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80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

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  • #16
    Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

    Honestly ..VH had a sound (& style) that was distinctly different from the generic "hair-metal" sound of most of the other bands mentioned (Rat pedal into anything..) and there are endless pedals & entire rigs just geared for that VH sound.
    "Less is less, more is more...how can less be more?" ~Yngwie J Malmsteen

    I did it my way ~ Frank Sinatra

    Originally posted by Rodney Gene
    If you let your tone speak for itself you'll find alot less people join the conversation.


    Youtube

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    • #17
      Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

      Originally posted by Aceman View Post
      I have used both a real/original (1980) Rat and a Mooer Black Secret into a VS100R with very satisfying results....
      I had a nice US small box RAT. But then I started using modeling amps, and that in front of a dirty amp equaled nothing! It was like not having it on at all. Very weird.

      Sold it to a friend and it was destroyed in a house fire. [emoji853]

      But they are great sounding pedals, especially when I had my ‘81 Les Paul Standard with a DiMarzio Super Distortion at the bridge. That’s the sound right there.


      Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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      • #18
        Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

        Originally posted by Phantasmagoria View Post
        Honestly ..VH had a sound (& style) that was distinctly different from the generic "hair-metal" sound of most of the other bands mentioned (Rat pedal into anything..) and there are endless pedals & entire rigs just geared for that VH sound.
        There is no such thing as a generic hair metal sound: Those bands were remarkably diverse in their approaches, and for those who actually bother to listen it isn't hard to hear it. There are certainly as large differences in approach and result between the other bands mentioned as it is between either of them and Van Halen. This may sound harsh, but I am so sick and tired that threads like these, where people are genuinely trying to help, are overrun by people who don't get the style, and have nothing but trite prejudices to add. But pray tell us which of the bands have identical "generic" tones, so that we may point our fingers and scornfully laugh at you.

        EDIT: I suppose you could argue that it is possible to get a generic tone in the sense that you can find one tone that, with minor modifications such as those outlined by Aceman above, can be used for most such bands. This, of course, is not unique to 80s heavy metal, and it is still likely that the resultant tone is closer to the brown tone than to many of the outliers within 80s heavy metal. I'll skip the tone vs. sound discussion here, because that would only complicate the matter further.
        Last edited by Sirion; 12-10-2018, 05:52 AM.

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        • #19
          Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

          Not possible... so many different sounds. But if you want quintessential

          Super Strat with SD Invaders, JBs or Dimarzio SDs into a Tube Screamer style circuit into a high gain 80s Marshall into 65 or 75w 12s with bumped mids and reverb and chorus
          “For me, when everything goes wrong – that’s when adventure starts.” Yvonne Chouinard

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          • #20
            Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

            Originally posted by Sirion View Post
            There is no such thing as a generic hair metal sound: Those bands were remarkably diverse in their approaches, and for those who actually bother to listen it isn't hard to hear it.
            Respectfully, I disagree. The sound on say Invasion of Your Privacy "What You Give" vs Dokken Back For The Attack "Kiss Of Death" with the exception of some hand 'English' is pretty dang similar....IMO.

            Again - ignore the few (very few) bands with a distinctive personality and the majority are, in a very general sense, what I said: Hot Rodded Marshall, Delay, perhaps Chorus....specifics may vary, but overall, that's the genre.

            Originally posted by NegativeEase View Post
            Not possible... so many different sounds. But if you want quintessential

            Super Strat with SD Invaders, JBs or Dimarzio SDs into a Tube Screamer style circuit into a high gain 80s Marshall into 65 or 75w 12s with bumped mids and reverb and chorus
            Again - there are really very few "distinctive" personalities. The guitar players for Keel, Loudness, Roughcutt, and on and on and on....Hot rodded Marshall, delay, chorus, in some measure more or less.

            As for your recommendation on a SUperD or Invader....and a TS9...that's a pretty early version if you ask me. Almost a 78-81 version or photo sound. By the time Hair bands were Hair bands...

