I knew when I got to my 40s I'd lust after a Strat.

I don't know where else to post this, but this thread seems slightly appropriate.

When Zach Dracula played Caterwaul, I used no pedals. It was great. Still, once I proved to myself that I could do it, I decided to add my KWB back in the signal chain. It just made it easier than adjusting the amp between songs and riding the volume so much on the guitar. Since I had a pedal on the ground, adding a tuner and the gate that I had in Cartographer seemed logical. I love that guitar setup.

As I've prepared for my show this week, I wanted to make sure I'd not have any problems setting up quickly, so I thought I'd put together a little pedal board. Everything was coming out shitty. So finally, after trying many other things, I just got out my old, medium sized board that I used to use in my effects-heavy bands. It would also give me plenty of room to pack my cables and other crap. Since I now had more room, I added a second boost pedal; one I'd considered using other than the KWB.

In addition, I felt like being crazy, so I'm also tossing a short wave radio hooked up to an A/B box.

So yeah, I went from zero pedals to five, plus a radio, between shows.

If this feels bad, I'm just going back to the Cartographer setup.

What most people seem to describe as 'great sounding drums' sound like complete shit to me. Ringing out with a mess of overtones and sustain that just makes the kit sound horrible. Bonk Bonk Bonk Doink. Rattling messy snare. Ringo had it right. Deaden those shits. Sounds better in nearly every context.

Even after looking up technical definitions, I'm still not completely sure how compressors work. My mind just can't connect what I'm reading to what I hear in the way it does with, say, clipping. I go by plug-in presets like "big snare" or whatever and only adjust the input/output.

penningtron wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2024 5:40 am Even after looking up technical definitions, I'm still not completely sure how compressors work.

Basically when the signal gets too loud, they turn the volume down, and turn it back up as the signal quiets. The most basic example I can think of is a simple optical guitar pedal where a LED lights up as a signal gets louder. That LED is pointed at a Light dependent resistor (LDR) which translates the light emitted into a resistance, used to effectively "turn down" the signal.


MY TURN: I dont care about GK400/GK800 bass amps. They're fine.....i'm not mad at em....but people seem to favor them and I dont get it. Id just as happily play out of a solid state Ampeg, SWR, whatever.

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2024 8:21 am

penningtron wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2024 5:40 am Even after looking up technical definitions, I'm still not completely sure how compressors work.

Basically when the signal gets too loud, they turn the volume down, and turn it back up as the signal quiets.

I get that much. It's stuff like ratios and 'knees' where I start scratching my head a bit. Attack and release make sense, but then again when applied to complex sources I can't articulate why some settings are better than others.

I'm half-convinced a lot of tried-and-true settings just came from knob twisting and stuck.

my first 'real' setup was a Gibson marauder into a boss SD-1 into a Sovtek Mig50. I've bought a million things since, and I still don't sound as good as I did just playing that when I was 20.

penningtron wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2024 8:35 am

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2024 8:21 am

penningtron wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2024 5:40 am Even after looking up technical definitions, I'm still not completely sure how compressors work.

Basically when the signal gets too loud, they turn the volume down, and turn it back up as the signal quiets.

I get that much. It's stuff like ratios and 'knees' where I start scratching my head a bit. Attack and release make sense, but then again when applied to complex sources I can't articulate why some settings are better than others.

I'm half-convinced a lot of tried-and-true settings just came from knob twisting and stuck.

Ratio is weird but I think of it like this, You set a threshold for the compressor to start compressing At say 4:1. the incoming signal will have to overcome that threshold level by 4 dB to output a level 1 dB higher than the threshold, so if the threshold is set at -10dB, the incoming signal will have to be 14 dB for the output signal to be 11 dB. I am not sure if this is an accurate way to describe it, but it is how my brain locked onto visualizing the aggressiveness of the compressor.

Think of Knee the speed at which the compressor will reach the set ratio. Hard knee is instantly (almost) doing its work at the set ration, and soft knee sort of eases into the compression at 1:1 and works up to the set ratio at some logarithmic arc. I almost never use soft knee if I have a compressor I can adjust the attack because I find it to behave in such a way the the metering is strange to me. They seem like they are compressing more than I can hear and I get bothered.

I may be totally wrong about all of this but it is how I justified the voodoo in my brain.

I’m probably telling on myself but I really just use studio compressors for tone. If I have dynamics that are really hurting I’ll just automate or ride a fader. Compared to what kind of crazy edits people area doing my “automation” basically just amounts to riding a fader anyways.

On one early song I fucked up recording a good take so bad that I had to have a compressor on there solely as an amp for the way-too-quiet signal. It was crazy how well that bandaid worked.

I read about Al Schmitt using some kind of tube compressor he liked on vocals, and he would just leave attack and release at 12 noon. I saw that and was like of course he did. I never really felt like I had to mess with that stuff very much on voice unless I was doing the 1176 to LA2A trick and didn’t want it to sound “compressed,” and even then it was just a matter of setting the 1176 fast and barely working except for certain parts.

But for just a couple of dbs gr here and there, if it doesn’t sound good with after messing with it for a few minutes I use a different compressor and voila.

TylerDeadPine wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2024 12:15 pm my first 'real' setup was a Gibson marauder into a boss SD-1 into a Sovtek Mig50. I've bought a million things since, and I still don't sound as good as I did just playing that when I was 20.

I feel you. That is a classic setup.
I've posted about this before, but my first "melodic guitar" setup was a couple delays and overdrives into a fender amp with reverb. My first "noisy rock" guitar setup was a boost pedal into a JCM800.

30+ years later, it's exactly the same. Even when I'm using Helix, my presets fall right in line.

No matter how many times I try to change shit up, when it comes down to writing and playing live, I just go right back to one of those setup.