Important Note: Always wear hearing protection! I record the amps from the control room with the cabinet in an isolation booth. I have custom made earplugs that don’t change the tone but bring it down 20db
Rick, I honestly am a bit confused by this - I'm a keyboard player and a drummer and can't imagine guys you've had on like Pat Metheny or Dominic Miller (or Vinny Colaiuta for that matter) would agree or even relate to this. The main problem I have with it is that everyone's a God in their own mind - the Dunning Kruger effect is greatest in many musicians, especially part time musicians, who play loud to assuage their ego instead of serving the music. And there's no way you can play to the point where ear protection is mandatory and insist that you're serving the music. Bullshit. No fucking way. I think isolated stories of good, loud playing need to be taken in context, the Malmsteen story notwithstanding (whether I dig him or not). If your band is playing the Garden, yeah, I suppose you're going to have the opportunity to really crank shit up in that size hall. But if you're cranking up to max for a hall that's 500 or under people, it's obnoxious. In addition, if you're playing loud on purpose for some sort of distortion effect in your own mind, I'm sure you'll want the monitor mix to match the mix of the room/house, and your fellow, non-string, folk will really appreciate that. lol
Another word of caution, you slowly slip into the world of playing music, before you know it you're 200-400 gigs into your musical obsession with no protection and doing irreperable damage. The music is a lot louder on stage than out front but you don't notice as you're only listening to the frequencies that concern you to do your job so you let everything slide, if your hearing is poor in the first place like mine it's worse as you need to hear it even louder. Thankfully i never got tinnitus so that's a consolation, plus I can completely ignore my wife when I lay down in bed on my left side and sleep in silence
As a pilot I use HEAROS Xtreme earplugs. Just a few bucks and they drop 20db or so. When practicing the drums at home I use them and a headset to keep the noise level down but to still hear what I need but I am a bit of an outlier as I am really noise sensitive. I am shocked at how careless/cavalier musicians are with their hearing. It's not funny to be forced into the isolation of deafness.
As an audiologist and guitar player, I would also emphasize the importance of hearing protection if you're playing at high volumes for extended periods. Trust me, you really don't want to end up with permanent hearing loss or tinnitus.
as a 16 year old that has only been playing for about 2 years, this is such a lighting moment for me to see that there is more that I can do to make my sound more special to me without effects and bring back stuff they did in the 80's and 90's cause becoming a musician I one of my biggest dreams, and I love music so much and I am so blessed to be given this knowledge from these great people such as you Rick and Dave, and I think this will help me become a better guitar player/ multi musician in the future.
Just be aware that you are entering a very crowded space of impossibly talented and skilled guitar players. You've got to do it for love. If being a pro Muso is of high importance to you, switch to bass, where there is always a shortage/demand. But me...I love he guitar too much to switch to bass! I would rather be an amatuer guitarist than a pro bass player. But you may be different..🤷
As a side note, if you start playing and you notice that you are finding your amp is becoming less loud or less treble-ly or less gainy. Take a break. It’s your ears, not your amp. It only gets worse until you cause damage.
It's ear fatigue. I've experienced it - you start a gig with everything balanced, good mix, good monitors, you can hear yourself. By the end everything sounds like mush and it's hard to hear yourself. Everyone starts turning up or adjusting EQ trying to hear themselves and it ruins the overall mix. The lessons I have learned over the years is to leave it alone - trust your sound engineer. Yes, your ears will get fatigued and things won't sound right. But practice learning to play even without hearing everything clearly. It's a skill, but as you develop it (And as band members get used to it) things will sound better.
@@MartinMCade yes, I have walked in to a club at the end of the night. Sound man kept tweaking the eq over the course of the night. Treble was blowing my head off. Made the mistake of recording a demo of 5 songs over the course of a weekend back in the 80’s. Engineer had the treble so high in the mix that the tape we received was awful. Too much music and no rest for the ears.😉
From a guy with a bad case of self-inflicted tinnitus, play loud but protect your hearing. The 24/7 ringing in my ears is nothing you want any part of….
Yep I’m 46 years old, 30 years of working as an auto mechanic, 34 years of guitar playing with 20 of those years playing out having my ears ring 24/7 definitely sucks and could’ve been avoided
Speaking of playing loud but not hearing any mistakes or sloppy notes... Rory Gallagher stands out massively in this regard and I'd be grateful for any future video focusing on this Artist.
@@alecr666x you're absolutely right ... luckily there's a Rory Gallagher International Tribute Festival in Ballyshannon ( where he was born) every year ... and yes, I've been there many times
Hearing you two talk about EVH losing parts of his hearing reminded me that years ago, when Ed was still married to Valerie. He did an interview with either Guitar World or Guitar where he said his doctor had told him a specific part of his hearing was missing, and it also happened to be in the same hertz range of the female voice, so he couldn't hear Valerie when she was yelling at him.
Jimmy Page knew how to vary his guitar tracks.I still listen to Song Remains The Same, Rain Song and Black Dog every day.Which leads you back into Zep again and again.Not sloppy , just superb.
FYI: The majority of audible compression in a high-power tube guitar amp, is caused by the output transformer saturating magnetically. Transformers are insanely complex devices, although at first glance one wouldn't think so. I have a textbook three inches thick on just the subject of transformer magnetic theorem. There is also a soft gain limit controlled by the DC bias, which affects the power tubes only. Always best to get your bias adjusted by a good/ experienced guitar amp tech. It's sorta like getting the timing done on your car. Following a stated number for this voltage is NOT a great way to do it. It varies with the characteristics of whatever output tubes you are using. It's best done with a signal generator set at 800Hz to 1Khz and the levels set to whatever gives you a good-looking clean sine wave at the maximum. Tone controls to 12 oclock/ master vol full. I forget to mention that this is done and measured with a high power load resistor ( R value matching the speaker impedance setting) substituted for the speaker- 1Khz at full power is annoying, not to mention damaging to the hearing. Once the various levels are set to give maximum power output and a clean sine wave, on the oscilloscope (monitoring the load resistor) one can see the effect of changing the bias voltage trimmer. The crossover distortion (which sounds like crap and occours as the sine wave crosses zero) gets minimized and the sine wave will also clip symmetrically (top and bottom) when you adjust the sig gen output. You adjust the gains to approach the maximum output around and before the actual clipping point when making these measurements. This results in a very full, punchy performance when you set the amp controls normally, when you later test the amp with a guitar into a speaker. For example, It makes that big, fat "thud" when muting low notes. Note to techies: this is the short version. Note to amateurs trying this at home. A Marshall 100 watt will have 600 volts DC sitting on the power capacitors even after you turn it off- very dangerous!!!! I have melted a few screwdrivers on the bench after doing this for over 50 years. Not to mention heart-lurching/ arm-muscle contracting shocks- I'm lucky to be alive!
Good man. I someone is reading THIS deep into the comments, there really should be some actual "science behind the voodoo" talk...both for the purposes of enlightening the young'uns coming up AND for the tech that's TRYING to explain to "the HAMMERHEADS" why that, while they may be confident beyond hope of bringing them "back to school" and helping the world by reducing the ever expanding hordes of players whose idea of tone shaping is: Buy expensive pedals, turn knobs to 11, wail on the strings, repeat.... never bothering to understand HOW equipment works ("that's for nerds who can't play to know so I can pay THEM to fix my stuff"), that they are indeed completely unqualified to touch their own gear and attain a "GOOD" sound. LOUDER does equal more dynamic control (if you use your gear right and can ride your guitar's knobs skillfully), But usually it more often means more damage to your gear and everyone's ears. If you haven't tech'd your gear and are playing on the tubes that came with the head 15 years ago ( probably biased cold for longevity from the factory... ), cranking it to 11 and hammering the input with OD (also knobs to 11...) and a noise gate clamping all the way to kill the sound of the ocean mixed with static...well you won't ever read this far, so I have no fear in saying that you are TOO dumb to grow beyond "caveman guitarist" and dynamics isn't a word in your vocabulary. barring that...this video hits it on the head in terms of tone quality from the perspective of a producer/engineer, but should REALLY balance out with YOUR explanation about tube bias settings. The fact that there IS a "dark art" in amplifier calibration that caters to things like the subtle varying component values from amp to amp (even between two of the same model of amp) and the matching of tube pairs when adjusting bias on a tube head. another thing that could be mentioned that I am not seeing is the difference of OUTPUT between a 100w half stack driving one 16 ohm 4x12 vs one 4ohm 4x12 (or two 16ohm 4x12 vs two 8ohm 4x12 ). full 100 watts rating on a standard Marshall head is only if you are running at the 4 ohm minimum, and so won't fully saturate the output tubes and the output won't be driven as hard with only a 16ohm load, meaning less strain on the gear, less BANG to your ear and could be a factor when considering the final bias tuning.
This is amazing. Thank you! I'd always assumed it was just the tubes becoming saturated creating all of the compression. I guess that's why they say the output transformers are such an integral part of the sound when recreating older amps
@Tessmage Tessera don't forget keeping one hand behind your back when probing around so there isn't a path across you heart if you accidently DO get a wicked bite
Great discussion! Playing through a real amp is one of those things I took for granted growing up. For years I’ve been playing through amp sims and studio monitors, as most apartment dwellers do. It wasn’t till a recent visit back home that I busted out the ole hot rod deluxe. The difference it made on my playing was obvious. It’s weird to say but, playing through a real, loud amp is almost a luxury now.
Junior Brown is maybe the loudest I ever saw, Fender Twin blaring loud from a few feet away. No feedback. No distortion. Super Clean. Notes were picked superbly. Junior Brown is a truly great guitarist. I've seen Metallica live, 2nd Row - very loud, very distorted, but not as loud.
I write on acoustic guitar and rarely play electric, and when I do it's not loud and it doesn't have a much gain. The guitar player of a band I was developing/producing literally told me to stop playing his rig, because I sounded so bad at combat volume, hahaha. It will definitely tell on you!
Rick and Dave, this was just brilliant! I agree one thousand percent. Play guitar the organic way -- real amps, real pedals, real volume. Digital is fine, but can never produce the sound that touches us deeply. Thank you for the lesson, and peace and love to all!
I watch guys like Hendrix and Townshend on stage back in the day playing noisy single coils through dimed stacks of British steel and I’m constantly in awe of their mastery. The total control over the guitar and amp, the dynamics, the huge range of sounds they can get just by varying the volume, tone and pickups- with hardly any effects or signal processing, often playing off the acoustic dynamics of the venue, finding the perfect spot to stand onstage to get and control feedback, etc- is just amazing. They’ll even go back sometimes and adjust the amp itself to super overdrive in the middle of a song for a solo and then manually back down again afterwards without missing a beat. Or watch Stevie Ray change guitars in the middle of Look at Little Sister so quickly and cleanly- while singing- that you wouldn’t hear a difference or even know he did it if you weren’t watching. Those guys were playing a whole different way and with more direct and instant manual control over their sound compared to today’s digital modelers. Derek Trucks is someone who’s still doing it today in that old school way and showing similar mastery of tone control.
I’ve played through my crappy vtone for nearly 15 years now. Finger muting is essential with my amp. If I get over three on the volume knob it’s constant feedback. So I’ve learned to pull the gain and highs way down as I get louder. It’s a terrible amp really but it’s taught me so much in way of tone control. Like you guys hit on it earlier in the video about scooping mids. With my amp being a screachy pos I’ve resorted to using a lot more mids and honestly it’s been really good for developing a tone that is distinctly my own. Not many guitar players would think to dump all the lows and boost the mids for really heavy brutal metal but it honestly helps to make the notes come out and be heard over constant distortion fuzz you’d get with low tuning and heavy distortion. Excellent chat guys
Twenty years ago, I had custom-fit ear plugs made and they saved my hearing. Even though a pair will run you about $150, it's a small price to pay for your hearing. Go to an audiologist (or ENT) and get the ear molds made. They'll send 'em off to the place that makes the plugs and you'll be super glad you did it. Rock on.
