How to get these tones?

S

skolacki

Fractal Fanatic
I watched this video with Howard Leese and Tim Pierce putting vintage Gibson’s up
against a few PRS guitars. They have have a beautiful warm tone with no shrillness. Very fat and silky. The PRS guitars do sound better but really every guitar on that video sounds sweet. Probably it’s just my presets but so far I have never gotten a tone like what I hear in this video. Then again I don’t have these guitars. I have heard similar tones on the Silver Sky’s as well. No ice pick treble and a pleasant warmth, even on the bridge pickups. When I warm up my presets they have less high end but sound dull, nothing like this.

 
I'm no master at preset construction, but one thing I've picked up from Leon Todd (and I think Cooper Carter does it too) is to almost always incorporate a high-cut filter. That should go a long way toward arresting those annoying freqs.
 
I'm trying to learn about specific tone characteristics, and what parameters are responsible by just going through factory presets, and when I find one that I really like something about it, I just kinda dig into it, and see what's going on. Kind of, a reverse-engineering approach.
 
I have an 06 PRS Singlecut with Duncan P rails, an SE245 Soapbar, a HSS Deluxe Strat and a Hamer Jr which has some of that thick tone. It’s weird but the Jr has the best natural tone out of all my guitars and it was also the cheapest. I have a few other guitars that I don’t play much. One is a cheap Korean Ibanez with Duncan 59s and it is a very bright guitar. I’m mostly a P90 player these days. I have seen videos of P90’s getting these thick warm tones before. I’m not a metal guy but i rarely play totally clean.
 
The "mistake" I discovered that I made with modelers was adding way too much high end. Very easy to do when using lower volumes with studio monitors. The moment I discovered it, I dialed the Treble, Presence and Bright Cap values back quite a bit. The result was impressive, finally had a great guitar 'tone'. It did take a couple of days to get used to the "new" tone and I kept a copy of that initial preset to make sure I don't stray to far away from what has become my core tone.
 
JoKeR III said:
The "mistake" I discovered that I made with modelers was adding way too much high end. Very easy to do when using lower volumes with studio monitors. The moment I discovered it, I dialed the Treble, Presence and Bright Cap values back quite a bit. The result was impressive, finally had a great guitar 'tone'. It did take a couple of days to get used to the "new" tone and I kept a copy of that initial preset to make sure I don't stray to far away from what has become my core tone.
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Took a couple days? I can see that. The ears get accustomed to tones and changes might take awhile to register properly. My presets are dialed in around 85db but last week I was jamming with some guys and I had to bleed off highs for that. I keep copies of my main presets for jams so I don’t screw up my house tones.
 
This is a great video by Rhett Shull, talking about Jack Pearson. It’s a tribute video. He plays an oddball P90 guitar a little in the video that has that thick tone. If you don’t know about Jack Pearson this is worth watching. I want to figure out a way to get the tone he has out of my P90’s. Rhett’s P90 tone is what I’m referring to but Jacks tones are great also.

 
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I've seen so many LT vids, I can't recall where I've seen what. However, there is soooo much to digest in this one. Take a look, tons of EQ advice and just a plain good review for how things work and interact. For your OP, jump to around 7 mins for an interesting little tidbit.
 
la szum said:
Is it as simple as dialing the Tone control back on the guitar??
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I use my tone controls more than I used to. But it doesn’t get me that tone. Closer but no cigar. I’ll be working on it later this week. I think I just need to dial down the highs and get used to it. I recall reading about Joe Bonamassa and his wah. He wanted the high roll off it provided so no true bypass mods for him. That was his older setup before he got into the Fenders. In that video they don’t discuss amp settings but probably not a lot of treble I think.
 
skolacki said:
He wanted the high roll off it provided so no true bypass mods for him.
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Ok, so here's a thought... He probably came across that by accident. Maybe one day he plugged directly into his amp and noticed it sounded different without the wah, then came to like the way the wah affected his tone.

