Under Lock and Key

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When Mike Wagener said that he split the guitar signal between the Marshall (for highs) and Laney (for lows) in the Amigo studio room- does anyone know what that device was? Would it have been a frequency crossover? Or a combination of low-pass and high-pass filters?


Or did he just run an EQ pedal in front of each amp- one with the lows cut (Marshall), one with the highs cut (Laney)?
And what would the threshold frequency be? 800Hz?


I think it's an interesting concept- the idea that a guitar amplifier is set to only amplify half of a guitar's signal. Particularly if you want to blend two amp signals.

I've read a comment somewhere that a normal guitar amp can barely amplify a 6 string guitar's signal. Following on from that comment was a statement that Diezel VH4s were more effective at amplifying 7 string guitars than most other amps. Is that due to its headroom? Ability to handle the low end?



How do you choose which amp is to amplify either the low range or the high range? Would you split the signal into thirds- so you could run the lower third through a bass amp, the central third through a midrangey guitar amp, and the top third through a trebly guitar amp?


And this comes back to the Rockman comment as well- Chorus is known to either muddy up the bottom end, make the top end really shrill and brittle, or just make the midrange squawk and squonk like a toucan through a telephone. If you ran the effect (or any effect) with a narrow frequency range, and then blended it with the same signal but filtered through other frequency ranges- how would that sound? Was that Mike's (and Lynch's) objective on Under Lock & Key?
 
No- they just use the low end of one amp by turning down the highs at the board and emphasizing the lows on the amp, and then doing the opposite with the other amp...you also vary the amount of low or high end in the sound by riding the fader volumes...when you want more lows you bring up the low end amp's volume at the fader and vice versa. Jerry Cantrell has been blending amps for YEARS, as does Metallica and scores of other big names. I would bet that this has been a common practice with rock guitar sounds forever. Billly Gibbons is notorious for this, as was SRV...so the blues guys have been doing it too.

If you ever have the chance to watch the most recent Bad Co DVD, look off to the right side of the stage and see what Mick Is really using for that AWESOME tone...it's some kind of small tweed Fender...and it RIPS ! Ace Frehley used to say he used a small Fender Harvard in the studio, and we all know Zep 1 was a Telecaster and a small Supro...not a Les Paul and a Marshall. Sometimes what you THINK made a sound ISN'T what made it...lol

Anyone else read Warren Di Martini a few years back in Guitar Player magazine about alot of his solos being cut with a Fender Super Champ (Rivera era) pumped through a Marshall cab ? And we all thought it was the "magic" plexi...lol
 
Anyone else read Warren Di Martini a few years back in Guitar Player magazine about alot of his solos being cut with a Fender Super Champ (Rivera era) pumped through a Marshall cab ? And we all thought it was the "magic" plexi...lol

Yup, i believe those were the tones on the out of the cellar album. Most of the rythms were supposed to be the marshalls but all the leads were that little champ through a 4 x 12 and mic'ed. He made that thing sound incredible. Way better than the first record which sounded like complete $hit. Those were probably all the Marshalls!! It is all about the sound in a room and the magic of getting what is heard to the board. Demartini's trick was always drench solos in verb and delay. I always noticed how far in the background they sounded... like being on a mountain top in the distance but yet so epic!
 
I have a Valve Junior...skip it. It sucks even with a TS9 in front of it. Go find the cheapest tube amp with at least a 12" speaker (Harmony, Danelectro, Valco, Gretch, old Traynor etc...) and let it rip.
 
If you think Under Lock and Key was recorded with just a Rockman- go watch Scarface again....





