What makes a guitar sound 80s?

Re: What makes a guitar sound 80s?

wixedmords said:
What makes a guitar sound 80s?

A guy that can actually play the guitar. ;)

Then add chorus.......
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LOL and there is alot of truth to this but I also think you get a guitar made of basswood with a floyd and a trebley pickup thru a marshall and it gets that tone from the 80's very well. To be honest I dont know what wood my Kramer Focus 6000 was made of but it had that tone thru the Marshall jcm800:beerchug:
 
Re: What makes a guitar sound 80s?

Scoop yer mids way too much like And Justice For all.
Nothing quite like the worst tone in metal for sounding 80s:laugh2:
 
Re: What makes a guitar sound 80s?

From what I hear in recordings (obviously I wasn't alive) cold clean sounds with lots of chorus maybe delay and reverb and then marshally dirt with well chorus delay and reverb. I think what helped was all the post production (gated snare reverb heaps of compression on the guitar tracks and well more reverb).
 
Re: What makes a guitar sound 80s?

^That was mostly on the poppy side of the coin, lots of earthy good tones and rootsy stuff as well....
Just look at this decade....what would that be remembered for?
;)
 
Re: What makes a guitar sound 80s?

I'd have to say that a Carvin amp is a major contender to the 80's -
Plus a heavy poly coated super strat made of maple alder or basswood!
 
Re: What makes a guitar sound 80s?

Hey now!
Click to expand...
Aside from a few who kicked ass and took names....we had nothing but depressed music.....strange retro fashions....
Solo less crap;)
Some watered out punk like crap, and so on:D
Then I rather have the party that was the early to mid 80's, and the stuff from the 70's and late 60's.....
 
Re: What makes a guitar sound 80s?

The one guy I can remember w/ Carvin amps is Steve Vai. Man that guy wouldn't exist without EVH...
 
Re: What makes a guitar sound 80s?

El CHupacabra said:
The one guy I can remember w/ Carvin amps is Steve Vai. Man that guy wouldn't exist without EVH...
Click to expand...

A lot of guys wouldn't exist without Van Halen. Frankly, there's a better argument that Vai wouldn't exist without Frank Zappa.
 
Re: What makes a guitar sound 80s?

And EVH wouldn't exist without Jimmy Page and Billy Gibbons, and they wouldn't exist without Albert King and Freddie King, and they wouldn't exist without...

Makes me wonder what the state of music would be without slavery in America.
 
Re: What makes a guitar sound 80s?

El CHupacabra said:
And EVH wouldn't exist without Jimmy Page and Billy Gibbons, and they wouldn't exist without Albert King and Freddie King, and they wouldn't exist without...

Makes me wonder what the state of music would be without slavery in America.
Click to expand...

Pretty much Rock 'N Roll and even some metal of the 70's, 80's, and 90's wouldnt be how we know it today without that early blues influence.
 
Re: What makes a guitar sound 80s?

There's a lot of 80's sounds to consider:

the "power ballad" OD, heavy comp, stereo chorus, bowling alley/20-story elevator shaft reverb

the "fake stack" Rockman SS distortion, with the crumbly breakup when the batteries are down to 20%

the Stray Cats retro tribute: clean Gib/Gretch semi-hollow, Echoplex slap, with a little dirty edge for the solo

the "curse you, Andy Summers!" clean, hissy chorus pedal, with hissy analog pedal slap

the R&B "let's just record this sucker and go home" Strat middle/lead, DI straight into the mixing board, dry
 
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