Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

[Tom M]

At practice last night, my guitarist was having a hell of a time trying to get any clarity out of his rig. He's playing a Tom Delonge Strat (Invader), Boss DS-1 and a Marshall 2204 halfstack. The clean sounds fine almost regardless of what we do. It's the distortion that's giving us headaches.

We tried with and without the DS1 in the chain. With the DS-1 in and the distortion set low, it just sounds like noise. With the DS-1 out of the chain, its slightly better but not much. Re-EQing the amp just makes the noise bassier or treblier. We want to be able to hear the difference between the notes he's playing and still have enough chunk for palm-muting.

So, what would you guys change here? If anyone has some similar setups, I'd be more than grateful if you could give us some EQ pointers. We're playing heavy and alternative rock here, but help for any genre is appreciated. Thanks!!

 

[FretFire]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

I don't have the same amp, but I'll recommend some EQ settings I've found work pretty well on high gain amps I've played on, in my "tonal opinion" of course.

I keep bass below halfway, mids around 2-3 o'clock, treble around noon, and gain no higher than 1-2 o'clock. If you have a presence knob, tune it to taste, I usually set mine similar to my mids. Remember that mids are very important for guitar, and that a tone that sounds somewhat unpleasant when playing on your own might sound fantastic with a band (and vice versa).

A good way to go about finding a setting you like is to start with everything at noon, and start tweaking one knob at a time. Once you get one set how you like, go to the next, and make sure to pay attention how turning the knob affects what you're hearing. After spending enough time tweaking, you'll be able to hear something you don't like and know exactly what to do to fix it.

 

[Tom M]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

His best sound was probably bass around 1:30, mids at 3:00, and treble at about 10:00. Any time we move the treble higher, it gets way too thin and buzzy. I think master and preamp volume were each around 2:00.

Could it just be that damn Invader in the guitar?

 

[FretFire]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

I usually keep my preamp volume around 10-11:00, and crank the master to get volume. Too much preamp gain can get into buzz territory really quick IMO. Could be the Invader I suppose, what wood is the body on those DeLonge strats?

 

[Tom M]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

Could be the Invader I suppose, what wood is the body on those DeLonge strats?

Alder

 

[Gamera]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

Could it just be that damn Invader in the guitar?

I have a similar setup. An Aria Pro II w/ Invader in the bridge and HS-3 in the neck. I use a Boss ME-50 (usually set to DS-1 distortion) going into a Fender 160 amp.

My amp tends to be very bassy so I keep it at about 2-3 (out of 10.) Mids about 3-4 and highs around 3. Also cranking the treble on the guitar's tone can help a little. Although I don't know if the DeLonge Strat has a tone control. I am a gain fanatic so I usually crank the DS-1 gain pretty high, if not full blast. Level only halfway. I also add some compression and a touch of reverb with the ME-50. Using this setup if I plug in the Aria w/ the Invader it gets lost in the mix. If I flip on the HS-3, it instantly starts to cut through. If I plug in my Fat Strat (DH-1 humbucker similar to a Duncan JB & 2 SCN single coils) it not only cuts through but it commands attention!

From my experience that Invader can sound God-like...as long as you're playing alone. If you need to be heard in a mix, forgetaboutit. Good luck!

 

[Skarekrough]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

Too much preamp gain can get into buzz territory really quick IMO.

And this little nugget of wisdom takes some players decades to realize.

I can't count the number of players who I could substitute the word "tone" in their conversations about their sound with the words "sound of swarming angry bees."

"Heavy" is not a setting on amp, well, at least none I've played.

Easy on the pre-amp and use the master volume to really push. Use the DS-1 in the chain as a boost if you have to; my experiences have been that even modded, the DS-1 lends itself to "angry bee territory" pretty quickly unless you're careful.

 

[Cazmarzak]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

Tell him to try a BBE. It does wonders for some rigs and sucks for others. He'll either love it or hate it

 

[skyydogg01]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

Tell him to try a BBE. It does wonders for some rigs and sucks for others. He'll either love it or hate it

+1

while i do agree with this, it must be placed in the effects loop (the rackmount version anyway). This has to do with only accepting line level signals. There is an alternative ... BBE just released the sonic maximizer as a pedal. I don't know where it needs to be placed but i think it should be in the effects loop to be effective. thing is that I'm not sure if this marshall has an effects loop.

btw, i have a bbe 362 for sale ... $65.00 shipped to CONUS. Still in original box barely used.

