More Mesa Talk

[metalchurch]

What is the key of 'M'?
I'm missing something here, please someone explain.

[Bloodsong]

the"boxiness" should give it some cut though. i thought the Engl was really boxy; i couldn't get a feel for it in a live situation. my faves are still a dual rec and 6505+, though they really don't sound that much alike they both sound authentic to me. like the notes you're playing are coming out of your fingers and your axe rather than something weird happening in the amp and coming out the other side completely effected. i like "real" note definition, y'know?

[Bloodsong]

the key of m is just us being funny. b flat just wasn't low enuff.

[metalchurch]

Yeah I figured that but I wasn't sure what the M stood for.
Metal ?
Motherfuckinlowtuning ?
Haha!

Hey this reminds me, did you ever play a Baritone guitar?
Are they like in between a guitar and a bass, as far as clarity and output?
I've never played one, being a lefty and all.
I'd bet it would be monsterous for the rhythm guitarist.

.70 gauge, now that's a cable, that's almost bass territory, or it is?
Don't know the bass gauges.

[orangekick]

the"boxiness" should give it some cut though. i thought the Engl was really boxy; i couldn't get a feel for it in a live situation. my faves are still a dual rec and 6505+, though they really don't sound that much alike they both sound authentic to me. like the notes you're playing are coming out of your fingers and your axe rather than something weird happening in the amp and coming out the other side completely effected. i like "real" note definition, y'know?

Yeah, you would think that it might have more cut, but when I heard a band around here play with one it just sounded bad. I'm actually surprised that it was this bad.

Have you ever run the Dual Rec and the 6505 together? I'd be willing to bet that it would be awesome.

I require a lot of note definition as well. I need to know that what my fingers do will be translated through the amp and come out of the speakers the way that I hear it in my head. The Dual Rec does that in spades.

[bassist_25]

I would say that at least half of the guitarists that I hear have poor note definition. I've literally watched guitar players fire off entire solos and all I heard was a flurry of notes underneath the rythmn section.

The type amp has a lot to do with it, but I still think that proper EQing, along with good technique and quality pickups, are the three tools that are going to make things cut in a mix. I remember seeing Jason and Chad doing a show about a month ago. One of the guitarists in one of the bands on the bill fired up his amp before his set, and I said to Chad, "There's no way in hell that's going to work coming through the front of house." I was right. All you could hear is a wall of guitar. I honestly couldn't tell you if the band was good or not, because both of the guitarists had terrible note definition. Everything sounded alike.

I think that a lot of guitarists and bass players don't realize that what they hear three feet from their cabinets is not what's being heard ten feet from their cabinets. It's definitely different than what's being heard through the FOH.

[old Skool]

70s??? I think I have some winch line out behind the shop if you're interested! I understand what everyone is saying about definition. There's nothing better than when you can really shape sound with your fingers and have the amp translate that expression. It's weird too how some people can sound like dog poop through an amp yet someone else can plug in and make it happen.

[Ron]

For me, note definition is key. I played through a friend's setup a few days ago and the sound was so overprocessed that I felt like I couldn't hear or control what I was playing.

It was strange that on his setup the string noise from moving your hands around was more defined and louder than the notes themselves. *shivers*
I'd much rather plug straight into an amp.

[orangekick]

Yeah, I've lost count of how many bands have just sounded like a wall of mud because there was no definition in the guitar sound. That's why I always try to walk as far away from my amp as possible when we play different places just so I can make sure that the sound that I want to be heard is being heard.

[Banned]

Going back to that Engl, what really impressed me about it was the definition. You can throw a six-string jazz chord at it and make out every note clearly. And you still have that metal aggressiveness. (Note to self: buy Engl and form death disco band.)

[Bloodsong]

you could get a nice sound out of the Engl, for sure. you would probably have to rethink your eq settings and get used to the notes punching you in the face. i've never heard such a "forcefull" head.

[Bloodsong]

i used to be anti-Peavey all the way until i tried my buddy's 6505. i like how raw and nasty it sounds as much as i like how glassy a Mesa sounds. Chad i play super low tunings with a hint of death metal riffing and i use less gain than some cover bands i've heard, and we're about as heavy as you can get. how you approach your muting and picking can go a long way to how heavy a riff sounds, not just way too much gain and over saturation, IMO.

[bassist_25]

how you approach your muting and picking can go a long way to how heavy a riff sounds, not just way too much gain and over saturation, IMO.

