Let's start with my "Yellow and Black Attack" tone. I was hacking away at a Karl Sandoval creation.It was a Mighty Mite Explorer body with a Chavel neck...21 frets, unfinished.The body had only one humbucker pickup cutaway in which was placed a Seymore Duncan distortion humbucker. It had a stock strat tremolo bridge that never stayed in tune. I used a Modified 100 watt Marshall tube amplifier with an MXR 10 band graphic equilizer...I plugged my guitar into the EQ and the EQ into the front of the Marshall. On the EQ I boosted 10 to 15db at around 1K... (this causes a lot of noise because you're boosting more power than you should into the front of an amp that already has high sensitivity.) I would also drop a steep slope from 1K back to 100Hz where 100Hz would be set to -10 to -15db. This caused frequencies that would muddy up the distortion tone to be cut. Marshall amp settings were something like this---- master volume- 0, preamp volume- 10, presence- 10, bass- 0 to 3, mid- 8 to 10, treble- 10.
The master volume would become my main volume control. In some cases Marshalls go to 20. In that case the above settings should be doubled. This setup should work with most stock Marshall amps... any wattage. All of this was a basis for the rest of my tone search.
I used the same train of thought when I changed to Mesa Boogie amps for "Soldiers Under Command." I also switched from the MXR equilizer to a Furman PQ3 parametric equilizer preamp. This was a "LOW - MID - HIGH" section EQ with + or - 20db boosting or cutting. The low section would be set at a narrow bandwidth, 50 to 100hz at -20 db.......mid section at a narrow bandwidth, 1500 or 1.5Khz at +20db......high section at a wide bandwidth, 2000 or 2Khz at +20db. It had an input level control and I set it around 8. The rear input and output had a choice between -10db or +4db jacks. I used the -10db jacks.This setting would work with a Marshall as well.
My Mesa Boogie amp was a Mark-II-C long chasis head with a variable voltage transformer for traveling. For some reason this head sounded like no other Mk-II.Originally the Mesa Boogie Co. sent this head to Grover Jackson at his guitar plant in San Dimas for some of his artists to try. It was also said that this head in particular was the prototype to the Mk-III amp still in development at the time.It was obvious that I had to have this head so Mesa Boogie allowed me to buy it and they sent Jackson a Mk-III in it's place. Later on, when I test drove a Mk-III head, my Mk-II-C blew it away.............To this day I still have this head. This head like most Boogie heads has push-pull knobs to change the characteristics of its parameter.It had a lead mode with a pull knob to turn it on and adjust its level and a separate lead gain knob.
The lead gain would be set to around 8; lead volume to 10. Preamp volume on the head would be set to 8 or 9 and pulled out; treble around 9 or 10 and pulled out; midrange around 2 or 3 and pushed in; bass around 3 and pushed in. The master volume knob would be my volume control but I wouldn't go past 3- 1/2. The master volume also had a pull gain feature that I would use on occasion. This head also had a graphic EQ that I would set in a "V" shape, dropping out honking mids and boosting lows & highs to my tastes. These settings plus slamming the front end of the head with the Furman PQ3 helped to make that Stryper tone that buzzed through halls around the world and caused many treble controls on home audio systems to be turned off ! I used this setup for "Soldiers Under Command" and "To Hell with the Devil" albums.
On "In God We Trust" I replaced my Mk-II-C with a Mesa Boogie Quad preamp powered by a Mesa Boogie Strategy 400 power amp. Mesa Boogie founder Randall Smith personally modified my Strategy 400's to give me more bottom thump! He always took care of me...... Love ya Randy!
For "Against The Law" I decided to give the Furman PQ-3 a rest and just plugged straight in to my Mk-II-C! For that album I became a different kind of guitar player, and the extra preamp was too much gain for my new style.Yet when ever I want that tone again, I just plug it back in.
Grover Jackson, founder of the Jackson Guitar Co. graciously gave me a collection of guitars that I will always cherish not only because they are great guitars, but because he always went out of his way to help me in any way he could.I still have a bunch of his records he loaned me back in 1989 to help season my guitar playing. I miss those days !.......
My favorite guitars of the bunch are my custom Soloists. It's only obvious because to this day I play them the most!!! They have SeymourDuncan Distortion pickups in the bridge position and Jackson PAF type pickups in the neck position. I used them on every album we recorded except for "Yellow and Black Attack" only because I didn't own them yet!!!
