NZGuitars.com

Did a gig at the family and naval, Lp straight into my mesa subway. It sounded the best it ever had. Never managed to recreate that tone again. Sitting the amp on top of a grand piano obviously did the job

A tweed Fender bassman reissue, volume on 9-10, simple as that. Put an attenuator on - magic gone...

hamo wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:51 pm

Danger Mouse wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:48 pm

HackSaw wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:35 pm

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?

I suspect Fender just put less effort in because they assume their target market won't care. There's a few digital and solid state offerings for metal available these days that sound remarkably good, so it can be done.

hamo wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:51 pm

Danger Mouse wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:48 pm

HackSaw wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:35 pm

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?

Just having a semi-powerful PC/Laptop with an audio interface, running a good guitar sim with Ownhammer Cabinet IRs on low latency can you give great sounding metal tones.

It annoys me how affordable gear is so good now compared to 20 years ago. I wish I had that when I was a teenager. I'd probably spend less time chasing tone because it's so easy now.

HackSaw wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:35 pm 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)

How are you listening to it? Through headphones?

I have a bit of this with the Boss WAZA headphones. They sound great, but a big part of it is how huge they sound in the headphones, and how much control I have on the mix. Trying to get an equivalent audio experience through a speaker while playing with other musicians is a mugs game. And there's no vocals in the mix, so no good including singing in my practice.

Fender Hotrod ‘52 Tele into JTM45 with G12H30’s

Gibson SG Standard into AC30cc2

Gibson Les Paul Special into AC30HW2x

I was very happy with my tone yesterday... My LP standard, neck pickup (Burstbucker Pros), Boss OD1x for a bit of extra gain and grit, and into RobRoyMcCoy's special little Bellbird. soft and squishy, sustain for days. Good tone = a great jam.

The other one that sticks in my mind is ES-335 (57 classics) into a 1974x, volume around 2, so a bit of crunch happening, with a little bit of extra drive from a klon clone (Bondi Sick As). Thick and compressed, edge of breakup and endless sustain. Definitely my happy place.

jhyang549 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 3:14 pm
It annoys me how affordable gear is so good now compared to 20 years ago. I wish I had that when I was a teenager. I'd probably spend less time chasing tone because it's so easy now.

Things have come a long way, I reckon. My first real setup was an Ibanez lawsuit strat from the 70's with a single DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge and a Boss DS going into a Fender Princeton Chorus I hired from school mid '96. I though it was rather epic and prided myself on having one of the better setups at my college, until the other guitarist in my school band bought a JCM800 combo just before our school talent quest and absolutely destroyed me with that and his Tokai LP.

Pretty much most modern digital amps have some kind of PC interface that makes it seamless to dial in pretty epic tones. I estimated a few years ago, at my most extravagant spending stage in my early-mid 20's in the 00's, I probably dropped around 8-12k on guitars, pedals and amps, which I thought was excessive, but now seems tame compared to others I know; I have one mate who counts his current spend atover 50k on gear in the last decade, and he still hasn't found a tone that's elusive. I think the problem is that when you chase a tone long enough without gratification, the memory of it fades and becomes distorted, making it hard to actually remember what you were hunting to begin with.

I came across a Princeton Chorus in a Cashies a few years back, and nostalgia commanded I try it. There was a Behringer Distortion pedal (which I gather rips the DS1 circuit, or thereabouts) and a humbuckered Jackson that was playable in store so I was able to roughly approximate my setup from age 17... suffice to say the memory of it sounded much better than the actuality.

[/quote]
I came across a Princeton Chorus in a Cashies a few years back, and nostalgia commanded I try it. There was a Behringer Distortion pedal (which I gather rips the DS1 circuit, or thereabouts) and a humbuckered Jackson that was playable in store so I was able to roughly approximate my setup from age 17... suffice to say the memory of it sounded much better than the actuality.
[/quote]

Sounds similar to my high school setup, Ibanez RG into Metalzone into Fender Deluxe 112 solid state. Haven’t had the opportunity to recreate it but I’d guess it’s as bad as I imagine it was!

I distinctly remember some tones but often it’s the room not the setup that I liked. I remember getting an amazing tone from my Squire Classic Vibe Tele into an AC15 HW Cranked on the EF86 channel, it only seemed to be this one room though, tried to recreate it later with exact same settings and never did sound the same.

Current setup is making me smile every time I take it to band practice, Les Paul Classic into JTM45 with V30 and G12H30, add Bluesbreaker style pedal
To taste.

My peak fuzz moment was playing a Sola Sound MkI Tone Bender (the Steve Williams one) with a '63 SG Jr (thanks Grant!) into a 1966 blackface Pro Reverb.

Mental. Epic sound though.

Not quite that exact set up, but this was pretty close...

In Sweden for a wedding. We jumped up on the band’s gear. Tele with EMG tele pickups -> BD2 -> Deluxe Reverb.

Why I don’t have that rig yet (15 years and counting) is anyone’s guess…..

Les Paul with Suhr Aldrich pickups into a Jose modded Mojave Peacemaker thru matching 4x12 loaded with M75 Scumbacks.

olegmcnoleg wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:04 pm I just pick up my Lowden...it is that easy

Yeah. Wot he said.

murky wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 4:48 pm In Sweden for a wedding. We jumped up on the band’s gear. Tele with EMG tele pickups -> BD2 -> Deluxe Reverb.

Why I don’t have that rig yet (15 years and counting) is anyone’s guess…..

Nice when it's that simple man! EMG's wouldn't be too fussy what kind of tele they went into also.

Very happy with my current setup. Jazzmaster > cheap DOD250 clone > Belle Epoch > Roland JC22 + Princeton Reverb in stereo/wet/dry.

Second would be my old Cabronita into my old handwired AC15. The Baccus V with Seth Lovers into the AC15 was great too. Not into humbuckers these days, but it was fun at the time.