Right from the first three chords- now THAT is 100% Rockman Guitar.
 
mentoneman":1sj5gawh said:
paulyc":1sj5gawh said:
@ rupe : try it sometime. Scholz's whole reason for inventing the Rockman was to do away with amps, speaker cabs and mics. It's sole purpose (originally) was to get the Boston guitar sound on tape with no muss no fuss. He wanted an easy way to go direct and get great sound . How do I know that ? Because I'm a gear nerd and I've read all I could about a handful of guitar players and how they got "their" sound...Scholz is on that list. I'm 43, and Boston was on the radio EVERY DAY when I was a kid (growing up in Boston) and Boston 1 was the greatest guitar sound I had ever heard (at least until VH1 and then the whole LA Metal scene)...I'm also an electronics nerd. I have a scope, bias my own amps, build effects pedals for fun, and dabble in recording a bit. Nothing , to me, sounds beter than a dirty guitar. (although I love clean jazz guitar too, but I can't play it) There probably aren't too many players whose gear I haven't at least looked over or at...I have a natural curiosity about sound in general. I love old recording gear and analog synths too (ARP, MOOG etc...) even though I don't play keyboards...I just love ...sounds. The opening keyboards on Van Halen's 1984 give me goosebumps almost as much as Eruption (well, maybe not...but you get the idea) Tom Scholz was a mad genius and his company SR&D was only a few towns away from where I grew up as a kid, so somehow that made it even cooler that it wasn't invented in a big city like NY or LA...but not far from home. And that album was a MEGA HIT...EVERYONE had a Rockman then...even if it was only for the headphone feature. Their advertisements read like a who's who of guitar back then, and it's not too far out of the question (at least in my mind) that a band like Dokken, struggling to get that big hit, wouldn't try a little Scholz magic mixed in with the Marshalls (and Laneys) trying to boost album sales (remember Hysteria ?). How do you define what makes an album sell ? Slaughter sold a lot of copies of their first record, but I wouldn't say it was great playing or great songs...but that album SOUNDS incredible (to me at least)so was it production ? I don't know...sh*t...there isn't even a DRUMMER on that record. The drums were ALL programed. Google it. I could see the Dokken boys sitting around thinking " Maybe the guitars don't sound right...lets try on some of Boston's sound...they sold about a billion..." or something like that. Especially when I read much later (after George had left) that Don couldn't make up his mind about wheather he should go "alternative or heavier"...talk about conviction. It's all about what sells...at least to get your foot in the door.

....time to go buy a boston album :rock:

i was a big lynch fan back in the day and as cool as i thought his recorded tones were,
NOTHING he has ever recorded touches the tone he was getting LIVE on the under lock and key tour the night i saw him at irvine meadows. i still think it was the greatest live hard rock tone i've ever heard, with brad gillis on ozzy diary of a madman a distant second.

ej and landau are, for me, the current tone kings for what i am currently into, but lynch had the modded marshall thing locked up in the zenith of that era.
..........amazed at the tones from this rig..Used it last week at a venue and F.O.H. guy said it was the best sound he's heard in years, and easiest to mix..( and he's used to my herbert, slo,shiva,vh4,friedman,u get the picture..)
 
Thanks!.....ya know the funny thing is that I've literally paid for this rig twice!.. yes,I bought those modules back in the 80s ,our good ol local music store dealer tells me to go and run out it all into a jcm800 and you'll sound great..........uh huh ya right...the worst mix mash of tone this side of the equater....they failed to tell their customers that rockman gear is designed to be run direct....sold it all...bought it all back and I'll be darned...sounds killer now!
 
I have a bunch of those modules too. They're getting hard to find now. I have the distortion generator, graphic eq, octopus, smart gate, 2 chorus/delays , and I think just a delay ? Not sure on the last one, it may just be a chorus. Unfortunately, my smart gate doesn't gate anything. It lights up and passes signal, but if you feed it noise it won't gate it out. I've tried two different techs locally, sent an email to Perfect Sound Rock Refurbs, and sent an email to Dunlop...Dunlop flat out refused, the two local techs couldn't find anything wrong, and the other guy won't respond. Bummer.
 
