The Tone Chase

[LLL]

I didn't use a console. It was a ProTools studio from the beginning. I started my studio because I was getting work doing tracks for other artists and needed a place to work where I could record sources that generated > 90dba levels, like drums and loud amplifiers, and had a good sounding room, which requires some square footage. Outboard equipment was mainly preamps and microphones and any I/O conversion needed. You don't really need a console unless you are recording orchestras or live bands with high track count going in, and/or if you are mixing high budget projects where that last $10,000 of sound on each track will matter to the client, and likely you are staying analog up until the master. That was never my plan or objective. Studios that use a desk generally have tape for the primary storage medium, or once they store to digital rarely go back through the desk. You lose quality if you go from digital storage, out through an analog board, and then back to digital storage, because of all the conversion. The tracks I worked on came to me as digital sessions on digital storage to start with. So for me, buying a console would be a waste of $100k that I'd be getting taxed on annually. If you are part of a corporation or have a multi-million dollar budget, it's easier to justify a desk and store to analog tape; which is a very expensive way to go and to maintain. If you are independently financed and working individually, you have to consider all that cost vs benefit/need.

So you were doing what I've been doing for about 20 years now (sans the huge room) - tracking with a DAW (I have ProTools, but much prefer Reaper) and plugins / some outboard gear.

I do stuff for my own thing, plus the occasional business client who needs background music.

Did you do any mixing... or mastering?

[LLL]

Ditto to this. I don't usually comment on threads like this because I think they're more geared towards performing musicians, which I'm not. But having said that, I've been chasing this tone forever. It's just a clean tone. Probably a Tele, and it's probably in the fingers. But dang, I love this sound.

For those not into the B-52's, this song is as far removed from typical B-52's as you can get.

A little slapback echo + a hair of chorus (possibly Eventide) and of course the EQing and a bit of compression.

[ArtieToo]

A little slapback echo + a hair of chorus (possibly Eventide) and of course the EQing and a bit of compression.

Thanks. I can do that. (Try it, I mean.)

[LLL]

Thanks. I can do that. (Try it, I mean.)

And most likely a bit of reverb (delay into reverb, to be precise)... I'd try plate first.

So like:

50-125ms delay -> plate reverb

But this would be studio FX, not before the amp. Or at least, post-amp. As far as getting that recorded tone.

So like (full chain):

guitar -> compression -> clean tube amp -> EQ -> slight chorus (stereo) -> 50-125ms delay (stereo) -> plate reverb (stereo)

or

guitar -> clean tube amp -> compression (1176 or similar) -> EQ -> slight chorus (stereo) -> 50-125ms delay (stereo) -> plate reverb (stereo)

You could do this live but you'd need a stereo rig. Lots to type and little time.

[beaubrummels]

So you were doing what I've been doing for about 20 years now (sans the huge room) - tracking with a DAW (I have ProTools, but much prefer Reaper) and plugins / some outboard gear.

I do stuff for my own thing, plus the occasional business client who needs background music.

Did you do any mixing... or mastering?

I've done mixing for other artists. For some reason more than half of that work was live multi-tracks other people had engineered. I don't do mastering. That's a different job with different sills and different equipment and requires pretty golden ears.

[ArtieToo]

And most likely a bit of reverb (delay into reverb, to be precise)... I'd try plate first.

So like:

50-125ms delay -> plate reverb

But this would be studio FX, not before the amp. Or at least, post-amp. As far as getting that recorded tone.

So like (full chain):

guitar -> compression -> clean tube amp -> EQ -> slight chorus (stereo) -> 50-125ms delay (stereo) -> plate reverb (stereo)

or

guitar -> clean tube amp -> compression (1176 or similar) -> EQ -> slight chorus (stereo) -> 50-125ms delay (stereo) -> plate reverb (stereo)

You could do this live but you'd need a stereo rig. Lots to type and little time.

Thanks LLL. I have all the stuff to do all those things. I'll try them both before the week is over. (Home studio only.)

[Erlend_G]

I feel like I'm /almost/ where I want to be soundwise today :o

what a milestone.

[Bogner]

Give it a day. Something will change that.

[Bogner]

Did everybody quit chasing tones or did you catch them all?

[LLL]

Did everybody quit chasing tones or did you catch them all?