...mmm I also bought custom made ear plugs ... they work OK for anything less than 100 Decibels but anything louder i must wear them with sound protection headphones OR my ear will ring for weeks !
Two stories: 1. I met a guitarist 2 decades ago who had a twin stack of Marshall Plexi clones (16x12!) in his two-car garage studio. I asked him to go ahead and set it all up. I was never going to hear that sound and i wanted to experience once. It combined a beautiful and glassy tone with a physical presence I had never truly heard before. It was amazing. 2. I am a bass player. I was in a band with a guitarist with a 120(?) watt Rivera (2x12). We played mainly little clubs. He was amazing, he sounded great, and he wore everybody else in the band out. The Rivera was set on the ground, went through his pant legs, and straight into our ears. We, the sound guys, and strangers three counties away kept telling him to turn down. He refused and explained he had to overdrive the power tubes to get his tone. In the spirit of compromise, I finally suggested that he could play as loud as he wanted if he agreed to point the Rivera at his head. He refused because it would damage his ears(!).
If you're in a club and you're too loud, you clear it! You play as loud as you need to be, not as loud as you want. My amp set up (vintage Music Man) allows me to play with the proper gain at any volume. The only thing you lose at low volumes is dynamics. I want the band I'm playing with to sound good as a whole. Not just me being too loud. Gotta entertain first!! If the crowd says you're too loud, turn it down.
It's a compromise. This video is talking about an ideal situation - studio, or a large stage where you can turn it up - but always, always play for the venue and your audience. I have been part of "that band" with a guitarist always on 11 and an old-school, all analog, half deaf sound guy. We ended up playing to mostly empty rooms because the crowd went outside or to another room. That's not a good way to get hired again. These days I'm happy go direct with a Tech 21 pedal instead of an amp, unless the stage and club are big enough to need it. Yes, it's not the same sound. No, most of the crowd doesn't care.
you think playing in a club is about good music, but it's not. you're there to play worn out main stream bullshit to drunk people. you're a beer salesman and nothing more. bar bands are nothing special. they don't need great tone. they don't need much talent. they just need to play the same crap everyone heard on their car radio on the way to the bar without fucking it up. no one is there to hear how good you play brown eyed girl. they came to drink, and find someone to fuck. bar owners know this, and it's why they hire deejays instead.
@@cheezyridr I've been playing in the Austin club scene for decades. Some clubs...sure, thats about it....others, they want quality. There are musician clubs here that cater to musicians that can really play. They come and go. At this point in my life, if I'm playing a club, I know going in what to expect now. I know in advance if I'm playing original music or covers.... I've also known since my Chicago bar days in the late 70's that I'm there to sell beer. How does the band do that? Draw a crowd. Which means don't chase them away. Sell beer for the club, band becomes popular, its been going on for decades.
@@MartinMCade Yes, you're right. Most of the crowd doesn't care. They just want to be entertained. Thats our job at the end of the day, isn't it? I show up knowing what I'm getting into.
@@larrydrozd2740 popular at what? selling beer for the club, that's what. there will always be outliers of any group. i live in a place that's the polar opposite of austin. want to start a band? better have a space to host. there are no rehearsal rooms here. try to rent a garage or something, and the second they find out what you're doing there, you're out on your ass. it's a musical black hole. yet, look through any classified section for musicians, and everyone wants to be the next big cover band. 98% of all the ads are posted by people who have no intention of writing original music for the sake of making music. after living in a place that had a great music scene (toronto) being a musician here sucks my soul out of me. if moving was an option, i'd be gone like smoke
I love to feel the vibrations of the music. My first concert was Led Zeppelin and I migrated up to the front near a stack and experienced a full body ecstasy moment that had me searching rock and roll the rest of my life. I lived in L A and worked a while in music and had to go to gigs sometimes more than one a night. The shows I have seen .... I am a lucky lucky human. This is my one and only comment, but I just had to say this in the simple way. What I heard and felt from 1969 to 1973 was the most high out of this body understanding of spirit and therefore those are my years (Was music better back in the day?) Thank you for your devotion and ability to communicate to so many . Your friend just talked about SRV and being loud. He prefered on the edge, not too loud but he wasn't in control of the board and each amp. But he is one of the guys I felt go thru me even if he wasn't in my prime years. This is a musician touching you, and if you can accept it, touching your soul.
Playing at those levels has been difficult over the course of my life. I started in 1972 with a Sears Silvertone. My parents, as cool as they were, would blow a gasket if I turned it up. I remember finding an MXR Distortion pedal, which helped. Then I got into the solid state stuff which allowed me to get a more cranked sound at "save my ass" volumes (Acoustic Controls, Yamahas then Gallien Kruegers). Then in college I would constantly get noise complaints as I turned it up. Then marriage... Then divorce, living in a townhouse. I have gotten so use to the lower controlled volumes, that playing loud (in a room) is hard to do. I am a dynamic player (palm muting, volume pedals, pick turning, don't use the volume on the guitar as much because it was always odd to move my hand away from the playing position as the volume control seemed far on my Les Pauls). Today, I have many tube amps and still play at low volumes. Turning an amp up, while not being very far from it, is so hard. I'll hear things I didn't, nor wanted to, hear before. Squeaks, rattle, hum, etc. It is hard to play like that when you were not able to most of your playing life.
Get an FM9 and you will hear incredible tones at SAFE decibel levels (under 70db.) You don't want to deal with ear issues- trust me on this and don't ask me how I know. I was once like you, now relegated to playing mostly completely unplugged- even then I wear an ear plug.
Absolutely correct about dialing back gain. All you have to do is take a sound you think is really good in the room and put it on a recorded track. On playback, you find that super-cool, super-heavy tone actually sounds pretty muddy and undefined.
I use a Mark V because it can do anything, from totally clean to more gain than anyone needs. Very high gain has its uses. Just listen to Carlos Santana (who the Mark series was basically designed for). Abraxas (very early example) and Moonflower (Europa) have a lot of prime examples. You can get infinite sustain, where the note “blooms” and the tone morphs, on the edge of feedback. Then there are things like tapping, legato, harmonics, etc…all better with high gain. “Shredders” Use It for a reason. But it is primarily for LEAD. I agree that for rhythm, riffs and so on, easing back on the gain is usually better. Also, preamp gain and power amp volume are not the same thing. Which is why master volume amps exist. Getting the right balance between the two is where you get your tone perfectly dialed in. As for playing loud in music stores…Dave is rare. Every time I’ve tried out an amp in a store, one of the staff has asked me to turn it down. I try to explain to them…you can’t really tell what it does until you turn it up a little…but they don’t care.
"As for playing loud in music stores…" Ages ago I was auditioning a 15 watt amp in a music store. I had it turned down both as a courtesy to others and because I am extremely self-conscious about my playing (home hobbyist). Another guy, apparently a friend of the owner/staff, proceeded to plug a PRS into a Marshall and crank it up to a level where I couldn't hear the amp I was hoping to buy. I walked out, never to return. The place went out of business shortly thereafter.
Yes, high gain has it’s uses to get certain tones and it’s okay to use it. Not everybody plays dynamic rock styles and they are not the ultimate reference. Of course dynamics allow expression and it’s harder to control them. But for example a cembalo is no very dynamic instrument, still interesting. Electric guitar tones variety is so big that it can feel like different instruments, every guitarist will choose his favorite.
I actually had a good salesman turn UP an amp I was trying out in a store once. Showed me it was actually a much louder amp than I needed. Today I like low powered tube amps for exactly that reason. They can be cranked and develop an interactive tone without shaking the walls. I know lower powered amps aren't the same as more powerful ones - less clean headroom for one thing - but they work best for me, especially for recording. Modelers are a good compromise too. Still, I totally agree about learning to control high volume. Learn to mute, play cleanly, and use your guitar's volume knob.
"As for playing loud in music stores…" Well, loud noise is disruptive, regardless of the fact you're in a music store. There are other people in there who need to talk and people who need to try their own instruments. Next time you want to turn the amp up, just politely ask the staff if it's OK to do so for a little while. If you're just going to crank up the amp at a random moment on your own volition without any regard for other people around you, don't be surprised if people insist you turn it down.
“As for playing loud In music stores” I always appreciate a store that has a separate room where you can crank it up, as well as an acoustic room where you can hear the nuance of those guitars.
This is where small tube amps come in handy in today's gigging environment. My current live rig is a princeton 65 with a 12 inch creamback, and a tweed deluxe clone with a jensen: two non-master, small tube amps that need to be cranked to get driven, but are totally controllable via guitar volume. No need for overdrive or distortion pedals, and if both are too loud for a particular gig, I just switch one off. It's a lightweight, portable rig that covers pretty much all the bases.
I've got a 50w Marshall master volume, even with a Torpedo dropping 20dB, it's a loud amp. 50w dropped by 20dB is the equivalent of a 0.5w amp. Half a watt, and I can still slay the neighbours.
It seems like most guitar players are going in the smaller rig direction, and if you need more volume a larger cabinet with more and/or more sensitive speakers will usually be more than loud enough. Even a Princeton Reverb head should be as loud as I'd ever need, then have various cabinets: 1x10, 1x12, 2x10, 2x12, 4x10, 4x12........maybe not all of them!
@@pharmerdavid1432 it is easier to lug around a 2x12 than a 4x12. But this does all depend on the kind of music you make. Most of the guitarists I know are still using the same amp in their 40s as when they were in their 20s, they seem to settle on an amp early on and learn how to make it work for different genres.
22:01 YESSS! Blackmore on Machine Head, for instance, was deceitfully clean. To me, huge volume feeds back into the guitar pick ups, allowing a beefed up symbiotic loop.
I just watched the documentary 'Making of Machine Head' :) and Roger Glover explained it so well, that quite a lot of the heaviness on that album comes from the distorted organ (Hammond through a cranked Marshall). The guitar is mostly rather clean or only just breaking most of the time.
I'm an oldhead. Stack 'em up and turn 'em up because I don't just want to hear it....I want to feel it. I have been to a few concerts where it was so loud that it was a bit painful, and I'll probably pay later down the road for it but it was fun. I saw Pink Floyd at the Oakland Coliseum for their Division Bell Tour and it was pretty loud but sooooo good.
21:44 discussion about their amps were really not that distorted-it was CLEAN! I had to pause the video and can literally hear may brains burst supernova. Getting into electric guitar and amplifiers requires learning its history knowing why they had to build these super loud amps paving way to distortion in modern rock music, development of dirt pedals, and amp modeling pedals/softwares. This, as a young student of rock n roll, confuses us, we try to emulate the sound of our heroes so much we just get loss into the abyss of tone chasing than the path of music theory and reach guitarvana. Love this discussion Rick and Dave!
I’ve learned how to use the volume knob early on… I remember being fascinated by the 90s british bands and I wanted that same tone, some guy said “you need a tube Marshall “ - this is before the internet. I got a cheap JTM30 and that thing begged to be cranked. Intuitively, you’d discover how many different sounds across the volume knob of your guitar.
I played every weekend for years in the early 2000's getting my cardio hefting a 4x12 cab up and down stairs, i could never run the volume past 2 without hurting people in small bars. I never pushed the amp into the zone where it really shined. Switched to a Soldano Atomic 16 and ran the volume around 7, sounded amazing and my back really appreciated it.
I'm 60. Played drums for 30 years. Totally agree. Have been wanting to play again. Have my 78' Ludwig Stainless still. And it sounds amazing, just very loud. Problem is most little bands now have barely any equipment on stage at all. Some have no amps or cabs or actual drums. The struggle is real. Oh man. Yes!! Do that amp full volume demo. Love it.
If you ever do decide to let subscribers come listen I would be there in a heartbeat. Ive been playing for less than a year but have been having the best time of my life. My dad used to build speakers when I was a kid. Now as a 51 year old woman getting back into music has been amazing!
