Where/when did "modern" guitar tone begin?

[AdrianSD]

It's been like 15-20 years, man. It's the current internet trend. The whole "you need mids to cut through the mix" thing everybody keeps repeating. The current go-to settings on 5150's are "6-6-6", (which I personally think sound bad, but each to his own).

How about 6-7-3? With presence on zero-null-nada-zilch?
That's how my 50w 6L6 is set on both blue and red, give or take. Boosted out front, of course. A lot depends on the speakers and the cab used, but still, I like my mids and I'm not playing out. I struggle to get a good, mid scooped tone, it either sounds fizzy, or boomy, or both and there's no clarity and I get tired really quickly. My tinnitus and high frequency loss might have something to do with it, cause it's just not working. I need mids so I can hear what I'm playing properly.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

How about 6-7-3? With presence on zero-null-nada-zilch?
That's how my 50w 6L6 is set on both blue and red, give or take. Boosted out front, of course. A lot depends on the speakers and the cab used, but still, I like my mids and I'm not playing out. I struggle to get a good, mid scooped tone, it either sounds fizzy, or boomy, or both and there's no clarity and I get tired really quickly. My tinnitus and high frequency loss might have something to do with it, cause it's just not working. I need mids so I can hear what I'm playing properly.

Yeah, each to his own. You gotta dial in the sound you like.

For me, I don't think I'd ever run the mid knob on any 5150 past 3 or 4 at max. I used to have the 50W 6L6 too and the LBX. I didn't boost them, personally. A t least not on red. I didn't feel like they needed it. But then again, I also used mid heavy pickups, mid heavy speakers, and a mid heavy mic, so I got my mids off somewhere else. My tone stack settings were just a balancing act.

But my point is the "modern" or at least the current thing people are doing with their 5150's is dial in the 6-6-6 settings. Wether I like it or not, that's an extra comment I decide to thrown in, LOL.

 

[xxxplorer]

To this day I start all my amps on the 5150 6-6-6 setting lol. It's my version of starting at noon lol

 

[80's_Metal]

It started with The Peavey Bandit!

 

[Binnerscot]

It started with The Peavey Bandit!

OK, that cracked me up. Buuuuut.... that would be the time frame.

I should point out that we kids didn't have much money when young, and a lot of us wanted to sound like Van Halen and/or Metallica. Peavey had amps that we could afford and had gain... tons of gain! Sure, it wasn't a Mark IIC+ but it got into that world of chug and singing lead gain. It may not be where modern tone started, but we sure used a lot of them to try to get there.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Well, Left Hand Path was a Peavey Bandit, and Slaughter of the Soul was a Peavey Supreme, which as basically the Bandit cut into a head, LOL.

I don't know how much influence Entombed have on the "Modern Metal" sound, but At the Gates is a pretty direct influence to 2000's Metalcore.

 

[El Dunco]

Production trends probably play a part. Moving away from the reverb heavy sound of the 80s, back to the dry, in-your-face sound in the 90s onwards and never looked back. All the thrash bands for looking for tighter sounds out of their Marshalls, Metallica famously made the jump to Mesa.

Bands like Fear Factory set the benchmark, all while using a modded JCM800 until ot got stolen. Dino was inspired by Van Halen’s sound, but his dry, throaty sound on Demanufacture to sync with the kick drums for their style couldn’t be further from Van Halen 1.

Not to mention Colin Richardson was all over those albums from the time (including Machine Head mentioned earlier) which ended up setting the gold standard for modern metal tone where dry, tight and percussive was the goal.

A lot of guitarists from that time were also inspired by Dimebag and ended up with their own sound. Even Meshuggah used Marshalls when they were essentially a more progressive Metallica. Their 90s albums were all early Dual Rectifiers (vintage channel, with TC line booster) until Nothing.

In conclusion it was a gradual change as metal demanded more power and precision. The amp and technology to produce those sounds absolutely existed earlier.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Demanufacture sounds absolutely killer, BTW.

 

[El Dunco]

Demanufacture sounds absolutely killer, BTW.

Agreed! It’s one of the most widely discussed, sought after tones in metal for a reason. I feel the tone on Obsolete is overlooked. It’s similar to Deman’ but sharper (he stated an an interview he double tracked instead of quad tracking which he did on Deman’ for more clarity and pick definition).

While I love Demanufacture virtually as much, Dino definitely achieved the goal of more definition, I absolutely love the ratty high-end, it’s tight as all hell without being too slick or neutered whatsoever.

It brings out the best in the riffs on that album. Throw on Edgecrusher and listen to that same modded JCM800 make that riff so heavy it should be illegal!

My JVM, after tinkering with some cap values and trying out a lot of speaker combinations, now has my dream tight modern metal tone. It’s somewhat of a cross between Obsolete (smoother) and Demanufacture (more defined). The resonance knob on that amp is an absolute godsend and the E34Ls keep the integrity of the low end solid at rehearsal volume.

Unfortunately, they got Metallicad (what is ir with modded Marshalls getting stolen out of tour buses? Is there an underground Marshall trading ring??) It’s an absolute shame Fear Factory’s gear got stolen on tour and Obsolete is the last album we’ll ever hear with such a legendary amp.

You would think after all this time it would have showed up. Somebody out there has a JCM800 that’s part of metal history and they don’t know what they had.

If there isn’t already a book or youtube vid researching and tracking the lineage of what we now know as the modern, hi-gain metal tone, there ought to be! I’m game…

 

[El Dunco]

. . . max your mids ?
I remember very vividly, not too long abo, that scooping your mids to hell and gone wasall the rage !
When did this change to boosting your mids to 10 ???

I may have exaggerated but only slightly. Forum advice is very biased against scooping when the texas honk isn’t the only way to be heard and some of the best tones have a fairly narrow, strategiy chosen frequency band to scoop.

Not to mention that most tone stacks are a bit scooped at neutral settings outside of Baxandall EQ or similar. A lot of the point to as an example of “scooped” have more mids than they think and the forum benchmark for great hi-gain is usually always more scooped than they assume.

 

[Bill Dennis]

I suppose this is a matter of opinion. What do you think?

I think the main entries at the start are the SLO100, the 5150, and the Dual Rectifier. I think Soldano was the first to the party, but I don't think of those amps as coming onto the scene with what I'd describe as modern tones. They certainly weren't vintage in sound, but I also don't think the hair metal tones they were initially known for really count.

I think the sounds that are first associated with what has now been coined "modern" are probably those of the 90s Dual Rectifier because of the way it made downtuned heaviness possible. I don't think Mesa is still the poster child, but I do think that's where it started. I'd like to hear what other members think.

I think it originated with VH1 in 1978. Other than fuzz pedals no one achieved gain level like that previously. It grew from there with modded Marshalls and Randall Smith juicing up fenders for more gain.

I suppose you could argue it happened with the Thrash guys in the 80s.

The reality is nothing happens in a vacuum. No matter what spot you pick, it was influenced by something before it

 

[Binnerscot]

I think it originated with VH1 in 1978. Other than fuzz pedals no one achieved gain level like that previously. It grew from there with modded Marshalls and Randall Smith juicing up fenders for more gain.

I suppose you could argue it happened with th Thrash guys in the 80s.

The reality is nothing happens in a vacuum. No matter what spot you pick, it was influenced by something before it

Ed certainly pushed the envelope, that tone certainly was the inspiration that became what happened in the mid 80s with Mesa and Soldano. It just wasn't really out there for the masses until the early 90s from what I can tell. I always blame Ed too, in a good way.

If fact, one of those early 90s amps was the 5150, also Ed's fault