I think I've been relying on using too much gain - how to break out of this rut?

Playing Technique
#21

Yeah, @gotmixes said it better than me.

To do this well, the player would also want to fine tune the threshold, ratio, and release parameters to fit their specific goals, technique, guitar output, etc. This is fairly easy to do by ear for a player knows what they’re aiming for and has pretty intimate familiarity with compressors, but giving a recipe for it in a forum with readers of a wide-range of expertise would take a lot of words, and would probably come across as condescending to at least some readers.

So I was trying to avoid overexplaining the fine details and ended up being too abstruse instead. I always find it hard to get that balance right, which is one of the reasons I just lurk most of the time.

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#22

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” for sure.

Add to that the fact that a distorted amp tone is basically a square wave generator – the distortion is compressing the dynamics a lot already.

So what you hear as “dynamics” may really be more frequency-dependent – transients aren’t really dynamic peaks and valleys so much as blasts of pick noise or 1.5-4k or something. EQ (cut or boost) can bring it into focus, but it’s not likely to “fix” it if you’re not at least somewhat into the tone already, and by the time you get to micromanaging something like a multiband compressor or something, you’re probably out of the zone anyway.

Tape compression is pretty great for this, though. PM me if I shouldn’t be going this deep into explanations. But here goes:

Tape can’t actually handle the full (20-20k) spectrum at a decent level. The workaround for it is an EQ curve for recording which is reversed on playback – there is a standard for this for vinyl: RIAA EQ (record player) – so this way, when you press a record or put something down on tape, the ACTUAL signal is REALLY thin. This is why if you’re just hearing the turntable stylus vibrate acoustically, you’re hearing a lot of 1.5k and up – the lows are at a REALLY low level. The playback EQ brings them back, though, and if the reverse EQ is right, the output should equal the input. If you actually recorded a record or tape flat, full spectrum, without this little trick, the noise floor would come up so high that it’d be pretty much useless, as far as “sonic fidelity” or whatever.

Keep that in mind. So we’re recording to tape something similar to that tinny stylus-in-the-room sound – only on playback with reverse EQ’s does it get really full-spectrum again. But if you slam the meters on that Studer A800 Mk II so that the red lights are begging for mercy as you’re magnetizing those little particles on the Ampex 456 2" reel running at 15 ips (to get those chunky lows, of course!), guess what kind of signal is hitting (and getting modified by) that wonderful soft wall of tape saturation? That tinny sound from the record player with the volume off on your stereo, THAT’S pretty much what you’re telling those little ferric oxide particles to align to. And if a few of them say, “too much level – screw this, I’m going home” (pretty much the same thing your 6L6’s say when you’re tone-chasing “Fight Fire With Fire”), they’re doing that when the 1-4k range is peaking. Guess what range humans are BY FAR the most sensitive to? Guess what range is the most CRITICAL for mixing, since that’s where intelligibility (of vocals or anything else) sits? Guess what range can be the MOST IRRITATING if the peaks are too harsh?

What were we talking about again? :sweat_smile:

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#23

Not sure how relevant this is but I’ve been able to drop gain levels successfully this last month.

My ears are getting better at finding that sweet spot, mostly a balance between avoiding harshness while retaining adequate sustain for playability. The sustain required directly depends on the kind of style your going for at the time.

This is much easier on a real amp where the amp is the source of the drive for the most part. With soft amps, it depends on your experience with real amps to dail it in realistically. Often as in my case too earlier on, folks using amp sims are not accoustumed to the real world counter parts and lack a real frame of reference, so the frustration of guessing never goes way. The issue is mostly difficulty managing the compression and attack, while trying to avoid the feeling you may be using too much of driving aid.

I haven’t read the entire thread so I’m not sure how relevant my comments are.

#24

@twangsta If this is that pedal that replicates the sound of the wireless unit (hazy memory about his setup), I’ve been mad intrigued about it. Mostly I like to read about pedals that replicate the tonal impact that “non-drive” gear imparts (like this unit or the saturation that echoplex’s impart).