There's definitely a lot of merit in that statement. I still think that technique is one of the most important things when it comes to punching through a mix. I know that as a bass player, how I attack the strings AND how I fret my notes has a lot to do with how well my bass projects.

Muting is incredibly important on bass. I'm constantly muting with both my left and right hands. It's something that's become automatic to me now. I think that it's something that a lot of players, especially bass players, don't spend enough time perfecting. If you want good bass tone, you're going to have to get use to muting. You need those high mids and highs to give the bass presence, and once you get up around 800hz-1k, strings have a tendency to ring out a lot easier and finger/fret noise becomes more apparent.

[VENTGtr]

not just way too much gain and over saturation, IMO.

This is especially true in recording. Too much distortion has the reverse effect on
the "size" of the sound. Why you hear so many "indy" CDs where the guitar just
sounds tiny and tinny. The guy playing has the drive up and thinks it sounded God
like running a deity-sized chain saw. Doesn't translate the same when recorded.

[bassist_25]

This is especially true in recording. Too much distortion has the reverse effect on
the "size" of the sound. Why you hear so many "indy" CDs where the guitar just
sounds tiny and tinny. The guy playing has the drive up and thinks it sounded God
like running a deity-sized chain saw. Doesn't translate the same when recorded.

Yeah, I've noticed that as well. Yesterday, I was listening to an album called The Metallic-Era. It's a lot of the original band recordings of the covers that Metallica made famous. The original version of Holocaust's The Small Hours is on there. God, the guitar tone is freakin' horrible on that. You could tell that the guitar player was running a crap load of gain and probably thought that it sounded bad ass in the studio. Granted, a lot of that NWOBM stuff wasn't really produced all that well, but all of the Diamondhead recordings have very respectable sound quality considering it was a DIY scene in the 80s.

[old Skool]

You're totally right Jason, gain isn't the defining factor. I've heard several players who sound very heavy without tons of gain. Again that speaks for how well you can "communicate" with your instrument. I sat in for a song with Hair Force One a while back at Bergi's. I used Jimi's rig (I believe it was a Charvel Model 4 through an Ampeg head) and couldn't believe the low amount of gain he was using. Through the FOH he sounded very crunchy and full yet on stage it was more of a mild overdrive. Personally I like gain. I have a lighter touch so a little more gain makes me more comfortable, I feel that I can "shape" the overall sound a little more this way whereas you & Chad with meatier strings and aggressive pick attack draw the tone out of the amp. I really admire people who can do that. He's not metal but Felix is another prime example of someone who can really pull tone out of a rig.

[orangekick]

Turning the gain down was a very hard lesson for me. I had spent years thinking that the huge tone that I had been hearing was a product of cranked gain. When I realized how much better my amp sounded with the gain backed off and the volume cranked, my whole world changed. My gain is almost always to the left of noon on my amp these days and that's more than enough. In fact, my volume knob is usually higher than my gain knob.

I also noticed that my note definition got better when we started leaving mics set up to record all the time. When we record just about every thing that we play, I get a chance to hear everything that I've attempted right after the fact and I can hear when I'm getting sloppy in my playing.

[Bloodsong]

i learned the hard way as well. all my early recordings have waaaay too much gain and saturation. it's funny how some of my favorite cds have a fairly "small" guitar sound when you isolate it by itself. i always thought Rick Rubin mastered the sound of making a guitar sound huge, but when you listen closely there isn't a whole lot of gain. i love some Colin Richardson production, but he goes overboard with compression and gain and you get really sterile guitar sounds like the first Machine Head and Fear Factory that can really burn you out after a full sitting. they sound huge at first, and then just kind of numbing.

[bassist_25]

i i always thought Rick Rubin mastered the sound of making a guitar sound huge, but when you listen closely there isn't a whole lot of gain.

Indeed, he does! Rubin's one of my favorite producers for a number of reasons, one being that he can make a single guitar band sound huge without layering track upon track, which seems to have become the trend with a lot of the rock producers lately. I don't know how many of these bands are able to sound respectable live because everything's been overdubbed to hell and back on their records.

[Killjingle]

you get really sterile guitar sounds like the first Machine Head and Fear Factory that can really burn you out after a full sitting. they sound huge at first, and then just kind of numbing

That and over the top triggered drum sounds; I really like the Divine Heresy album but I can only listen to 3 songs back to back because the production is just that; PRODUCTION.

