I've been listening to some older albums...

[jpistolas]

Re: I've been listening to some older albums...

I tend to learn songs on my cheap practice amp that doesn't come close to my Boogie gain wise then try it out on the Boogie.

That Boss Power Stack pedal is a great choice for heavy music IMO. It's heavy sounding without being to "mushy". I love Boogie amps but hate the flagship: Dual Rec. To me the red channel is too much. I like the Mark's & Calibur amps. Plenty of gain without being lost in it if that makes sense.

Just thought of a band that to me sounds heavy as hell but doesn't use too much gain or distortion. Clutch.

 

[SD fan]

Re: I've been listening to some older albums...

I think the notion here that high gain is bad may be a little off. Seems to be the spectrum of the frequency bandwidth is important. If it's a tinny sounding high end fizz fest of course it lacks depth and forward in a band context. Heavy metal requires some better speakers to put out enough low end to give the guitar some punch. That is one reason so many resorted to detuning. Old Sabbath and other stuff is detuned way down, sometimes 2 whole steps. Sure you can have too much gain and if it is not EQ'd properly it sounds bad. Most gain is high ended so it's easy to get too fizzy or too scooped which is gutting the basic center point of the guitar sound in general. I love high gains myself, but its got to have some heavy low end punch and not too much fizz high end.
I hear a lot of live metal bands are really their sound is terrible, whatever magic they were able to muster in the studio is lost on the stage with little care to reproduce better tones, just generic rigs to play a gig, pack and load. Caring about ones tone is a bit of lost art these days. Metal guitar also has a fine line to maintain not stepping on the bass frequencies too much or killing the vocal range.

 

[SD fan]

Re: I've been listening to some older albums...

I just built two new 2x12 cabs with Eminence Man O War, wow heavy low end and clean highs, loving the wattage speakers. Nice to have something that handles whatever you throw at it.

Recanting listening to older albums. I was missing Ronnie Montrose's passing recently and listened to those first two albums again. Wow, simple riffing but what tones and dynamics. Sammy was an amazing singer at that young age. Listen to Rock Candy, Space Station #5, and Make It Last. Great stuff, I think Cocaine killed that band way ahead of its time. 2 great albums of all time guitar tone.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: I've been listening to some older albums...

As far as I'm concerned the problem with lack of gain on recordings is that they end up sounding "sterile" (think Neil Kernon or Iron Maiden's last few...). Dirt, sizzle & grind gives a guitar tone stuff like "life", "grit" & "character".

The truth is actually the exact opposite. Iron Maiden's new albums for example have WAY more compression, ie boosting at the mixing board which adds gain. They already had a good amount of gain to begin with, but the boost all/cut nothing method just gets rid of frequency peaks, taming the overall sound which is the missing "life" and "character" you are talking about.

 

[some_dude]

Re: I've been listening to some older albums...

Many of the dudes on those older albums were pushing the gain as far as they could while still maintaining an acceptable level of clarity and probably would've used more gain if it were available at the time.

 

[crguti]

Re: I've been listening to some older albums...

decrease the gain of the preamp and increase the gain of the power. Get the speakers moving and pushing air.... this is where all the good stuff happens.
However if you're a bedroom rocker wannbe you will never know. haha.

 

[Inkstained]

Re: I've been listening to some older albums...

See this guy?

See him?

He's pretty powerful.

And he's using zero gain.

 

[dominus]

Re: I've been listening to some older albums...

For something to sound big, it needs something small to give it scale. Dynamics are the key to sounding big, too much gain reduces dynamics. Reduce the gain and you get an increase in dynamics. Win.

Metal + Mountains + Duncans:

 

[dominus]

Re: I've been listening to some older albums...

As far as I'm concerned the problem with lack of gain on recordings is that they end up sounding "sterile" (think Neil Kernon or Iron Maiden's last few...). Dirt, sizzle & grind gives a guitar tone stuff like "life", "grit" & "character".

I think Slayer's last album was *really* sterile, as far as guitar tone goes.

 

[GilmourD]

Re: I've been listening to some older albums...

Metal + Mountains + Duncans:

LOL Those guys seem like cartoons compared to Dethklok.

 

[59Bassman]

Re: I've been listening to some older albums...

One thing I discovered after having had the benefit of some top quality amps at my disposal, is that what I thought was soaring over-driven lead for years and years, is often just very close-miked trebbly tones from good PUPS with some post FX during the Mixing. Now I actually have an abhorrence of heavy fuzz/distortion - I like nice clean boost with an edge and plenty of 'air' around my sound to let those natural harmonics ring through.