Secret to Mick Mars/Joe Holmes Heavy massive tones?

  • Thread starter Thread starter veji
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killertone":2iru9xly said:
What has Joe Holmes done since playing with Ozzy those couple years in the mid 90s? Saw him live back then but don't remember if his tone was good or not.
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Interesting. You're the first guitarist I've spoken with who saw him then with Ozzy that did not shit themselves when they heard that tone. For me, it is the best live hard rock guitar tone I've ever heard to this day... Just massive, thick and harmonically rich distortion... :rock:

rupe":2iru9xly said:
I saw Holmes on tour with Ozzy in '96 and I distinctly remember how bad his tone was. I pushed my way to the soundboard to hear what the knob twiddlers were hearing...same thing...thin, washed out, awful
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Oops... missed this one.... Wow, I'm shocked! Wonder what was going on that night??? When I saw him, it was my "holy grail" of tone...

Steve
 
Do a search on Joe Holmes. I'm pretty sure Dave at Rack systems spilled the beans about what makes Joe's sound tick.
 
never mind, I did it for you ;)

Here is what Dave said:

Ok Joes amp is a Jose mod with a insert loop right before the cathode follower in the amplifier. When I worked with him he use to use the pcm41 in this loop and the setting would be 0 ms but what he would do with it is boost the output knob so the unit would act like a extra gain stage. This is the whole secret of his tone. He then would take a line out to 2 sde3000's and then to a h&h power amp. So he had a wet dry wet rig. Thats all.

Hope this helps:

~R~
 
I know this is an old thread...(ok REALLY OLD !) but I'm wondering if any of you guys know who Joe's influences were (besides Randy)... I wonder about his use of large headstock Fender strats with Vox wah and Deja Vibe...seems like a Hendrix connection to me...anyone else have an opinion ?
 
I don't know much about his influences, but he's probably the best metal guitarist I've ever seen live.
The funny thing is, I went to the show expecting to see Zakk, and this skinny dude with baggy pants comes out with a worn-out Strat....and I thought, uh oh it's fucking John Frusciante. :lol: :LOL:
And he just fucking starts killing it, and plays Randy's stuff better than I'd ever heard anyone else do it. He had this massive, searing, chunky Marshall tone. It was huge.
I remember walking out of there thinking I'd just seen the best guitar player on the planet.
So...uh...yeah. I dig him. :thumbsup:
 
electrophonic.tonic":3i5c8rt0 said:
I don't know much about his influences, but he's probably the best metal guitarist I've ever seen live.
The funny thing is, I went to the show expecting to see Zakk, and this skinny dude with baggy pants comes out with a worn-out Strat....and I thought, uh oh it's fucking John Frusciante. :lol: :LOL:
And he just fucking starts killing it, and plays Randy's stuff better than I'd ever heard anyone else do it. He had this massive, searing, chunky Marshall tone. It was huge.
I remember walking out of there thinking I'd just seen the best guitar player on the planet.
So...uh...yeah. I dig him. :thumbsup:
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That was pretty much my impression too though I knew about Joe from the LA rock scene and had seen him live in a club. I was not prepared for what I saw and heard that night though. Sick, sick tone and he played the Rhoads stuff so well, with so much vibe and what I think was such a connection he had with that style that it gave me chills every time he was playing Rhoads stuff.

I have seen Jake and Zakk play the same stuff and yeah, of course they were good and they killed on their own stuff. But Joe was IMO by far the best at recreating that Rhoads vibe with Ozzy. For crying out loud, it was 18 years ago I saw him with Ozzy, and I'm still raving about it like it was a week ago.
 
veji":38i28j76 said:
are there any cheaper options like pedals for pitch shifting to thicken up your guitar tone?
Eventide and W/D/W are both very expensive.
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Line 6 Spider will do that tone.
 
Mick tunes to D standard, thick strings, these boutique pups (Can't remember the name off hand, I just stick with JB's) and one thing Mick loves to do since I think since the Crue 94 album is layer on literally dozens of guitars and amps on one track. He says he takes the highest end guitars and the lowest end guitars and the highest end amps and the lowest end amps and records and mixes them all together to get his album sound...

Edit: Wow, this is a really old thread... Who necro bumped this?
 
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