Tighten up my tone

[JordanStGodard]

Hey all,

Even though I've been investing in gear for some time now, I still feel like a novice when it comes to tone shaping and EQing my signal. I love the low-end rhythmic tone that the videos below reflect and I've heard most of it is all in picking technique. I'm no picking pro, but I've been practicing my palm muting techniques to tighten up the tone better. However, from an EQ perspective, I have no clue how to setup my rig to shape the tone to be tighter and heavier. These videos are a general indicator of what I am trying to shape my tone like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XPsPUFkPQ0 - Intro with the heavy palm muting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyHFVtgsCzI - Intro with the low-end sevenstring guitar (rhythm, not lead).

For simplicity, I'm leaving my modulation effects out of this and I'll add them in after I find my tone. The gear I'm using is as follows:

6 String Guitar (Drop C w/ stock humbucking pickups) -> Boss TU-3 -> MXR Supercomp -> Ibanez TS808 -> Boss NS-2 (not using the loop) -> BBE Sonic Stomp -> EVH 5150iii 50 watt -> Mesa Rectifier 2x12.

Here are my concise questions:

1. How should I EQ my amplifier? I've heard some guitarists say that rythmic playing requires boosted mids while others have said that only lows should be boosted. It seems that there is a lot of conjecture on how exactly the lows and mids should be handled (scooped or boosted).
2. Where is the best placement for my BBE Sonic Stomp? I've always been told it should be at the end of the chain.
3. Can I tighten my sound with my noise gate more efficiently? My NS-2 is max threshold and minimum decay on reduction mode.

Also my effects loop is currently only for my modulation effects.

Any knowledge, as general or specific as you choose, is valuable advice to me.

 

[vick1000]

Depends on the amp and associated gear, meaning everything in the signal chain from your pick ups to your speakers. Posting full mix downs of studio quality recordings does not help us much, besides giving us the general idea. Post your rig, from strings to speakers.

Generally, you need to increase mid range response, and reduce low/ high end. But depending on the amp and other gear, you may need additional EQ capability, such as a boost in front with tone shaoing, and/or an additional stand alone EQ in the chain. You have to try and track down where you need the change the tone to suit your taste. If you can't, a 10 band EQ in the FX loop is the easy fix.

Sonic Maximizer is a waste of resources.

 

[Hamatha]

Throw the sonic maximizer out, they're good for mixing/bass not really great for guitar. You don't really need to compressor either, unless you really understand how compression works it's useless to throw it in the chain. For that amplifier, I'd say use the lead/crunch channel with the boost (Level 8-10, tone around the middle, drive no higher than 10) with the EQ set to Bass 6/7 mids around 5/6 and treble around 5. Presence and Resonance control set to noon. Set the suppressor with a slightly higher threshold than normal(not to much higher) and a reasonable decay. Don't really know what else to tell you except play tighter.

 

[VESmedic]

Okay, am I reading this right? You have a boosted 5153, and you can't seem to get a tight enough tone?


Time for you to exit this board completely, and focus on playing your guitar, seriously. That is my advice. This board me never ceases to amaze me. You have a "classic" style setup, heaps and bounds above anything on the market 20 years ago ( maybe even less) and you are still having issues with tightness? It's not the gear man... Not even in The least... As far as settings, use your ears, not your eyes, there is literally thousands of threads on settings for an 808 and 5153/5150 style amps...

 

[vick1000]

OK. I must have missed your chain earlier. I will assume the impedance is set correctly on the head. And you are adjsuting your picking technique, futher or closer to the bridge, which is probably the biggest difference overall. Sharper tipped picks and lighter touch will help too.

Pull the BBE, and compressor, put the NS2 between the tuner and the TS808. Get some good pickups that have some mid punch as soon as you can (sell the Supercomp and BBE to fund them), I recommend SD Blackouts for every occasion. For now you can raise or lower the stock pickups to get more or less gain. Strings are important too, heavier gauge strings can tighten the low range. Too heaby though, and you can start losing some brightness.

Leave the NS2 and TS808 off for now. Set everything on the lead channel to noon, except the master. Open up the master until you achieve the desired volume. Increase or decrease the gain until you achieve the desired level of saturation.

If the tone is not "tight" enough, drop the low a notch, play some more. Not enough punch, but mids are right, add some resonance. Mids are squeaky? Notch off the highs and presence a little. Your saturation may be dropping off, add some gain if you need to.

Basically you want to slowly dial in your desored tone, by making small adjustments to the areas that are lacking, or are too dominant.

