I'm Grinding That Modeling Axe - Again.

[László]

In general, I'm a fan of the German company Brainworx, and Plugin Alliance signal processing plugins. Some of them do things that no other processor or plugin, hardware or software, can do. For the most part, they are brilliant and sound great in a mix. Their mastering stuff is the best out there, IMHO.

In fact, I have the All Bundle of plugins, that I've kept current until this week. That would be every plugin they make. If you're in the biz, and need this stuff, it's a good deal.

But there are some amp models that have come with the set, and I don't use them at all. This week they came out with another set with more amp models (Engl, Mesa, Chandler). And for the first time, I'm not going with the updated set because I've decided I'm simply not paying for more amp models. I've updated the plugs I already have, but that's it for now.

Here's a link to their Mesa modeling demo. The playing is nice, the mix is fine, and I'll leave it to you to decide whether you'd buy these models before I chime in with my opinion (that you didn't ask for). First, watch the video and listen on good monitors or high quality headphones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=65&v=3TFaQ4NLk38


No worries, I'll wait.


Watched the video? All good to go? Great.

Did the tones you heard raise any of the hairs on the back of your neck? Sure, it sounds a lot like a Mesa, and in fact it's one of the better plugins on the market. But where's the exciting sound of a Recto in full spank? We've all heard it live and on good records. Where's the vibe of a tube amp about to bust loose? Where are the dynamics? I'm not hearing them. What I'm hearing is kind of bland and predictable. What I'm hearing sounds like a plugin: compressed, one-dimensional, mushy at the point of attack, and missing the excitement that makes a real amp such a cool thing.

The fault of the audio-compressed youtube video? Well, here's what I recommend -- download the free demo and decide for yourself.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Where are the dynamics? I'm not hearing them. What I'm hearing is kind of bland and predictable. What I'm hearing sounds like a plugin: compressed, one-dimensional, mushy at the point of attack, and missing the excitement that makes a real amp such a cool thing.

I don't know... I kinda feel like you described what a real Recto sounds like to me: all preamp gain. Never cared for them as a dirty amp but I do like their clean channel.

 

[jfb]

I have never tried these. I do have a lot of the Toontrack stuff, but haven't tried most of these either. :tongue:

I am terrible and need to learn recording.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

I am terrible and need to learn recording.

Stop being terrible.

 

[jfb]

Stop being terrible.

Working on it. Just not on all cylinders.

 

[László]

I don't know... I kinda feel like you described what a real Recto sounds like to me: all preamp gain. Never cared for them as a dirty amp but I do like their clean channel.

There's a way to avoid that: use the old-school technique. Dime the Master, and bring the preamp gain up. Then gradually reduce the Master while bringing the preamp gain up a bit more. At some point, there's a nice balance where everything sounds really tight, you're hearing power tubes as well as preamp. Nice sounding recordings have been made that way by some great engineers and bands.

Honestly, I've gotten some killer recordings with amps like the Tremoverb and the various Rectos, of course the levels were loud.

If you set the preamp gain first, and are shy with the Master, the power tubes never do enter the equation, and you get the dreaded fizz.

 

[CoreyT]

That is kind of what I get with my Mark Five 25 Les since I cannot turn it up loud where I live.
I dime the gain, but have the master volume just barely up as the volume can increase to insanely loud.
It still sounds nice and dirty and overdriven with chords, but notes when trying some lead are a little fizzy.
I will try your trick to see if that will work, but I have a feeling it would be too loud.

 

[László]

That is kind of what I get with my Mark Five 25 Les since I cannot turn it up loud where I live.
I dime the gain, but have the master volume just barely up as the volume can increase to insanely loud.
It still sounds nice and dirty and overdriven with chords, but notes when trying some lead are a little fizzy.
I will try your trick to see if that will work, but I have a feeling it would be too loud.

Just don't dime the gain. You'll get all fizz that way. The sweet spot on the Mark V is between 10 o'clock and 2 o' clock.

Plus you have that Fryette attenuator thing, so that should really allow you some good choices!

 

[sergiodeblanc]

There's a way to avoid that: use the old-school technique. Dime the Master, and bring the preamp gain up.

I recorded way too many metal guys that would insist on tons of gain from those things... What're you gonna do? It's their record at the end of the day.

I will try your trick to see if that will work, but I have a feeling it would be too loud.

Plus you have that Fryette attenuator thing, so that should really allow you some good choices!

