amp growl

[singtall]

voicing of the amp would be the biggest contributor of growl. the way your guitar tone hits the tubes after eq is the growl factor. Brian over at BFG helped me revoice a Carvin X100B and turn it into something more Bogner. what we did was change out some components that shaped the highs and lows through the gain stage....that's it, and growl was there instead of midrange nastiness.

you can take just about any tube amp and ask Brian how to get more growl and he could tell you what components to change to make that happen. in my case, Carvin had the amp rolling off a bunch of lows and highs in favor of mids; what that did was give the amp a nasal midrange distortion, but tons of apparent gain..which felt pretty good for soloing. what we did was add some highs and lows back in and revoice the amp to give a more Bogner/Marshall tone. now the amp growls a lot more, but has less apparent gain when soloing....so i push it with a pedal like everybody else does their amps and it sounds good.

there isn't a ton of new tube voicing ideas under the sun, so you can turn many mere mortal amps into something that breathes fire....if you know how.

 

[WizardSouth-JP]

this "gnawing, chewing, growling, burbling" thing is exactly what im after.

that accept tone has always been one of my favorites...even back in the day i knew it was something unattainable by mere mortal gear!

a more recent Accept growling guitar tone - ENGL amps I think
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJxS1Bpnkl4

very Judas Priest-ish riff, love this song

 

[Anonymous]

this "gnawing, chewing, growling, burbling" thing is exactly what im after.

that accept tone has always been one of my favorites...even back in the day i knew it was something unattainable by mere mortal gear!

a more recent Accept growling guitar tone - ENGL amps I think

very Judas Priest-ish riff, love this song

GREAT TONE!!!!!!!!!! really thick and dominant!

 

[Anonymous]

Does this growl i think it does.

Open in new Window or dowlnload to listen.
http://www.tappamps.com/movies/iratus/growl_iphone.MOV

/Hasse

fuck yeah. that has some MEAN growl to it man!

 

[leib10]

Bogner Uberschall Rev. 2, properly dialed in, has the most sinister, dark growl I've heard.

 

[petejt]

this "gnawing, chewing, growling, burbling" thing is exactly what im after.

that accept tone has always been one of my favorites...even back in the day i knew it was something unattainable by mere mortal gear!

a more recent Accept growling guitar tone - ENGL amps I think

very Judas Priest-ish riff, love this song

Damn that sounds killer! It has that top-end zing too that adds a lot to the aggressiveness of the growl sound.

 

[petejt]

my opinion is that a sine wave doesn't growl. growl is a function of the low mid frequencies hitting the distortion stage. many amps roll off highs and lows before the gain/distortion stages to give a certain type of tone or feel. depending on how much lows and highs they roll off, and at what frequency they roll it off, it will change the amount or type of growl.

back in the day when i used Rocktron preamps, i would manipulate the eq before the distortion to change the distortion shape or feel. by adding more mids between 650-1200hz you increase the sustain and compression, but totally kill the growl....which plays fine for legato leads. the growl was down around 225-300hz; by boosting that area i could greatly increase the apparent distortion and growl...but at the expense of legato sustain. there is always a trade off.....absolute chunk. or smooth lead.

many amps that provide tons of chunk and growl "need" a tube screamer to smooth it out for leads....hence the reason many recto users also employ a tube screamer. they don't use a tube screamer for distortion mind you (as can be noted by their settings) but the tube screamer acts like a filter or eq to clean up certain low frequencies and tighten the mix.

another way around the tube screamer is by choice of pickups and guitar. a bright sounding guitar with tons of high mids will naturally kill off some growl and lend itself to a smoother lead feel.

try an eq before your amp and play around with the frequencies i talked about and see if you can't change the growl/distortion of your amp.

Thanks heaps for this- helps a lot.

 

[Anonymous]

this is my modded 5150script logo that i did myself. first vid i've posted anywhere...meh, whatever..yeah, i ripped off a bunch of well known rig talk mod video licks, some slayer, some of my own shit and there are clams all over the place. anyways, the amp is really close to being where i want it sonically, it has all the growl i want and the high laser beam sound i like. i was trying to play some riffs that would give a good example of the mods.
yep. cellar is a mess, and i haven't even put the Christmas decorations away! lol. phone cam was overloading from the SPLs and theres a static sound on the vid that isn't on the phone...i'll figure out the phones camera setting sweet spot at some point in the future.

cab is an old beat up jcm800 with t75s and h100s x patterned.

anywho. enough excuses!

 

[petejt]

this is my modded 5150script logo that i did myself. first vid i've posted anywhere...meh, whatever..yeah, i ripped off a bunch of well known rig talk mod video licks, some slayer, some of my own shit and there are clams all over the place. anyways, the amp is really close to being where i want it sonically, it has all the growl i want and the high laser beam sound i like. i was trying to play some riffs that would give a good example of the mods.
yep. cellar is a mess, and i haven't even put the Christmas decorations away! lol. phone cam was overloading from the SPLs and theres a static sound on the vid that isn't on the phone...i'll figure out the phones camera setting sweet spot at some point in the future.

cab is an old beat up jcm800 with t75s and h100s x patterned.

anywho. enough excuses!

Despite the aforementioned audio issues, I can really hear that growl!!


Damn I gotta my recording setup working again soon.........

 

[Ventura]

Diezel Hagen growls more than any diezel !

Yes. Yes it most certainly does. I've used terms like "grinding, gnawing chainsaw" in describing my Hagen on full throttle Ch.2 blastin' or Ch.3 heavies. I'll do some diggin' for some clips. The Hagen is less dry than the VH4, and seriously purrs and barks more than any of the other Diezels I've hammered.

