Distortion... Friend or foe??

Sebastian

You know how every time you hear Eric Johnson, Slash, Cream-days Clapton, Hendrix, Steve Morse etc you absolutely fall in love with their sound/equipment (tone is in your fingers ? ) and HAVE to have whatever they've got?? (well i do...)

Anyway, How do these guitarists I've named in particular manage to use SO MUCH gain and still get their tone across to their live audiences? Whenever I watch "mortals" perform, and they load on the gain, their sound simply vanishes in the mix. It happens time and time again EXCEPT with the heros. I saw Morse in May. That signature ENGL of his is demo'd over and over on youtube by owners who play that "chunk chunk" super-distorted metal crap ? ? ? Proving the amp is a gain-beast. anyway, despite ALL the gain he uses, he was crystal clear in the mix, even with Don henley's keys going in the same register.

take me for example... I love Eric Johnson. He uses a Marshall Superlead, so I went and got one (under great circumstances though ? ). He's recently started using the Radial Tonebone Classic. So i saved up and got one. He uses a EHX Memory Man (as does Morse) and I got the Memory Boy (no space on my pedal board for the Memory man...). He shaves off the treble, as do I. BUT WHY when i perform do people say they cant hear my guitar as soon as I begin to speed the licks up??

Jack-Flash-Jr

Weeeeelll... it's overdrive with all the guys you mentioned, not distortion and I guess the key is drive the amp and use volume on guitar to dial in clarity?? Also, speak to the dude manning the soundboard... takes skill to cut through on a poor p.a.

Vick

...Yea,a good sound guy is gold...

TomCat

IMHO I think distortion on an electric guitar is one of the most difficult things to mix and only relatively recently have I begun to really understand the tone and get the most out of it when I'm at the console.

I believe most sound engineers don't really know how the guitar should sound tonally and know where to place it in the mix so that it fits with the other instruments.

A lot comes from the source and having a good amp/effex combo, along with a good and correctly placed mic is key to getting the most out of the set-up.

I have found that getting the mic right is vital and for me a good guide is to see how much console EQ I have to dial in. The less console EQ I had to use, the better I got the mic placed.

When I work with guitarists I also spend a bit of time listening to their rig on stage to get a signature of their tone and by that I know what to expect when I push the channel fader up.

Another biggie for me is dialing the right amount of compression on the channel to fatten the sound and make it easier to place in the mix.

Edit: If you really want to have fun try mixing piano, distorted guitar and acoustic guitar together live at the same time.......

Sebastian

Jack Flash Jr wrote: Weeeeelll... it's overdrive with all the guys you mentioned, not distortion

hmmmm... Firstly, distortion vs overdrive. something most of us have a vague idea of in terms of difference but cant really state... Technically speaking they're both overloading and compressing of a signal. other than that, only a few minor differences separate them.

Secondly, you'll see in my actual post i ONLY ever referred to it as GAIN, never as distortion or overdrive. The topic name, which i stand by, used distortion because its a more general term for the phenomenon, rather than overdrive which particularly references it in context to an amplifier.

Thirdly, Slash's JCM 800 and Steve Morse's signature ENGL both rely on diodes to get their basic gain structure, which in my world is DISTORTION not overdrive..

But yet again, what does it matter, I called it gain anyway.

"weeeeelll... it's overdrive with all the guys you mentioned"

something constructive would help...

Tomcat, your post is very helpful, I'll be aiming mics more towards the centre of the speakers from now on ?

Sebastian

OH YEAH another thing...

Driving an amp and rolling volume off for "clarity" (or just gain...) is a great idea and the best way to operate your rig, but

Jack Flash, have you ever tried to drive a non-master-volume 100watt Super Lead before????????

people die ?

Jack-Flash-Jr

@Sebastian: technically yes but in generally accepted practise distortion = DS-1 type stuff in most peoples minds. When people come into your store and ask for distortion do you point them to overdrive pedals? Dealing with distortion and dealing with overdrive in the way you require is two different things also. Anyway, you'll get more help from the techs on the site, just throwing in my two cents.
Looking forward to driving a trans-tube supreme 100w (again) before I shuffle off this mortal coil ?

ZarK

@Sebastian: Your second last post's tone seemed slightly overdriven to me. If you where to ad just a tad of gain, it would most likely turn into distortion? But hey, what do I know? I love purple guitars. There, I said it.

Personally I catch myself more and more often jamming on my amp's green channel. Nice and chill... ?

Interesting topic...

