Oh, and Nunavut Boy? Whatever you do, don’t followthis linkto the Gear Page’s Amp and Cab Forum, where I have conveniently done a search on the word “bedroom” since what you are looking for is commonly referred to as a bedroom amp. I am sure there are dozens of threads in those search results discussing the lastest G.A.S.-inducing small-watt amps…
sorry!
The only place I play any more is at church, so I finally came to the conclusion that my big Carvin amp was simply too big for the room. So I brought in my little 30 watt Crate “practice” amp with an 8" speaker. I have it on a chair next to me, and I use it in combination with a Behringer Bass V-Amp (basically a Bass POD clone). I plug my bass into the V-Amp, and from that I run a line to the little amp and another to a DI that goes to the FOH mixer. I set the volume at the amp’s “sweet spot”, and it sounds great to me and is loud enough for me and the drummer to hear it, without being too loud for the room. The sound guy gets to adjust my FOH volume in the mix. Everybody’s happy 
Yep. Me too.
But I do think an upright bass sounds better than an electric. Same with piano.
Didn’t expect to see this thread rise to the top again…
I have a minor update or note: effects pedals and their impact on this “magical tube amp sensitivity” I have tried to describe. Bottom line? I can’t figure out how to include effects in my signal chain without compromising this touch dynamic responsiveness. I mean, I have a fuzzbox (gain dialed very low; level dialed up all the way) but that is just revving up the signal into the amp, and I have a noise gate because my bandmates hate it when my single coil pickups are close to a neon sign - but that’s it. The other genres of effects seem to undercut the very responsiveness I crave from my rig.
I tried a compressor because I had used one on my pedalboard for jangly-type songs (the Byrds, Tom Petty and REM are all compressor hounds). But, by definition, a compressor, well, compresses your signal - soft playing is made a bit louder and hard hits on your strings are reduced in volume. So it actively reduces the level of responsiveness I am seeking. I just can’t reconcile that in my brain.
PODs and other digital effects - well, they’re digital, which means they translate the signal to 0’s and 1’s, impart their additional effects, then translate the 0’s and 1’s back into a signal. Touch responsiveness goes out the window.
Delays and Chorus and Flanging - so far with the ones I have tried, there is an effect on the tone. I probably need to experiment a bit more with analog delays or something. David Gilmour typically has a bit of echo on his tone and he is a very touch-responsive player…but so far I haven’t found anything that makes me want to drop everything and figure this out.
So I keep finding myself with my simple rig. Don’t get me wrong - I am totally happy with my tone at this point; but I look at folks with a ton of effects and wonder what they know that I don’t, or how they are able to get their hands to deliver the sound they want, moving through all those layers…
Variety - the spice of life.
Some pedals colour your sound more than others. I would definetly agree that any type of modulation type effect (chorus, delay, flange) will at the very least add more noise to an already overdiven sound, though I have yet to really try out any of the higher end boutique models. Overdrive pedals run the gaumut from almost totally transparent to obvious colourations to your tone. Sometimes this is desired py certain players (the famous mid-range hump of a Tube Screamer), and sometimes not so much. Tranparency actually seems to the buzz word du jour of overdrive pedal manufacturers. Distortion and fuzz pedals by their very nature change the character of your guitar.
I personally love running an OD with the volume at maximum and the gain at zero into a tube amp that’s just on the verge of breaking up where the single notes sound ncie and clean but any type of chord at all is giving over tones. Or just throwing an OD with very little boost in it in front of a totally ragging amo, making it rage just that bit more. Of course, I am a knuckle dragging metal-head.
I wonder Wordman, have you yet tried a more subtle overdrive pedal, say a LPB-1 or maybe MXR Micro-amp? They tend to leave the nuances and subtlies of your picking style more intact than a standard OD or distortion pedal.
Yay! First post!
…And a thoughtful first post at that - welcome. Been hanging out long?
All good on your post. And I haven’t tried clean boosts - I like the crunch of a true distortion pedal like my 1st-Gen Rat - so 1 notch more grit than overdrives like Tube Screamer. But I run my Rat like you describe - just thickening up my already gruff Tweed tone.
Been lurking for a few years now. Just recently decides to get me feet wet. I’ve been a long time fan of your music/guitar related posts WordMan.
