High Gain Discussion Thread

[misterwhizzy]

What does high gain mean to you? What's the first amp you would point to and say, "That's where high gain began."? Do you think a player chooses such an amp to hide his mistakes? What's the epitome of a good high gain tone to you? Is that a contradiction in terms?

I find myself hating modern high gain tones, especially of Meshuggah-type bands, but I think Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Guns N' Roses, and Megadeth are examples of what I think it should be. Obviously, my idea is in the JCM800 camp.

[Demanic]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

An original Rat made from a kit, into a 59 Baseman through a 2x15 Baseman cab.

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[PierceOkken]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

Cranked plexis and high gain JCMs are kind of where the magic started, Think of Guys like EVH on Van Halen I, he absolutely pushed his marshalls to ungodly levels to achieve his tone. Then it caught on and went to the boutique market like soldano, bogner, friedman, deizel, and Engl. Then some players just made their own like the EVH amp series.

[Thundermtn]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

It means having a guitar tone that is more aggressively distorted than what any variation of pop music of the same era could find acceptable.

Marshall Plexi with a strong fuzz, fully cranked is where it registered with me as a kick off.

No, because if it's done correctly it sounds meaner than hell. I enjoy fast evil sounding guitar. Fast clean guitar is surf music, not heavy metal.

The best high gain tones to me are PAF style pickups, but hotter and tighter through a powerful tube amp that's tightened up with silicon diodes. Distorted but still has a good bit of overtones and harmonic stuff still intact. Honorable mention to EMG's through a JCM 800.

Clean guitar has only a couple of flavors of good tone, distorted guitar is a baskin-robbins.

When a guitar is tuned too low it loses it place in the mix, it's now a bass. When you move away from alnico mags you're bleeding off tone. If the grind is right with ceramics and actives though it can still sound heavy and awesome, but the drums and speed hold the key to making it sound right. Good tone that takes too long to bloom isn't as good as something that hits fast and mean.

All but one of the bands you listed pretty much use a "crunch" tone turned up to 11. They're not actually that distorted. Modern distortion sacrifices some of the cork sniffer stuff, but sounds wicked.

[Jeff_H]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

Cranked plexis and high gain JCMs are kind of where the magic started, Think of Guys like EVH on Van Halen I, he absolutely pushed his marshalls to ungodly levels to achieve his tone. Then it caught on and went to the boutique market like soldano, bogner, friedman, deizel, and Engl. Then some players just made their own like the EVH amp series.

It means having a guitar tone that is more aggressively distorted than what any variation of pop music of the same era could find acceptable.

Marshall Plexi with a strong fuzz, fully cranked is where it registered with me as a kick off.

No, because if it's done correctly it sounds meaner than hell. I enjoy fast evil sounding guitar. Fast clean guitar is surf music, not heavy metal.

The best high gain tones to me are PAF style pickups, but hotter and tighter through a powerful tube amp that's tightened up with silicon diodes. Distorted but still has a good bit of overtones and harmonic stuff still intact. Honorable mention to EMG's through a JCM 800.

Clean guitar has only a couple of flavors of good tone, distorted guitar is a baskin-robbins.

When a guitar is tuned too low it loses it place in the mix, it's now a bass. When you move away from alnico mags you're bleeding off tone. If the grind is right with ceramics and actives though it can still sound heavy and awesome, but the drums and speed hold the key to making it sound right. Good tone that takes too long to bloom isn't as good as something that hits fast and mean.

All but one of the bands you listed pretty much use a "crunch" tone turned up to 11. They're not actually that distorted. Modern distortion sacrifices some of the cork sniffer stuff, but sounds wicked.

Both of these are on the right track, for what I like. I will say that once the whole Mesa Double Rectifier sound came to the forefront it was too much distortion for me. I really like the hot rodded Marshall tone for my taste. You can get it in a great variety of flavors today... better than at any time in history. Bogner, Freidman, Splawn to name just a few. If I could have any amp outside of an original JCM 2205 to mod, it would be a Splawn Quick Rod 50 or a Friedman BE-50.