Little B":3j3bfn6i said:
.........amazed at the tones from this rig..Used it last week at a venue and F.O.H. guy said it was the best sound he's heard in years, and easiest to mix..( and he's used to my herbert, slo,shiva,vh4,friedman,u get the picture..)
Very cool! I remember plugging into one of the Rockman rigs at Pianos n Stuff near Pittsburgh back in the day and completely falling in love with what I was hearing. It had so much more going on than just mimicking Boston tones. Sadly, it was well out of my price range at the time so I picked up a few modules (Sustainor, EQ, and Chorus/Delay) and ran them into my Marshall...as you know, the results were not the same. :no:

Where are you at in PA?
 
rupe":3gve2b62 said:
Little B":3gve2b62 said:
.........amazed at the tones from this rig..Used it last week at a venue and F.O.H. guy said it was the best sound he's heard in years, and easiest to mix..( and he's used to my herbert, slo,shiva,vh4,friedman,u get the picture..)
Very cool! I remember plugging into one of the Rockman rigs at Pianos n Stuff near Pittsburgh back in the day and completely falling in love with what I was hearing. It had so much more going on than just mimicking Boston tones. Sadly, it was well out of my price range at the time so I picked up a few modules (Sustainor, EQ, and Chorus/Delay) and ran them into my Marshall...as you know, the results were not the same. :no:
,........bout an hour from P-N-S.....they had a complete full stack there at one time...scholtz only released 50 of those ever...
Where are you at in PA?
 
paulyc":1s3ennvp said:
I have a bunch of those modules too. They're getting hard to find now. I have the distortion generator, graphic eq, octopus, smart gate, 2 chorus/delays , and I think just a delay ? Not sure on the last one, it may just be a chorus. Unfortunately, my smart gate doesn't gate anything. It lights up and passes signal, but if you feed it noise it won't gate it out. I've tried two different techs locally, sent an email to Perfect Sound Rock Refurbs, and sent an email to Dunlop...Dunlop flat out refused, the two local techs couldn't find anything wrong, and the other guy won't respond. Bummer.
........ya...I tried Dunlop too for a service on my xpr and they turned me down....perfect sound guy is a hit or miss..he hasn't responded to me either...I'm looking into a local guy who may be able to service modules.I have a bunch of smart gates for sale that work..
 
Hi All,

I remember on George's old website he had a picture of the recording gear for ULAK and the Rockman Distortion Generator was def in the rack. I'm sure it was blended with other amps.
I can hear it all over ULAK, but especially on "In My Dreams." Two good examples are when Don starts the bridge singing "What can I say or do?" That guitar part is a high gain Rockman for sure
with either his Boss Stereo Chorus on it or the Chorus/Doubler effect from the X100 he had. The whole first half of the solo also sounds half Rockman-half other to me, and the 2nd half - at 2:22
has a different tone and sounds like it was recorded separately and spliced in.

Also, George has said that he uses his GE-7's gain slider to push a little bit more gain to his amps. I tried it on the XXX he designed, and it worked great - just gave it that bark and bite I wanted.

Here's a picture of Tom Scholz's EQ settings back on his original MXR EQ. You can see he has both 400 and 3.2Khz boosted, and 800 almost dimed.

Mxr_Settings.jpeg


I have a Rockman Distortion Generator and am familiar with the tone, as a lot of you are. As for differences between the DG and the Sustainors (from Rockman.fr):

Though the Distortion can be considered as a extract of the Rockman Sustainor, it has its own personality, and was not designed exactly for the same usage.
It is often said that the DG has a richer sound than the Sustainor, and as a matter of fact, it is more versatile in the complete range of distortion sounds.