U know I think sometimes we as guitarists get too much credit or blame for great or lousy sound. I dont think enough ppl focus on the bassist's tone. For example my past project Deviance was a cool band I think and Jason had the same tone he has now for all intensive purposes; but the bass sound I was acheiving at the time was not up to par.

I wouldnt even consider playing in a metal or rock band with that gear now; that I know what good bass tone (for that style of music) is supposed to sound like. I had to do more with less and I really muted a lot which helped the overall sound a great bit, but there were some things that I just couldnt make sound right. I acknowledge that now; and I simply cant go back and fix it. I creamed my jeans when I played through Adam's (Wake Up Screaming) and Dan's (Broken Neck) rigs.

I felt downright stupid rolling my rig up there after they were done playing and I had to use my rig on other occasions. Live and learn.

[orangekick]

U know I think sometimes we as guitarists get too much credit or blame for great or lousy sound. I dont think enough ppl focus on the bassist's tone. For example my past project Deviance was a cool band I think and Jason had the same tone he has now for all intensive purposes; but the bass sound I was acheiving at the time was not up to par.

This is so true. A lot of players seem to think that they need this gigantic, over-distorted, blistering guitar sound and then they don't even pay attention to what their bass player sounds like. I have always tried to make sure that I stand somewhere that allows me to hear every instrument when we play, whether it's practice or a gig. I'll walk off teh stage and have our bass player play while I play to make sure that we're sounding good together.

I'm also fortunate enough to have a bass player who doesn't yell at me when I ask him to change something in his sound. I'm also a bass player, so he knows that I wouldn't steer him wrong.

Again, we also record a lot of stuff, so we really know what all works where and it has helped us gel as a unit.

[Team Transylvania]

Behemoth uses mesa among some other stuff. Anyone into Behemoth?? Polish Death/Black metal. yummy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oey85FGHOHc

[Killjingle]

I'm also fortunate enough to have a bass player who doesn't yell at me when I ask him to change something in his sound. I'm also a bass player, so he knows that I wouldn't steer him wrong.

yeah me too. Greg and I share a side of the stage so I get to really hear what hes doing with his sound. I only offer advice or an opinion if I really believe something is not right; and to date the two suggestions were taken in a positive way and our working relationship is fantastic. Im blessed to play with such positive and forward thinking ppl.

[bassist_25]

Good points about guitar players and bass players working together on achieving a solid sound. Chad, I've been there in that position where my equipment just really wasn't really gig-worthy. I gigged for a few years with a 100 watt Crate combo. Man, I cringe when I look back on those days. LOL It really helps me appreciate what I use now. My rig's not any ultra-expensive, boutique stuff (though I've heard some guys refer to Aguilar as boutique. Boutique to me is like Glockenklang or Phil Jones), but I dig what it does. But I don't think lower-end gear's anything to be ashamed of. You have to start somewhere, and nobody except prissy rich kids start out with a $3k rig. Sometimes playing less expensive equipment can really make you focus on the more important stuff. Too many cats get GAS (gear-acquisition-syndrom) way too early, and they're too busy worrying about what new guitar or amp to buy when they should be focusing on being a better musician. I've come to the conclusion that the player and the gear are an interaction. It's not really an additive effect. You play certain instruments and rigs, and you react to it and it reacts to you. I think that people generally sound like themselves as long as they're playing something respectable. I pretty much sound like bassist_25 whether I'm playing through a Peavey Firebass a G-K 800RBI or an Eden WT800. Each amp, though, I think makes me play a little differently because I'm reacting to its instrinsic tonal characteristics and things like how fast it handles transients. I think that may be why I prefer more transparent amps and cabinets. I go for stuff that's more flat responsive.

I have Behemoth's Satanica album, and could just never get into it. None of the songs really stuck out to me. I tried giving it a spin again a few months ago and still just couldn't really dig it. They're a good band though.

[Killjingle]

no doubt what u said is right; I sound like Chad no matter what rig I run through; for better or for worse LOL. I sounded at times like I had GAS. I had a "respectable" rig, but nothing that said "wow thats pretty damn cool tone"

No wait that is not entirely true. After playing in the key of Dropped Bb after 8 or so years, I really sound unlike me playing a guitar tuned to A440! I really struggle when I am trying gear in a music store if I dont carry in a guitar.

When I want to learn a lick from a tune I just learn it and place it on the neck where it belongs. Playing an E on your 6th fret of your 6th string is pretty odd I suppose but it just feels so comfortable to me. Sometimes playing a pedatone riff that way gives the fretting hand a serious workout.