Trying To Get A Good Tone

Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

Maybe those atrocious JJ preamp tubes are the problem. Especially if they're the short plate ECC83's. I couldn't get any life out of those whatsoever. I'd recommend you get a Tung-Sol, a Mullard Reissue and a Ruby 12AX7AC5 HG+. Play around with those in V1 and see what you think. Once that gets you closer to the sound you want, mess with V2. I believe in that amp, those are the only tone-generating stages, so V3 just needs a low-noise tube suitable for a PI. (Note that I could be way off on matching the V slots to the functions, but that's pretty common for the layout.)

Here's why I picked those three tubes. First of all, I think the Tung-Sol is the best of the current production tubes, and I've tried a lot of them. They're bright, clear, have plenty of gain, and are pretty low noise. The Mullard is unlike anything else out there, in my opinion. It's got a ton of drive, but it's extremely smooth. If you like it, then I think it's the only one that'll do the things it does. The Chinese is just a big sounding tube. The highs aren't as crisp as the Tung-Sol, but it made a big difference in the mids and lowend in my amp. I think each of these brands represent the best of what they do, and they each do something different.

I really dislike JJs in V1. Their power tubes are great, in my experience, but you may be handicapping your sound when you did something you thought would improve it. At the very least, it's got to be worth at least fifteen bucks to find out. For what it's worth, I've had excellent dealings with Doug's Tubes, and they have a promotion on right now for their tenth anniversary.
 
Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

i reckon start at the start:
1. play only unplugged for a month. See what tones you can get using your fingers. Pick lightly for more sustain. Change where you pick the string for different timbres. Change the angle of your pick also for different timbres. Work on making the string sustain using vibrato. Use the heaviest pick you can find and you will develop sensetivity. You can always go back to thinner afterwards if you want.
2. Play using only the clean tone on your amp for a month. no pedals. No gain. No cutting corners.
3. Dial in some gain on your amp but only to the point where is distorts if you really dig in at full volume so when you pick light it goes back to clean.
In 3 months you will have killer tone...what you do with pedals and gain etc after that is just icing on the cake.
You have awesome gear, but dont rely on it for your sound....when all is said and done, it just amplifys what is happening at your end. After working on this for a few months, you can plug into any amp/guitar/pedal combo and pull beautiful tones with minimal tweaking.
 
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Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

i mean

how can i explain this

it's like you've got all these fine exotic wines (that extensive and well-rounded collection of guitars and pedals)

and you only eat Big Macs. (the Hot Rod Deluxe.)

The HRD is a good amp. In fact it's better than a Big Mac. It could be a Double Steakburger. Either way it's something you can grab in a drive-thru pretty much anywhere in America and get a pretty much predictable, passable flavor.

You don't need more wattage, you need less. And yeah, you need to focus on practicing more. That's not an insult, it's a fact...everybody needs to practice more. You can hand the nicest guitar on earth plugged into nothing but hound-wired pedals and amps to an amateur and it's gona sound like ****. A good player that knows the instrument doesn't need good gear.
 
Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

If you're a bedroom player id go with a really low watt amp. The deluxes are way too loud for bedroom use. They sound very good whenn cranked, and on the verge of break up, but at that point you're at band playing levels.

New amp time!!!
 
Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

When you're making changes, don't make them too fast, nor make too many. Your brain can't keep up with your ears and soon enough fatigue sets in and everything sounds like hell...even the good stuff that you play regularly. So part of the trick to finding good tone is not to hurry the process. If things seem to be going south, go back to one of your good patches. It probably sounds muddy. If so, take a few hours off and go back to work. Better to record a half dozen different one right after another and then play them back at your leisure and when your ears are fresh. -Rod-
 
Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

get a good amp with with a great gain channel first, my mesa mini has great clean and crunch and high gain, vox are good also depends what you looking for:). Forget a bunch of pedals ya never get a true amp sound like that and your using a bunch of pedals and there prb not true bypass. Got to have all quality cables in there also or your going to get tone suckage!
 
Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

Go with TC electronics pedals, high quality! dump the boss pedals. You have some sweet guitars in collection!
 
Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

Thanks for all the suggestions. Like I said if I was going to buy and amp now I would get the Mesa 15 watt Transatlantic or the Egnater 15 watt Tweeker. It just so happened I got the HRDlx for a really great price. 40 watts is damn loud.
 
Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

The Tweaker 15 is absolutely amazing.
Mine has EHX 6V6 and a mix of Ruby HG+ and Tungsol tubes in the pre, and it's ridiculous how versatile it is.
 
Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

40w is damn loud but its only an ok sounding amp. you have a ton of very nice guitars, i might get an amp that was up to par with them. even with the hrd you shouldnt have a problem getting a decent tone
 
Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

Your amp has a reputation for having a decent clean channel and a not particularly inspiring overdrive channel. I would concentrate on getting the best out of the clean channel using pedals.

A couple of years back I was gigging with a Laney VC30 using the clean channel only. I used a Boss OD3 which was always switched on with the volume nearly maxed and the gain at zero. This took care of my crunch sounds. Then I went through a Blackstar Drive pedal (in front of the boss) for my lead sounds. I got some awesome tones with this and it worked well at low volumes.

Try using your Blues Driver set up the same way as my OD3 and run your MXR in front of the Blues Driver for leads. I would suggest that you set the tone on the BD right down (turned to the left) and turn it to the right a little until you get the right tone.

I'm not familiar with the MXR distortion and have no idea what it sounds like so it might not be the right pedal for this kind of set up. You might think about getting a different pedal in which case I would say you can't go far wrong with the Blackstar Drive which is a tube based pedal.
 
Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

Just my 2 cents. Try a SD-1 into your Blues Driver for overdriven tones and/or a SD-1 into a DS-1 for distortion. Shouldn't cost you more than 70$. That's what I use on the clean channel of my Fender Performer 1000.(hybrid) .....and always EQ in the FX loop!
 
Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

Sounds to me like you have the wrong amp for bedroom playing. Get something in the 15-watt range and maybe run a 2 x 10 cabinet. There is a great selection now of such amps available, from cheap to boutique. Valve amps can be expensive, but they will have better transformers and components that the cheaper stuff and will no doubt last a lot longer with less issues. Buy the best you can afford.

A valve amp needs to be turned up to a certain level to get the sounds they're famous for in the rock world. Try a bunch of amps and always set the volume to 6 or 7 (if it has a master, keep the gain low for this). Pick the amp that has the tone and volume you want at that setting.

I'd recomend takling a look at Trinity amps, they make kits based on classic circuits, and you can buy them pre-built and specify your own personal options. They have a whole bunch of 15-20 watt amps available at very affordable prices. Forum member Laughing Kookaburra recently bought an 18 watt Trinity and he's ecstatic about it (he runs it into a 2 x 10" cab and has good guitars, and tells me that any and all combinations sound brilliant through this amp).

He also is using a Boss SD-1 pedal that i fitted with the Monte Allum SD1-GT mod kit. He uses it mostly as a booster and the amp does the rest. PM him and ask him about the amp and what he plays etc.
 
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Re: Trying To Get A Good Tone

As a bedroom rockstar, the HRD might be a touch on the too powerful side. Something in the 25w or lower range would be better suited for bedroom rocking. Fortunately, there is a solution that doesn't involve buying a new amp, or going to an amp tech. Check out TAD Tone Bones or Yellow Jackets. They are adapters that plug into your power tube slot and let you put in EL84's, which will knock your power down to 15-18w, great for bedroom playing!

My band plays some DBT type stuff, and I've found that my Gretch 5120 + my MXR Custom Badass Overdrive into my HRDx gives me a great tone similar to the guitar in "Sinkhole." You should check out a few different overdrives, as the stock BD-2 gets a little boring (IMO), you might surprise yourself with something new!

Lastly, I use an MXR CC Delay, and my slapback settings are as follows MOD: off, Regen: 8 o'clock, Level: 11 o'clock, Delay: 8 o'clock. Tweak it from there for your individual tastes, but I always get compliments on my slapback tone when I set it up that way.
 
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