Oh yeah, you do have that! Sounds like you could really cook those power tubes in your apartment, Corey. :evil:

 

[László]

I recorded way too many metal guys

Now that sounds about right.

 

[jfb]

As a metal dude I'm pretty good about playing with lower gain.

Sabbath wouldn't have been heavier with higher gain. Morbid Angel's Covenant record probably sealed the deal for me. The guitars weren't that saturated and had plenty of midrange.

 

[andy474x]

I've noticed a lot of guys who can SHRED that use plugins to get that type of tone - very precise, neat and clean (not that kind of clean, you know what I mean). To me, they sound like they're trying to be too perfect, they don't have that sexy vibe of feedback, stray noise, and the roar that you get with an amp pushing some air. It's like painting and photography - I could get a really nice camera, and take the most perfect and accurate picture of something, but it just wouldn't have the character, texture, and personal touch as a painting on canvas.

Of course, we're all lucky that I don't dabble in photography OR painting, listening to me play is bad enough and I don't want to add strikes two and three!

 

[CoreyT]

Just don't dime the gain. You'll get all fizz that way. The sweet spot on the Mark V is between 10 o'clock and 2 o' clock.

Plus you have that Fryette attenuator thing, so that should really allow you some good choices!

I actually did that when I first got the Fryette.
I dimed the master, had the Fryette down low, and I got a weird squealing hiss from the speakers.

But... I also had the gain dimed.
I think I will experiment again with the gain no higher than 2 o'clock and see how it sounds.
I thought you always had to have the gained maxed to get lots of sustain, so I am still learning here.
I like the kind of sustain that Tony Iommi gets with his chords and notes, in fact I just dig his sound period.
So I take most of his sound is from the power tubes cooking, and not so much high gain then?

 

[László]

I thought you always had to have the gained maxed to get lots of sustain, so I am still learning here.
I like the kind of sustain that Tony Iommi gets with his chords and notes, in fact I just dig his sound period.
So I take most of his sound is from the power tubes cooking, and not so much high gain then?

There has to be a balance of preamp tube saturation and power tube saturation with any amp. While it's true that preamp tube distortion sounds OK when you're fussing around, if you put a mic in front of the speaker cone, what you'll hear from preamp tube distortion is a lot of mushy fizz without the definition of power tube saturation. Bring up the output tubes, and that tends to go away, or at least be masked by what the power tubes are doing.

I've read how Iommi set up his rig to get those tones - as you can imagine, I've gotten client requests for Sabbath type sounds over the years - and there are a few significant surprises.

One is that Iommi never had high gain amps to rely on, they didn't exist back in the day.; there was no such thing as a "gain" control, only output volume. So he got his gain from the power tubes and from pedals like everyone else.

What he did was crank those Laneys (100 Watt amps) to get the power tubes distorting - you're going to get plenty of sustain that way. Distortion is simply clipping. It turns the sine wave coming out of the guitar into something more like a square wave, compresses the audio signal going through any tube, increases the bass, and that gives you your sustain, doesn't matter if it's a preamp tube or a power tube. The problem is that preamp tube distortion gives you saturation to a point, but it hasn't got the definition of power tube distortion, it's a lot mushier.

If you think of a clipped guitar amp signal as a square wave, you now understand how a fuzz box works - it's a pure square-wave generator! Just like a saxophone.

(Forgive the audio theory here, but a clarinet and a saxophone are devices that produce mostly square waves, that's what gives them their distinctive sound, whereas violins produce sawtooth and triangle waves, etc. etc. If you think about guitar distortion boxes, especially fuzz boxes, you're making a guitar sound more like a sax).

Plus of course in Iommi's case a cranked 100 watt head through a stack is going to also increase the sustain by causing the guitar's pickups to feed back in a controlled way. Carlos Santana uses the same trick to increase sustain, getting the amp to feed back in a controlled way.

Iommi also rolls back the bass to zero (!), and dimes the mid and treble on his amp. I think he also dimes his presence control. And to top things off, he uses a treble booster, that with these settings causes more distortion and gives things a fuzz sound. The treble booster simply serves the purpose of an overdrive here, it makes the preamp tubes distort. Any Dallas Rangemaster clone will do.

He also uses a half-cocked wah kind of device, a Tychobrae. A company called Chicago Iron makes a copy of the thing. It's a very unusual sounding wah, much lower in its "vocal" range. The idea is to use the thing without making it go "wah wah", just leave it set to a frequency to add to the scream of the guitar.