So now you have got it close, and with that amp, you should be able to get very close. If you feel it's just a tad loose, pop the TS808 on. Set it to zero gain, tone at noon, and level to max. Test it out. You will notice a loss of bass response, and a immediate mid boost, as well as some more saturation.

Use the tone knob on the TS808 to your preference. If you are getting too much saturation, you can notch off the gain on the head, or back off the level on the TS808, or both, which ever you think sounds better.

Now set the NS2 to clamp how you want it to, it's totaly up to how much sustain you are willing to sacrafice for faster clamping and tracking. You can add cables to the NS2 loop, and amps FX loop and get noise reduction of the preamp (hissing/humming). Blackouts will help achieve less noise as well.

The 5153 has enough EQ range that you should be able to achieve what you are trying to hear. Now take a break for an hour or so, don't listen to music or anything loud. Come back and play some more, make a few final tweaks. Then start over next week when you get sick of your current tone That's how I do it anyway, I just wish I had a 5153 and Mesa cab to do it with.

 

[madrigal77]

Drop the BBE, compressor, and TS808. They are not needed with this amp. I don't know what pickups you're using, but I'd recommend EMG's. There's nothing tighter for metal.

Try these settings on your amp (red ch.):Gain 7, Low 7.8, Mid 5, High 6.5, Presence 6. I have the 100w, so it doesn't have a resonance knob, but from playing my friends 50w, I'd say 6ish should be good.

If that doesn't get you a tight sound, then it's either your pickups or your playing. Also, for drop c, you should be using relatively thick strings. I also play in drop c and I use D'Addario 13-56, but you can get away with thinner than that. If you're trying to use 10's or something in that tuning though, it's going to sound weak and loose.

 

[Bevo]

All good advice here and the only thing I could add is your gain, keep it minimal which I found really tightens things up.

Another thing mentioned is also important, start with just the guitar and everything at noon and really move the eq around to max min to hear the changes then go back to noon and start to do subtle changes. This works for me and I do the same anytime I get a new amp or even cab.

 

[Scattered Messiah]

General rules for recorded tones:
Less gain is more punch - simply double or quadtrack, and you will increase the amount of "fatness" while keeping a reactive and clean, unmuddy signal.

Now to the chain:
you got everything you need, IMO - I'd start working with that before cashing something out into pickups while you don't even know which you want and why.
there's no need for the Maximizer (doesn't help) and the compressor (just learn to control your dynamics, and you'll be better off than using a comp to try and compensate for sloppy dynamic control), as already mentioned.

start simple, and then gradually increase the complexity of the chain:
hands&pick: use thicker, stiffer picks. these give you more prominent attack and better control of dynamics, experiment with strength of stroke and placement of stroke and placement of palms while palmmuting, it all influences the sound
the guitar: get gauges that feel "heavy" enough, set her up properly, you want to prevent audible buzz when palmmuting

now add the amp and the box:
I'd personally use the crunch channel, it's a bit more responsive - but that's up to taste.
Dial in the volume to desired level. Dial in your gain to "just a tad too low", start dialing in from bass->mids->treble->depth->presence, listen to what the single knobs do and think about what your sound lacks. You don't need to much lows, it'll mud up and get unresponsive. You want to prevent too much mids, as it'll get honky and loose agressiveness - but you want enough mids to have a "broad" sound. Etc...
Now, still thinking "just slightly not enough gain", add the TS in front of the amp, set gain to 0, tone to noonish and vol to max - engage.
The trick is now to slightly compensate for the boosted mids in the eq section (feeding the amp with much mids = saturation, controlling these mids = attack and boldness) and maybe even lowering the gain more - as saturation =/= gain, saturation is gain in the middle frequencies.
Now experiment with the toneknob, here you adjust the "tightness" and the amount of highmids the TS feeds into the amp ... again, try compensating a little (tone up -> treble and/or presence slightly down and maybe low slightly up)...


main trick:
dial in with your ears, not your eyes ;-)

 

[KAMI]

Low are probably the last thing you want to boost if you're trying to tighten your tone!

 

[JordanStGodard]

Thanks for the help so far everyone!

And special thanks vick1000 and Bevo, I am grateful for the solid help. After pulling away the compressor and EQ and about 5 minutes of working with my EQ, I notice a huge difference. I dropped the lows a bit so far and it seems to be helping. Boosting it with the 808 is also making it extraordinarily tighter.