Everyone already has their own killer, signature tone... as good as the pro's.

[jeremy]

as i said earlier in this thread, ive been fairly settled with the basics for a while. i am playin with more fuzz pedals these days but not every gig is suited to that tone. stacking fuzz and overdrives is something im trying to figure out though. specifically fuzzface, tone benders, and other two and three germanium transistor fuzz pedals that tend to have odd impedance issues

[Bogner]

as i said earlier in this thread, ive been fairly settled with the basics for a while. i am playin with more fuzz pedals these days but not every gig is suited to that tone. stacking fuzz and overdrives is something im trying to figure out though. specifically fuzzface, soul benders, and other two and three germanium transistor fuzz pedals that tend to have odd impedance issues

Sounds fun. How are you liking it so far? You coming up with anything you really dig? If so, how did you accomplish it?

[alex1fly]

Did everybody quit chasing tones or did you catch them all?

Been performing music since 1995. My preferences haven't changed a lot since then - the tone chasing really has just solidified my confidence in knowing what I like. For guitar I'm happy with a 2x12 3-channel basic betty solid state combo amp and some basic FX for live stuff and regular playing, a decent modeler for studio deep dives and niche tones, a decent acoustic guitar, a couple of single coil guitars, and a couple of humbucker guitars. In 2020-2021 I added 3 guitars to my collection, making a total of 5 guitars, and did 1-3 pickup swaps in each to get them sounding killer. Nothing I own is pricey except for the modeler. So I have a bunch more killer tones available to make music with than I did 2 years ago, and do my best to focus on playing/writing/recording/performing.

So yeah I've mostly caught them. And the couple remaining ones that I don't have (P90s in an SG to go with my humbuckers in an SG!) are more about curiosity than actual need. I don't know how it works for anybody else, but for me when I'm chasing tone I don't play much music or if I do, I'm mainly playing for the sake of comparing gear. Tone chasing is not a good hobby for me - I get obsessive and lose sight of the reason for tone chasing - while playing music is an extremely good hobby for me - it's calming, fulfilling, uplifting, expands my social circle, I love listening to my old recordings, etc.

As to the issues listed with SDUGF, I was extremely active the last couple of years but haven't been on much lately for a couple reasons.
1. I've been on this forum since 2005, have read dang near everything in the archives that I'm interested in, so I'm pretty prepared to tackle most gear issues that I used to turn to forums to help with. I've also started taking my instruments to guitar techs for repairs and mods I'm not comfortable with.
2. In the last 1-2 years SDUGF the feel has changed significantly from "let's help each other build a great signal chain" to "yeah that's cool I guess but also 10-20 of us are going to hang out all day online together, insult people we don't like, and/or argue with anyone that disagrees with us." Yeah it will always be a thing in forums, but I'm just over the BS of people arguing for arguing's sake.
3. I've spent 45 minutes re-writing and editing this post. Like I'm some kind of preacher and this is a sermon that needs to change hearts and minds. Really I just care too much about what y'all think about what I write. Lol. It'd be interesting as hell to pull up my entire post history and print it into a book.

[jeremy]

Sounds fun. How are you liking it so far? You coming up with anything you really dig? If so, how did you accomplish it?

im seeing that the trick is to use an od with a high input impedance to get the best stacking. i wish manufactured would publish that spec more.

sunface into catalinbred dls mk2 is the winner so far and thats been my go too for a while but the soul bender into a barber ltd is pretty good too. no real trick other than trying different combinations of pedals, then once something sounds good through my test amps (fender and supro), i try others and see if it does equally well there. the fuzz pedals run on batteries since they need opposite polarity power.

[Bogner]

im seeing that the trick is to use an od with a high input impedance to get the best stacking. i wish manufactured would publish that spec more.

sunface into catalinbred dls mk2 is the winner so far and thats been my go too for a while but the soul bender into a barber ltd is pretty good too. no real trick other than trying different combinations of pedals, then once something sounds good through my test amps (fender and supro), i try others and see if it does equally well there. the fuzz pedals run on batteries since they need opposite polarity power.

I have never been much of a fuzz person but I would be lying if I said I have never been interested in them. The last couple of years I bought a few and have begun messing a bit with them from time to time. They are a trip.