[Leona]

This. Yes, you amp sound can change, but you are still fundamentally you tonally, no matter what. There are certain guys I can recognize right after the first lick or two. For example, I never knew Stevie Ray Vaughn played an acoustic tune on a 12-string, until I heard "Life By The Drop", but I knew it was him with the lick he played to start the song. Loomis definitely has a signature sound, and whenever he takes a lead, there is that same aggressive attack, pushed on top of the beat immediacy, and stinging pick attack that is his hallmark.

I'd say that's a style, not a tone. Your hands affect your tone, i agree, but you're not gonna make a recto sound like a marshall or whatever. Yeah, you'll sound like you, but you aren't going to change the signature characteristics of your amp and other devices in your signal chain.

 

[Drew]

For example, I never knew Stevie Ray Vaughn played an acoustic tune on a 12-string, until I heard "Life By The Drop", but I knew it was him with the lick he played to start the song.

Isn't that a gorgeous tune, too? Honestly, that "The Sky Is Crying" posthumous release is probably my favorite Stevie Ray album. :yesway:

 

[noodles]

I'd say that's a style, not a tone. Your hands affect your tone, i agree, but you're not gonna make a recto sound like a marshall or whatever. Yeah, you'll sound like you, but you aren't going to change the signature characteristics of your amp and other devices in your signal chain.

Actually, I think of it as both. I know when Mike picks up my guitar and plugs into my rig, it sounds different. That is the part of your tone that comes from the way you pick the strings. There is no changing that. I agree, though, that you're not going to change the signature characteristics of an amp, and a great example of that is the difference between "No More Color" and "Mental Vortex". The sound on both of them is pure Tommy Vetterli, even though you can tell he replaced the Marshall with a Mesa.

I think the whole "tone in your hands" explanation came as a response to people who, say, went out and bought a hotrodded Plexi and an Explorer, and then wondered why the sound nothing like James Hetfield. People are always willing to fix their gear, but rarely willing to fix their playing.

 

[Drew]

Actually, I think of it as both. I know when Mike picks up my guitar and plugs into my rig, it sounds different. That is the part of your tone that comes from the way you pick the strings. There is no changing that.

Or, how I picked up your guitar, plugged into your amp, and with the help of a raging hangover managed to make "your" rhythm tone sound like shit. :yesway:

 

[7deadlysins]

Wheres the option for "I own one, but just for recording purposes and my live rig is total Mesa pwnage" ?

 

[Drew]

Wheres the option for "I own one, but just for recording purposes and my live rig is total Mesa pwnage" ?

"I own one but it's not part of my main rig."

 

[Professor Squidbeard]

axefx makes me happy in the pants.

 

[Blankplank]

I had one, only used it for effects, but couldn't justify keeping it.

 

[Variant]

I own/employ a Line 6 X3 Pro, and a POD 2.0 (in the form of a Pocket POD Pro) and well, I dig the Sybreed/Fear Factory/Mnemic/Meshuggah cybergroovewhateveryou'dcallit tones above all, and L6 is the wellspring those sounds came from, so I fail to see why I should aspire towards the latest Recto or a vintage AC/30. :shrug:

My findings with the Line 6 stuff have been echoed by others in the past, mainly keep the gain down, as well as layer, layer, layer. That seems to get things into zone, at least in my DAW.

 

[Leona]

My findings with the Line 6 stuff have been echoed by others in the past, mainly keep the gain down, as well as layer, layer, layer. That seems to get things into zone, at least in my DAW.

Where does that leave us for playing live though? I cant 6-track my rhythm guitars live.

 

[Variant]

Where does that leave us for playing live though? I cant 6-track my rhythm guitars live.

Well, I'm currently building a massive multilayer multisample wavetable triggered by MIDI (from the guitar-to-MIDI systems and computer server rack MIDI datastream)... but I'm guessing the average dude with the ethic of "4/5-guys with 3-amps & a drumkit" don't roll the same way we do at camp Surfacing. :lol:

I think the whole "tone in your hands" explanation came as a response to people who, say, went out and bought a hotrodded Plexi and an Explorer, and then wondered why the sound nothing like James Hetfield. People are always willing to fix their gear, but rarely willing to fix their playing.

^
This. :agreed: Devin Townsend was talking about his early acquisition of the Hetfield picking technique in a recent vid, and I changed my style to theirs and never looked back. :metal: Its interesting, there's a longer attack cycle in the waveform when you pick as such, and I'm using the software to account for that (in the above wavetable project) as you technically lead the beat a good bit to get that "sound".

