Page 1 of 4
Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 12:03 pm
by dayl
Like many of you, while not holding a light to some, I have spent tens of thousands on gear in my life to date and have had a whole lot of fun. At the very least, this is a great hobby, making sounds, nice sounds, sounds that please you, getting new toys, tinkering around, upgrading and combining equipment to make a tone etc etc. Lets talk about it.
What is your best, most satisfying tone that you have produced from all of this 'gear' ?
I started thinking about some of the more favorable moments that I've had just jamming and making noise, really pleased with the sound I could hear.
One lil setup stood out.
I had set my son up to learn guitar. I grabbed JB's old Ibanez 350DX which was stock with the INF pickups, a secondhand Orange micro Terror, a new 1x12 Peavey cheapy blueback speaker cab and a boss OD2 OD/Dist to add a lil sugar.
This, by all rights is a chap beginner setup but damn... neck pickup, diled in on the pedal and on the amp... tweaky tweak tweak and wow... the tone I got, was impossible.. it should not have happened but it was beautiful... thick brown sound, smooth chocolate tones. It stands out.
Share away
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 12:11 pm
by The Scarecrow
dayl wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 12:03 pm
Like many of you, while not holding a light to some, I have spent tens of thousands on gear in my life to date and have had a whole lot of fun. At the very least, this is a great hobby, making sounds, nice sounds, sounds that please you, getting new toys, tinkering around, upgrading and combining equipment to make a tone etc etc. Lets talk about it.
What is your best, most satisfying tone that you have produced from all of this 'gear' ?
I started thinking about some of the more favorable moments that I've had just jamming and making noise, really pleased with the sound I could hear.
One lil setup stood out.
I had set my son up to learn guitar. I grabbed JB's old Ibanez 350DX which was stock with the INF pickups, a secondhand Orange micro Terror, a new 1x12 Peavey cheapy blueback speaker cab and a boss OD2 OD/Dist to add a lil sugar.
This, by all rights is a chap beginner setup but damn... neck pickup, diled in on the pedal and on the amp... tweaky tweak tweak and wow... the tone I got, was impossible.. it should not have happened but it was beautiful... thick brown sound, smooth chocolate tones. It stands out.
Share away
I kind of peaked out on the tone-chasing some years ago in terms of amps and FX - mainly because I'm not boutiquey or much of a pedal guy - most of my board from around 2008 has been some sort of Boss multi-fx, most notably an ME80 for the last 5+ years. Owned a Splawn Quick Rod for about 10 years, that ended my tube-tone quest because that thing sounds killer with anything. Mostly, I used my Katan these days as it gets within about 80-855% of the QR sound to my ears, and without the cost/fragility. I use the QR for recording and the odd bigger gig these days. Guitars seem to be my only variable these days, but my PRS Holcomb with any of the above is dynamic and tight.
One tone I can't forget even about a decade down the line is a Fender Mustang into a Mesa mini-Recto on the vintage gain mode and neck single coil. I'm normally a 100% bridge player, but this one was an incredible tone for almost all applications in this alt-country band I was playing in.
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 12:46 pm
by Delayman
But of a tangent but tone related…I recorded a solo the other day and as I was listening back to it I recognised the tone. It was so familiar. Then I realised the tone was almost identical to something I recorded when I was still at school, with completely different gear. So I realised I’ve spent 30 years and thousands of dollars to sound exactly the same.
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 12:47 pm
by jeremyb
Oh boy, probably my favourite tone is my Strat with Mr Glyn's bellbirds neck and middle pickups selected, thru a Strymon flint with the spring reverb and harmonic tremolo settings into my AC10, absolute bliss to my ears
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 12:52 pm
by Danger Mouse
My personal best tone isn't mine, but Matman will never part with the amp responsible.
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 1:55 pm
by robthemac
HandsoffMatt's old Custom Shop Strat into a 1974x filled my memories and dreams for many years.
But the other day I plugged in my Ibanez LR-10 into the Mike-built Deluxe Reverb, turned the volume up to 3.5 and realised that's about as close to perfect as I'll hear.
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:04 pm
by olegmcnoleg
I just pick up my Lowden...it is that easy
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:06 pm
by HackSaw
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:18 pm
by jhyang549
I think my best guitar tone I've ever "past participle of get" was my ES-335 clone (Duncan Designed 59 neck pickup) -> NeuralDSP Fortin Cali Suite VST plugin (which was then compressed by Ableton stock compressor). Valhalla VintageVerb and Valhalla Delay were send effects, each with their own send track.
EDIT: hahaha the automatic grammar correction is great.
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:19 pm
by jhyang549
That mustang micro sounds nice to me
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:35 pm
by HackSaw
jhyang549 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:19 pm
That mustang micro sounds nice to me
It annoys me how good it sounds. I like the PG spark for the tone matching and play along stuff it does with the app, but the mustang sounds way better to me. Likewise I have an iRig pro into Ipad amplitube that is good for recording and messing around, but still the mustang sounds better. One caveat though - to my ears anyway it sounds amazing with single coils, less so with humbuckers. (If I ever had the opportunity to turn a tube amp up over 1.5 I might change my mind)
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:40 pm
by NippleWrestler
OBG Les Paul Custom into a Mesa Tremoverb through a Marshall 412, loud and obnoxious in a dark sweaty den with 3 other guys totally in the moment. That's what it's all about.
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:48 pm
by Danger Mouse
HackSaw wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:35 pm
jhyang549 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:19 pm
That mustang micro sounds nice to me
It annoys me how good it sounds. I like the PG spark for the tone matching and play along stuff it does with the app, but the mustang sounds way better to me. Likewise I have an iRig pro into Ipad amplitube that is good for recording and messing around, but still the mustang sounds better. One caveat though - to my ears anyway it sounds amazing with single coils, less so with humbuckers. (If I ever had the opportunity to turn a tube amp up over 1.5 I might change my mind)
I'm impressed at the amount of wasps they managed to get into it for the metal sounds. In fairness, the other tones are pretty good.
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:50 pm
by HackSaw
Danger Mouse wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:48 pm
HackSaw wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:35 pm
jhyang549 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:19 pm
That mustang micro sounds nice to me
It annoys me how good it sounds. I like the PG spark for the tone matching and play along stuff it does with the app, but the mustang sounds way better to me. Likewise I have an iRig pro into Ipad amplitube that is good for recording and messing around, but still the mustang sounds better. One caveat though - to my ears anyway it sounds amazing with single coils, less so with humbuckers. (If I ever had the opportunity to turn a tube amp up over 1.5 I might change my mind)
I'm impressed at the amount of wasps they managed to get into it for the metal sounds. In fairness, the other tones are pretty good.
I'm not very Metal these days
Re: Tone Seekers - Your Personal Best Tone
Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:51 pm
by hamo
Danger Mouse wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:48 pm
HackSaw wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:35 pm
jhyang549 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:19 pm
That mustang micro sounds nice to me
It annoys me how good it sounds. I like the PG spark for the tone matching and play along stuff it does with the app, but the mustang sounds way better to me. Likewise I have an iRig pro into Ipad amplitube that is good for recording and messing around, but still the mustang sounds better. One caveat though - to my ears anyway it sounds amazing with single coils, less so with humbuckers. (If I ever had the opportunity to turn a tube amp up over 1.5 I might change my mind)
I'm impressed at the amount of wasps they managed to get into it for the metal sounds. In fairness, the other tones are pretty good.
Hypothesis: a good metal tone is harder than most other tones to get on cheap gear. Thoughts?