What would you consider your biggest tonal realisation that has made an impact on the way you dial in gear?

[TheGreatGreen]

I see. I had thought about doing the other room thing. I never considered that i would be able to hear my guitar acoustically..i guess only thing you could do is have monitoring in the room. That is interesting. It would be tough for me to get really into it. Part of the fun is the reaction of being in the room and the instant feedback.

Yeah the real time interaction is tough to beat. Direct monitoring is also cool though because you can hear the guitar exactly as it’s going to sound on the track.

Also I usually do a whole bunch of takes to make a guitar line sound exactly how I want, and sitting right at the desk being able to hit “record > stop > delete > record again” etc without moving around makes the whole deal a lot faster and more seamless.

 

[Nigel]

1. Lower gain
2. Mesa V30's
3. 125K load on JB's
4. Pure nickel strings
5. Mullard long plate tubes
6. JJ KT77's

 

[Alpha Stryke]

The sum of the "total parts".

 

[nightlight]

Another thing that I can recommend is not blindly going with a frowning EQ smiley on Mesa or VHT amps. Might work a bit better with the Mesa, but with the VHT, much better to use your ears to decide what to boost and what to cut or leave midway.

 

[anomaly]

Dimebag had some of the thinnest guitar tones ever. On album, the engineer would fix it and make him sound better, but left to his own devices, he is all hiss and mud. It there was a second guitar player in Pantera with even a Cannibal Corpse scooped Rectifier tone, you would never hear Dime in the mix. When I think "huge guitars", I don't thing hiss and shrill.

The Cleveland metal scene from 20 years ago taught me that. Scoop the mids only works if you're the only guitarist and can afford for someone to fix it later.

Well, I disagree with you. A song like " Becoming" from FBD sounds pretty fat to me. That whole album has a great tone IMO.

 

[ChurchHill]

Just a few in no particular order:

• Pure nickel strings
• How much difference the material used for the pick makes a difference
• How much cables make a difference and "better" cables aren't always better
• Treble, Presence, and Bright are my friends
• All I need is one pickup and a volume knob
• How much good pots matter
• How the final sound is the sum of the parts and absolutely everything really does matter
• Learning how to listen, not just hear, and how to listen through a mix, for example, how the reverb on the snare affects the entire mix or how a random breath can make a track feel intensely personal
• I am my own worst critic
• As is true in all of life, you can gold-plate a turd, but it will always be a turd, no matter how much I wish it wasn't

 

[Greazygeo]

The biggest….bright caps suck. Whether in an amp or on a guitar volume pot, they suck.

 

[nightlight]

One man's tone suck pedal/cable/etc is another man's money maker.

 

[Nigel]

Just a few in no particular order:

• Pure nickel strings
• How much difference the material used for the pick makes a difference
• How much cables make a difference and "better" cables aren't always better
• Treble, Presence, and Bright are my friends
• All I need is one pickup and a volume knob
• How much good pots matter
• How the final sound is the sum of the parts and absolutely everything really does matter
• Learning how to listen, not just hear, and how to listen through a mix, for example, how the reverb on the snare affects the entire mix or how a random breath can make a track feel intensely personal
• I am my own worst critic
• As is true in all of life, you can gold-plate a turd, but it will always be a turd, no matter how much I wish it wasn't

What kind of pots do you like? I need to re-do my ladies.

Btw I love Solid Cables and have been a user for over $20 years, even gave a pair to Doug and Ty from King’s X as a gift. They sound so good!

 

[DanTravis62]

Well, I disagree with you. A song like " Becoming" from FBD sounds pretty fat to me. That whole album has a great tone IMO.

That's exactly the point he was making. That you can fix it on the recording by doubling it with a wizard, corrective EQ within an inch of it's life, etc etc, but you're starting out at first and long by scooping everything. You're making everything more difficult for yourself and your bandmates.

There are workarounds for this, though. Live, guys like Dime and Max Cavalera would use EQs to add mids back in in the effects return, and stuff like that to try and balance it out.

The vast majority of time though @BeZo is correct though. And he's certainly correct if he's giving advice to people on forums, because you aren't Dimebag Darrell lol

 

[Metalhex]

"A hairy and fizzy top end is what helps your tone cut through the mix".

Well, I cannot disprove that but when I listen to my recorded tone it sounds hairy and fizzy yet does not necessarily cut through the mix. There has to be a balance between proper volume levels and eq'ing. I know perceived loudness doesnt mean it sounds better but I believe that a good sounding tone has a balance between volume level and eq.

