KVR Audio

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 9:55 pm

okay, I have seen signs that amp sims and such with presets are making the concept of tweaking harder on some. Where for myself and others like me it's almost second nature to dial in your tone...so I thought perhaps a thread (not about posting presets) about how to get tones you'd like to create might be cool.

For me I'll start off with my basic lead tone settings on tube amps (my jumping off point anyhow, then from there it's about the amp and it's characteristics)

I like to turn the amps drive knob up to about 3 or 4 to start (then I season to taste), roll way back on the master (for starting purposes anyhow) then for tone I generally put the bass up to about 7, the mids between about 4 and 6 the treble about 6-8 and presence if there is one a little higher than the what the treble is set for.

This gives a good "crunch plus" tone if you will. Hitting the input with some overdrive is where it all happens. So something like the Boss turbo od, or an eq pedal always works well. The idea is to get the ax7's (pre-amp tubes) excited, though I found I can better achieve the results I like with less hiss by using the EMG PA2 onboard pre-amps (the afterburner would work even better). However not a lot of drive on an overdrive and the gain fairly low (if using a pedal), just enough to liven up the tone some...and if any tone control is used I might push it to the treble side a little, rarely towards the bass.

With this set-up I can get the amp to be "on the edge" as I like to think of it. Really active, open sound with lot's of sustain and ready to scream. It works nice for me with rolling on and off the volume on the guitar (one of the reasons I prefer the pre-amps on the guitar), but switch off the overdrive you're using and you got a nice rhythm tone that still has that little extra "sizzle" and sustain for squeals and such...hit the overdrive and it jumps out at you without being a wall of noise...

Next????

spuddle · Post by **spuddle** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:14 pm

This here is a comprehensive write up on tone with a focus on the physics perpective. I picked up a good deal of tips from this:

http://www.americanguitarinstitute.com/time.htm

"The inner workings of guitar tone is very scientific and extremely sensitive. It is based completely on the theories and laws of acoustics, which are precariously intertwined within the logical but messy world of quantum physics, and that is a strange and scary place, I assure you. I think that is why multifx processors are all but dead. I'm not sure which generation lost it, but somehow we've become a society that expects the fine details of quantum physics to be easily changed at the push of a button. If you really want to get in to creating tone from start to finish, you have to at the least understand acoustics and the laws of waves. If you have no interest at all, go buy a Marshall and a Les Paul......."

Krystel Becker 07.24.03

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:15 pm

Hink wrote: without being a wall of noise...

the point being?

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:17 pm

vurt wrote:
Hink wrote: without being a wall of noise...
the point being?

articula....oh waht the hell would you know about it

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:24 pm

actually i know a little of this articulation of which you almost speak.
we did it in college yesterday. the tutor told us about the "9 important things that made up a piece of music" then listed 13 on the board

lesson ended before i had chance to ask which 4 werent too important

but we did listen to some debussy and some bowie for comparitive analysis

clueless · Post by **clueless** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:31 pm

that's that then

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:34 pm

clueless wrote:that's that then

if that was it then that wouldn't be that

sure Hink smoke another...lol

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:16 am

Only referring to guitar tones up to ca. 1980, the three rules of golden amp tone (in addition to a competent player) :
1. Real tone only lives in the power tubes and cabinets, forget preamp distortion
2. A great amp has one, at best two stellar tones, many amps, especially the more complicated ones, don't have even one.
3. Each amp/cabinet combination has one volume at which it works best, need more volume ? Get a bigger amp/cabinet ! Too loud for that stage ? Get something smaller.
Look at Fender's blackface / silverface ranges and you'll understand.
And a little trick that I can't live without : Put a volume pedal (Ernie Ball with a different pot works best for me) in the FX loop to control your volume, use the controls of the guitar and your fingers to control tone and distortion.
YMMV, but for me that's basically what works best and lets me have fun on stage without MIDI or pedal stepdance while still getting a large variety of classic tones.
Cheers, susiwong

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:21 am

1. Real tone only lives in the power tubes and cabinets, forget preamp distortion

I tend to disagree with that...in fact imo it's utter nonsense...but to each his own....me I like my power amp to be transparent, so much that I in fact run a 400 watt stereo power amp with a marshall tube pre-amp...the amount of guitarists that used the pres out of the 800s and by-passed the power amps using larger amps suggests I'm not alone in that...but I guess it really matters what tone you are after, the cabs I agree with though...