This is why I'm such a fan of the factory presets: You (we) don't know what we may come across that makes us go, "Wow, I like that!" Not to discourage you from chasing the tone in your OP, but just as an added general suggestion..., don't sleep on these presets, because you may very well find something in there you never were even aware of, that you end up liking. A lot. I know I have. Amps I would've never tried, effects settings I would've never thought of..., that sort of thing.

I guess I say that mostly to the players that only build their own presets. There's just so many cool examples of great sounds in there. I'd even recommend re-visiting them after a FW update, or even getting a new guitar.
 
I’m off work today and had some time to play. So I purposely dialed down the highs on a copy of my main preset based on the AC20. More amp input hi cut, more hi cut on the amp. And it pretty much got me there. I think like @JoKeR III said it will take some time to get used to it having more lows than I normally have. I’ll see how I like it in a few days but so far so good. Thanks for the suggestions.
 
skolacki said:
This is a great video by Rhett Shull, talking about Jack Pearson. It’s a tribute video. He plays an oddball P90 guitar a little in the video that has that thick tone. If you don’t know about Jack Pearson this is worth watching. I want to figure out a way to get the tone he has out of my P90’s. Rhett’s P90 tone is what I’m referring to but Jacks tones are great also.

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Jack Pearson is a great example of a player who has mastered his touch. He can get great sustain pretty much at will. And, he's famous/notorious for picking through a bunch of Fender Squire Strats on the wall in a store and picking the one that sings fabulously.
 
I have found that darker tones at low volumes tend to sound perfect at higher volumes.

That's one of the things about Bonamassa's live setup and how he dials his guitar and
amps. His tone is super dark. But you crank the shit out of it and it doesn't sound dark
in the context of the band a high volume live setting.
 
skolacki said:
I’m off work today and had some time to play. So I purposely dialed down the highs on a copy of my main preset based on the AC20. More amp input hi cut, more hi cut on the amp. And it pretty much got me there. I think like @JoKeR III said it will take some time to get used to it having more lows than I normally have. I’ll see how I like it in a few days but so far so good. Thanks for the suggestions.
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The AC-20 EF86 Treble with the 1X12 AC-20 DLX MIX (Legacy #119) was the amp and cab I used after discovering too much high end was the issue. I started from scratch and created a new preset, leaving everything in the amp and cab block at default values. After getting used to the tone, I ended up making some minor tweaks and now use this preset as a reference 'tone'.

While I have used it as a base for other presets, it's more of an EQ reference than anything else. I use it to compare with other presets when it seems like the high end is getting out of hand again.
 

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la szum said:
I have found that darker tones at low volumes tend to sound perfect at higher volumes.

That's one of the things about Bonamassa's live setup and how he dials his guitar and
amps. His tone is super dark. But you crank the shit out of it and it doesn't sound dark
in the context of the band a high volume live setting.
Click to expand...

At a jam last week, as I mentioned I made copies of my main presets and adjusted those for the volume I was playing at. I tried one of those and here at the house it sounds pretty dark compared to my original. It’s the Fletcher thing I guess.
 
la szum said:
I have found that darker tones at low volumes tend to sound perfect at higher volumes.

That's one of the things about Bonamassa's live setup and how he dials his guitar and
amps. His tone is super dark. But you crank the shit out of it and it doesn't sound dark
in the context of the band a high volume live setting.
Click to expand...

He’s always had great guitar sound. I liked his previous setup better with the Marshalls and other amps. The Fenders sound great though, plus he runs a Dumble mixed in. He cranks them for sure. Has to in order to get that sound out of the Fenders. I have tix to see him in September. Going to be an old rockers party. Lot of white haired people, and I totally fit in haha.
 
JoKeR III said:
The AC-20 EF86 Treble with the 1X12 AC-20 DLX MIX (Legacy #119) was the amp and cab I used after discovering too much high end was the issue. I started from scratch and created a new preset, leaving everything in the amp and cab block at default values. After getting used to the tone, I ended up making some minor tweaks and now use this preset as a reference 'tone'.

While I have used it as a base for other presets, it's more of an EQ reference than anything else. I use it to compare with other presets when it seems like the high end is getting out of hand again.
Click to expand...

Good idea. I’ll load it and check it out. Thanks!
 
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