Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

[Rainmaker]

I take it you don't need amps capable of extreme gain to play Priest with tonal accuracy. OTOH, the tones on Rising in the East seem a lot heavier (also taking into account the fact that they downtuned).

I'm thinking a Traynor Blue would be able to do Priest very well... do you agree?

 

[Reckless Abandon]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

No you dont need high gain. But the sound is marshall. An 800 with a od will get it

 

[ErikH]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

From clips I've heard of the Traynor, there should be no problem at all. At the time those songs were recorded, yes it was considered high gain. By today's standards, not even close. Doesn't hurt to play some of those classics with more gain though. They do it.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

It always cracks me up when somebody on here says something like, "You don't need high gain/hot pickups/etc... to play metal", and they're definition of a metal tone is like 30 years old.

I agree, high gain back when it came out, but listen to "Breaking the Law" then listen to some Meshuggah.

 

[Young Angus]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

but listen to "Breaking the Law" then listen to some Meshuggah.

...then make sure you have a bucket handy for what will follow the meshuggah!

 

[chcjunior]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

For EARLY Priest I'd say no. I was listening to the Stained Class album yesterday as well as Hell Bent For Leather and I was surprised to hear it's not high gain. I'd say once you hit the British Steel era on, it becomes high gain.

 

[ErikH]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

You can't compare today's metal to stuff Priest did back then. It's just not a fair comparison. Back then, yes it was high gain, yes it was heavy metal. By those standards (which they helped set BTW), that is still heavy metal, but in a classic sense, or classic metal. Even compared to what they do now it's different.

The thing is, you don't need AS MUCH gain or as hot a pickup as what is used today for it to sound good. Players today just prefer that much. We all did at some point, some still do. I've found that the less I use, the clearer I can hear what I'm doing, and the better it sounds. It's different for everyone though.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

The thing is, you don't need AS MUCH gain or as hot a pickup as what is used today for it to sound good. Players today just prefer that much. We all did at some point, some still do. I've found that the less I use, the clearer I can hear what I'm doing, and the better it sounds. It's different for everyone though.

The only thing I meant by that comment was how somebody clearly in search of Pantera tones comes on here, and you get a bunch of people telling him the 59 or Demon are the best bridge pickups for metal, when that's obviously not what he's looking for.

Anywho, back on topic, I meant absolutely no disrespect to Priest, as I'm a pretty big fan. The only thing I DO have a problem with are those who think any guitar tone more modern sounding that 1979 is worthless.

 

[ErikH]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

The only thing I meant by that comment was how somebody clearly in search of Pantera tones comes on here, and you get a bunch of people telling him the 59 or Demon are the best bridge pickups for metal, when that's obviously not what he's looking for.

Anywho, back on topic, I meant absolutely no disrespect to Priest, as I'm a pretty big fan. The only thing I DO have a problem with are those who think any guitar tone more modern sounding that 1979 is worthless.

No harm, no foul. I know you've got a taste for some of the classic stuff too.

I understand what you mean now, and it makes sense. There's lots of great tones from all eras. Some just prefer to stay locked in a certain era.

I admit, I haven't listened to a lot of the new metal bands, from like 2000 onwards, simply because I haven't liked what I've heard songwise. Now some of the guitar tones are really nice, almost retro to a point, but modern still. I'm not a grunge fan at all, but I like the tones from Pearl Jam, STP, AIC and Soundgarden.

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

Their tone on rising in the east DVD is AMAZING.

 

[JeffB]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

To me old priest (circa Unleashed in the East) is "medium" gain. "low gain would be Live & Dangerous era Lizzy. "high gain" to me is something along the lines of John Sykes MESA tones on Whitesnake and Blue Murder...and is as high gain as I like generally.

I'm with Erik...the less gain you can get away with, the better...higher gain makes things easier to play, but sounds worse generally IMO...you lose the character of the wood, amp, pickups, etc. It gets to where you cannot tell a Superstrat from a Les Paul, and then what's the point?

My sound is somewhere between that unleashed tone and John Sykes. It's very much a cranked old metalface/jmp 2203 level of gain..use a goose for leads. Frank Hannon's or Adrian Smith's tone circa 1983-1985 is what I go for generally. By todays standards that's probably "medium" gain.

 

[Jackson Distortion]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

To me old priest (circa Unleashed in the East) is "medium" gain. "low gain would be Live & Dangerous era Lizzy. "high gain" to me is something along the lines of John Sykes MESA tones on Whitesnake and Blue Murder...and is as high gain as I like generally.

I'm with Erik...the less gain you can get away with, the better...higher gain makes things easier to play, but sounds worse generally IMO...you lose the character of the wood, amp, pickups, etc. It gets to where you cannot tell a Superstrat from a Les Paul, and then what's the point?

My sound is somewhere between that unleashed tone and John Sykes. It's very much a cranked old metalface/jmp 2203 level of gain..use a goose for leads. Frank Hannon's or Adrian Smith's tone circa 1983-1985 is what I go for generally. By todays standards that's probably "medium" gain.

Thin Lizzy 'Live and Dangerous', Phil Lynott:"How many of the girls would like like a little more Irish in 'em?" :laugh2: It just cracks me up, but writing it down it's not that funny.

 

[Stevo]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

The term "high gain" was not really used frequently back then, as it is today. They had that "modded Marshall" tone. It seemed that everyone in the metal world wanted a jcm800, but it needed to be modified for the purpose of creating more gain.

 

[Reckless Abandon]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

It always cracks me up when somebody on here says something like, "You don't need high gain/hot pickups/etc... to play metal", and they're definition of a metal tone is like 30 years old.

I agree, high gain back when it came out, but listen to "Breaking the Law" then listen to some Meshuggah.

I meant for early priest.

 

[Sludgenutz]

Re: Is early Priest considered High-Gain?

For EARLY Priest I'd say no. I was listening to the Stained Class album yesterday as well as Hell Bent For Leather and I was surprised to hear it's not high gain. I'd say once you hit the British Steel era on, it becomes high gain.

+1000! There a turning point in the Priest "sound" between "British Steel", and the earlier records as "Hell Bent for Leather" and "Stained Class". I love them all.

"British Steel" rustled up the new "edge" of British Heavy Metal!