Stained Class guitar tones

[ItsaBass]

Hi,

I was curious if anyone here knows the technical details of the guitar sounds on Stained Class (the album, not just the song). I've always thought that in terms of pure tone, this is Priest's best album. The tones are hard/heavy as hell, but in a chainsaw manner, not a soupy one – very tight, present, searing, and grinding. I am just curious how they got it, particularly on the crunchy power chord parts. Just JTMs and two tightly linked guitarists recorded perfectly? I am thinking maybe less gain and delay/effects than their other albums.

Thanks.

 

[Andrew Lamprecht]

Re: Stained Class guitar tones

I've looked and looked and it's hard to find specifics. The best I could come up with is that they were using Marshalls at the time and were seen a lot with their SGs around this time period as well. KK Downing was a fan of the Dist + and Glenn had a couple different older treble boosters he was seen with. I had my SG Classic with a treble booster through a Jet city jca20 (jcm800 style amp) and I was getting damn close to their tones. Sorry it's not a lot of info but there is not a lot out there... I just know, a treble booster into a Marshall style amp can get you those sounds.

 

[JeffB]

Re: Stained Class guitar tones

Yeah, you just have to do some guesswork. Throughout the 70s, KK had his 69 strat with dimarzio FS1, his SG and his medallion V with ttops. Glen had an SG junior converted to humbuckers, a LP custom, and a strat which may or may not have had super distortions at that time.

Crunchy old metalfaces, possibly plexis, period appropriate cabs and dirtboxes, phase 90, and KK was an obvious fan of his echoplex.