I've read every post thoroughly and definitely have seen some positives in my tone from your suggestions. With the whole pickups situation, these humbuckers work well but not incredible -- I'll probably buy a better quality guitar rather than investing in this cheap guitar. Also, how and why will a MXR 10 band help? I'd love to pick one up if it will be effective for EQing.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[noUser01]

I hate to be "that guy", but you can NEVER spend enough time on tightening up your playing. Every month or so sit down and do some focus practiced on tightening up your rhythm playing and making as little excess noise and motion as possible. It really does pay off.

 

[Mprinsje]

Thanks for the help so far everyone!

And special thanks vick1000 and Bevo, I am grateful for the solid help. After pulling away the compressor and EQ and about 5 minutes of working with my EQ, I notice a huge difference. I dropped the lows a bit so far and it seems to be helping. Boosting it with the 808 is also making it extraordinarily tighter.

I've read every post thoroughly and definitely have seen some positives in my tone from your suggestions. With the whole pickups situation, these humbuckers work well but not incredible -- I'll probably buy a better quality guitar rather than investing in this cheap guitar. Also, how and why will a MXR 10 band help? I'd love to pick one up if it will be effective for EQing.

Thanks again everyone!

just out of curiosity and because it might help us help you, what guitar do you have?

 

[JordanStGodard]

just out of curiosity and because it might help us help you, what guitar do you have?

Epiphone SG from 2006. The pickup selector is messed up because when I first started playing as an OCD teen I would toggle it all the time. I play on the bridge pickup and it uses humbuckers that are ok.

This isn't my exact guitar but I think this is the exact model:
2006 Epiphone SG "LQ" series (MIJ) - SG Guitar Forum

SG - The Unofficial Epiphone Wiki

 

[vick1000]

Stock PAFs suck ballz, even some cheap GFS replacements would make a world of difference. But a maple neck through guitar with actives would be ideal, may end up bieng too bright for you though. Mahogany is a very dark and mushy sounding wood.

 

[madrigal77]

Stock PAFs suck ballz, even some cheap GFS replacements would make a world of difference. But a maple neck through guitar with actives would be ideal, may end up bieng too bright for you though. Mahogany is a very dark and mushy sounding wood.

Dark, yes, but I certainly wouldn't call it "mushy sounding" at all.

I would agree that a pickup switch would make a HUGE difference. EMG 81/85 combo would be the way to go. There's a reason why they are the gold standard for metal.

 

[NinjaRaf]

Cool. Yeah, lots of good info in here. I was gonna say get rid of the comp and the maximizer. You probably dont NEED the 808, either, but I dont like boosting anything, so thats just preference.

Pickups will help you massive. IMO, the pups are the weak link, here. Your amp setup is great. I dunno about your guitar, but yeah...your pickups. You just need to figure out what you want in pups before you buy some. I know every one loves EMGs, generally, for metal, so theyre probably a safe way to go.

 

[4Eyes]

Use the tone knob on the TS808 to your preference.

this is very powerful knob when achieving super tight tone. In general when tone is set to noon TS tone circuit roll of some highs (approximately 6db). for getting super tight tones, with razor sharp attack, highs are very important when reaching gain stages in your amp. I ended with tone all the way up on my TS808, which brings back highs, you get more saturation, better attack and string to string articulation. If you find out than your tone is too bright for you, you can simply back off some treble or presence on your amp's EQ (in case off 5150 it will affect your tone after gain stages). If you find out that your tone is lacking some low end, because TS cuts lows in front of the amp, you can still add some lows on the amp (now it won't get muddy because of the magical tight machine in front of your amp)

another big tight tone factor is your picking hand

another thing is that comparing your live tone with studio record is not very good. If you're able to post a quick sample of your tone and we can hear if there is some noticeable problem with your tone or everything is just in your head.

 

[coldandhomeless]

everyone uses the ns2 wrong! unplug everything and try the ns2 like this... guitar>ns2 input. ns2 send>front of amp. amp fx send > ns2 return. ns2 output> amp fx loop return. keep it on all the time. set threshold to 2:00, decay min. tighter than a monkeys ass. later on, put the tubescreamer in between the guitar and ns2. if it cuts your highs at all with the ns2, put the sonic stomp directly after the ns2 output. this is how you get tight clear tone. any naysayers can play bass

 

[MikeSweeney]

work on your picking hand. i have a 5150 boosted with a GREEN RHINO and Its like a ak-47 going on full auto. so its you not your gear and roll back on the bass a little.

 

[Gresh]

Great input from all. I didn't see it mentioned how much gain you're using, but depending on the volume you play, lessening the gain may be worth an experiment. I tend to find that really tight heavy tones sit better with less gain, not more. It might not sound like it solo, but in the mix it always feels heavier to me, like it has a weight to it, not just a buzz. Just a suggestion.