Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

E

emaccarthy

New member
This is the exact Tone I am looking for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GybmSgAhk-k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd_CtmdMS4I

I have a blackstar HT20 Combo
I have a alder/maple superstrat 59/JB humbuckers
I have a tubescreamer

I am starting to think about selling this amp and maybe getting a Carvin V3MC. With the blackstar I have the bass at like 10/11 oclock and the treble maxed out with the mids 3 oclock and the ISF at about 3 as well. It seems to be a vary dark sounding amp It has good classic rock tones ACDC, ZZ Top etc but still lacks some kind of saturation/sizzle that cuts with screaming pinch harmonics. I still am not getting that Dokken/van halen/ratt sizzle/sparkle. The Carvin would obviously be a bit more money but I wanted to know what people thought about the combo and whether I could not only get classic 80s metal tones but also more modern joe satriani (flying in a blue dream/extremist) type tones as well as classic blues. It looks crazy versatile and seems to be sort of jack of all trades type amp with all of its many features. Another plus is that it seems smalled and lighter than the blackstar too which would be a mobility plus. What are your thoughts?
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

A side story...

I remember seeing XYZ around 1990, and can't remember if my band opened for them or if I was just at the Waters Club handing out flyers for another night. I remember the guitar players tone really well because it sounded great live. For some reason, I seem to recall it was a Duncan 59B. I think the secret to his sound is a stereo rig, like two Marshalls with an OD and maybe a very light chorus, just to give it a full stereo effect.

So keep your amp, and just add something like the DSL for a stereo rig with your Tubescreamer in front. Actually, something like a Boss OD-3 might sound closer to that than the TS.
 
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Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

I always thought that the Yamaha tube amps from the early 90's just oozed Lynch style tones. But that really shouldn't be a surprise since they were designed by Soldano.
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

I would say switch that JB to a distortion and see if that will get you their much cheaper then buying a new amp and people say thats what GL was using. But for your Blackstar try turning the ISF to the left toward the american side and keep messing with the EQ you should definitely be able to get that tone out of the Blackstar.
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

idsnowdog said:
I always thought that the Yamaha tube amps from the early 90's just oozed Lynch style tones. But that really shouldn't be a surprise since they were designed by Soldano.
Click to expand...

They may work, but my Jet City amp doesn't really capture the same vibe. I was actually able to nail the Dokken tone with my HT-5. At that point, it was a Distortion for the pickup, but I'm surprised the amp can't give you enough treble. If you like the amp in general, maybe put a Tung-Sol in the preamp? That ought to brighten things up, if you haven't taken out the stock Sovtek.
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

hmm im intruiged by swapping tubes now. Never thought of that. In your opinion would upgrading the tubes from the stock pre-amp ECC83 tubes to the Tung Sol 12AX7's help brighten up the and add clarity to the distortion sound? I have also swapped out the junky rocket 50 speaker for a Celestion Lynch back which did help the tone a little but im still not quite there. Im hesitant to swap out the JB in my guitar. I like that pickup and the versatility it has as well as its heritage in the 80s metal genre. I like its mid squalky tone. What else to you all think?
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

Yeah that is pretty sweet tone. What were u using to get that? I know I wont exactly get there with said equipment but I was shooting to be close. I do not have the space for a full vintage marshall 100watt stack in my apartment but with the blackstar what would get me damn close?
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

Thanks. That was an 80s style preamp built by a friend of mine, into Marshall poweramps (9005 rhythm, 9100 lead) into resistive load into computer. Then I had it convolved with some speaker cabinet impulse responses (I absolutely hate IRs, btw).

What I expect from a tube poweramp, is adding dimension and punch to preamp tone. The "old" Marshalls from 30 years ago and more, did just that. The newer ones don't.

emaccarthy said:
I do not have the space for a full vintage marshall 100watt stack in my apartment but with the blackstar what would get me damn close?
Click to expand...
You don't need a full vintage Marshall stack nor half a modern one, because stock Marshalls of any age don't play like that.

The preamp delivers the goods, the rest just adds weight and cost. So skip the poweramps.