Sebastian

Hi guys, I just thought i'd like to share some relevant news.

I've gone along my pedalboard, upgrading from simple pedals etc to much better quality ones as time and money has permitted, but one thing had passed my attention. PATCH CABLES. and now having just replaced the cheap ones I had with George L's, the apparent presence has shot up, the bass is tighter, my midrange is more pronounced and the highs not sharp, but more delicate. Just goes to show you shouldn't overlook a SINGLE STEP in your signal chain huh?

I'll wait til I hear responses after my next gig before I can make any strong conclusions as regards to my gain issues!!

By the way, am I the only person who's found George L cables with straight jacks REALLY difficult to make and get working?!?!?! After a week and wasting almost 2 feet of cable, I took it in to my local electrician, who firstly was stumped by the logic of the prescribed method, and after a phone call to Andy McGibbons, got hold of another electrician, and using four hands at a time as well as an amp-meter and much fiddling and wiggling managed to get the patch cables working. Go figure!?!?!

Riaan

By the way, am I the only person who's found George L cables with straight jacks REALLY difficult to make and get working?!?!?!

Don't know about the straight ones, but I had problems with George L's ninety degree connectors. Bad connections all the time...but in fairness I have to say I ended up twisting the patch cables a lot when swopping the pedal order. In the end I decided to go with Amphenol, and I won't use solderless connections again. Now if I could only find the time to redo all those patch cables. In fact, my whole pedalboard is due to be revamped soon...the result of lessons learned with my first pedalboard attempt.

ZarK

I've been researching quality patch cables myself as I need to get some asap for the new rig I'm getting together. The research I've been doing has brought me to the conclusion that GeorgeL's sound fantastic but their connections are not as reliable as I would prefer. I am busy trying to find out what other quality alternatives are available locally before I end up importing again. Quality cabling makes a huge difference on a quality rig with quality guitars. Are there any other alternatives to GeorgeL patch cables that you feel is worth looking at? It’s so convenient to be able to make up your own lengths and the DiMarzio patch cables I’m using at present are a little overpriced at around R130 per cable imo…

Danny-B

I imported some Core X2 solderless patch cables. Veeeery easy to put together and worked first time round. And yes Seb, any cables are better than those 'orrible multi coloured wires of tone death.

Btw, you have to come over and see the new pedalboard!

AlanRatcliffe

I should have a keyboard shortcut for this: Get Matta (Matt Allison) to make you up cables with Mogami Cable and Amphenol jacks or make up your own.

Personally, I've never trusted solderless plugs. I'm old fashioned in that I only trust solder connections (done properly).

andrewjbryson

Eric Johnson is a master of touch and muting technique.

He has an absolute "soft touch" on his Strat without much effort. Most of his notes are clearly seperated , even at mezmorizing speeds.

A lot of "his sound" starts at his fingers, a nice strat / amp and delay pedal will also help.

I'm not familiar with his latest setup.

singemonkey

Personally Sebastian, I think you're missing EJ's process - focusing instead on the outcomes. Using his amp and pedal likely isn't going to work for you. Because he used an evolutionary algorithm to arrive at his tone. He had a guitar. It sounded great through this amp. He replaced a cable and it sounded better. A certain pedal really worked for him. A certain set of pickups worked.

I don't think you can buy his tone out of the box. His stuff works because he's whittled away at his tone systematically - changing stuff when it created improvements, leaving it where it worked. All designed for a very specific set of guitars with specific electronics and characteristics.

Why not follow his process instead. Take your rig, and swap bits out noting improvements. Try your guitar through other amps to see if it's suited to the super lead. Change tubes in the super-lead. See if it's better.

You see what I'm saying? His rig produces great tone for him, not because of what it is, but because of how it was put together. "I changed this one thing, and my guitar sounded way better in the mix last night. I'll keep it." (or not if it sounded worse / made no improvement). You may end up with a very different set-up from his, but it'll sound amazing.

nicovlogg

My finding has been that it's way better to just crank the clean channel on my Peavey for a little bit of over drive than to use the distortion channel. That's also because it has a pretty nasty distortion channel to begin with ?. My theory would be that most distortion sounds that we like these days are quite mid-scooped, which basically takes you right out of the picture presence wise. When I play clean, especially with a humbucker guitar, it seems like my sound just takes over the stage, compared to fading into the mix with distortion.

Is it all about the mid boost?

