Need Help With Getting A Good Sound At Rehearsal Rooms

Gear
#1

At home all I need is my Marshall JVM410H on the OD1 Crunch setting with a Super Overdrive and a Noise Suppressor and I have a beautifully smooth distortion sound which doesn’t feed back.

At my rehearsal studio I have the choice between a Katana Head or a Marshall MG100HCFX through a 4x12 (I take my pedalboard but don’t have the means to transport my head) and I cannot for the life of me get a good lead sound without high pitch squealing. This results in me having to set the gain quite low which is okay for rhythm playing but legato becomes non-existent, which is a big issue for me when trying to use Yngwie’s picking system.

Anyone got any tips? Is it just because the gear is pretty cheap? Or am I likely doing something wrong? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

For reference this is how much gain I use at home:

I don’t think it’s too crazy? But the types of phrases I’m playing in this clip are impossible with my current sound when rehearsing!

At the moment I’m considering selling my Marshall head and buying a Victory Kraken so I have something very light and portable to take with me to practice.

#2

I have a Kraken and it has that level of gain. If you really like your marshall, don’t get rid of it. Have you thought of getting the Kraken V4 preamp? Its a third of the price of the head and you can also use it to add an extra channel to you JVM as well as using it with any other amp you find at rehearsal.

#3

All that being said, it may not stop the squealing. How loud where you playing and how close were you to the cab?

If it was an angled 4x12 and you were close to it, its pretty easy to get a feedback loop. The overdrive will also raise the noise floor I suppose…

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#4

What this means is that you have positive feedback in the studio as your guitar can hear itself, and this unlocks a vicious cycle. I suspect you might be able to use notch filters to try to kill some of those frequencies, but I have never tried that in practice. Or play in a different room than the amp (as YJM does in his home studio).

I suspect this is a really common problem.

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#5

I’m so jealous, wish I bought the Kraken instead, Phillip McKnight said in his review it’s very similar to the JVM so it sounds perfect for me.

Yep it was an angled 4x12. I’ve experimented with standing in different places but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. :neutral_face:

#6

I would call that a fairly high gain sound, for what it’s worth.

Just to feel out the problem a little, your volume here is pretty low. Can you play at the same volume in the rehearsal space without feedback? If you turn your amp up to rehearsal volume at home, does it still stay free of feedback?

If the answer to both questions is, well, no to the first, and yes to the second, that implies something may be wrong with the head. If there is any way to somehow get your head to the rehearsal space for one night just to really nail down that Marshall valvestate as the issue, that might be helpful here… but that seems kind of unlikely to me. I’m wondering if it’s more just a product of the huge change in volume, coupled with proximity of standing right next to the amp in the rehearsal space (which I’m guessing is pretty crowded with a full band in it).

Also, are you getting “normal” feedback, or squealing microphonic feedback? And, can you silence the feedback just by rolling your volume off between songs? This might be as simple as managing it at the guitar.

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#7

Providing that you don’t need a clean channel!

I find that channel 1 - the JVM style one doesn’t have a large amount of gain, a boost might be required. Where as channel 2 (based on 5150 type tone) has way enough gain.

#8

I spend a lot of time in rehearsal studios, so I thought I would comment.

Live, I use a Marshall Origin 50 and a custom pedalboard with an NS-2 at the end of the amp’s input chain. I set my master volume on 8 to get good power tube saturation and then control volume with a Boss FV30L through the FX loop.

I run the amp’s gain full-up, boost engaged and then hammer it with a TS-9. It’s very high gain, but perhaps not as much as you are using???

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I have a video that I will happily share via PM where I am sitting 3 feet from the amp with master volume on 7-8 and no feedback or squeal while playing and none while letting go of the guitar.

Have you considered your pickups might be the culprit in this case???

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#9

Wow what a badass setup!

I ended up coming to the conclusion that what I was actually after was more compression rather than higher gain.

Now what I’m doing is cranking the level on my Boss SD1 while having the drive almost off. Legato is still viable but with much less amp squealing :smiley:

I also switched the amp to 100w mode rather than 50w, this way I don’t have to crank it as much which again means less noise.

And I recently picked up the Schecter Solo II BlackJack which has a pair of Lundgren M6 pickups in so I don’t think that’s the case! (The specs on their new BlackJack line are insane!)

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#10

Are u using a noise suppressor? It’s essential, NS2 at the least.

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#11

Yep, love my NS2 :slight_smile:

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#12

I find my HB guitar squeals too with ym DOD 308 with its vol and gain full, the recommended setting, but no squeal with my Yngwie strat. So i run my HB guitar volumes between 3 and 6, no squeal and added clarity between notes. I’m running this into a super lead 100.

If you don’t have a 308, I highly recommend you get one before they go up in price.

edit: I guess I’m not familiar with the rehearsal amps, but I suspect it’s the amps, need to find a way around it, lower the gain on the amp, and volume on the guitar, keep your pedals set up as they are. This is where I’d start. But it sounds like a tough one, While adjusting the pups on my guitar I accidently dropped one beyond the screw, when I opened the mounting ring to reattach it I noticed there was a rubber foam pad between the body and the pup, not sure what exactly it’s function is or if more will help. I’m guessing your only option is cutting volume at the source.

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#13

The foam block is, generally, placed there to adjust the attitude of the pickup in relation to the strings. If you have a pickup that is not ‘squared up’ the the strings, a foam rubber block will tilt it into the correct position, parallel to the strings.

#14

Never tried the DOD!

I bought the Fender YJM OD a few years back and though it was great for arpeggio note clarity, it was the noisiest pedal ever and I couldn’t get it to work with a lot of amps.

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