rocketman Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 So I was playing my Les Paul and Sonex today. I decided to really crank up the distortion level and noticed that I couldn't really tell the difference in sound between the two guitars. At lower levels of distortion, like a slightly overdriven tube mode, the Les Paul easily beats out the Sonex. But at higher levels it didn't seem to matter. So what are your thoughts on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murph Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 I prefer a non master volume amp, cranked, with a tad of clean boost (Tube Screamer) (barely). Yes, cleaner is better. Very few classic tunes are as dirty as people actually think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundergod Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 So I was playing my Les Paul and Sonex today. I decided to really crank up the distortion level and noticed that I couldn't really tell the difference in sound between the two guitars. At lower levels of distortion' date=' like a slightly overdriven tube mode, the Les Paul easily beats out the Sonex. But at higher levels it didn't seem to matter. So what are your thoughts on this?[/quote'] I agree with you... as a half time metal player Ive noticed the more the gain the less noticeable those little differences in tone from guitar and guitar are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duende Posted November 17, 2009 Share Posted November 17, 2009 saturate the tone with distortion etc and it is impossible to tell. This is why it makes me smile when I hear people who play all out metal argue the merits of one guitar over another when they are going to pump the sound full of excessive gain anyway...now playability is another matter altogether. Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hector Arcadius Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Quality in craftmanship and materials is actually irrelevant, I will have to agree. The quality of the pickups however is another story. They do matter. I read once that the sound of the guitar (in itself I mean - not amp inclusive)is: 60%: Pickups 30%: Body tonewood 10%: Neck tonewood That comment came from a guy building guitars for a quality manufacturer in US. Perhaps, as gain / distortion increases, the above percentages change slightly and pickups become more and more important in the sound... That's the reason whe there are a lot of metalheads with cheap guitars and good pickups. But you don't see a lot of guys playing the blues with el-cheapos... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 An overdose of just about any effect will hide your guitars natural tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHO Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 In my experience, when you go into really high gain your tone gets more and more normalised (in lack of a better word) to what the amp is doing. And with that I mean it gets harder to tell the difference between two not too different guitars. However, I still think you hear clear differences in a decent guitar compared to a cheap one in the tones attack and how they ring out. All the gain really compresses the signal a lot, so any faults in how the string vibrates will actually be amplified as well, some of them will be covered in the huge amounts of overtones but not all of it. Often cheap guitars will make the guitar sound as if it was out of tune. Even single notes can flutter and sound uneven and flobby (that's probably not a word but it makes sense to me!), while a good guitar keeps sounding even, tight and focused further into high gain territory, which of course has to do with the source signal being cleaner to begin with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichCI Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 I'm with Hector and SHO for the most part. However, try plugging a guitar with humbuckers into a high gain setup then try it with a guitar with Fender style (not P90) single coils and see what the effect is. I switch between a Les Paul and a Strat with my band and, when using high gain settings, I still need to use a separate boost for each guitar otherwise the LP will sound muddy and the Strat will sound screechy. Sure, I could use just one and have it set for high gain stuff and use the other for the more moderate sounds but that's not what I do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHO Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 I'm with Hector and SHO for the most part. However' date=' try plugging a guitar with humbuckers into a high gain setup then try it with a guitar with Fender style (not P90) single coils and see what the effect is. I switch between a Les Paul and a Strat with my band and, when using high gain settings, I still need to use a separate boost for each guitar otherwise the LP will sound muddy and the Strat will sound screechy. Sure, I could use just one and have it set for high gain stuff and use the other for the more moderate sounds but that's not what I do.[/quote'] Yeah, that's why I said it gets hard to tell the difference between two not too different guitars. For example, my Ibanez JPM and my RG, has two different DiMarzio humbuckers but the output level is about the same, body wood is different too, but the difference in their sound, which is pretty drastci in clean and moderate gain settings, starts to even out the higher the gain gets. A strat and a LP is pretty different to me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 I think Matt hit it best... Sound may well be a subjective matter, but playability? That's important. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfpup Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Very few classic tunes are as dirty as people actually think. These are wise words, my Brethren, wise words. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChanMan Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Quality in craftmanship and materials is actually irrelevant' date=' I will have to agree. The quality of the pickups however is another story. They do matter. [/quote'] This is exactly what I was thinking. Saved me some typing, thanks man Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riverside Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 The quality of the pickups however is another story. They do matter. For mondo distorition, the crappier the pickups, the better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dem00n Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 For mondo distorition' date=' the crappier the pickups, the better.[/quote']What? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riverside Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 What? Read it again, slowly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dem00n Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Read it again' date=' slowly.[/quote']Whats Mondo mean? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVOL! Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Volume over gain any day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riverside Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Whats Mondo mean? I meant "lots" "total" "over-the-top" when I used that word. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVOL! Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 I prefer a non master volume amp' date=' cranked, with a tad of clean boost (Tube Screamer) (barely). [/quote'] I am calling shenanigans! You use your OD pedal as a clean volume boost? It still adds dirt, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichCI Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Very few classic tunes are as dirty as people actually think. That's the truth or else I doubt that motor oil company (I think it was motor oil) would have used ZZ Top's "Tube Snake Boogie" in their television commercial earlier this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deepblue Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Theres a thin line between sweet gain and mud....the pros find that happy middle ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Whats Mondo mean? I meant "lots" "total" "over-the-top" when I used that word. Well, that's Fonzie's definition. It's actually Spanish for "Bare, Clean (as in Stripped or Picked Clean), or Unadulterated". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riverside Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 Well' date=' that's Fonzie's definition. It's actually Spanish for "Bare, Clean (as in Stripped or Picked Clean), or Unadulterated". [/quote'] I'll go with unadulterated distortion for 50, Alex. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted November 18, 2009 Share Posted November 18, 2009 I'll go with unadulterated distortion for 50' date=' Alex.[/quote']Popular in the 80's, this little orange pedal boasted Three knobs and is used by Countless Metal Guitarists including Dave Navarro and John Petrucci. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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