Van Halen battled the volume thing for years though…he didn’t want to play that loud..he constantly was searching for ways to make that Plexi not so loud,from putting a moving blanket over the cab,to the variac,to pulling two tubes,etc…it was a constant battle….but volume was part of that sound…
I also think most folks fail to remember what Eddie Van Halen was doing when he was out playing and what 99.999999% of everyone else is doing are two totally different universes unless your next gig is for 20000 people. Listening/reading all these comments here form every Tom, Dick, and Harry relating to having to play as loud as Eddie Van Halen really highlights the blatant idiocy of this entire conversation. lol
@@anthonyjwilkerson I doubt Van Halen were playing any small club in the mid to late 1990's like they were talking about, but okay. I have no idea what you're trying to say tbh. You're trying to say that people enjoy having their eardrums blasted out? You can believe that, but it's a delusional belief by and large unless you're truly playing to a masochist's convention.
@@anthonyjwilkerson Oh, you're so erudite. GTFOH. You spew verbal diarrhea. Even in their "club days" they were playing for more people than most hacks play to in 3-5 gigs if they're lucky. Let me put it that way. I know there's a tape of them as kids playing a sold out Pasadena Convention Center which holds 600. You cannot relate to Eddie Van Halen on any level. Don't try.
@jpwjr1199 Well you defiantly brought serious value to this thread and due to your OBVIOUSLY qualified assessment, as the WIDTH and BREDTH of your resume and the evidence that you've SKILLFULLY articulated leaves zero room for any doubt by either the knowledgeable OR a blatant idiot. You really should be pinned to the top of this thread. Those of us with 100watt Plexi and JCM 800/900 stacks that watched this video and apparently only make up 0.000001% of active musicians REALLY care to hear more of your thoughts on these UNIVERSES you speak of....we are all definitely new here. I mean the collective life time experience of all us BLATANT idiots that you've so skillfully put back into our place must pale in comparison to all the gigs you've played over the last 40 years. I mean I've only been using this gear and adding to my knowledge on the subject since the mid 90's...so tell us, without getting too "erudite" (can't stand that verbal diarrhea!), what amplifiers are the PROs using in these small clubs? By "clubs" are you referring to the average venue or are these book store gatherings or are you basing all of this off the last show you played to your cat from the foot of you bed on your AX FX or Peavey RAGE? you know what....that is a dumb question. Wouldn't be worth your time to lower your self so far as to respond to such blatant idiocy. You are too smart for the regular internet.....there should be a place for guys like you to GTFOH to. I bet the gigs would be PACKED for guys like you there.
@@TheMadninjamike Look, your obliviating and attempts to ad hominem things doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of musicians that play "rock star" and needlessly lose their hearing doing so are not only engaging in largely unmusical behavior and musically incommunicative behavior, but also do so being rude to the patrons they're supposedly playing for. Oh yeah, and GTFOH!!
I’m a huge fan of low watt tube amps which you can crank without blowing the windows. I recently got a Mesa lonestar amp and it can be dropped from 30w to 15w to 5w and I always end up getting the best sound from 15w and 5w settings. Love that thing.
Very good to know. Alas, in my house, sound carries. I actually cannot make even a somewhat hearable sound come out of my amp without my wife hearing it upstairs while she is working remotely, or concentrating on one of her many side projects. I have to use headphones most of the time, and most tube amps don't seem to do that well.
@@seanbaines For me, isolation booths and studio rooms are not in my destiny. Babies who can’t be woken and a wife who needs to catch up on sleep is more my reality. That said, I am still a traditionalist and played for 30 years - I just can’t feel good without the natural compression of a glowing valve, a vibrating dusty paper cone set in motion by a piece of wire, a coil and a magnet. I can’t recommend the lonestar amps enough. For recording I have managed to get amazing sounds through the UAD Apollo interface and modelling but to get the feeling of moving air and just to feel good playing (that is what it is all about anyway), it has to be a valve amp.
@Sean Baines…. Consider using an attenuator. Bugera makes one for like $100. You can spend a lot more on an Ox or Torpedo, but this gets the job done. I have a 100w Marshall with a 4 x 12… I can CRANK it without peeling the paint off the walls.
@@alexander_winston I'd looked at attenuators. I hadn't seen any that were affordable for me. I'm not familiar with Bugera yet. Guess I'll check it out at some point. Thank you.
I agree 100%. Kids today (I'm 51) don't have to struggle to find a decent tone like we used to. I still to this day constantly fiddle with knobs on the amp and the guitar, trying to find the ever elusive perfect tone for me. You guys are right too in that playing an amp set for stun is just an experience that cannot be replicated any other way.
This happened to me seeing GNR and Aerosmith at Alpine Valley a loooooong time ago. Was in row three in front of Slash. My right ear is toasted. I actually had to moved 20 rows back for the main act and my buddy couldn't have been happier....and I was most grateful!!
As the gear manager and meeting organizer for my college's jam club, I can tell you that every single guitar player, and drummer agree with your message for better or for (usually) worse.
I've seen Junior Brown play small clubs with a Fender Twin turned all the way up. He could be loud and crunchy at times, but mostly of the time it was under control at a reasonable volume. He was using the guitar volume or a volume pedal to control the tone and level, brilliant!
Possiblty one of the greatest players doing loud was Gary Moore. Emotion and power, yes but able to take it right down to a whisper. Glorious tone he also utilised off stage Soldano amps as well. What a player who gets not nearly enough recognition. I do wish Americans had heard more of him - outrageously beautiful sound.
Believe me, us (I) Americans know Gary through Thin Lizzy and of course his band and what a guitar player he was!! Still have the Blues from his passing.
@@michaelgreen5206 I think you meant Thin Lizzy but very glad you had heard some of his music - he didn't travel overmuch to the USA and his fusion playing with Colosseun II and later blues period showed what a diverse player/career he was/had. Left everything on the stage whenever he played - most amazing live guitarist., Most of my US musician friends are surprised that he didn't;t make their radar so I am pleased that there are folks like you who have heard his stuff. 👍
I'm listening to this with my guitar strapped on and plugged into my plexi - but with my Power Station to tame it. It's great to experience the rapidly increasing dynamics as I both decrease the attenuation (vol increases) and decrease the gain of my pedal(s). It's a marvelous thing and as you guys are saying, volume and tone knobs are constantly in motion. And on another note (hey, a pun!), on any Les Paul/SG type guitar with twin vol/tone knobs, the variety of tones you can get when you're blending both pickups is a great art that I don't see many players doing. For rhythm, I can easily back off the vol/tone of bridge pickup, along with the neck vol down, and then simply swell the bridge vol to take a solo. It's so effective.
I saw Eric Johnson live (about 15 feet from his position onstage) switch between a pair of vintage Fender combos and a vintage Marshall stack. Surprisingly his stage volume was reasonable and the balance was handled by the house sound guys. This was Mexicali Blues in Northern New Jersey. The takeaway for me was that you could wail as if you had huge stacks and yet be balanced as far as dynamics was concerned. And I heard every note Eric sang.
My observations: Pete Townsend was an early master of using the volume control on the guitar to control the amount of gain. As to Pat Methany, his New Chautauqua album is another master class I. Dynamics. Michael Hedges was spectacular at it as well.
I don't deny the skills needed to play well at high volumes, I do however question whether it's worth doing in the long run. I, like many, now deal with tinnitus and hearing loss that, for the rest of my life, will adversely effect my playing and listening of the thing I love more than anything other than my family. Dave's Van Halen story here is the biggest take away from this post.
I got that gift too- isn't it fun? I play mostly unplugged these days at very low volumes and never with a group. At least we can still play...just quietly!
Agree 100%. Dynamics, cranked amps, and finding tones using your guitar’s volume knob to get there are all important. One thing I think is worth talking about is the part treble bleed circuits/capacitor values play in achieving this.
I really enjoyed this episode! Dynamic playing is so important and seems to get lost over the last decades for several reasons that were well explained in this video. Playing loud in a Rock band is as much art and as impressive as playing with/in a full symphonic orchestra. It’s a physical experience that creates emotions for the player and thereby also for the listener! If you take the volume away, you reduce the amount of possible dynamic… If volume is limited too much, it’s getting to a point of “useless”. Real drums as real amps are like real grand pianos and violins - these instruments can speak with their natural dynamic from lo to hi volumes. Don’t let us musicians being castrated… enjoy the power of expression! Greetings 🖖 Thomas Blug
Excellent as always Rick and Dave! I loved the emphasis on dynamics which is extremely important not only for a guitar player but also for the entire band. This is hard to even think about when you are young, as you just want to play...just pound it out man! However, as you say no dynamics makes the song boring, screws the singer and loses the audience. Every guitar player in any band should realize you are supporting the singer. If the singer sucks, then the band sucks no matter how good the guitar player. Good singer, good back up vocal harmonies from the players and you will get gigs.
“Lower gain” louder just sounds more interesting and you can hear the unique timbre of an instrument and it really helps you have defined chords and single notes while being aggressive digging in
Talking about playing loud, I was listening to a live performance by Gary Moore earlier today, the dude was literally pushing the amp to the limits and controlled it all with his guitar.
I saw a lot of very loud bands in the 70s and 80s. One, I think it was a band called Trapeze, was so loud that my beer fell off the table when the guitarist hit the first chord. My ears were ringing for a week. I saw Queen about a dozen times - they were loud and produced a completely encompassing sound. But it wasn’t painful!
I was kicked out of a rock/blues band for being "too loud" a year ago for having my volume on my old blackface 50 watt Fender Bassman at 1-1/2 and my volume knob on my guitar set at close to zero, or in other words my valves were barely opening. Until I was unceremoniously kicked out I was in a state of torture. Since then I've joined a band, and though it's not a terribly loud one I now set my volume at 7 and use my Tele's volume knob to control my tone and exactly how loud I'm getting. My distortion pedal is now used for tone instead of volume boost, and it's absolutely wonderful hearing the air move and overtones now that my amp is allowed to be itself. Thanks for posting this Rick. You proved in spades what I was already thinking.
I love playing loud and controlling the tone with the volume knob; i even use smaller amps to make that less painful. Recently though I have been working with more and more sound guys who want barely audible stage volume and chastise me for "self mixing" and "making" them ride my fader... sigh. It's written off as "guitarists just want to be loud" rather than an integral part of the musicianship. So on those gigs i end up with the guitar volume on 10 and constantly dancing on pedals to get the same effect as straight in with a volume knob. :-/
When did these fucking so called “sound men” get to be in charge? They mostly want every band to sound like a heavy metal band. Even if they play jazz or funk.
Sound guy here; guitar player also. Look, it's very simple: My PA has to compete with your amp if you play too loud. I can't put you in the mains, which means I can't actually 'mix' you with the rest of the band. So use some common sense. If you're playing a 200 seat bar, do not bring me a Marshall fucking stack and expect to dime it out. Get a combo amp or have a separate, smaller cabinet built so you can open up the amp wattage wise without decapitating the first ten feet in front of the stage. Some sort of baffle, kick-back legs, etc. are all good ideas as well. *The band is the CD. The PA is the stereo.* All I want from you is tone and enough volume to fill up my mic. If you want to play a Marshall double stack dimed out on stage, work hard to get popular enough to play 5K seat venues. *I'm not saying this to be mean - **_it's simple physics._*
I remember that ol' adage, "If it's too loud, you're too old." Now at my age, nearing 50, I've discovered the tone of my playing really opened up when I turned my amp down. I was overwhelmed by the sound and color of my guitar and how it came to life when I let it breath, and it dawned on me. I was like, huh Nigel had the wrong idea. Just because the amp can go to 11 doesn't mean it has to. Mind blown. Thanks, gentlemen for the insightful chat. Happy New Year to one and all. Cheers
Great topic! I'm 59 and played loud when I was learning and never really thought about muting, but learned to mute as I went along to get rid of the noise that happens when playing loud. I had a 2x12 Marshall Master Lead solid-state, which only got the "Marshall" sound cranked (not really like a tube Marshall, but pretty great and the sound guy hated me for not backing off full volume because of the stage volume, but how could I? It sounded like a Fender when it was less than maxed). I "mastered" muting almost without thinking about it, just to make the loudness sound better and cleaner. I noticed playing in bands that some guitar players don't even realize how much amp noise they're allowing when they play. I think they practice at low volume and never had to fight the noise at high volume as they learned. It was fun listening to your thoughts on this topic!
