The Schwartz
Member
I recently discovered that one of my neighbors has a TGP-3, and after he kindly let me play through it for a few hours, I have developed a taste for this elusive preamp. Love to have it in the III!
+1
Yesterday my wife gave me a list of songs to learn for her. Worked through a handful of them, and arrived at "Dead and Bloated" and wasn't getting anywhere close tone-wise. Research showed that this is what they used.
Just need to find out what cab/speakers was used too.
Enjoy!
He attributes a lot of his tone to the VHT power amp and if I remember right, says he’s tried others and it just doesn’t do it for him. This was a REALLY great interview to watch just because of how grateful Dean is about everything, but also for going down the gear rabbit hole. It’s AWESOME that he’s used that same damn rig for so long and gets the range of tones out of it he does.
He‘s a big reason I got into the idea of using specific tones for specific songs, where a lot of the metal stuff I listen to is pretty much one guitar tone on the entire album. I really love all his tones throughout the years, never mind the playing. IMO, him and his brother are two of the last guys in popular hard rock music to play like that. Dean’s chord work is just outstanding and Robert’s bass work…..man, I tried learning the bass line to “Interstate Love Song” a few months ago and gave up so I could work on Dream Theater’s “Eorotmania” instead and I learned more of “Erotomania“ than I did “Interstate”
Actually, someone tweeted to Robert a few years back how big of an influence he was on him, Robert very graciously said thank you, to which I replied, “You do know that you’re our generations John Paul Jones, right?”, to which he left another gracious reply saying thank you. Both those dudes seem like stand up individuals and are just stellar musicians.
Oh, Michael from Big Hairy Guitars did a video with the Demeter and a VHT to recreate some of those tones. There might be some useful information in here.
Thanks for this!
You're right about his chording. It's a thing of beauty. I was telling my friend about working on learning "Plush" and he said something along the lines of "EzPz, one of the first songs I learned of theirs." I asked him if he was playing that verse riff with powerchords, instead of Dean's open chorded way. He was. Lol
And thanks for that video. It's a really unique amp voicing that I can't seem to place. Maybe a XTC based, but with its on top end shimmer, and bottom end almost-mush-but-not thing going on.
My wife never does that ever. You two in a band together or something?+1
Yesterday my wife gave me a list of songs to learn for her. Worked through a handful of them, and arrived at "Dead and Bloated" and wasn't getting anywhere close tone-wise. Research showed that this is what they used.
Just need to find out what cab/speakers was used too.
It's definitely got it's own thing going on.
I had a very similar experience back in high school when I joined a band that was already playing "Plush". The other dude was playing the power chord version and me, being the cocky little shit I was back then, probably made fun of him for it. If I remember right, we didn't change anything and he just stuck with the power chords.
Love the walk-down in the verses of "Interstate Love Song", too. I think it might be in that Tone Talk where he says Robert came up with that and it's all bossa nova turned rock. I think it's fucking perfect!
No, she just really enjoys my guitar playing lolMy wife never does that ever. You two in a band together or something?
No, she just really enjoys my guitar playing lol
She has an incredible ear for music and name most any song within two notes. I'm always trying to stump her and failing. And that spans across a wide range of genres. Really impressive. And also annoying at times because I will learn a song for her and then she tells me I'm missing a note, or it's the same pitch, but a different timbre. She's brutal lol
That's awesome.That reminded me of a friend’s kid back when he was 8 or 9. They wanted me to learn a Linkin Park song so I figured it out, or thought I did, and the kid, Evan, goes “You’re not playing it right.”, I look at this little kid with a smug face and say “You sure about that?”, with a smirk on my face and he goes “It’s like this :sings the guitar part:”….I listen back to it and he was spot on.
That was just over 20 years ago and I’m so stoked with how he’s turned out as a human. I lost touch with him and his mother for a good 15 years and the next time I saw him, he was a man with a huge beard, covered in tats. He had a pretty rough upbringing and when he first saw me, he gave me a huge hug and thanked me for being there when I was to start him on that journey. I get all choked up thinking about that and love seeing what he’s up to. He writes some outstanding EDM stuff, but then will sit behind a kit and bust out metal/funk like it’s nothing, then do the same on guitar.