 

[Tom M]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

I'm pretty sure his amp (early '80s vertical input JCM800 single channel) doesn't have an effects loop. We have a gig next week and we're just looking to work with what we have for now. I'm going to try one my guitars through his rig and see if that clears things up. If it does - we know it's the Invader.

Funny, I always thought those amps meant instant fantastic tone. :-\

 

[Guitarist]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

Too much preamp gain can get into buzz territory really quick IMO.

That's not an opinion - it's a fact!!

 

[LesStrat]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

To elaborate on FretFire's responses (at the risk of committing guitarist heresy): Turn down the gain/overdrive/distortion. Especially if you mic the amp to a PA. A little goes a long way. What sounds good in your bedroom is often OVER-done in a band setting. IMHO.

+1 on the swarming angry bees, otherwise known as "buzzsaw" tone :smack:

 

[FretFire]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

To elaborate on FretFire's responses (at the risk of committing guitarist heresy): Turn down the gain/overdrive/distortion.

Heresy or not, running with too much gain is very easy to do. You don't have to crank it to sound heavy (not implying you guys are Tom, just a general statement), but doing so will often make you sound like a static fart .

 

[XSSIVE]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

i'll be honest with you here which some invader fans won't like...it's the invader...i had an invader in an alder strat and had the same problem it just sounded like MUSH under high gain, not articulate at all (but in baswood and drop C tuning it works great for some odd reason...go figure) anyway, all the little lead lines for lack of a better term (typical punk type stuff) and single note stuff b/t palm muted chords or strummed power chords would just get lost in a wall of mush no matter what i tried with the amp. i just got a new alder strat with a custom custom in it and since i play with semi-scooped mids, the pickup having a big mid spike actually helps the clarity of those once hidden notes a ton and it still has a real thick low end to it. i'd honestly look into a pickup swap for the guitar and with duncans trade in policy your bound to find the right one for him...try out one of the 3 customs IMO. by all means keep trying to get the current setup to work by twisting lots of knobs but i think you'll find the problem with clarity and articulation is the invader.

-Mike

 

[FretFire]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

^Very possibly so. I had an Invader in the bridge of my Schecter once, and it really didn't like the mahogany body/set mahogany neck. That being said, many people default to pickup swaps even before they play with pickup heights, polepiece adjustments, and even amp EQ adjustments. If after all that his buddy still isn't happy I'd definitely recommend trying another pickup .

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

You could just back off the guitar volume a bit, try to find exactly where the amp will break-up with the guitarists playing style . . . then slowly increase the gain that you're using with your pedal untill you get your palm muted chunk sound. Too many people think that you need huge amounts of gain to get that, try playing a little bit cleaner than you normally would. And don't be afraid to boost the mids and highs to push the sound for solos, but I find that for rhythm the mids should be lower.

 

[Quencho092]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

dime the master volume and use the preamp channel volume as volume control. This makes sure that you get minimal chainsaw effect. Then set your DS-1 to just the right amount of gain for the style of music that you're playing.

So Mids real high, treble set to taste, bass down, master volume dimed, use the channel volume as a master, and set the DS-1 with a generous cranking of the level and tone knobs with conservative distortion settings.

If this doesnt fix it, you probably need new tubes....this happened with my peavey and it kept on getting worse...i got new tubes and it sounded great again. Marshalls should have that clear, gritty, rumbling, sustaining, cutting high mid tone, new tubes would likely cure this.

 

[Pandemonium]

Re: Help - guitarist needs clarity in sound

Sounds like the Invader might be a lot of the problem to me too. I play through a 2204 and I'm able to get clarity and plenty of chunk with both a '59 and a Custom. I plug into the low gain jack and boost with OD. He might want to give that a try, the distortion is a lot less buzzy that way. I took me a while to figure that out but I've never looked back since.