The basis of the Distortion Generator is the structure of all the classic Rockman Amp sims:

Compressor
Distortion stage
Cab sim

Between the compressor and the distortion stage, if we compare the DG with the Sustainor:

No Smart Gate (unfortunately)
No loop for an external pre-distortion EQ (unfortunately...)
A 3-bands pre-distortion EQ (hopefully!)
While the Sustainor has only presets for its distortion sounds (EDGE, DIST, and a gain boost switch),
the DG can be controlled with the following sliders, all placed before the distortion:


The compressor's gain
A three positions gain switch called "distortion harmonics"
A bass slider (boost or cut)
A mid slider (boost only)
A treble slider (cut only)

The combinations are endless, and allow tweaking the sound from a very subtle bluesy overdrive to the most crazy distortion lead sounds.

The DG has the two circuits created for the Sustainor: the Autoclean and the Phase Notcher, then a classic treble slider (to adjust the DG to
the type of amp - PA or guitar amp) and an output volume. There is also a footswitch that will boost the sound by a few dB's, during a solo for example.


Sorry to hear Perfect Sound is not getting back to you. I was planning to send my DG to be refurbed. I didn't have any luck with some of the subcontractor
refurbishing shops he contracts with, but I have an email address for the main guy there, if you want it feel free to PM me and I'll shoot it over.
 
I had the Hughes and Kettner Metal Shreddder pre-amp plugged in to a Mesa Simul 2:90 back in the day as I was told Lynch played those on a couple Wicked Sensation Live shows. It was a really cool different vibe and I played my Kamikaze 1 and custom shop ESP Serpent thru that rig. Wow,what a sound! Life was good when you live at home and have no bills. Haha. I gotta say though as many times as I've seen Lynch Live, the best live tone was back in 92 maybe(memory is going) I saw Steve Vai with a rack mount SLO amp that he used on the Sex and Religion tour. It was Christmas that year and he played the Charlie Brown Christmas theme. It was so intense I thought my eardrums would burst, but to this day that was the purest and rawest tone I've yet to hear. Brilliantly dialed in and believe it or not it wasn't his usal overly processed tone. Sorry for the sidetrack I'll lie down and take my meds now. :lol: :LOL:
 
A great ulak.thread about lynch!!!!!....and not to sway away away from it but just had a talk with a band that opened for kiss one time and the guitarist was telling me how Paul Stanley had a Rockman dist.gen.running straight into the board that night but he didn't know if he was using it that night...none the less,it was there...Just like lynch, tom scholz is a probably a genius and was ahead of his time...
 
I remember going back to the local music store and they had the Rockman "rack" set up....pluggin into it and was SOO KILLER!
But this was about 1990....I still think to this day I would jam out on it. :rock:
 
Little B":3q3jhe94 said:
A great ulak.thread about lynch!!!!!....and not to sway away away from it but just had a talk with a band that opened for kiss one time and the guitarist was telling me how Paul Stanley had a Rockman dist.gen.running straight into the board that night but he didn't know if he was using it that night...none the less,it was there...Just like lynch, tom scholz is a probably a genius and was ahead of his time...
I remember Bruce Kulick talking about that around their " Crazy Nights" and " Hot in the Shade" periods that they used Rockman stuff on everything...I saw a You Tube vid from one of those tours and it sounded like it to me.
 
This is a great resurrected thread!

I've been trying to get a very specific element of this 'Rockman type of saw/grind/buzz/grit/clipping' whatever you call it to add to my sound. Can anyone tell me what I'm hearing in these clips? They all have a specific chainsaw type of distortion/grit in common that is very unique and not smooth- very aggressive! Is it a Rockman, an effect like a stuck-chorus, or a pitch harmonizer +/- 12 cents, or maybe even just a few millisec delay? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!!!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyePfnR3DmA&sns=em 0:00 to 0:15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSMZkF8JDuk 0:00 to 0:17 then bigger from 0:18 to 0:35
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d45HmdK0b5E 0:26 to 0:32
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWZBExczoGc 0:05 through 0:25 (*Bonus! check out 3:20 to 4:15, it sounds exactly like old Yngwie like in Steeler!)
 
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