Sebastian wrote:
Cool thanks for the tips!
To be perfectly honest though, I wouldn't say I'm using ALL that much gain, and the sound I get is in the classic zeppelin/purple acceptable plexi range. I will however, gain down more when I go back and hope for better results!!
How do guys manage to run maxed-out fuzz faces into already-driven marshalls and get such glorious sounds...? AND add delay and speaker distortion into the mix...
As an aside, I was surprised at the amount of noise and gain Guthrie Govan used on his recent clinic tour, AND how high-gain the Cornford MK50II is after seeing youtube demos, despite its more fusion-inclined famous-user list. (guthrie, greg howe, richie kotzen (on occasion), dave kilminster etc) :/
Listen carefully to "Smoke on the Water". A lot of the "thickness" in the riff comes from Jon Lord's Hammond which doubles the riff, and that's not immediately apparent when you're just listening casually. Also, "Whole Lotta Love" also sees the main riff doubled by the bass. In both of those songs you can hear the initial riff with just the guitar, and then with the added stuff after the first few bars. Makes a big difference. Point I'm trying to make is that "big" guitar sounds are quite often not just the guitar, or at least just one guitar. There is all manner of studio trickery that goes into creating those "massive" riffs etc.
I believe that heavily saturated guitar tones are among the most difficult things to get right in a mix (partly because they tromp all over the other stuff), so the type of thing you're talking about is not simply achieved by cranking all your effects and your amp to max and pressing "record". To be honest, if you're working with an experienced engineer they should be able to guide you around this stuff, but if not your only option is some trial and error.
When it comes to delay, reverb etc. you'll often find that in the studio, these things are carefully added to a much drier signal. Too much delay and reverb at the recording phase will make it difficult to mix the guitar in with the rest of the stuff later on, since you create fewer options by adding all of that up-front. Live tone is a different story. Often what sounds awesome live makes for a shitty recording.
Fusion guitarists actually use quite a lot of gain, IMO. Guthrie likes to use his guitar's volume (and, I suspect, alters his technique) to "clean up" the tone for lower-gain bits. Most of the Richie Kotzen stuff I've heard is also pretty high gain.