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#25

It’s exactly that, the Shaffer Wireless thing in pedal form, it’s got a compander, boost and the limiter. The compander part has some eq mojo going on, the limiter manages the feel, and the boost part I hear is 25 or 31 dB. I hear they are very interactive too, I’ve spoken to folks who have it, and they are addicted, it’s an always-on thing.

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#26

Holy Batman, a dear well-wisher just sent me one, I’ve had it an hour!

It’s like somebody removed the blanket off my amp!

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#27

Its got a top-boost kinda sound to it. Bit of sizzle to the Marshall bark - very nice. Its £200 here in the uk - I’m debating whether its worth that (I wonder whether you could coax this sort of boost with an eq pedal or a cheaper EP pre pedal) what do you think?

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#28

It could take 3 to 4 pedals, even then there’s nothing that leaves the mids alone as this does. The results will not be the same, I’ve tried to do it using a boost, compressor and eq, there is something else going on with that gain knob that’s hard to put a finger on, afaik it’s a “compander”, something to do with compressing and then expanding the signal. Tricky business. Just get it, you will end up selling other stuff, this is one of those on all the time pedals. Can recommend this for any marshall amp user without any hesitation.

#29

I’m curious that they say the 200 quid pedal is almost the same circuitry as the 1200 quid tower thingy - wonder where the extra grand comes from?

#30

Some day I’m going to find out :grinning:
If the pedal is this good… lord have mercy!

#31

My wife just declared that the tower version looks cooler because of the VU meter, can’t argue with that.

#32

Haha, good woman, wise!
If you have the scratch, get the tower, no brainer.

#33

If I was going to spend that much on some kind of large effects unit I think the first thing to go for would be a refurbished Roland Space Echo.

Anyway, I’m still paying off the last round of gear purchases so I’m getting absolutely nothing for about 6 months.

#34

Legendary stuff, you have great taste Sir, in gear and women :slightly_smiling_face:

#35

If you really want the details:



#36

Haha, I don’t have much to sell! I seldom use gain pedals (I have a TS808, bb preamp and mesa flux drive (the latter 2 are basically the same to my ears - probably based on the same circuit type). I don’t tend to get on with them on gain channels. When I played marshalls I used to do use an EQ with a small frown curve toward the low mid to mid range and then test each eq band on the treble side and slightly boosted the one that gave a slight sizzle.

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#37

I think I read everything there is to know about the replica, can’t say I comprehend all of it, but I certainly appreciate it all :slightly_smiling_face:
edit: Just wanted to say, this thing has been some what of a tone secret from the 70s, it great that it’s now out in the wild in an affordable and manageable package. Fil (solodallas) has really done a fantastic job.

I don’t know how much value it would be to a non-plexi type amp. What I liked is the eq curve and the sustain to the high notes. It’s quite remarkable in that way, and with the gain you can run it as clean or dirty as you like.

edit: My apologies for derailing this thread.

#38

The short answer is that the tower reproduces all of the electronics in both the transmitter and the receiver from the original wireless unit. This includes processing on the transmitter side designed to optimize the signal for wireless transfer, processing on the receiver side to undo that optimization, non-audio subcircuits surrounding the power supply and power conditioning for the transmitter and receiver, etc. Many of these subcircuits actively degrade the guitar tone or inject noise into the signal, and the circuit is tuned to balance the mitigation of those effects against things like battery consumption and the likelihood of picking up stray radio signals.

For the pedal, they tried to extract only the part of the circuit that provided the audible improvement to the tone, and cut out all the other stuff that’s either not necessary or actively harmful to your signal if you’re not actually transmitting a wireless signal. As an analogy, you don’t need to go through astronaut training and get deployed to the space station to get some freeze-dried ice cream. You can just order it online.

In the end, the pedal circuit is a simple vactrol/op-amp compressor circuit feeding an LM380 amp chip. So it’s a nice-sounding, subtle overdrive pedal made from about $10 in components not including the box/switch/jacks/paint job. So the pedal is cheaper to produce than the tower unit with all that extra stuff in it, and the pedal is not an exact replica of what Angus used back in the day, so it doesn’t have the same mojo to justify the tower’s collector-level prices. Whether the pedal and tower versions sound identical I don’t know because I haven’t built or played either one. I suspect the pedal is less noisy than the tower when pushed hard, but I don’t know that for sure either.

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