This clip of a Rev.2 has the "burbling bite" I also like. Sounds really wet, as opposed to the "drier" kerrang. Check out around the 0:30 mark onwards, it gets rich, chewy and growlin':

 

[Heritage Softail]

How about the D Moll? Steve just got his and said it was Herbert does Einey...

So many cool amps out now.

 

[SFW]

I think getting that growl has a lot to do with not only the amp but the pickup that you use. When I think of amp growl, I always think of Doug Aldrich.

I've always had good luck getting a nice growl out of my 5153. I was also able to get it from my TriAmp.

 

[Anonymous]

How about the D Moll? Steve just got his and said it was Herbert does Einey...

So many cool amps out now.

yeah, i think Laura got one too.....i haven't heard much about the D-moll though.

curious to hear about it, and see some vids.

 

[Ventura]

D-Moll's been funny this way. There've been a number of 'em purchased and received by RT'ers, but things go a bit quiet after that

As to the comment above regarding "pups" being more responsible than "amps" for growl. I dunno man, I'd have to say there's a little bit of that play involved, but I can move 1 guitar from amp to amp to amp and get varying degrees of growl. I can change 4 guitars through 1 amp and get consistent growl.

Whatever.

 

[Mailman1971]

Yeti......again.....love the tone of your modded 5150. Bet its awesome in the room.

 

[electrophonic.tonic]

any marshalls stock that do this?

I always thought Mick Mars got good growl on Shout at the Devil and Theatre of Pain. Might be a little more of snarly mid than you want though.
He may have been using a boosted 800 set fairly dark. Of course dropped tuning doesn't hurt either.
I read somewhere he was using an Eventide as well.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeti......again.....love the tone of your modded 5150. Bet its awesome in the room.

thanks man!!! the newer spot i had the phone in was picking up a bit more high end, sounds kind of icepicky in that spot.

any marshalls stock that do this?

I always thought Mick Mars got good growl on Shout at the Devil and Theatre of Pain. Might be a little more of snarly mid than you want though.
He may have been using a boosted 800 set fairly dark. Of course dropped tuning doesn't hurt either.
I read somewhere he was using an Eventide as well.

yep. mick has some low mid growl going on in those albums! i love mick's tone, all of it...especially shout and theatre, i always wondered how he got that tone....it's the quintessential "metal" sounding tone to me...it's very hard edged, and immediate sounding to my ears. id doesn't sound overly distorted or overdriven, it just sounds loud and awesome! but not like other jcm800 tones sound like to me.... do you know what he had used for a boost, or could guess at?

oddly enough, i always thought this video of the tortuga yeti fuzz sounds really mick mars-ish and metal...really big and clear sounding, considering it's from a pedal.

later on, it sounds like he uses a lot more amp gain and distortion than those 2 albums.

 

[electrophonic.tonic]

Yeti......again.....love the tone of your modded 5150. Bet its awesome in the room.

thanks man!!! the newer spot i had the phone in was picking up a bit more high end, sounds kind of icepicky in that spot.

any marshalls stock that do this?

I always thought Mick Mars got good growl on Shout at the Devil and Theatre of Pain. Might be a little more of snarly mid than you want though.
He may have been using a boosted 800 set fairly dark. Of course dropped tuning doesn't hurt either.
I read somewhere he was using an Eventide as well.

yep. mick has some low mid growl going on in those albums! i love mick's tone, all of it...especially shout and theatre, i always wondered how he got that tone....it's the quintessential "metal" sounding tone to me...it's very hard edged, and immediate sounding to my ears. id doesn't sound overly distorted or overdriven, it just sounds loud and awesome! but not like other jcm800 tones sound like to me.... do you know what he had used for a boost, or could guess at?

oddly enough, i always thought this video of the tortuga yeti fuzz sounds really mick mars-ish and metal...really big and clear sounding, considering it's from a pedal.

later on, it sounds like he uses a lot more amp gain and distortion than those 2 albums.

Holy shit!
That pedal with the strat there towards the end

As far as the boost, I think it was an original (early 80s I'm guessing) Rat.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeti......again.....love the tone of your modded 5150. Bet its awesome in the room.

thanks man!!! the newer spot i had the phone in was picking up a bit more high end, sounds kind of icepicky in that spot.

any marshalls stock that do this?

I always thought Mick Mars got good growl on Shout at the Devil and Theatre of Pain. Might be a little more of snarly mid than you want though.
He may have been using a boosted 800 set fairly dark. Of course dropped tuning doesn't hurt either.
I read somewhere he was using an Eventide as well.

yep. mick has some low mid growl going on in those albums! i love mick's tone, all of it...especially shout and theatre, i always wondered how he got that tone....it's the quintessential "metal" sounding tone to me...it's very hard edged, and immediate sounding to my ears. id doesn't sound overly distorted or overdriven, it just sounds loud and awesome! but not like other jcm800 tones sound like to me.... do you know what he had used for a boost, or could guess at?

oddly enough, i always thought this video of the tortuga yeti fuzz sounds really mick mars-ish and metal...really big and clear sounding, considering it's from a pedal.

later on, it sounds like he uses a lot more amp gain and distortion than those 2 albums.

Holy shit!
That pedal with the strat there towards the end

As far as the boost, I think it was an original (early 80s I'm guessing) Rat.

yeah, i've been wanting that pedal for a long time now....it has a certain vibe that i really like and i think it could make a really cool boost.

 

[Karchovax]

I think growl has a lot to do with the cab and speakers too.
I have a soldano Hot Rod 50 that doesn't growl a lot, but I once played it through an old hiwatt cab and that growl, I really remember it.