Everywhere has gone to direct or silent stages and I am so disassociated with music now. Everything is so homogenized with modeling or quiet amps. I don't even like playing guitar anymore, find myself not practicing and even a bit depressed from it. I don't know what happened that everyone got so sensitive about volume. I never played blistering loud but loud enough the amp worked and made you a better player. The amp was always like another instrument. I miss that and really feel disenfranchised with the whole thing now. I'm glad you did this video. Thank you.
I have a 15watt Vox AC and a few pedals. I tend to play the amp about 3/4 and use my overdrive pedal to get most of my gain with my valves adding colour, in combination with using volume on my guitar 🎸. I find this combination gives me the tone I like and the ability to have well defined notes and sustain. Also it doesn’t make my ears bleed.
I have a Vox AC15 and they’re a loud little beast. I keep the volume down there as well. Any time I regret not buying an AC30 I remember how loud the AC15 is.
Love this!!!!! I have been talking about this for years and its a big part of the feel of rock music missing is everything being played direct in the box. The dynamic range is small, when you have a loud amp the range is huge and it doesn't sound or feel the same. Let's be Clear NO ONE is talking about solid state amps here!! Half the learning was gear. Now you click your mouse no noise, no problems, direct in quiet, but way less learning. Something to be said about not having tinnitus i guess, i wouldn't know.
I'm only 38 and I have some pretty solid tinnitus already from playing and going to lots of shows since I was 21. It sucks and at times gets maddening, and after seeing an audiologist 2 years ago mine isn't nearly as bad as other people she sees. It affects my ability to play in my current band. I've gone through some different ear filters, and like the ones I have, but it greatly affects my ability to sing harmony (yea I can hear myself great! Rest of the vocals...notsomuch) and changes the way I hear my guitar out of the amp. And not for the better, I can't react to the sweetness of the tone like I can at bedroom volume with no plugs. It's a scary thing, and I hope with constant ear protection I can keep it from getting much worse. But point is: protect your ears, and start early. Who cares if someone notices and thinks you look lame when 30 years later you're suffering from it.
For me, volume is all about sustain. If I turn the amp up to where the pickups interact with the speakers, it’s much more organic and smooth. Otherwise, I am having to add distortion on the front end, which can be abrasive.
I rarely cranked an amp for more than a few seconds at a time, throughout my 50+ years of playing because there was always someone close by (family, other tenants, my dog). So I missed out. I still have my '65 Sears Silvertone Twin Twelve. Recently, when no one else was at home, I cranked it and was amazed to discover how great it sounded. Better late than never.
This is very interesting, and touches on stuff that, in my slightly-more-than-beginning Intermediate stage of learning, I am starting to try and learn to control and take advantage of. I am starting to experiment, for example, with how to use the volume and tone knobs on my guitars to alter expression part way through a piece. I also now have a new practice amp - just a moderate price digital amp with multiple amp models and a software suite. But it is reputed to be pretty tailorable, and useful for teaching one the basics of how to modify one's amp sound. Certainly I find it more tailorable than my old one. So now I am watching this, and lapping it up. And just yesterday, Rhett dropped a video on how to dial in an amp. It was about tube amps, the stuff about finding what range your volume and gain knobs give you to work with, and where your EQs really open up, definitely applies to this amp, even though it is digital. So all this is just gold for me right now. The Three Amigos have done it again!
Not to be an amp snob, but a lot of what this video, and Rhett’s, are talking about really dont apply to digital modeling amps. The compression they are referring to is tube compression. Digital amp modeling is great for a lot of things (especially getting a lot of sounds as a beginner) but if you’re into this idea, get yourself a tube amp. (It doesn’t have to be 50 or 100 watts, either…a 15 watt Princeton or something works)
@@marcsullivan7987 The stuff I am focussing on seems to. Right now, I am following the collective suggestions to learn how to make use of my various pots, both on amp and guitar, to shape things. Both videos give some ideas on how to do that, and I am getting some interesting results. It's a good exercise. Might some of it be different on a tube amp? Very possibly. But part of the point of all this is to learn how to explore, so that whatever new gear you are faced with, you can figure out. So I'm starting. This has helped.
The first Marshall I bought was from a local music store a buddy of mine worked at. They had a “clinic” room. Kind of an auditorium. They had several Marshall’s lined up. They were getting rid of their rentals. He just told me to grab a guitar go in there, close the door and crank one up. It was wonderful
I learned how to control amps by “growing” through a series of amps that were successively larger and more “pro-level”. I’m talking small Peavey poverty box amps up through my first 212 solid state combos up to my first half stacks. It’s a lost art these days. Another huge leap forward to me was moving up through guitar quality and pickups. I was searching for my path into better gear, in order to find guitars that didn’t screech and squeal. Guess what I discovered when I had better gear? I discovered how sloppy my playing was! Back to the drawing board lol.
Talking about high gain dynamics, you reminded me about Mattias Eklundh. That's s why i also use Ernie ball volume pedal. The MVP version is great, no more treble loss when lowering volume , unlike common guitar volume knob. You can push more gain for sustaining leads or pinch harmonics. Subtract gain for clarity, during chords and arpeggio . Hence, making your playing more clear and dynamic. During pause, back it off to zero to prevent amp feedback. This pedal will save your money on noise gate too. No more tap dancing for gain. No loss trying out good things!
I suspect Steve Vai has increased the treble in his tone over time due to high frequency hearing loss. I saw him live in 2012 and was near the stage. The ear-splitting treble of his distorted amp made his playing nearly unlistenable for me. With earplugs in everything was just muddy, so I wasn’t able to enjoy the performance as much as I had hoped. His musical performance was Amazing, but the excessive treble made it difficult to enjoy. Hearing Dream Theater live was fantastic sound. A cranked amp off-stage completely being heard through the mains mixed in with the rest of the band was awesome. It was loud, but not painful 😂
Saw Vai as part of G3 with Lukather and Satch in 2012. Lukather's mix was straightforward. Vai's mix was, well, it seemed really bad. Satch, who finished the show, had an absolutely perfect mix. As an amateur muso there would be occasions where a mixer would favour their friend's band over the other support acts. Surely this wasn't the case here!? I was disappointed with the sound of Vai's set. Had seen so many professional videos of Vai's live shows with great mixes but this was, sheesh, trebly and didn't have much mids to it.
Why not have one output for the player and one for the technician. So the player can hear what they want and the audince to get a mix that is more appealing to non abused ears.
JP's Boogies have more than a little to do with that. I have an old Boogie like the one his signature amps are bassed on, and it's hard to make it shriek with painful treble. Always sounds thick and beefy. :-)
Great and very valid points but I was waiting for you to mention one additional thing: High watt amps are not designed to be played at bedroom level. I am sure the full tone and timbre the designers and builders had in mind for the amp only comes into play at proper levels. Especially the speaker.
I bought a Mesa Fillmore 100 combo in 2018-19 and brought it home and plugged in my Epiphone Sheraton II, no pedals, and cranked it up about 3/4. Wow, what a monster. The top of the Epi was vibrating and resonating...it was almost alive. It sounded fantastic and MADE me play both the guitar and the amp. They were acoustically coupled and it sounded so sweet. Too bad you can't do that live with a bar band anymore.
That feeling when the guitar comes alive in your hands is sooo good. I felt that early on, playing crappy little shows but on older wooden stages that resonated nicely. Totally set the hook for me.
Your channel is a treasure trove, and I sure hope some of the younger generations take heed and makes use of the resource you have created. My dad was a small time studio engineer/producer when I was coming up in the 80's, and I got such a leg up over most folks because of my access to him and his experiential knowledge. Rick is like listening to my Dad talk, but with substantially more knowledge. Seriously: viewing any of Rick's content is time well spent for anyone serious about music.
Great discussion! I was just playing around with it and looking for a Plexi and your video popped up. I have a couple of loud lower watt amps and an Axe fx3. I find that cranking the amp and playing off the guitars volume control gives you your own tone and is very dynamic. Thanks for the video!
And even without massive volume, if you're not muting the strings you don't want to ring out, it's gonna sound like s. Essential for good playing. Great video as always!
Love hearing Yngwie get spoken of on the channel. I think Dave mightn’t have seen the whole signal chain. There would’ve been a booster in that signal chain. The NS-2 and a DOD250 or 308 is a no-compromise Yngwie necessity.
So glad you adjusted the title of this to include "protect your hearing". I know from real experinece that when the high frequencies go, they don't come back. And by the way, all music sounds colored when you wear hearing aids.
I've found a happy medium by using a 20 watts tube head with a closed back 2x12. It sounds well at home volumes, and with the master around 6-7 it's loud onstage but not insanely so. I find no point at pushing the volume envelope beyond that, I like lower stage volume even for heavy music.
Terrific video, and great timing for me personally. I've been realizing more and more that my playing is not where I want it to be because I've never learned enough to play guitar loud. Watching Paul Gilbert recently talk about muting was an absolute revelation for me.
Loved this episode Rick and Dave. One of my first amps was a late 60's Fender Twin, and aside from the occasional AM radio station coming through the speakers, that thing was my tone nirvana. Also, a little Mesa 50 caliber were best, because both had a distinctive wallop characteristic. Would love to see an episode detailing and/or characterizing "wallop" - maybe the waveform view in Pro Tools could visually show and represent the harmonics and envelope of it. Of course, muting and other playing style aspects would change the envelope. But maybe some simple and repeatable technique of lifting a mute over the strumming area could make the technique repeatable and see how fast the preamp reacts to the sudden presence of a note - think IR. Great discussion. Thanks!
I agree. There's magic in playing near the amp/speakers, finding the right angle to keep it in control, and using the volume knob to fine tune it. Watch some live footage of Hendrix, EVH or SRV for a masterclass in volume knob usage.
Well, I don’t think he was doing Butch Vig’s job or anything, but Rick has mentioned a few times that Dave was at least working at the studio when that album was being recorded.
This is a great subject And i dont mean to repeat what was so eloquently discussed. But srv played vancouvers commodore ballroom in 86 ....i wasnt of age yet. But i went down and im not kidding when i say. I could clearly hear him for a 4 block radius in every direction. It made a lifetimes impression on me
Dave was absolutely right about Eddie's sound throughout the years. It just got more and more gainey and buzzsawy as time went on. From vh3 and that tour on
Two of my favorite tones of all time…….Led Zeppelin Communication Breakdown and James Gang Funk #49. Both recorded on small amps with a Tele. It doesn’t always have to be loud to be great. A Les Paul may look cool slung low on stage, but the Tele has the bite that has produced many a great rock and roll tone!
Great show. I am an electric player since 1970. BandMaster, 1972 50 Watt Marshall. Used to have the 8x10 bottom, now 4x12. Play a Schroeder amp with two 12 and a VibroKing with the three 10 plus the 2x12 cab. Nothing like moving air. NOTHING! Also play a lot of slide guitar. Muting with both hands, controlling the volume with the pick attack and using the volume knob on my guitar are all "Tools" of my playing. I play the amps together or in different combinations or alone. Play it loud.
Yes, playing loud and practicing loud simply makes you a better player. You learn how to control everything that emits from your guitar and control is everything. And you sure are right about those amps. There is nothing in the world that sounds better than a "cooking" Marshall dimed. As a matter of fact...that's the only way to get a Marshall to sound right lol.
The biggest challenge for modern guitarist (including me now) is playing in a modeler/IE world trying to get the loud amp/guitar interaction. I dont care how great it sounds it just doesn't "feel" right. I miss playing my Mesa Boogie Mark lllc though a 4x12. It didn't have to play super loud, but once you hit the sweet spot, it was glorious. The "pop" from single note runs is where I want to live. Now I use compression all the time to get the tone and feel right through my Headrush. I've gain so much appreciation for great compression now!