 

[Harry]

I own/employ a Line 6 X3 Pro, and a POD 2.0 (in the form of a Pocket POD Pro) and well, I dig the Sybreed/Fear Factory/Mnemic/Meshuggah cybergroovewhateveryou'dcallit tones above all, and L6 is the wellspring those sounds came from, so I fail to see why I should aspire towards the latest Recto or a vintage AC/30. :shrug:

My findings with the Line 6 stuff have been echoed by others in the past, mainly keep the gain down, as well as layer, layer, layer. That seems to get things into zone, at least in my DAW.

Keep the gain down? Nah not all the time.
For some styles yeah, but there have been plenty of times where I've used about 70 per cent gain on the amp sims and then used Boost+EQ set to 100 per cent drive and it sounded great.
And there are heaps of tones all over the internet that quite gainy, done with POD Farm, that sound crazy good.
For a while I really bought into the "less gain" thing that gets thrown around SS.org seemingly all the time, but I realized that suddenly my palm mutes didn't have enough chunk and sustain.
The less gain thing really fits the Meshuggah/Sybreed stuff, but for a lot of the death and groove metal stuff I like doing (think guitar tones in the style of Arch Enemy's Doomsday Machine, Chimaira's last two records, most of Killswitch Engage's stuff, Between the Buried and Me and some of the 90s Carcass stuff, just all that saturated to fuck kinda guitar tones), more gain just sounds better.
Yes you lose out on a little clarity, but I'll ALWAYS trade clarity for more chunk on palm mutes and for more sustain and also slightly more compression for being able to do quick legato licks in between chunking away on the lower strings

 

[7 Dying Trees]

See, my pod xt pro has been my go to guitar sound for demoing, playing ideas in etc, and tyo be honest, even though i have a palmer, the pod is just easier, i have patches, i can go back to old material and add to it and still have the same guitar sound. Have used it for 7 years now, and don't see it going anywhere.

main rig wise, i'm still an amp guy and wouldn't use one live as you can, according to me, always tell with the older stuff, maybe not so much with an axe fx or the like, but to me, nothing beats a good tube amp in terms of implementing sonic armageddon, and the same with recording things properly, as the pod stuff all sounds way less organic than i want it to, and there's just something about the way a cab in a room blasting out riffage just has this huge sound to it

 

[105]

James is wise.

 

[noodles]

Well, I'm currently building a massive multilayer multisample wavetable triggered by MIDI (from the guitar-to-MIDI systems and computer server rack MIDI datastream)... but I'm guessing the average dude with the ethic of "4/5-guys with 3-amps & a drumkit" don't roll the same way we do at camp Surfacing. :lol:

Yeah, that is completely not for me at all. It is not even an ethics thing as much as "4-5 guys with 3 amps and a drumkit" ALWAYS sound bigger and badder than the guys dragging SkyLab up on stage with them. I've just yet to see a band that does all sorts of complicated stuff sound as good live as a solid backline will provide.

 

[Drew]

Yeah, that is completely not for me at all. It is not even an ethics thing as much as "4-5 guys with 3 amps and a drumkit" ALWAYS sound bigger and badder than the guys dragging SkyLab up on stage with them. I've just yet to see a band that does all sorts of complicated stuff sound as good live as a solid backline will provide.

I'm not 100% sure, but I THINK he was joking. :lol:

 

[Toshiro]

Basically, at one time or another I've owned almost every modeller available. I've had a J-Station, a POD, a V-Amp Pro, a PODxt, a GNX3K, a Vox Valvetronix amp, a Peavey Vypyr, a Line 6 Spider, a Tech21 Trademark 300, a Boss GT8, and now an RP500/1000.

Currently I have the RP1000 as the "brain" of my amp rig. With a single channel amp, I use the models for clean tones(mostly a cold JC120 tone), and effects. Every once in a while I'll pull up a high gain model for fun, but it's not my main sound.

The RP stays hooked up to the PC for recording ideas and jamming while on the 'net. It's not perfect, but it gets the job done.

I don't think I could go to a full modelling rig. Definitely not without power tubes at least. :lol:

 

[phatfil]

if i'm practicing or writing, i use my X3L. if i'm recording or playing a show, i use my Krank Rev1.

 

[Mike]

Those Kranks sounded absolutely abysmal, even if Jeff's playing went a long way towards getting the most out of them. His studio tone has always been something Mesa.

There. Fixed that for you. :lol:

 

[Harry]

Yeah, that is completely not for me at all. It is not even an ethics thing as much as "4-5 guys with 3 amps and a drumkit" ALWAYS sound bigger and badder than the guys dragging SkyLab up on stage with them. I've just yet to see a band that does all sorts of complicated stuff sound as good live as a solid backline will provide.

Absolute truth. Certainly a case where less can be more.

There. Fixed that for you. :lol:

This Godless Endeavor AND Doomsday Machine were two tracks of Dual Recto and 2 tracks of Krank.
The Krank would have sounded like garbage on it's own, but the whole point is the the two tones blend together to create something unique