I'd imagine there'd have to be a way to have a tone that is not fizzy and ear-grating and still sound great in a mix.

 

[DanTravis62]

"A hairy and fizzy top end is what helps your tone cut through the mix".

Well, I cannot disprove that but when I listen to my recorded tone it sounds hairy and fizzy yet does not necessarily cut through the mix. There has to be a balance between proper volume levels and eq'ing. I know perceived loudness doesnt mean it sounds better but I believe that a good sounding tone has a balance between volume level and eq.

I'd imagine there'd have to be a way to have a tone that is not fizzy and ear-grating and still sound great in a mix.

It's not the hair and fizz that cuts through a mix, that's what makes a tone disappear

It's the high mids and clean transients that help your tone cut through a mix

This is just lost in translation because people say "all the tones you listen have more high end" and everyone thinks we mean fizz - no, when people say "it has more high end" we mean it's bright and has lots of high mids, and the jangle of the clean transients cut through everything

 

[TheGreatGreen]

It's not the hair and fizz that cuts through a mix, that's what makes a tone disappear

It's the high mids and clean transients that help your tone cut through a mix

This is just lost in translation because people say "all the tones you listen have more high end" and everyone thinks we mean fizz - no, when people say "it has more high end" we mean it's bright and has lots of high mids, and the jangle of the clean transients cut through everything

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has occurred" - George Bernard Shaw

This is particularly true when people try to use language to describe sound.

 

[DanTravis62]

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has occurred" - George Bernard Shaw

This is particularly true when people try to use language to describe sound.

The funny thing, is i guarantee that most of the people who give that advice ("high end is what makes you cut through") aren't even thinking about "fizz" because if a gain tone is super fizzy they wouldn't presume to use it anyways lol

Except situationally i guess - i mean yeah, if you're doing a swedish chainsaw sound or a black metal tone youre gonna need it. But people never want advice getting situational tones like that, they wanna get the big, thick, juicy modern sounds.

They just don't believe you when you tell them exactly how to get the big, juicy modern sounds

 

[psychic_driver]

3. Noobs focus everything on their left hand technique, pros focus on their right hand technique

Absolutely true. The old cliche:
Left hand is what you know
Right hand is who you are

 

[ChurchHill]

What kind of pots do you like? I need to re-do my ladies.

Btw I love Solid Cables and have been a user for over $20 years, even gave a pair to Doug and Ty from King’s X as a gift. They sound so good!

Been using RS Guitarworks for about 20 years. There are some other good ones, but I really like these. The tension is just right for me, not too loose but not too tight, and the taper works really well, usable down to about 1 without getting muddy. These are a custom taper made by CTS and come in several varieties, including push/pull.

https://store.rsguitarworks.net/col...s/products/rs-guitarworks-500k-superpot-short

 

[NorCal_Val]

In response to the initial question;
No matter what gear I use, I sound like me.
Discovering that “inconvenient truth” really helped me break the “I need that piece of gear!!!” cycle.
And, it helped me stop being such a knob twister.

 

[nightlight]

On the subject of mids: I really dig the Engl E530 preamp I acquired, because it has a low mid as well as a high mid control. Wish more amps had similar knobs in addition to the bass and treble.

On the recommendation for an EQ pedal in the loop that someone mentioned, hell yes! It's the best way to sculpt an amp's tone further when the regular controls are no longer able to target those frequencies that you want back/out.

 

[alund]

I don’t think there are secrets to tone. For me, volume knob on my guitar into a “legit” amp made my tone. Me seriously practicing made the tone sound good.

 

[anomaly]

That's exactly the point he was making. That you can fix it on the recording by doubling it with a wizard, corrective EQ within an inch of it's life, etc etc, but you're starting out at first and long by scooping everything. You're making everything more difficult for yourself and your bandmates.

There are workarounds for this, though. Live, guys like Dime and Max Cavalera would use EQs to add mids back in in the effects return, and stuff like that to try and balance it out.

The vast majority of time though @BeZo is correct though. And he's certainly correct if he's giving advice to people on forums, because you aren't Dimebag Darrell lol

Ya, but all of the Pantera's records from the 90's sound killer IMO, and he wasn't blending a touch of Wizard on all of them (just ask Grady). All Dime had in the loop of his amps was a Flanger Doubler. No EQ's, those were up front.