Interesting topic and talk. At least I think so, it was hard to hear you guys over my tinnitus. OK, I kid my tinnitus isn't quite that bad. Although I have to confess, I have some reservations about anything encouraging guitarists to crank it up louder for the tone. Too much experience in guitars too damned loud; it's not just about the ear punishment and damage, either. (I mean, e.g., if it's a live gig and the drummer wants the drums in the monitors so they can hear themselves, the guitar(s) might be way too loud. I know, I get it, I understand why, and this isn't just about being an old guy (past 60), I thought the same things when I was, like, 25. I've always looked for ways to try to get the sound without the massive volume; I remember way back when I first found out about van Halen's variac trick, I thought "that's brilliant, what a great idea, this guy is thinking!". But there is a little problem with the discussion. I'm talking about you guys badly misusing the word "gain". Gain is an electronics term. In simplest form, it's a ratio, some multiplying factor comparing the output level of an amplifier circuit (of any kind) to the input level. If an amplifier circuit has a gain of some number X, that means at any given instant, the amplitude of an output signal (whether you're measuring power, voltage, or current) is X times the amplitude of the input signal. In common practice amplifier gain will often be addressed by taking that input/output ratio and expressing it in terms of decibels. The problem is that you guys are badly misusing the term in a way loads of guitar players do, and you doing it, in a setting where education is a main thing, it's a bad thing to take a term that is used often and help to perpetuate and propagate more misuse of the word, by people who pick up on things like its use here and then misuse it themselves, and out it spreads. It was especially grating when you were talking about varying the volume control on the guitar and talking about this changing "gain". Gain is not involved there. If you have a guitar with active electronics, then, alright, there is an amplifier circuit in there and you will be varying the gain of that. Otherwise, no. You will vary the output level of the signal coming out the output jack of the guitar, but that's not changing gain. If you're doing nothing other than turning the guitar volume knob up and down, you are not changing gain anywhere in the system. Volume is not "gain". The amount of clipping and resulting harmonic distortion is not "gain". Being an old fart an watching how things have gone in electric guitar world for decades, I think some of this might have started when people started having separate volume knobs in a guitar amp to adjust preamplifier stage gain and power amplifier stage gain ("master") separately, so you could wind up the preamplifier gain to drive the snot out of the power amp input and smash it into the ceiling of clipping, while turning down the power amp section gain to lower the level where it would go into saturation and clipping and harmonic distortion, while reducing the volume level coming out of the speakers (notably, the early Mesa Boogies). That's not the only example, of course... running through a distortion pedal, you can try to get a tone maybe something like a clipping guitar amp by having two amplifier circuit stages in the box, with the first having really high gain and then that overdriving the input of a second amplifier circuit stage in the pedal, producing clipping, but maybe with an output amplitude level coming out of the distortion pedal roughly similar to the level when it's bypassed (or maybe not). The gain increase in that scenario is in the first stage of the pedal's circuitry. As I said, you might adjust everything, in that kind of case, so that you get the massive harmonic distortion, but maybe with the same overall volume coming out of the speakers, more or less. I'm just saying, don't use the word "gain" unless you actually MEAN "gain". This might seem like pedantic nitpicking to some people, but understanding and using words as what they actually mean is important. Otherwise, things just turn into a Tower of Babel of confusion.
Always great to listen to you guys, even if it's casual chat it is a gold mine of information ! Do you have tips to protect your ears while playing loud without losing too much of the sound texture ?
I have.a studio in a building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. small space. I have a Marshall JCM 800 combo and a Fender Deluxe, and I just recently acquired the Boss Tube Amp Expander. Rick, have you ever used a reactive load attenuator? IT'S INCREDIBLE. Now I can crank the Marshall, preamp or power amp side, and it doesn't destroy my ears. Guitarists still feel like they're playing a loud amp. Anyway, again, curious if you have any insight or experience working with attenuators. I'm a convert! Thanks for all you do and Happy New Year!
The spirit of your conversation and the nature of phenomenology share a duality, and liminality of space ... SOUND as discussed, creates space, an ease of mind and maybe even a meditation on one's life ... . Pushing air maybe no bad thing ... .
I have been interested in the Fender deluxe reverb tone master. You can crank it up and get the gain etc. you want but it has a switch in the back and you can reduce the volume drastically and still have the sound of cranking it to 11. I do realize this is not a tube amp but what Fender has done with the modeling is pretty amazing.
I always hear people with lots of experience and knowledge talk about using the volume knob on the guitar a lot but I just never even thought that way. As the lead singer and only guitarist in a punk band I just used the volume knob for on and off.
Important Note: Always wear hearing protection! I record the amps from the control room with the cabinet in an isolation booth. I have custom made earplugs that don’t change the tone but bring it down 20db
I can't justify the cost of custom earplugs, but for about 15 years have used Etymotic Research ER20 earplugs - so helpful, and not at all costly.
Rick, I honestly am a bit confused by this - I'm a keyboard player and a drummer and can't imagine guys you've had on like Pat Metheny or Dominic Miller (or Vinny Colaiuta for that matter) would agree or even relate to this. The main problem I have with it is that everyone's a God in their own mind - the Dunning Kruger effect is greatest in many musicians, especially part time musicians, who play loud to assuage their ego instead of serving the music.
And there's no way you can play to the point where ear protection is mandatory and insist that you're serving the music. Bullshit. No fucking way.
I think isolated stories of good, loud playing need to be taken in context, the Malmsteen story notwithstanding (whether I dig him or not). If your band is playing the Garden, yeah, I suppose you're going to have the opportunity to really crank shit up in that size hall. But if you're cranking up to max for a hall that's 500 or under people, it's obnoxious.
In addition, if you're playing loud on purpose for some sort of distortion effect in your own mind, I'm sure you'll want the monitor mix to match the mix of the room/house, and your fellow, non-string, folk will really appreciate that. lol
Another word of caution, you slowly slip into the world of playing music, before you know it you're 200-400 gigs into your musical obsession with no protection and doing irreperable damage. The music is a lot louder on stage than out front but you don't notice as you're only listening to the frequencies that concern you to do your job so you let everything slide, if your hearing is poor in the first place like mine it's worse as you need to hear it even louder. Thankfully i never got tinnitus so that's a consolation, plus I can completely ignore my wife when I lay down in bed on my left side and sleep in silence
@@jpwjr1199 Dunning Kruger...well, most musician are of the left and it goes with the territory.
As a pilot I use HEAROS Xtreme earplugs. Just a few bucks and they drop 20db or so. When practicing the drums at home I use them and a headset to keep the noise level down but to still hear what I need but I am a bit of an outlier as I am really noise sensitive.
I am shocked at how careless/cavalier musicians are with their hearing. It's not funny to be forced into the isolation of deafness.
As an audiologist and guitar player, I would also emphasize the importance of hearing protection if you're playing at high volumes for extended periods. Trust me, you really don't want to end up with permanent hearing loss or tinnitus.
So right ,I had perfect hearing till a accident in a studio and loss it in a split second. Tam
Can you recommend a product/brand of hearing protection for musicians?
@@mrunconventional Short of getting custom-fit earplugs, I would recommend Westone's TRU Universal WM16 or (for more attenuation) WM25.
@@bigsby1 thanks for that. I'll check them out.
I have tinnitus worse than Rick, as a direct result of standing next to 100w valve heads going through 4x12 cabinets. And I wore ear protection.
as a 16 year old that has only been playing for about 2 years, this is such a lighting moment for me to see that there is more that I can do to make my sound more special to me without effects and bring back stuff they did in the 80's and 90's cause becoming a musician I one of my biggest dreams, and I love music so much and I am so blessed to be given this knowledge from these great people such as you Rick and Dave, and I think this will help me become a better guitar player/ multi musician in the future.
You have a very good attitude! I think you'll be a great musician!
Just be aware that you are entering a very crowded space of impossibly talented and skilled guitar players. You've got to do it for love. If being a pro Muso is of high importance to you, switch to bass, where there is always a shortage/demand.
But me...I love he guitar too much to switch to bass! I would rather be an amatuer guitarist than a pro bass player. But you may be different..🤷
@@lueysixty-six7300 well thanks and I already have that thought out as well for I have a bass, drums, and piano. And I practice them everyday.
@@ashlarreign7850 Never give up dude, that's all I gotta say. Good luck!!
@@ashlarreign7850 As a fellow 16 yr old tryna become a better musician, I feel ya! Keep going, never give up, good luck!
As a side note, if you start playing and you notice that you are finding your amp is becoming less loud or less treble-ly or less gainy. Take a break. It’s your ears, not your amp. It only gets worse until you cause damage.
It's ear fatigue. I've experienced it - you start a gig with everything balanced, good mix, good monitors, you can hear yourself. By the end everything sounds like mush and it's hard to hear yourself. Everyone starts turning up or adjusting EQ trying to hear themselves and it ruins the overall mix.
The lessons I have learned over the years is to leave it alone - trust your sound engineer. Yes, your ears will get fatigued and things won't sound right. But practice learning to play even without hearing everything clearly. It's a skill, but as you develop it (And as band members get used to it) things will sound better.
@@MartinMCade yes, I have walked in to a club at the end of the night. Sound man kept tweaking the eq over the course of the night. Treble was blowing my head off. Made the mistake of recording a demo of 5 songs over the course of a weekend back in the 80’s. Engineer had the treble so high in the mix that the tape we received was awful. Too much music and no rest for the ears.😉
From a guy with a bad case of self-inflicted tinnitus, play loud but protect your hearing. The 24/7 ringing in my ears is nothing you want any part of….
Ditto dude, ditto. I don't wish this tinnitus on anyone. Protect your ears!
Watch out for drummers cymbals and snare drum they will damage your ears very fast. Same goes for using headphones/earphones very careful.
It's the drummers cymbals, not your amp.
Yep I’m 46 years old, 30 years of working as an auto mechanic, 34 years of guitar playing with 20 of those years playing out having my ears ring 24/7 definitely sucks and could’ve been avoided
Same. It's getting worse. But I don't do loud anymore.
Still it's there.
Constant. Changing pitches. Can be irritating.
Speaking of playing loud but not hearing any mistakes or sloppy notes... Rory Gallagher stands out massively in this regard and I'd be grateful for any future video focusing on this Artist.
The best live conserts i ever seen!
Rory was the man!!!
I agree with every statement in this thread. :D
It was Rory that showed Brian May his AC30 and treble boost. That's how Brian got his sound. Rory was one of the true greats.
@@alecr666x you're absolutely right ... luckily there's a Rory Gallagher International Tribute Festival in Ballyshannon ( where he was born) every year ... and yes, I've been there many times
Hearing you two talk about EVH losing parts of his hearing reminded me that years ago, when Ed was still married to Valerie. He did an interview with either Guitar World or Guitar where he said his doctor had told him a specific part of his hearing was missing, and it also happened to be in the same hertz range of the female voice, so he couldn't hear Valerie when she was yelling at him.
Jimmy Page knew how to vary his guitar tracks.I still listen to Song Remains The Same, Rain Song and Black Dog every day.Which leads you back into Zep again and again.Not sloppy , just superb.
FYI: The majority of audible compression in a high-power tube guitar amp, is caused by the output transformer saturating magnetically. Transformers are insanely complex devices, although at first glance one wouldn't think so. I have a textbook three inches thick on just the subject of transformer magnetic theorem. There is also a soft gain limit controlled by the DC bias, which affects the power tubes only. Always best to get your bias adjusted by a good/ experienced guitar amp tech. It's sorta like getting the timing done on your car. Following a stated number for this voltage is NOT a great way to do it. It varies with the characteristics of whatever output tubes you are using. It's best done with a signal generator set at 800Hz to 1Khz and the levels set to whatever gives you a good-looking clean sine wave at the maximum. Tone controls to 12 oclock/ master vol full. I forget to mention that this is done and measured with a high power load resistor ( R value matching the speaker impedance setting) substituted for the speaker- 1Khz at full power is annoying, not to mention damaging to the hearing. Once the various levels are set to give maximum power output and a clean sine wave, on the oscilloscope (monitoring the load resistor) one can see the effect of changing the bias voltage trimmer. The crossover distortion (which sounds like crap and occours as the sine wave crosses zero) gets minimized and the sine wave will also clip symmetrically (top and bottom) when you adjust the sig gen output. You adjust the gains to approach the maximum output around and before the actual clipping point when making these measurements. This results in a very full, punchy performance when you set the amp controls normally, when you later test the amp with a guitar into a speaker. For example, It makes that big, fat "thud" when muting low notes. Note to techies: this is the short version. Note to amateurs trying this at home. A Marshall 100 watt will have 600 volts DC sitting on the power capacitors even after you turn it off- very dangerous!!!! I have melted a few screwdrivers on the bench after doing this for over 50 years. Not to mention heart-lurching/ arm-muscle contracting shocks- I'm lucky to be alive!