Hoo, boy. A lot of this stuff is over my head, but I can fill in a little lore.
Not long after Jimi Hendrix began to play, he reportedly told his friends and family he would figure out how to make a guitar sound just like a saxophone. When he hit the big time, he told the studio guys he’d had a dream of playing like he was underwater. They showed him a flanger, and it was exactly the sound in his dream.
Jerry Garcia, in his later years, would buy sheet music for difficult clarinet music. Then he’d spend days figuring out how to play them on his guitar. Always looking for new chops.
Hey - cool; thanks - and thanks for joining the conversation. What type of gear? Music?
the guitar that gets the most use right now is a ‘72 reissue Tele Custom. Hum’ in the neck, single in the bridge, all stock. Call me crazy, but I love the feel of a Tele’s neck. I’ve been known to use Jackson V or Kelly in the past. Several amps, but since I am currently without a jam pad, very little place to use them at the moment. Especially those 100 watt monsters (Peavy Windsor, Valveking and some 80’s Randall that I don’t even know the name of), so I’ve been sticking with my 15 watt Windsor combo for now.
I’ve played in several death and black metal bands in the past 10 years or so (I hope I don’t lose any one at this point), but have been feeling myself gravitate towards an older/groovier/less coockie monzter style of Molten Madness the last year or so (Danzig, BYOC, that Sabbath band). Not having a band for the last 6 months and just focusing on my playing/tone/songwritting has probably brought that on. Haven’t had a chance to really do that since high school.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t one of the earliest fuzz pedals (I’m thinking it was the Face Fuzz) advertised as being able to mimic the sound of a horned instrument?
Good morning!
Well, if you have read some of my posts, you know I love Teles. Those '72 reissues are great - if it is a Tele Custom, is the body bound and is it finished sunburst - basically like Andy Summer’s Police guitar? I G.A.S. for one of those tragically. Ampage - yeah, dialing down to a 15w makes a ton of sense - what’s a Windsor - what’s the basic circuit?
If you play so much metal, I guess I am suprised to have so much overlap in our gear tastes. I (very likely with no established basis) tend to think of metal guys as either shredders or Drop D’ers, running Triple-Rectifier Mesa Boogies and scooped mids and pointy 24-fret guitars (all of this can be explained, if anyone is curious). One rig type isn’t better than the other - you just choose the right tool for the job, right? Even the stuff you are moving towards has that tone - vs., say early Megadeth, which actually is a close-to-Van Halen type of tone - more mids.
Ooops - gotta run…
PS: Oh, and if you don’t have Dave Hunter’s Pedal Effects Handbook (I think that is the title) you should get it - he discusses the fact that the original fuzzboxes were supposed to mimic horn tones.
I’ve noticed your affinity for Telecasters here on the board. The Tele I use is straight up black, such as this. The Peavey Windsor is a fairly simple 15 watt Class A amplifier. I’m not too sue of the basic circuit… I’m still learning a lot about all this stuff (which this thread has really been great for). I own the 100 watt head version as well. Nothing fancy or boutique, but it sure gets the job done. I do want to change out the speaker pretty soon here.
As for not going the traditional scooped/triple rec/24 fret route… I suppose I just got kind of tired of it, especially after playing with so many other bands and guitar players that use that sound. And it seems to me that Dimebag took that scooped sound to its logical conclusion. I mean, how much more mids can you suck out? And my sound was so much more fun and interesting to play with and listen to after breaking away from all that. And a scooped mid tone is really, really hard to be heard over drums, and to a lesser extent the bass and vocals as well. I’ve has sound men come up to me after a show telling me how easy it was mixing my band due purely to the mid heavy sound I play with.
Thanks for the book recommendation, I have yet to read that one… runs off to amazon
Well, I am stuck in back-to-back meetings so I can’t post much - but I find this post fascinating. Again - there is NO right answer to all this and whatever tone works for somebody is what works for them - but hearing you say that as a metal guy you hear the value of, well, *mids in your tone *- it seems like such a simple concept and is already known to have the benefits you lay out in your post, but it is avoided in the metal world. I kinda assumed it started when metal heads in the 80’s wanted to cram even more distortion into their signal, they had to scoop the mids to avoid feedback and it ran nuts from there…
Oh, shoot - called back into the meeting…