[Securb]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

I think it is reletive to the time. The Beatles and The Stones were the first to start the gain arms race. Helter Skelter was a response to The Stones getting heavier. The Beatles responded by daisychaining channels on the mixing console and maxing them out. It seems every generation since then has tried to get even more gain. As we all know you can only push it so far before you get mush.

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

I think it is reletive to the time. The Beatles and The Stones were the first to start the gain arms race. Helter Skelter was a response to The Stones getting heavier. The Beatles responded by daisychaining channels on the mixing console and maxing them out. It seems every generation since then has tried to get even more gain. As we all know you can only push it so far before you get mush.

Sorry, nitpick alert:

Helter Skelter was written by Paul as a response to a different song; but yes, his intention was to make the most distorted sound possible. It was a response to The Who’s I Can See For Miles. Paul heard described as being totally extreme, and he thought he could do something much more distorted as it was rather tame in his opinion. Personally, I agree; Helter Skelter is much more raucous than the former.

So I guess The Who REALLY started it, but The Beatles answered the call.

[6stringerguy]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

The chronology for me is
Slashed speakers(kinks)->cranked Marshall’s(Hendrix, EVH, priest and maiden)->Mesa boogie and Randall’s( Metallica, Pantera and death)->peavey 5150(almost every modern metal band ever)->Axe FX/Kemper(periphery and messhugah)

[Gtrjunior]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

I believe Link Wray poked holes in his speakers before the Kinks did for an early example of Distortion.

[Chistopher]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

I believe Link Wray poked holes in his speakers before the Kinks did for an early example of Distortion.

I watched a video about that type of thing. Apparently "more slashes= more gain" isn't entirely true. There reaches a point where you start to lose distortion and volume. Even when you reach the optimum level of damage for max distortion, it isn't a much as you could get from a good overdrive pedal.

[Demanic]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

I watched a video about that type of thing. Apparently "more slashes= more gain" isn't entirely true. There reaches a point where you start to lose distortion and volume. Even when you reach the optimum level of damage for max distortion, it isn't a much as you could get from a good overdrive pedal.

Not to mention how flubby the bottom end gets.

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[Gtrjunior]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

I watched a video about that type of thing. Apparently "more slashes= more gain" isn't entirely true. There reaches a point where you start to lose distortion and volume. Even when you reach the optimum level of damage for max distortion, it isn't a much as you could get from a good overdrive pedal.

True. I remember when I was a kid, a friend had a cheesy old 1x12 speaker and cabinet and we decided to experiment. The ripped speaker got “some” Distortion but hardly anything that sounded pleasing.
The more we further tore up the speaker the worse it got until it was completely useless.
Tons of fun though!!!

[Thundermtn]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

I believe Link Wray poked holes in his speakers before the Kinks did for an early example of Distortion.

Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm guitar tone on "Rocket 88" set the precedence for this back in '51. The guitar amp fell out of the vehicle and cracked the speaker cone, they filled the back of the cab with paper to get it to be useable. It very well may be the first rock record, first example of speaker distortion I know of.

[Chistopher]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

The highly influential instrumental "Rumble" by Link Wray had a similar story. His amp was damaged in transport and he got a kicking live tone (this particular concert was actually less than 20 minutes from my house) and he later tried to emulate in with slashing speakers.

This was probably the first really popular song with distortion. It was banned on several stations for its harsh tones promoting violence among juveniles. It was also one of the first popular songs to feature power chords.

[allbutromeo]

Re: High Gain Discussion Thread

High gain is relative, somebody playing in 50's would have thought a JTM45 was high gain. IMO the Mesa Boogie MkI introducing a cascading gain stage preamp is one of the first of what I would consider high gain, follow shortly after by the Marshall 2203. After that it's an arms race of amp mods and additional gain stages that has lead us to where we are now.