Good man. I someone is reading THIS deep into the comments, there really should be some actual "science behind the voodoo" talk...both for the purposes of enlightening the young'uns coming up
AND
for the tech that's TRYING to explain to "the HAMMERHEADS" why that, while they may be confident beyond hope of bringing them "back to school" and helping the world by reducing the ever expanding hordes of players whose idea of tone shaping is: Buy expensive pedals, turn knobs to 11, wail on the strings, repeat.... never bothering to understand HOW equipment works ("that's for nerds who can't play to know so I can pay THEM to fix my stuff"), that they are indeed completely unqualified to touch their own gear and attain a "GOOD" sound.
LOUDER does equal more dynamic control (if you use your gear right and can ride your guitar's knobs skillfully), But usually it more often means more damage to your gear and everyone's ears.
If you haven't tech'd your gear and are playing on the tubes that came with the head 15 years ago ( probably biased cold for longevity from the factory... ), cranking it to 11 and hammering the input with OD (also knobs to 11...) and a noise gate clamping all the way to kill the sound of the ocean mixed with static...well you won't ever read this far, so I have no fear in saying that you are TOO dumb to grow beyond "caveman guitarist" and dynamics isn't a word in your vocabulary.
barring that...this video hits it on the head in terms of tone quality from the perspective of a producer/engineer, but should REALLY balance out with YOUR explanation about tube bias settings. The fact that there IS a "dark art" in amplifier calibration that caters to things like the subtle varying component values from amp to amp (even between two of the same model of amp) and the matching of tube pairs when adjusting bias on a tube head.
another thing that could be mentioned that I am not seeing is the difference of OUTPUT between a 100w half stack driving one 16 ohm 4x12 vs one 4ohm 4x12 (or two 16ohm 4x12 vs two 8ohm 4x12 ). full 100 watts rating on a standard Marshall head is only if you are running at the 4 ohm minimum, and so won't fully saturate the output tubes and the output won't be driven as hard with only a 16ohm load, meaning less strain on the gear, less BANG to your ear and could be a factor when considering the final bias tuning.
This is amazing. Thank you! I'd always assumed it was just the tubes becoming saturated creating all of the compression. I guess that's why they say the output transformers are such an integral part of the sound when recreating older amps
@Tessmage Tessera YESSSSS! more Marshall mods should be discussed and explained in a future vid IMO
@Tessmage Tessera don't forget keeping one hand behind your back when probing around so there isn't a path across you heart if you accidently DO get a wicked bite
Good info, but a transformer is not "complex", its coils of wire, with a difference in windings between the two.
Great discussion! Playing through a real amp is one of those things I took for granted growing up. For years I’ve been playing through amp sims and studio monitors, as most apartment dwellers do. It wasn’t till a recent visit back home that I busted out the ole hot rod deluxe. The difference it made on my playing was obvious. It’s weird to say but, playing through a real, loud amp is almost a luxury now.
Junior Brown is maybe the loudest I ever saw, Fender Twin blaring loud from a few feet away. No feedback. No distortion. Super Clean. Notes were picked superbly. Junior Brown is a truly great guitarist. I've seen Metallica live, 2nd Row - very loud, very distorted, but not as loud.
I love Rick and Dave’s genuine excitement about music/guitar… you guys are awesome!!
I write on acoustic guitar and rarely play electric, and when I do it's not loud and it doesn't have a much gain. The guitar player of a band I was developing/producing literally told me to stop playing his rig, because I sounded so bad at combat volume, hahaha.
It will definitely tell on you!
Rick and Dave, this was just brilliant! I agree one thousand percent. Play guitar the organic way -- real amps, real pedals, real volume. Digital is fine, but can never produce the sound that touches us deeply. Thank you for the lesson, and peace and love to all!
I watch guys like Hendrix and Townshend on stage back in the day playing noisy single coils through dimed stacks of British steel and I’m constantly in awe of their mastery. The total control over the guitar and amp, the dynamics, the huge range of sounds they can get just by varying the volume, tone and pickups- with hardly any effects or signal processing, often playing off the acoustic dynamics of the venue, finding the perfect spot to stand onstage to get and control feedback, etc- is just amazing. They’ll even go back sometimes and adjust the amp itself to super overdrive in the middle of a song for a solo and then manually back down again afterwards without missing a beat. Or watch Stevie Ray change guitars in the middle of Look at Little Sister so quickly and cleanly- while singing- that you wouldn’t hear a difference or even know he did it if you weren’t watching. Those guys were playing a whole different way and with more direct and instant manual control over their sound compared to today’s digital modelers. Derek Trucks is someone who’s still doing it today in that old school way and showing similar mastery of tone control.
I’ve played through my crappy vtone for nearly 15 years now. Finger muting is essential with my amp. If I get over three on the volume knob it’s constant feedback. So I’ve learned to pull the gain and highs way down as I get louder. It’s a terrible amp really but it’s taught me so much in way of tone control. Like you guys hit on it earlier in the video about scooping mids. With my amp being a screachy pos I’ve resorted to using a lot more mids and honestly it’s been really good for developing a tone that is distinctly my own. Not many guitar players would think to dump all the lows and boost the mids for really heavy brutal metal but it honestly helps to make the notes come out and be heard over constant distortion fuzz you’d get with low tuning and heavy distortion. Excellent chat guys
Twenty years ago, I had custom-fit ear plugs made and they saved my hearing. Even though a pair will run you about $150, it's a small price to pay for your hearing. Go to an audiologist (or ENT) and get the ear molds made. They'll send 'em off to the place that makes the plugs and you'll be super glad you did it. Rock on.
...mmm I also bought custom made ear plugs ... they work OK for anything less than 100 Decibels but anything louder i must wear them with sound protection headphones OR my ear will ring for weeks !
Two stories:
1. I met a guitarist 2 decades ago who had a twin stack of Marshall Plexi clones (16x12!) in his two-car garage studio. I asked him to go ahead and set it all up. I was never going to hear that sound and i wanted to experience once. It combined a beautiful and glassy tone with a physical presence I had never truly heard before. It was amazing.
2. I am a bass player. I was in a band with a guitarist with a 120(?) watt Rivera (2x12). We played mainly little clubs. He was amazing, he sounded great, and he wore everybody else in the band out. The Rivera was set on the ground, went through his pant legs, and straight into our ears. We, the sound guys, and strangers three counties away kept telling him to turn down. He refused and explained he had to overdrive the power tubes to get his tone. In the spirit of compromise, I finally suggested that he could play as loud as he wanted if he agreed to point the Rivera at his head. He refused because it would damage his ears(!).
If you're in a club and you're too loud, you clear it! You play as loud as you need to be, not as loud as you want. My amp set up (vintage Music Man) allows me to play with the proper gain at any volume. The only thing you lose at low volumes is dynamics. I want the band I'm playing with to sound good as a whole. Not just me being too loud. Gotta entertain first!! If the crowd says you're too loud, turn it down.
It's a compromise. This video is talking about an ideal situation - studio, or a large stage where you can turn it up - but always, always play for the venue and your audience.
I have been part of "that band" with a guitarist always on 11 and an old-school, all analog, half deaf sound guy. We ended up playing to mostly empty rooms because the crowd went outside or to another room. That's not a good way to get hired again.
These days I'm happy go direct with a Tech 21 pedal instead of an amp, unless the stage and club are big enough to need it. Yes, it's not the same sound. No, most of the crowd doesn't care.
you think playing in a club is about good music, but it's not. you're there to play worn out main stream bullshit to drunk people. you're a beer salesman and nothing more. bar bands are nothing special. they don't need great tone. they don't need much talent. they just need to play the same crap everyone heard on their car radio on the way to the bar without fucking it up. no one is there to hear how good you play brown eyed girl. they came to drink, and find someone to fuck. bar owners know this, and it's why they hire deejays instead.
@@cheezyridr I've been playing in the Austin club scene for decades. Some clubs...sure, thats about it....others, they want quality. There are musician clubs here that cater to musicians that can really play. They come and go. At this point in my life, if I'm playing a club, I know going in what to expect now. I know in advance if I'm playing original music or covers.... I've also known since my Chicago bar days in the late 70's that I'm there to sell beer. How does the band do that? Draw a crowd. Which means don't chase them away. Sell beer for the club, band becomes popular, its been going on for decades.
@@MartinMCade Yes, you're right. Most of the crowd doesn't care. They just want to be entertained. Thats our job at the end of the day, isn't it? I show up knowing what I'm getting into.
@@larrydrozd2740 popular at what? selling beer for the club, that's what. there will always be outliers of any group. i live in a place that's the polar opposite of austin. want to start a band? better have a space to host. there are no rehearsal rooms here. try to rent a garage or something, and the second they find out what you're doing there, you're out on your ass. it's a musical black hole. yet, look through any classified section for musicians, and everyone wants to be the next big cover band. 98% of all the ads are posted by people who have no intention of writing original music for the sake of making music. after living in a place that had a great music scene (toronto) being a musician here sucks my soul out of me. if moving was an option, i'd be gone like smoke
I love to feel the vibrations of the music. My first concert was Led Zeppelin and I migrated up to the front near a stack and experienced a full body ecstasy moment that had me searching rock and roll the rest of my life. I lived in L A and worked a while in music and had to go to gigs sometimes more than one a night. The shows I have seen .... I am a lucky lucky human.
This is my one and only comment, but I just had to say this in the simple way. What I heard and felt from 1969 to 1973 was the most high out of this body understanding of spirit and therefore those are my years (Was music better back in the day?)
Thank you for your devotion and ability to communicate to so many .
Your friend just talked about SRV and being loud. He prefered on the edge, not too loud but he wasn't in control of the board and each amp. But he is one of the guys I felt go thru me even if he wasn't in my prime years. This is a musician touching you, and if you can accept it, touching your soul.
Playing at those levels has been difficult over the course of my life. I started in 1972 with a Sears Silvertone. My parents, as cool as they were, would blow a gasket if I turned it up. I remember finding an MXR Distortion pedal, which helped. Then I got into the solid state stuff which allowed me to get a more cranked sound at "save my ass" volumes (Acoustic Controls, Yamahas then Gallien Kruegers). Then in college I would constantly get noise complaints as I turned it up. Then marriage... Then divorce, living in a townhouse. I have gotten so use to the lower controlled volumes, that playing loud (in a room) is hard to do. I am a dynamic player (palm muting, volume pedals, pick turning, don't use the volume on the guitar as much because it was always odd to move my hand away from the playing position as the volume control seemed far on my Les Pauls). Today, I have many tube amps and still play at low volumes. Turning an amp up, while not being very far from it, is so hard. I'll hear things I didn't, nor wanted to, hear before. Squeaks, rattle, hum, etc. It is hard to play like that when you were not able to most of your playing life.
Get an FM9 and you will hear incredible tones at SAFE decibel levels (under 70db.) You don't want to deal with ear issues- trust me on this and don't ask me how I know. I was once like you, now relegated to playing mostly completely unplugged- even then I wear an ear plug.
For low volume playing but still sounding good try boss,roland modelling amps. roland cube 80 are great. also blues cube amps by roland. Tam
Put a decent attenuator like a Tone King Ironman between your amp head and cab. You will get cranked tones at bedroom volumes.