            SD's, JB's, Rats, and ADA's, JMP's, or Soldano's or a tweaked Marshall were the order of the day. If you ask me.


            But as you said - no doubt a variety of approaches in the specifics. However - DEFINITELY mids! Back when even guitarists knew how to cut through the mix with razor sharp punchy tones!
            Originally posted by Bad City
            He's got the crowd on his side and the blue jean lights in his eyes...

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            • #21
              Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

              Why would anyone want a 4 decades old tone?

              I keed, I keed.

              Use the gear they used.

              A hot humbucker with a boosted Marshall plexi or JCM800 goes a long ways. EQs, BOSS etc pedals (used for boost only) were slapped in front of the amp
              for "MORE!".

              Celestion G12 65s were common in Marshall cabs of the day.

              If you're really serious, do a DAW & grab an Eventide... for starters.
              Last edited by LLL; 12-11-2018, 12:27 AM.

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              • #22
                Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

                Originally posted by LLL View Post
                Use the gear they used.
                See? One line could have solved an entire Dio thread.

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                • #23
                  Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

                  Originally posted by Aceman View Post
                  Respectfully, I disagree. The sound on say Invasion of Your Privacy "What You Give" vs Dokken Back For The Attack "Kiss Of Death" with the exception of some hand 'English' is pretty dang similar....IMO.

                  Again - ignore the few (very few) bands with a distinctive personality and the majority are, in a very general sense, what I said: Hot Rodded Marshall, Delay, perhaps Chorus....specifics may vary, but overall, that's the genre.



                  Again - there are really very few "distinctive" personalities. The guitar players for Keel, Loudness, Roughcutt, and on and on and on....Hot rodded Marshall, delay, chorus, in some measure more or less.

                  As for your recommendation on a SUperD or Invader....and a TS9...that's a pretty early version if you ask me. Almost a 78-81 version or photo sound. By the time Hair bands were Hair bands...

                  SD's, JB's, Rats, and ADA's, JMP's, or Soldano's or a tweaked Marshall were the order of the day. If you ask me.


                  But as you said - no doubt a variety of approaches in the specifics. However - DEFINITELY mids! Back when even guitarists knew how to cut through the mix with razor sharp punchy tones!

                  If anybody has the right to dissent in this case, Ace, it is you, and in my exasperation I might have overstated my case, as admitted in my addendum. It bears repeating here exactly what I disagreed with, viz., the idea that the early EVH tone is oh-so-precious and needs a ton of very specific gear, whereas the rest of the bands mentioned – which included Ratt, Guns N' Roses and Def Leppard, bands which in my opinion sound nothing alike – can basically be had with a Rat pedal into a Blues Cube. The cavalier dismissal of "the others" is what irks me about the thing. When you are already on that level of ridiculousness, why not suggest a Metal Zone straight into the board?

                  These are not your opinions, of course, and I provide them for context only. Even so, I think there is something to be said for the diversity of approaches used. You mention George and Warren, who at one point were roomies, and who used to fight over the same amp heads. That they, of all the guitarists around, could arrive at similar results is not a surprise to me. Even there, however, their approaches to effects differed markedly, with George's tone generally being more processed. It should also be mentioned that What you Give probably is the crunchiest tone Warren ever got, and the difference between the two gets bigger from there. Take a track like You're in Love, and I'd say he's closer to Eddie's Unchained than to George. Even guitarists who basically used the same approach got very different: Slash and Reb Beach both basically had a gainy Marshall tone, yet sounds nothing alike beyond that. If we go a few years further back, Carlos Cavazo always sounded to me like he EQed his guitar very differently from his contemporaries. It is not necessarily a tone I'd chase, but it is different. Then consider the Rockman tone, say, Steve Lynch on Autograph's Loud and Clear. That tone is miles away from his non-relative George, yet it does not feel out of place in the context of the genre. Since Rough Cutt was mentioned, it should be said that a lot of what you hear on their second records are guitar synths, and again, I find their approach to sound rather different from the other ones.

