst Amplification Origin Mods are the first thing that has got me excited in a very long time.
I don't really think it's a very high gain tone, but I really dig it...
This is my new quest:
Listen beginning at 0:43 to about 2:20 and listen to the tone Jason Tong is getting with a Modded Origin 20 and no FX pedals:
I can recall how absolutely floored I was when I first heard Leslie West's guitar tone on Mississippi Queen about 1974. Growing up in a very conservative family, I had only really heard blues, 1950's rock-n-roll and country music up until that point.
Naturally, after this very early exposure, I began to explore this forbidden world and soon I had discovered five bands that would play a significant role in not only my style, but my tone as well. "The Big 5" were Black Sabbath, Scorpions, AC/DC, Def Leppard and Motorhead.
The years of 1978-1980 was really a very formative period for me as a budding musician, because it was during this time that I really - seriously - took up the guitar. I would spend 8-10 hours a day playing, stopping only for chores and food.
By the fall of 1980, I had gotten good enough that a local bar band (managed by a friend of my Mom) allowed me to sit in with them for a few songs. I was offered a full time job with the band, earning $125/week.
After years of being bullied and never fitting in, Mom saw something change for me when this opportunity presented itself. I was allowed to shorten my school days through work experience and by my sophomore year, I was allowed to drop out completely to play music full time.
I had a 1959 Sears Silvertone and a JTM30 combo. That was pretty much it, and at the time, it worked.
I soon found myself really enjoying/dissecting the tones of Willis and Clark on "High N Dry" and "On Through The Night." When "Pyromania" came out in 1983, that became the tone that I wanted above all else.
Of course, at that time, there wasn't much written about the setup and buying FX was largely done on a trial and error basis, so my tone never really evolved much.
The Headfirst Amplification Origin Mods are the first thing that has got me excited in a very long time.
I don't really think it's a very high gain tone, but I really dig it...
This is my new quest:
Listen beginning at 0:43 to about 2:20 and listen to the tone Jason Tong is getting with a Modded Origin 20 and no FX pedals:
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Good Morning, Stude's....
Class is now in session...
Class is now in session...