Absolutely correct about dialing back gain. All you have to do is take a sound you think is really good in the room and put it on a recorded track. On playback, you find that super-cool, super-heavy tone actually sounds pretty muddy and undefined.
I use a Mark V because it can do anything, from totally clean to more gain than anyone needs. Very high gain has its uses. Just listen to Carlos Santana (who the Mark series was basically designed for). Abraxas (very early example) and Moonflower (Europa) have a lot of prime examples. You can get infinite sustain, where the note “blooms” and the tone morphs, on the edge of feedback. Then there are things like tapping, legato, harmonics, etc…all better with high gain. “Shredders” Use It for a reason.
But it is primarily for LEAD. I agree that for rhythm, riffs and so on, easing back on the gain is usually better. Also, preamp gain and power amp volume are not the same thing. Which is why master volume amps exist. Getting the right balance between the two is where you get your tone perfectly dialed in.
As for playing loud in music stores…Dave is rare. Every time I’ve tried out an amp in a store, one of the staff has asked me to turn it down. I try to explain to them…you can’t really tell what it does until you turn it up a little…but they don’t care.
"As for playing loud in music stores…"
Ages ago I was auditioning a 15 watt amp in a music store. I had it turned down both as a courtesy to others and because I am extremely self-conscious about my playing (home hobbyist). Another guy, apparently a friend of the owner/staff, proceeded to plug a PRS into a Marshall and crank it up to a level where I couldn't hear the amp I was hoping to buy. I walked out, never to return. The place went out of business shortly thereafter.
Yes, high gain has it’s uses to get certain tones and it’s okay to use it. Not everybody plays dynamic rock styles and they are not the ultimate reference. Of course dynamics allow expression and it’s harder to control them. But for example a cembalo is no very dynamic instrument, still interesting. Electric guitar tones variety is so big that it can feel like different instruments, every guitarist will choose his favorite.
I actually had a good salesman turn UP an amp I was trying out in a store once. Showed me it was actually a much louder amp than I needed. Today I like low powered tube amps for exactly that reason. They can be cranked and develop an interactive tone without shaking the walls.
I know lower powered amps aren't the same as more powerful ones - less clean headroom for one thing - but they work best for me, especially for recording. Modelers are a good compromise too. Still, I totally agree about learning to control high volume. Learn to mute, play cleanly, and use your guitar's volume knob.
"As for playing loud in music stores…"
Well, loud noise is disruptive, regardless of the fact you're in a music store. There are other people in there who need to talk and people who need to try their own instruments. Next time you want to turn the amp up, just politely ask the staff if it's OK to do so for a little while. If you're just going to crank up the amp at a random moment on your own volition without any regard for other people around you, don't be surprised if people insist you turn it down.
“As for playing loud In music stores” I always appreciate a store that has a separate room where you can crank it up, as well as an acoustic room where you can hear the nuance of those guitars.
This is where small tube amps come in handy in today's gigging environment. My current live rig is a princeton 65 with a 12 inch creamback, and a tweed deluxe clone with a jensen: two non-master, small tube amps that need to be cranked to get driven, but are totally controllable via guitar volume. No need for overdrive or distortion pedals, and if both are too loud for a particular gig, I just switch one off. It's a lightweight, portable rig that covers pretty much all the bases.
Pretty much same . Only one tube deluxe W/ Celestion and a katana 50 as Acoustic amp/backup. Curious , how do you split signal ? Lehle psplit ?
I've got a 50w Marshall master volume, even with a Torpedo dropping 20dB, it's a loud amp. 50w dropped by 20dB is the equivalent of a 0.5w amp. Half a watt, and I can still slay the neighbours.
It seems like most guitar players are going in the smaller rig direction, and if you need more volume a larger cabinet with more and/or more sensitive speakers will usually be more than loud enough. Even a Princeton Reverb head should be as loud as I'd ever need, then have various cabinets: 1x10, 1x12, 2x10, 2x12, 4x10, 4x12........maybe not all of them!
@@pharmerdavid1432 it is easier to lug around a 2x12 than a 4x12. But this does all depend on the kind of music you make.
Most of the guitarists I know are still using the same amp in their 40s as when they were in their 20s, they seem to settle on an amp early on and learn how to make it work for different genres.
Agreed. I've got a 1967 20 watt ampeg Gemini I modified to be a bit more marshall sounding. Not crazy loud at all, and punchy.
That moment when you're on a stage and hit that first venue filling chord is unforgettable!
22:01 YESSS! Blackmore on Machine Head, for instance, was deceitfully clean. To me, huge volume feeds back into the guitar pick ups, allowing a beefed up symbiotic loop.
I just watched the documentary 'Making of Machine Head' :) and Roger Glover explained it so well, that quite a lot of the heaviness on that album comes from the distorted organ (Hammond through a cranked Marshall). The guitar is mostly rather clean or only just breaking most of the time.
Great talk! Santana is another master to watch and learn from on how to control an amp with just your volume and tone knob.
I'm an oldhead. Stack 'em up and turn 'em up because I don't just want to hear it....I want to feel it. I have been to a few concerts where it was so loud that it was a bit painful, and I'll probably pay later down the road for it but it was fun. I saw Pink Floyd at the Oakland Coliseum for their Division Bell Tour and it was pretty loud but sooooo good.
"move some air" Amen and Happy New Year to everyone. Keep Rockin'
21:44 discussion about their amps were really not that distorted-it was CLEAN!
I had to pause the video and can literally hear may brains burst supernova.
Getting into electric guitar and amplifiers requires learning its history knowing why they had to build these super loud amps paving way to distortion in modern rock music, development of dirt pedals, and amp modeling pedals/softwares. This, as a young student of rock n roll, confuses us, we try to emulate the sound of our heroes so much we just get loss into the abyss of tone chasing than the path of music theory and reach guitarvana.
Love this discussion Rick and Dave!
I’ve learned how to use the volume knob early on… I remember being fascinated by the 90s british bands and I wanted that same tone, some guy said “you need a tube Marshall “ - this is before the internet. I got a cheap JTM30 and that thing begged to be cranked. Intuitively, you’d discover how many different sounds across the volume knob of your guitar.
I played every weekend for years in the early 2000's getting my cardio hefting a 4x12 cab up and down stairs, i could never run the volume past 2 without hurting people in small bars. I never pushed the amp into the zone where it really shined. Switched to a Soldano Atomic 16 and ran the volume around 7, sounded amazing and my back really appreciated it.
I'm 60. Played drums for 30 years. Totally agree. Have been wanting to play again. Have my 78' Ludwig Stainless still. And it sounds amazing, just very loud. Problem is most little bands now have barely any equipment on stage at all. Some have no amps or cabs or actual drums. The struggle is real. Oh man. Yes!! Do that amp full volume demo. Love it.
If you ever do decide to let subscribers come listen I would be there in a heartbeat. Ive been playing for less than a year but have been having the best time of my life. My dad used to build speakers when I was a kid. Now as a 51 year old woman getting back into music has been amazing!
I may have some hearing loss from those early days as a 26" subwoofer was a side table in our living room!
Van Halen battled the volume thing for years though…he didn’t want to play that loud..he constantly was searching for ways to make that Plexi not so loud,from putting a moving blanket over the cab,to the variac,to pulling two tubes,etc…it was a constant battle….but volume was part of that sound…
I also think most folks fail to remember what Eddie Van Halen was doing when he was out playing and what 99.999999% of everyone else is doing are two totally different universes unless your next gig is for 20000 people. Listening/reading all these comments here form every Tom, Dick, and Harry relating to having to play as loud as Eddie Van Halen really highlights the blatant idiocy of this entire conversation. lol
@@anthonyjwilkerson I doubt Van Halen were playing any small club in the mid to late 1990's like they were talking about, but okay. I have no idea what you're trying to say tbh. You're trying to say that people enjoy having their eardrums blasted out? You can believe that, but it's a delusional belief by and large unless you're truly playing to a masochist's convention.
@@anthonyjwilkerson Oh, you're so erudite. GTFOH. You spew verbal diarrhea.
Even in their "club days" they were playing for more people than most hacks play to in 3-5 gigs if they're lucky. Let me put it that way. I know there's a tape of them as kids playing a sold out Pasadena Convention Center which holds 600. You cannot relate to Eddie Van Halen on any level. Don't try.
@jpwjr1199 Well you defiantly brought serious value to this thread and due to your OBVIOUSLY qualified assessment, as the WIDTH and BREDTH of your resume and the evidence that you've SKILLFULLY articulated leaves zero room for any doubt by either the knowledgeable OR a blatant idiot.
You really should be pinned to the top of this thread.
Those of us with 100watt Plexi and JCM 800/900 stacks that watched this video and apparently only make up 0.000001% of active musicians REALLY care to hear more of your thoughts on these UNIVERSES you speak of....we are all definitely new here. I mean the collective life time experience of all us BLATANT idiots that you've so skillfully put back into our place must pale in comparison to all the gigs you've played over the last 40 years.
I mean I've only been using this gear and adding to my knowledge on the subject since the mid 90's...so tell us, without getting too "erudite" (can't stand that verbal diarrhea!), what amplifiers are the PROs using in these small clubs?
By "clubs" are you referring to the average venue or are these book store gatherings or are you basing all of this off the last show you played to your cat from the foot of you bed on your AX FX or Peavey RAGE?
you know what....that is a dumb question. Wouldn't be worth your time to lower your self so far as to respond to such blatant idiocy. You are too smart for the regular internet.....there should be a place for guys like you to GTFOH to. I bet the gigs would be PACKED for guys like you there.
@@TheMadninjamike Look, your obliviating and attempts to ad hominem things doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of musicians that play "rock star" and needlessly lose their hearing doing so are not only engaging in largely unmusical behavior and musically incommunicative behavior, but also do so being rude to the patrons they're supposedly playing for.
Oh yeah, and GTFOH!!
My God, what a great hat Dave is wearing, ;). I always love these conversations with you guys. I miss doing them.
😉 😂
What a great shirt Dave is wearing.
Rick's Double Denim 👍🏼 love it 😀
@@mattjns ?
@@drdre4397 !
I’m a huge fan of low watt tube amps which you can crank without blowing the windows. I recently got a Mesa lonestar amp and it can be dropped from 30w to 15w to 5w and I always end up getting the best sound from 15w and 5w settings. Love that thing.
Very good to know. Alas, in my house, sound carries. I actually cannot make even a somewhat hearable sound come out of my amp without my wife hearing it upstairs while she is working remotely, or concentrating on one of her many side projects. I have to use headphones most of the time, and most tube amps don't seem to do that well.
@@seanbaines For me, isolation booths and studio rooms are not in my destiny. Babies who can’t be woken and a wife who needs to catch up on sleep is more my reality. That said, I am still a traditionalist and played for 30 years - I just can’t feel good without the natural compression of a glowing valve, a vibrating dusty paper cone set in motion by a piece of wire, a coil and a magnet. I can’t recommend the lonestar amps enough. For recording I have managed to get amazing sounds through the UAD Apollo interface and modelling but to get the feeling of moving air and just to feel good playing (that is what it is all about anyway), it has to be a valve amp.
@Sean Baines…. Consider using an attenuator. Bugera makes one for like $100. You can spend a lot more on an Ox or Torpedo, but this gets the job done. I have a 100w Marshall with a 4 x 12… I can CRANK it without peeling the paint off the walls.
@@kiru_r I will keep it in mind if I ever need a performance rig, and if I ever have that kind of money. WAY beyond my budget right now.
@@alexander_winston I'd looked at attenuators. I hadn't seen any that were affordable for me. I'm not familiar with Bugera yet. Guess I'll check it out at some point. Thank you.
I agree 100%. Kids today (I'm 51) don't have to struggle to find a decent tone like we used to. I still to this day constantly fiddle with knobs on the amp and the guitar, trying to find the ever elusive perfect tone for me. You guys are right too in that playing an amp set for stun is just an experience that cannot be replicated any other way.
I saw Cheap Trick in 1985 and my ears are still ringing. Loudest concert I’ve ever been to, and still one of my favorites.