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:36 am

Hink,
please note I was talking about pre 1980 tone, for more modern stuff your approach certainly makes sense. In fact I own two JMP-1s, a tube poweramp and some MIDI stuff myself and they serve me well for Top 40 and late night recording sessions.
Horses for courses, but you asked how to get THAT tone..., so you got my subjective views.

Cheers, susiwong

ross g · Post by **ross g** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:50 am

susiwong wrote:Only referring to guitar tones up to ca. 1980, the three rules of golden amp tone (in addition to a competent player) :
1. Real tone only lives in the power tubes and cabinets, forget preamp distortion
2. A great amp has one, at best two stellar tones, many amps, especially the more complicated ones, don't have even one.
3. Each amp/cabinet combination has one volume at which it works best, need more volume ? Get a bigger amp/cabinet ! Too loud for that stage ? Get something smaller.
Look at Fender's blackface / silverface ranges and you'll understand.
And a little trick that I can't live without : Put a volume pedal (Ernie Ball with a different pot works best for me) in the FX loop to control your volume, use the controls of the guitar and your fingers to control tone and distortion.
YMMV, but for me that's basically what works best and lets me have fun on stage without MIDI or pedal stepdance while still getting a large variety of classic tones.
Cheers, susiwong

that's all great, until you want that wall of sound distortion...

get a big muff, turn everything up full blast (except mid) and tell the sound man "monitors? house PA? what are those?" like, ever hear of controllable feedback?

edit: but a big muff/blackface bassman/4x12 IS an unbeatable combination!

rogerperrin · Post by **rogerperrin** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:53 am

susiwong wrote:Only referring to guitar tones up to ca. 1980, the three rules of golden amp tone (in addition to a competent player) :
1. Real tone only lives in the power tubes and cabinets, forget preamp distortion
2. A great amp has one, at best two stellar tones, many amps, especially the more complicated ones, don't have even one.
3. Each amp/cabinet combination has one volume at which it works best, need more volume ? Get a bigger amp/cabinet ! Too loud for that stage ? Get something smaller.
Look at Fender's blackface / silverface ranges and you'll understand.
And a little trick that I can't live without : Put a volume pedal (Ernie Ball with a different pot works best for me) in the FX loop to control your volume, use the controls of the guitar and your fingers to control tone and distortion.
YMMV, but for me that's basically what works best and lets me have fun on stage without MIDI or pedal stepdance while still getting a large variety of classic tones.
Cheers, susiwong

Hink, I tend to agree with susiwong!!!!

Actually you're both right, just from 2 different schools of thought as to guitar and amp tone.

Susiwong says get the tone with the poweramp tubes - think Eric Clapton's tremoloed slide guitar on "My Father's Eyes." Poweramp disto equals smooth, creamy to rough overdrive.

Hink says get the distortion from the 12AX7, preamp tubes. Think Steve Vai - about to leap out and bite you with edge. Preamp disto doesn't yield very good overdrive - more of an edgy, grainy sound.

The earliest guitar amps did all of the work with the power tubes, and no gain control - master volume only.

Tone is so subjective, so it all depends on what speaks to your human spirit the best. (And your age and how many drugs you do.

) At my age I lean toward the creamy overdrive sounds.

guitarzan · Post by **guitarzan** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:55 am

I think I agree with susiwong for my idea of "that tone"- the kind of amptone I look for gets at most light clipping from the preamp stage (harmonic exitation) and then a really lively push-pull compression thing from the poweramp rather than hard clipping. You know, Fender blackface on 7 type of thing.

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:00 am

BB King sounded great with his solid state LAB amps, too, but still ...
I like his tone with a Twin or Super even better.
There's many ways to skin a ... silent, don't wake up my cat. She doesn't tolerate those jokes !
Cheers, susiwong

Sickle · Post by **Sickle** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:00 am

Oh look..hink's started a thread for me to take a nice, raunchy shit in..

Cheers, hink; payback's are a bitch.

how to get that guitar tone