Here's the very same preamp into a red box (which is a basically just a lowpass filter) and directly into the computer: https://soundcloud.com/mentalhammer/untitled07
Given your main amp already has an effects loop, a preamp like this should get you damn close.
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

I still say that a Distortion will get you the tone your looking for a lot quicker and cheaper. But upgrading the amp isn't a bad idea neither.
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

I think I will stick with the JB as is for a while longer. I like its versatile tone and if Warren demartini used it for such awesome Ratt recordings, its good enough for me. But I am curious about maybe a few amp mods. New pre-amp tubes are intriguing and I might try taking the back off the combo to help tone down some of the thickness this amp produces. Any recommendations for pre-amp tubes out there that add extra brightness/clarity/attack?
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

I would look into getting one of those EP-3 preamp clones... might be that extra something that you are looking for. : )
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

any thoughts on different kinds of 12AX7/ECC83s that might help brighten and clear up the sound of this dark amp? I have been perusing thetubestore.com but I am not sure about tonal variations. Looking for High Gain with bite and high end clarity
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

Let's not go to swapping pickups just yet. He's looking for an 80s metal tone, and he has a JB. Can we at least admit this is going to be very close?

It sounds like the amp is too dark for his tastes. There are a couple of things we can do. First is put in brighter tubes. I think the one he linked is perfect. It's definitely one of the best current production tubes, in my experience. It's definitely brighter and more articulate than most of the other ones on the market right now, especially if he's got a JJ in the amp. At the very worst, if you buy it and it doesn't work, you've got a replacement for a part that will eventually wear out. Preamp tubes last a long time, but I find they eventually do get noisy. I've heard that ones from the golden era don't have this problem, but the new ones do.

So give it a shot. I think the top three current production (barring things over twenty bucks) are Tung-Sol, Mullard RI, and Chinese 12AX7AC5 HG+. The JJs are quite a bit different, especially the ECC83S short-plate tubes. Personally, I think they're way too dark, and I really dislike them in the Blackstar HT series. The Mullards have a much rounder top end, and the Chinese to my ears sound lower-middy. I think Tung-Sol fits the bill, and it costs you less than twenty bucks with no real downside.
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

Back to the OP - if you're still thinking of buying a V3MC, you might like to check out some comparison clips I did between it and a Mesa Mini Rec last year:

http://sixstringsamurai.co.nz/2012/05/19/episode-ii-revenge-of-the-lunchboxes/

But if you want Dokken/Lynch at a guess you should be looking at hotrodded Marshall style amps. Blackstar's entry/mid level offerings are indeed along these lines but the ones I've played just haven't quite nailed the vibe.
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

emaccarthy said:
any thoughts on different kinds of 12AX7/ECC83s that might help brighten and clear up the sound of this dark amp? I have been perusing thetubestore.com but I am not sure about tonal variations. Looking for High Gain with bite and high end clarity
Click to expand...

Swapping preamp tubes is a way to tweak the tonal balance and gain but it still falls in the category of fine tuning. A Blackstar will sound like a Blackstar, whether you put JJs, Sovteks, Shuguangs or RFTs in it. The actual circuit stays the same, and it's only the tube parameters that vary among manufacturers and even slightly among single items of the same kind, that affect the final result.

Sure, replacing a JJ with a Sovtek will make the sound brighter, as will turning the bass knob down or opening the speaker cab. But I doubt it's going to solve the problem.

Some amps are voiced really thick, massive, compressed and saturated, some are snappy and open, some are tight, some are loose. It's the gain structure that determines the specific texture and feel of the overdrive an amp produces.
The Dokken Lynch tone is all about the brown sound as Eddie called it. EVH used to say what he wanted from an amp was sustain, not distortion. So it's a kind of "clean distortion" with a lot of presence and zing, a spanky and defined attack that's really responsive to picking dynamics and ready to spawn pinch harmonics like a madman, or back up to a nice jangly clean tone by rolling the guitar's volume knob. Nothing like the contemporary balls-to-the-wall, thick chugga-chugga, saturated tones that modern high gain amps do.
 
Re: Dokken/Lynch amp Tone

Your tone desciption is right on. So what do you recommend? A new amp? IE a different approach to that type of sound? I was thinking that the Tung Sol might be a cheap way to keep experiementing with my current set up. But if you think that its impossible witht the blackstar then I would open for suggestions. It would have to be a similar cost and wattage. The reason I got it originally was that it was different but very mashally sounding IE "brown sound" I thought with a cool ISP feature to explore other sounds too.
 
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