So you're thinking, "Wait, he's got all this high frequency stuff going, he's got no bass happening, it's all gotta be screechy, so how come things sound so big on the records?"

Two reasons: First of all, as with Brian May's use of a treble booster, the thing also causes the tubes to distort, and distortion adds low end girth.

Second, in Sabbath songs, the guitar and the bass are playing the same riff together! The whole idea is for that bass guitar to be the bottom end of the riff. And that's what gives it the power.

So if you're really looking for that Iommi sound, the thing to do is get out your bass, record the riff on bass, and then play along with it.

Remember also that the whole purpose of a 25 Watt Mark V is to be able to get the the power tubes involved at a lower volume than the 90 watt Mark V! If that's still too loud, it's time to bring in the Fryette attenuator, which should allow you to crank the power tubes, attenuate the result, and use its own built in amp to run your cab at very low volume.

 

[CoreyT]

Thanks Les, will give it a try over the holiday, I have four days off soon.

Back in the day (1973) I had a Fender Bandmaster head and a HUGE 2x12 matching cab that was bigger than most 4x12 cabs of today.
It had no gain on it, and I use to use a booster that was a small stainless steel box with a guitar plug on it that you would plug directly into the input on the amp, then plug your guitar into it.
It simply had a sliding on/off black switch, and a volume knob.

When I ran that through the Bandmaster it was insanely loud and also sounded very good.
I forget the brand of that booster, may have been EHX, LP, cannot remember.

Not sure what year the Bandmaster was, late 60s maybe, wish I still had it.
My dad bought it used from some electronics place in Seattle that fixed a lot of the local bands gear back then.

 

[alantig]

But where's the exciting sound of a Recto in full spank?

Heh heh heh - Les said 'full spank' - heh heh heh.

As a metal dude I'm pretty good about playing with lower gain.

I figure I paid for all that gain, I'm getting my full dime's worth!

 

[CoreyT]

Les, here is the booster I had.
I let it go when I sold the Bandmaster in '82 when my first son was born.
https://reverb.com/item/262949-vintage-electro-harmonix-lpb-1-linear-power-booster-70-s

I see EHX still makes it, but in pedal form.

 

[László]

Thanks Les, will give it a try over the holiday, I have four days off soon.

Back in the day (1973) I had a Fender Bandmaster head and a HUGE 2x12 matching cab that was bigger than most 4x12 cabs of today.
It had no gain on it, and I use to use a booster that was a small stainless steel box with a guitar plug on it that you would plug directly into the input on the amp, then plug your guitar into it.
It simply had a sliding on/off black switch, and a volume knob.

I had one of those, too but mine was a little different!

It was made by Electro-Voice (EV) or Shure, can't remember which. And even though Wiki and most guitar freaks think that the Dallas Rangemaster was the first treble boost, it wasn't. I remember that box hanging right off the input of my amp like it was yesterday, in 1965. That was a year before the Rangemaster came out.

I remember those huge Fender 2x12s, because inside the cab the speakers were actually angled a little bit to spread the sound along a wider arc. In fact, my son recently bought a vintage one from the 70s for cheap, and used it to record a bunch of stuff. Actually, those Bandmasters were super-cool amps, especially the blackface ones.

One of the guys in my high school band had one. I was utterly jealous, because at the time I was rocking an unwanted and unloved Ampeg Reverberocket II, and more than anything, I wanted a Fender. But my dad had gotten a deal on the Ampeg, so that's what I had until I started earning money in my college band and replaced it with a blackface Bassman head and 4x12.

Heh heh heh - Les said 'full spank' - heh heh heh.!

You no like spank? :vroam:

 

[CoreyT]

And this here is similar to what I had.
https://reverb.com/item/801855-fend...DJOXY4pCBzVhi2v4TDQYvwbjSJlAIwiu8nxoCkFvw_wcB

No reverb, the reverb heads were much taller than this one.
Wish I had pics of my old gear.
I only have a few pics of my '73 Les Paul Deluxe, and my first LP copy, a '70 or so Univox goldtop below.
I was rocking that thing
We were at the West Seattle Hi-Yu parade, and I was on top of a open deck semi trailer.
Some sort of Randalll amp, not sure if SS or tubes.
It was a huge all in one combo.

 

[László]

Awesome bandmaster pic, and I love the one of you playing! How cool that you have that. I have no pictures of my gigging, and I started in 1965! You'd think maybe. But, no.

Also got a kick out of the guy photobombing the shot.