Male pattern thinning

Budweiser

Budweiser

CastorHopologist
In your expert opinion, what is the main factor in achieving a nice thick guitar tone? ..or is it multiple factors? I'm playing a LP Studio with a Custom in the bridge through a JCM 800 with the bass & mid cranked & it's still as thin as my hairline. :laugh2:
 
Re: Male pattern thinning

I always thought that JCM 800s were known to be thin sounding unless you crank them suckers up! Most tube amps, whether they be non master volume or master volume, get the fattest tone when you get the power tubes cooking. Wehn you just crank the pre amp gain, things tend to sound buzzy and flat.
 
Re: Male pattern thinning

GuitarStv said:
Use the tone knob.
Click to expand...

+1

And the volume knob!

IMHO the key to a nice fat LP bridge pickup tone is rolling the tone knob back, and sometimes the volume knob too. Twiddle those knobs - it's free!

I usually set my amp's tone so that my neck pickup doesn't get muddy when I turn its volume down for a jazzy bluesy tone. That sometimes makes it a little bright for the bridge pickup, so I roll the bridge tone back to about 7 - though sometimes it goes as low as 3 or 4. When I'm playing rhythm I have the volume backed off to about 8. If you don't do the 50s mod this will warm the tone up and also lose a bit of top end. Then when I put the volume on 10 for a solo I get a treble boost. If I want more treble, I can turn the tone knob up too.

(This is all with 500K audio taper pots BTW).

Here's an interesting experiment with the tone knob - something I used to do when I played rock on a Tele: Instead of starting at 10 and rolling it back, try setting it to 0 and then slowly increase it until you get the sound you like. You might be surprised how low you can go!

Let me know if you find a fix for the hairline issue. :yell:
 
Re: Male pattern thinning

Simon_F said:
+1

And the volume knob!

IMHO the key to a nice fat LP bridge pickup tone is rolling the tone knob back, and sometimes the volume knob too. Twiddle those knobs - it's free!

I usually set my amp's tone so that my neck pickup doesn't get muddy when I turn its volume down for a jazzy bluesy tone. That sometimes makes it a little bright for the bridge pickup, so I roll the bridge tone back to about 7 - though sometimes it goes as low as 3 or 4. When I'm playing rhythm I have the volume backed off to about 8. If you don't do the 50s mod this will warm the tone up and also lose a bit of top end. Then when I put the volume on 10 for a solo I get a treble boost. If I want more treble, I can turn the tone knob up too.

(This is all with 500K audio taper pots BTW).

Here's an interesting experiment with the tone knob - something I used to do when I played rock on a Tele: Instead of starting at 10 and rolling it back, try setting it to 0 and then slowly increase it until you get the sound you like. You might be surprised how low you can go!

Let me know if you find a fix for the hairline issue. :yell:
Click to expand...

Thanks! I'm playing in front of 5,000 people on Saturday. I'll try it & check in on Monday.
 
Re: Male pattern thinning

I had a rental JCM800 I had to use once that I could NOT get any thickness out of for the life of me... I ran through every trick in the book before I figured out how to fix it...


Some Sovtek 12AX7's were all it took to make things right. ;)
 
Re: Male pattern thinning

I am thinking that your tubes are not cutting it and that your bias pretty cold.

Now that said I don't particularly have much luck with Marshalls though I do love was is considered the traditional Marshall sound.

Find someone who knows their way around a multimeter and see how it is biased - btw how old are the power tubes?
 
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