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Re: Gear Confessions Thread

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2024 8:56 pm
by ChudFusk
Kniferide wrote: Mon Sep 30, 2024 1:52 pm I hate woven wrapped guitar cables. I also hate cables with super thick jackets.
I’m all about the D’addario flat patch cables.

Re: Gear Confessions Thread

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2024 10:11 am
by Kniferide
ChudFusk wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2024 8:56 pm
Kniferide wrote: Mon Sep 30, 2024 1:52 pm I hate woven wrapped guitar cables. I also hate cables with super thick jackets.
I’m all about the D’addario flat patch cables.
I like those too. Tape Worm cables! I made a bunch of interconnects out of nice Neutrik 90 degree ends and that little spaghetti install mic/line cable. It's great but they are pretty expensive at the end of the day, comes out to being like 8-9 bucks per, plus time to build.

Re: Gear Confessions Thread

Posted: Thu Oct 03, 2024 12:48 pm
by benadrian
TylerDeadPine wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2024 9:03 am I've got one - it was my one "I spent more than I should have on this", but it really is great! It has the whole Soldano association, but the cleans alone are worth the price of admission.
Another one here by me for $500 and I'm considering grabbing for when a friend needs a bulletproof great amp https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... 941034d194
It's still there. After doing a 1x12" practice last night, I kinda wanna grab this for a "full yammie" rig.

Re: Gear Confessions Thread

Posted: Thu Oct 03, 2024 12:56 pm
by TylerDeadPine
benadrian wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2024 12:48 pm
TylerDeadPine wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2024 9:03 am I've got one - it was my one "I spent more than I should have on this", but it really is great! It has the whole Soldano association, but the cleans alone are worth the price of admission.
Another one here by me for $500 and I'm considering grabbing for when a friend needs a bulletproof great amp https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... 941034d194
It's still there. After doing a 1x12" practice last night, I kinda wanna grab this for a "full yammie" rig.
you could do MUCH worse than this amp. If you come down to get it and want to grab coffee let me know! Or heck, call it a 'work trip' and swing by Taylor for a half day

Re: Gear Confessions Thread

Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2024 8:22 pm
by numberthirty
TylerDeadPine wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2024 12:56 pm
benadrian wrote: Thu Oct 03, 2024 12:48 pm
TylerDeadPine wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2024 9:03 am I've got one - it was my one "I spent more than I should have on this", but it really is great! It has the whole Soldano association, but the cleans alone are worth the price of admission.
Another one here by me for $500 and I'm considering grabbing for when a friend needs a bulletproof great amp https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... 941034d194
It's still there. After doing a 1x12" practice last night, I kinda wanna grab this for a "full yammie" rig.
you could do MUCH worse than this amp. If you come down to get it and want to grab coffee let me know! Or heck, call it a 'work trip' and swing by Taylor for a half day
If it is in even halfway decent shape?

A person could probably buy it, and sell it for the exact same money if it did not work out for them.

Re: Gear Confessions Thread

Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2024 8:24 pm
by numberthirty
(That said... The fifty is already STOOPID loud. I can barely even imagine how loud the hundred must be. We used to call my fifty the rage box because it smashed 4X12 cabs like It was Godzilla...)

Re: Gear Confessions Thread

Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2024 6:29 am
by Dr Tony Balls
numberthirty wrote: Sat Oct 05, 2024 8:24 pm (That said... The fifty is already STOOPID loud. I can barely even imagine how loud the hundred must be. We used to call my fifty the rage box because it smashed 4X12 cabs like It was Godzilla...)
~10% louder. Power and volume do not scale linearly.

Re: Gear Confessions Thread

Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2024 9:58 pm
by eephus
eliya wrote: Sun Sep 29, 2024 7:36 pm
eephus wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2024 5:53 pm
Aluminum makes a bigger difference with basses for me.
I can agree with that, but at the same time every aluminum bass player sounds like David Sims, who famously used a wood bass. I think it's just easier to get that sound out of an aluminum bass as opposed to, say, a p-bass, but both are capable of that. If someone is making their bass sound like something else that is entirely unattainable from a wood bass, I just haven't heard it. I literally mean that - I just not have heard it, but yeah maybe that exists.
Yeah, Sims doesn't have much sustain at all, and on a lot of those records the sound is more tubby than you're going to get out of a Bean (Goat for example).
Beans sustain for days and generally don't do tubby.
benadrian wrote: The thing that most people tend to miss about the FM steve guitar tone is the full-range/DI component of the sound.

I think the full-range thing is the most important element in the FM steve guitar tone. The notched metal pick it probably second. AL guitar is third.
I think Ben hits the nail on the head perfectly. All those components and Steve went into PA speakers, which are full range. It's not like he had a mellow sound in Big Black, and that was all wood guitars.

And yes I forgot about Keith Levene making his TB sound awesome.
Again I think it's sustain and also the low end--much more on even a TB500 (massively bright) than on, say, a Strat, which may have somewhat comparable high end.

Re: Gear Confessions Thread

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2024 5:45 am
by penningtron
eephus wrote: Sat Oct 12, 2024 9:58 pmAgain I think it's sustain and also the low end--much more on even a TB500 (massively bright) than on, say, a Strat, which may have somewhat comparable high end.
I mentioned Ago earlier (and I loved the story on here about Kevin delivering his guitar on the morning of T&G25 and him playing it that afternoon and basically ever since) who, despite being a pretty distinctive player, his aluminum guitars sound quite different than his Strat. Definitely more bass and sustain but without compromising the brightness. I also don't think Steve's Big Black sound was that close to Shellac other than both being bright.

For me it's more of the metal-leaning aluminum players who are so distorted that the guitars end up sounding like anything else.

Re: Gear Confessions Thread

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2024 7:03 pm
by benadrian
I don't know where else to post this, but I've been doing most of my amp yammering here, so let's go for it.

I've realized that I like amps with three gain stages in the preamp. However, I like the gain stages to be modded or pushed to run a little bit hotter than say a JCM800 2203/2204. For instance, I really prefer to have a regular gain stage as gain 2 rather than a cold clipper stage (which doesn't boost the level a ton, but does clip asymmetrically).

It's my observation that the harder a single tube stage is overdriven, the uglier and rougher that stage will sound. So as amps like the JCM800 were not enough distortion for players in the early 80s, people began boosting them with pedals, or by adding more tube gain stages in amps. Modded Marshalls, Soldano, 5150, Bogner and such got more gain by adding extra tubes. Each tube stage is not actually distorting more, there are just more gain stages in a row. This, with clever interstage EQ filtering, give that smooth, saturated, high gain sound.

The high gain sound from 4 or 5 gain stage amps is very saturated, but at the same time it also sounds a bit polite and controlled. Every time I've tried to dial it in at the amount of gain that I like, I just lack the right UMPH. It dawned on me that I just prefer to get to that saturation level by using fewer stages, and then distorting each one a bit more. I want just a little bit of that ugly of pushing just a bit to far on each specific gain stage.

I got here by accident, after years of modding my own amp to fit my tastes. I never wanted to add more tubes, so I just pushed each stage a bit harder. When I tried to get a similar sound with any off the shelf amps, it would sound good, but it never felt right to play.

So that's my nerd treatise of the day.