Robin_Gast

Sebastian wrote: You know how every time you hear Eric Johnson, Slash, Cream-days Clapton, Hendrix, Steve Morse etc you absolutely fall in love with their sound/equipment (tone is in your fingers ? ) and HAVE to have whatever they've got?? (well i do...)

Anyway, How do these guitarists I've named in particular manage to use SO MUCH gain and still get their tone across to their live audiences? Whenever I watch "mortals" perform, and they load on the gain, their sound simply vanishes in the mix. It happens time and time again EXCEPT with the heros. I saw Morse in May. That signature ENGL of his is demo'd over and over on youtube by owners who play that "chunk chunk" super-distorted metal crap ? ? ? Proving the amp is a gain-beast. anyway, despite ALL the gain he uses, he was crystal clear in the mix, even with Don henley's keys going in the same register.

take me for example... I love Eric Johnson. He uses a Marshall Superlead, so I went and got one (under great circumstances though ? ). He's recently started using the Radial Tonebone Classic. So i saved up and got one. He uses a EHX Memory Man (as does Morse) and I got the Memory Boy (no space on my pedal board for the Memory man...). He shaves off the treble, as do I. BUT WHY when i perform do people say they cant hear my guitar as soon as I begin to speed the licks up??

Hey, that "chunk chunk" super-distorted metal crap is my whole life, just sayin'.

Seventhson

@sabastian.

I think it is abit unfair to call metal crap. Besides Tell that to chris broderick who tears slash apart
/runs.

Sebastian

Seventhson wrote: I think it is abit unfair to call metal crap. Besides Tell that to chris broderick who tears slash apart
/runs.

Hey! No guys I'm only joking, thats why I put all the smileys!

No offence meant!

Chris Broderick might tear Slash apart, but then again so do thousands of others, yet none of them quite have a riff like sweet child of mine, a solo like November Rain, the make-money appeal and the unarguably timeless image he does.

There's more to music than the actual technicality of it, and thats why slash, as simple as he is as a musician, has been so much more succesful than any other guitarist I can possibly think of besides Hendrix, Clapton and John Mayer (YES. at the end of the day, John Mayer is on the radio more than Steve Morse, my personal hero, will ever be)

Sebastian

singemonkey wrote: Personally Sebastian, I think you're missing EJ's process - focusing instead on the outcomes. Using his amp and pedal likely isn't going to work for you. Because he used an evolutionary algorithm to arrive at his tone. He had a guitar. It sounded great through this amp. He replaced a cable and it sounded better. A certain pedal really worked for him. A certain set of pickups worked.

I don't think you can buy his tone out of the box. His stuff works because he's whittled away at his tone systematically - changing stuff when it created improvements, leaving it where it worked. All designed for a very specific set of guitars with specific electronics and characteristics.

Why not follow his process instead. Take your rig, and swap bits out noting improvements. Try your guitar through other amps to see if it's suited to the super lead. Change tubes in the super-lead. See if it's better.

You see what I'm saying? His rig produces great tone for him, not because of what it is, but because of how it was put together. "I changed this one thing, and my guitar sounded way better in the mix last night. I'll keep it." (or not if it sounded worse / made no improvement). You may end up with a very different set-up from his, but it'll sound amazing.

I'll reiterate what I said in my original post...

Tone is in your fingers.

I couldn't care what any sales rep from any equipment company says, tone is in the fingers.

If you give Jeff Beck a strat into a Marshall JTM45 or a les paul into a bassman, Jeff Beck will sound like Jeff beck.

The same goes for Johnson, who I've seen playing through a 20 watt solid-state practice amp and STILL making a guitar sound like a violin. That is undeniable.

All equipment can do is enhance your SOUND and enhance the sonic quality of the TONE you have IN YOUR FINGERS. Knowing this, and loving the sonic quality of Eric Johnson, thats what lead me to want my tone to be brought across to an audience with a big, round SOUND like his.

Have you ever heard someone say "dont take that tone of voice with me!" or something similar? same concept. its not the voice, but the tone people listen to and take a message from. Having a big, scary voice, or a sexy, smooth voice only serves to enhance the tone the voice gives off.

Each to their own... And I loved your description of the process of finding the right sound! "swap bits out....", "change tubes in the superlead. See if its better". Makes it sound like a cheap and easy process that DOESN'T cost thousands and thousands to find the perfect equipment that suits your style! ? unfortunately, as a student, I dont have that luxury that professionals with great sound have, and many people dont, and that why it seems good to follow in the footsteps of finnicky people like Johnson who have already done all that.

see what I'M saying? ?