                  Now, I readily concede that I have probably spent more time than most contemplating the diversity found here (as have you, I suspect). I also agree that getting an approximation of these tones, so that you can play them all in the same set without anybody but annoying pedants such as myself raising an eyebrow, is more than possible. You are not going to get there by putting a Rat into a Blues Cube, though. And once you get there, you'll find that, surprise surprise, your tone is going to do a pretty darn good job playing Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love, too. Turn the guitar volume down to 7 and turn off the chorus, and I'd argue you could probably do 70s Aerosmith and Zeppelin's rockier tracks without too many eyebrows being raised as well.
                  Last edited by Sirion; 12-11-2018, 06:18 AM.

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                  • #24
                    Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

                    HM-2 can do it easily. Start with gain at 3:00+, lows 3:00+, highs 12:00+, dist 3:00+.

                    If you run an HM-2 (or metalzone for that matter) into the front-end of an amp; Start with the amp's EQs close to the center and then first mess with the pedal.


                    edit; oh woops, you want "glam metal" lol,,,,,,,,,,,,,,same as above just turn the bass to 0! lol

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                    • #25
                      Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

                      Originally posted by Sirion View Post
                      There is no such thing as a generic hair metal sound: Those bands were remarkably diverse in their approaches, and for those who actually bother to listen it isn't hard to hear it. There are certainly as large differences in approach and result between the other bands mentioned as it is between either of them and Van Halen. This may sound harsh, but I am so sick and tired that threads like these, where people are genuinely trying to help, are overrun by people who don't get the style, and have nothing but trite prejudices to add. But pray tell us which of the bands have identical "generic" tones, so that we may point our fingers and scornfully laugh at you.

                      EDIT: I suppose you could argue that it is possible to get a generic tone in the sense that you can find one tone that, with minor modifications such as those outlined by Aceman above, can be used for most such bands. This, of course, is not unique to 80s heavy metal, and it is still likely that the resultant tone is closer to the brown tone than to many of the outliers within 80s heavy metal. I'll skip the tone vs. sound discussion here, because that would only complicate the matter further.
                      Not going to lie. I thought the vast majority of what gets pretty arbitrarily lumped together as "hair metal" today was rank rubbish..so yeah, I'm guilty of prejudice all right..can't deny it. I spent years giving that **** a wide berth

                      But then to me Ozzy & Van Halen is not = Poison & Bonjovi so what do I know

                      Generally ..& I'm talking about "glam" bands. They all had the same dying cat screechy/shrieky kinda vocals, tinny lead tones & they did'nt sound like they had much variation between them as far as rhythm/bass tones went either. I guess If I bothered to go deeply into things, there may actually be a little "variation" going on, but I was disinterested in the stuff back then & I'm equally disinterested in it now, so I'm not going to.
                      "Less is less, more is more...how can less be more?" ~Yngwie J Malmsteen

                      I did it my way ~ Frank Sinatra

                      Originally posted by Rodney Gene
                      If you let your tone speak for itself you'll find alot less people join the conversation.


                      Youtube

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

                        I'm all about this ****, and own a good chunk of what they all used back then and yes, they all used similiar stuff, but the differences are definitely there.

                        You can DEFINITELY get close to that with what you have, I have a later valvestate and can get pretty close, especially at lower volumes. I would get an EQ pedal for your loop to help with the finer shaping, turn that bass down and presence up! I'd also grab some modulation pedals for fun, and of course a delay.

                        And of course, YOU! Depending on the player your pick attack is a big thing too, and this is a big for for getting Lynch's sound in particular.

