Friday June 24th, 2005

[bleujazz3]

Two PBJ, one with orange marmalade, one with strawberry jam, an iced-coffee, blueberry flavored, ala Dunkin Donuts.

There's been a bit of buzz circulating about tone and THE tone you've been looking for through your amps. What is YOUR "Holy Grail" of tone without including D*umble amps? How do you get THE overdrive sound you've always wanted? What settings do you use on your amp(s)?

[Donk70]

Chef Salad and Gatorade

Ok, here is the signal chain for the best tone I have ever achieved.

Gibson Les Paul R9->Dr. Z Maz Jr.

Maz Jr. Settings:
http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL274/1647191/6048057/101945180.jpg

[Aldwyn]

A hot dog with Famous Dave's Devil's Spit Bar-B-Que sauce.

I wish I could answer this question... because I have never found "The Tone".

And "The Tone" keeps changing, too.

Peace,
Aldwyn

[skijamma]

a Hot jog, a swim and some lemonade.

Always searching for the tone.

[redmax61]

First, I take my right index finger . . .

Seriously, my recipe is a Mesa DR with EL-34's and THD YJ's into 2 Marshall 4x12 cabs with V-30's and Greenbacks. My settings are what I call "Vintage Aggressive". I use vintage settings with more bottom end and a lot more crunch.

Oh yeah, I had soft shell tacos for lunch.

[irwcustom]

Egg mayo sarnies yesterday (phewiff!)


I tend to set my amps up for optimum clean tone - the overdriven chanels then just fall into place for me. I try to resist too much treble and presence. Same settings through my guitar and amp at a forum event was not bright enough for Rog, he set it up with a lot more trebble, less bass - sounded good, handed it back and way too bright for me - is it all in the fingers? ..to a degree I'd say. I like my '65 twins, but then they are too bright for some. Doesn't follow really.

EV's in a Boogie can be a bit in your face - the best tone I got was through a set of origonal red 4 x 12 '68 Marshall cabs with greenbacks - came out at 10 ohms, but the Boogie can handle it - same amp, just the great speakers and birch ply open backed cabs that made a huge difference.

[johnreardon]

Forgotten, what I had yesterday. Memory is awefull when you get old.

I never use fixed settings on my amps, believing that acoustics are different wherever you play, so you have to adjust for these differences, however minor they are. I trust those things, each side of my head to tell me when I have the amp and guitar as I want it.

My technique, as I have mentioned before is simple. Assume the guitar is standard tuning ;)

Zero all controls on the amp and turn up all on the guitar. Increase the volume a little on the amp and then

Whilst hitting bottom E, adjust the bass until it hits what I call the sweet spot. This is when the bass really comes in. Try it you'll notice when.

Then hit the D string and adjust the Mid until you hear the sweet spot

Finally hit top E and adjust the Treble until the sweet spot is reached.

Gain and volume to taste. Settings may need minor adjustments through the night, depending on number of people there etc.

On the F-50, I do the above on the clean channel and then just adjust the dirty channel to the same settings.

Not being a pedal/effects fan, I don't have anything between the guitar and amp, except the lead, to muddy things up.

This certainly works for me.

[kingsleyd]

Chicken salad roll-up and mixed greens with blue cheese dressing (all-day workshop for work)

I'm quite fond of the basic tone I get from my pair of Fender amps (SF Deluxe Reverb with JBL speaker & '63 Vibrolux) but that's a clean tone with only a slight crunch. I usually have the SFDR's volume and treble on 4 and the V-lux's volume and treble on 6. Bass on both is around 3-4. I'll vary the settings slightly for different guitars. I have yet to find a distortion pedal that really does it for me through that rig, although my old TS-9 works well enough that I'm not miserable.

For a distorted tone, at least to my taste, it's hard to argue with a Plexi Marshall. But I don't have much use for one of those, seeing as how I rarely if ever play in a room big enough to crank one of those the way it was intended. I have a Budda Stringmaster and that gets pretty close, close enough for my purposes anyway. Somewhat surprisingly, the other rig that I found got very close to the Plexi zone was a reissue Bassman with a Reverend Drivetrain II. (!) It only worked with the Bassman cranked, though, which was pretty damn loud in its own right.