                        You got a great base.
                        TOUQUE ROCK...EH???? I AM CANADIAN

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                        • #27
                          Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

                          Originally posted by Phantasmagoria View Post
                          Not going to lie. I thought the vast majority of what gets pretty arbitrarily lumped together as "hair metal" today was rank rubbish..so yeah, I'm guilty of prejudice all right..can't deny it. I spent years giving that **** a wide berth

                          But then to me Ozzy & Van Halen is not = Poison & Bonjovi so what do I know

                          Generally ..& I'm talking about "glam" bands. They all had the same dying cat screechy/shrieky kinda vocals, tinny lead tones & they did'nt sound like they had much variation between them as far as rhythm/bass tones went either. I guess If I bothered to go deeply into things, there may actually be a little "variation" going on, but I was disinterested in the stuff back then & I'm equally disinterested in it now, so I'm not going to.
                          I should clarify and say that what I wrote really wasn't about you. You didn't say anything worse than what has been said a hundred times before… and that is exactly the problem: Whenever the topic is brought up there are always people who come in just to piss all over the thread. I'd never write in a recommendation thread for, say, a Grunge* or an alternative tone, because I have little interest in those genres and would probably make the same kind of generalisation as you did – which I maintain is remarkably incorrect, but as you have made your opinions about the genre clear there is little reason to harp on about it here.

                          *: I know that I took some sarcastic jabs at the genre in some threads like this one a decade ago. That was childish and immature of me, and should any old-timers be left to receive it, I apologize for it.
                          Last edited by Sirion; 12-11-2018, 09:18 AM.

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                          • #28
                            Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

                            No sweat dude. My problem lies with the lumping together/really loose categorization of bands that had almost nothing to do with each other musically/lyrically & sound-wise back in the day as a "genre" today. "Hair metal" is'nt a genre at all & it never was..

                            Don't get me wrong..some of these bands are/were my favourite metal bands ever.. but it's almost offensive to hear stuff like Ozzy/Dio, Queensryche, VH & Faster Pussycat, Warrant & Pretty Boy Floyd lumped together as a "genre" these days..
                            "Less is less, more is more...how can less be more?" ~Yngwie J Malmsteen

                            I did it my way ~ Frank Sinatra

                            Originally posted by Rodney Gene
                            If you let your tone speak for itself you'll find alot less people join the conversation.


                            Youtube

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

                              Whilst I am probably more sympathetic to the bands at the glam end of that spectrum than you are, I quite agree. As a gesture of reconcilliation I'll show you the most egregious example I have found of lumping everything, and I mean everything, into the hair metal category. I shall not embarrass the author by having his/her name revealed, but I have to add that this comes from a peer-reviewed book written by a professor in the humanities:

                              Click image for larger version

Name:	SlayerDefLeppard.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	19.8 KB
ID:	5810752


                              My only guesses how this can make any sense are that the author is deaf or that he by Slayer actually meant Slaughter (and to be fair, this might have been "corrected" by an overzealous proof-reader or the like).

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                              • #30
                                Re: 80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone

                                Let's get one thing straight: usually there's a huge difference between album tone and live tone.

                                And that's a big problem with tone advice on a forum.

                                When someone says, "I want this tone from this song"...

                                The typical answer is an answer which does not take into consideration that the tone the dude is hearing comes
                                from not only the guitar and guitar rig, but also the studio. Remember? They heard the tone off an album... that means
                                studio processing was done after the whole guitar rig.

                                That means the tone coming out of the speaker cab isn't close enough.
                                That means sticking a pedal in front of an amp is only ballparking things (live tone).

                                And there's (generally speaking) four answers from the community:

                                1. "use a hot pickup into a hot amp" = highly generalized live tone; incredibly ballpark (might even be next-to-ballpark) advice
                                2. "use the gear they used" = more specific live tone; fine advice if you want to sound similar live, but not album tone
                                3. <highly specific guitar tone chains including DAW/studio settings recreating album tone> = detailed answer for album tone
                                4. "I'm a ****** with no actual knowledge of tone and my own tone sucks; only morons and copycats try to recreate tones"

                                Now, some people will give generalized advice (and they're typically not wrong, but the advice is incomplete and therefore only useful up to a point; as shown) .
                                Keep that in mind when sifting through the advice.

                                The advice I gave in this thread falls into #2 category... because the OP is looking for a general "80s Hard Rock/glam Metal Tone" and naming a handful of bands.
                                Last edited by LLL; 12-11-2018, 12:57 PM.

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