Loudest gig by a mile Wishbone Ash at the Hammersmith Odean in the late eighties. Absolutely insane volume.
This happened to me seeing GNR and Aerosmith at Alpine Valley a loooooong time ago. Was in row three in front of Slash. My right ear is toasted. I actually had to moved 20 rows back for the main act and my buddy couldn't have been happier....and I was most grateful!!
As the gear manager and meeting organizer for my college's jam club, I can tell you that every single guitar player, and drummer agree with your message for better or for (usually) worse.
😂
Just played my Twln at 6 with vibrato intensity, it is soul cleansing…
I've seen Junior Brown play small clubs with a Fender Twin turned all the way up. He could be loud and crunchy at times, but mostly of the time it was under control at a reasonable volume. He was using the guitar volume or a volume pedal to control the tone and level, brilliant!
Possiblty one of the greatest players doing loud was Gary Moore. Emotion and power, yes but able to take it right down to a whisper. Glorious tone he also utilised off stage Soldano amps as well. What a player who gets not nearly enough recognition. I do wish Americans had heard more of him - outrageously beautiful sound.
Believe me, us (I) Americans know Gary through Thin Lizzy and of course his band and what a guitar player he was!! Still have the Blues from his passing.
@@michaelgreen5206 I think you meant Thin Lizzy but very glad you had heard some of his music - he didn't travel overmuch to the USA and his fusion playing with Colosseun II and later blues period showed what a diverse player/career he was/had. Left everything on the stage whenever he played - most amazing live guitarist., Most of my US musician friends are surprised that he didn't;t make their radar so I am pleased that there are folks like you who have heard his stuff. 👍
@@mogulmeister Gary was such a great guitar player he could even play Jazz styled guitar.
I'm listening to this with my guitar strapped on and plugged into my plexi - but with my Power Station to tame it. It's great to experience the rapidly increasing dynamics as I both decrease the attenuation (vol increases) and decrease the gain of my pedal(s). It's a marvelous thing and as you guys are saying, volume and tone knobs are constantly in motion.
And on another note (hey, a pun!), on any Les Paul/SG type guitar with twin vol/tone knobs, the variety of tones you can get when you're blending both pickups is a great art that I don't see many players doing. For rhythm, I can easily back off the vol/tone of bridge pickup, along with the neck vol down, and then simply swell the bridge vol to take a solo. It's so effective.
I saw Eric Johnson live (about 15 feet from his position onstage) switch between a pair of vintage Fender combos and a vintage Marshall stack. Surprisingly his stage volume was reasonable and the balance was handled by the house sound guys. This was Mexicali Blues in Northern New Jersey. The takeaway for me was that you could wail as if you had huge stacks and yet be balanced as far as dynamics was concerned. And I heard every note Eric sang.
I love how Dave mentions Ty Tabor in multiple videos. One of my favorite guitar players. The genius very few have heard of. So under-rated!
My observations: Pete Townsend was an early master of using the volume control on the guitar to control the amount of gain. As to Pat Methany, his New Chautauqua album is another master class I. Dynamics. Michael Hedges was spectacular at it as well.
My moddeling rig. 2x80 w roland cubes +2x 1x12 cabs same speakers. This is super portable,light ,loud, and suites any guitar and great tone.
I don't deny the skills needed to play well at high volumes, I do however question whether it's worth doing in the long run. I, like many, now deal with tinnitus and hearing loss that, for the rest of my life, will adversely effect my playing and listening of the thing I love more than anything other than my family. Dave's Van Halen story here is the biggest take away from this post.
I got that gift too- isn't it fun? I play mostly unplugged these days at very low volumes and never with a group. At least we can still play...just quietly!
Agree 100%. Dynamics, cranked amps, and finding tones using your guitar’s volume knob to get there are all important. One thing I think is worth talking about is the part treble bleed circuits/capacitor values play in achieving this.
I really enjoyed this episode!
Dynamic playing is so important and seems to get lost over the last decades for several reasons that were well explained in this video.
Playing loud in a Rock band is as much art and as impressive as playing with/in a full symphonic orchestra. It’s a physical experience that creates emotions for the player and thereby also for the listener! If you take the volume away, you reduce the amount of possible dynamic…
If volume is limited too much, it’s getting to a point of “useless”. Real drums as real amps are like real grand pianos and violins - these instruments can speak with their natural dynamic from lo to hi volumes. Don’t let us musicians being castrated… enjoy the power of expression!
Greetings 🖖 Thomas Blug
Yes, this! Thanks Mr. Blug.
YEH balance with your drummer is perfect.let the sound man do his job. Tam
Excellent as always Rick and Dave! I loved the emphasis on dynamics which is extremely important not only for a guitar player but also for the entire band. This is hard to even think about when you are young, as you just want to play...just pound it out man! However, as you say no dynamics makes the song boring, screws the singer and loses the audience. Every guitar player in any band should realize you are supporting the singer. If the singer sucks, then the band sucks no matter how good the guitar player. Good singer, good back up vocal harmonies from the players and you will get gigs.
“Lower gain” louder just sounds more interesting and you can hear the unique timbre of an instrument and it really helps you have defined chords and single notes while being aggressive digging in
Talking about playing loud, I was listening to a live performance by Gary Moore earlier today, the dude was literally pushing the amp to the limits and controlled it all with his guitar.
I saw a lot of very loud bands in the 70s and 80s. One, I think it was a band called Trapeze, was so loud that my beer fell off the table when the guitarist hit the first chord. My ears were ringing for a week. I saw Queen about a dozen times - they were loud and produced a completely encompassing sound. But it wasn’t painful!
@Richard Laurence…. I saw AC/DC live years and years ago and I had the same experience.
@@alexander_winston I saw Black Sabbath and was pretty sure my hearing was damaged!
Trapeze!! (Glenn Hughes)
Trapeze, one of the forgotten 70s bands that deserves to be remembered
@@MotownGuitarJoe Wow - I didn’t realise that. It was only a small club, so it must have been early days. Man, they were loud though…
I was kicked out of a rock/blues band for being "too loud" a year ago for having my volume on my old blackface 50 watt Fender Bassman at 1-1/2 and my volume knob on my guitar set at close to zero, or in other words my valves were barely opening. Until I was unceremoniously kicked out I was in a state of torture. Since then I've joined a band, and though it's not a terribly loud one I now set my volume at 7 and use my Tele's volume knob to control my tone and exactly how loud I'm getting. My distortion pedal is now used for tone instead of volume boost, and it's absolutely wonderful hearing the air move and overtones now that my amp is allowed to be itself. Thanks for posting this Rick. You proved in spades what I was already thinking.
I love playing loud and controlling the tone with the volume knob; i even use smaller amps to make that less painful. Recently though I have been working with more and more sound guys who want barely audible stage volume and chastise me for "self mixing" and "making" them ride my fader... sigh. It's written off as "guitarists just want to be loud" rather than an integral part of the musicianship. So on those gigs i end up with the guitar volume on 10 and constantly dancing on pedals to get the same effect as straight in with a volume knob. :-/
Very true
i hate being on ten...
When did these fucking so called “sound men” get to be in charge? They mostly want every band to sound like a heavy metal band. Even if they play jazz or funk.
That’s why I use a line 6 modeler, it’s just not worth the fight any more. But super quiet stages kill the mood.
Sound guy here; guitar player also. Look, it's very simple: My PA has to compete with your amp if you play too loud. I can't put you in the mains, which means I can't actually 'mix' you with the rest of the band. So use some common sense. If you're playing a 200 seat bar, do not bring me a Marshall fucking stack and expect to dime it out. Get a combo amp or have a separate, smaller cabinet built so you can open up the amp wattage wise without decapitating the first ten feet in front of the stage. Some sort of baffle, kick-back legs, etc. are all good ideas as well.
*The band is the CD. The PA is the stereo.* All I want from you is tone and enough volume to fill up my mic. If you want to play a Marshall double stack dimed out on stage, work hard to get popular enough to play 5K seat venues. *I'm not saying this to be mean - **_it's simple physics._*
I remember that ol' adage, "If it's too loud, you're too old." Now at my age, nearing 50, I've discovered the tone of my playing really opened up when I turned my amp down. I was overwhelmed by the sound and color of my guitar and how it came to life when I let it breath, and it dawned on me. I was like, huh Nigel had the wrong idea. Just because the amp can go to 11 doesn't mean it has to. Mind blown.
Thanks, gentlemen for the insightful chat. Happy New Year to one and all. Cheers
Remember Spinal Tap was comedy. Don't use it for advice.
@@ronj9448 Riiiiight.
Great topic! I'm 59 and played loud when I was learning and never really thought about muting, but learned to mute as I went along to get rid of the noise that happens when playing loud. I had a 2x12 Marshall Master Lead solid-state, which only got the "Marshall" sound cranked (not really like a tube Marshall, but pretty great and the sound guy hated me for not backing off full volume because of the stage volume, but how could I? It sounded like a Fender when it was less than maxed). I "mastered" muting almost without thinking about it, just to make the loudness sound better and cleaner. I noticed playing in bands that some guitar players don't even realize how much amp noise they're allowing when they play. I think they practice at low volume and never had to fight the noise at high volume as they learned. It was fun listening to your thoughts on this topic!
Everywhere has gone to direct or silent stages and I am so disassociated with music now. Everything is so homogenized with modeling or quiet amps. I don't even like playing guitar anymore, find myself not practicing and even a bit depressed from it. I don't know what happened that everyone got so sensitive about volume. I never played blistering loud but loud enough the amp worked and made you a better player. The amp was always like another instrument. I miss that and really feel disenfranchised with the whole thing now. I'm glad you did this video. Thank you.
I have a 15watt Vox AC and a few pedals. I tend to play the amp about 3/4 and use my overdrive pedal to get most of my gain with my valves adding colour, in combination with using volume on my guitar 🎸. I find this combination gives me the tone I like and the ability to have well defined notes and sustain. Also it doesn’t make my ears bleed.
The AC15 is a phenomenal amp and superb for recording
I have a Vox AC15 and they’re a loud little beast. I keep the volume down there as well. Any time I regret not buying an AC30 I remember how loud the AC15 is.
Love this!!!!! I have been talking about this for years and its a big part of the feel of rock music missing is everything being played direct in the box. The dynamic range is small, when you have a loud amp the range is huge and it doesn't sound or feel the same. Let's be Clear NO ONE is talking about solid state amps here!! Half the learning was gear. Now you click your mouse no noise, no problems, direct in quiet, but way less learning. Something to be said about not having tinnitus i guess, i wouldn't know.
I'm only 38 and I have some pretty solid tinnitus already from playing and going to lots of shows since I was 21. It sucks and at times gets maddening, and after seeing an audiologist 2 years ago mine isn't nearly as bad as other people she sees. It affects my ability to play in my current band. I've gone through some different ear filters, and like the ones I have, but it greatly affects my ability to sing harmony (yea I can hear myself great! Rest of the vocals...notsomuch) and changes the way I hear my guitar out of the amp. And not for the better, I can't react to the sweetness of the tone like I can at bedroom volume with no plugs. It's a scary thing, and I hope with constant ear protection I can keep it from getting much worse. But point is: protect your ears, and start early. Who cares if someone notices and thinks you look lame when 30 years later you're suffering from it.
Guys… that was an amazing discussion…. Remembering, recollecting, and teaching… thank you both so much.
For me, volume is all about sustain. If I turn the amp up to where the pickups interact with the speakers, it’s much more organic and smooth. Otherwise, I am having to add distortion on the front end, which can be abrasive.
I rarely cranked an amp for more than a few seconds at a time, throughout my 50+ years of playing because there was always someone close by (family, other tenants, my dog). So I missed out. I still have my '65 Sears Silvertone Twin Twelve. Recently, when no one else was at home, I cranked it and was amazed to discover how great it sounded. Better late than never.
This is very interesting, and touches on stuff that, in my slightly-more-than-beginning Intermediate stage of learning, I am starting to try and learn to control and take advantage of. I am starting to experiment, for example, with how to use the volume and tone knobs on my guitars to alter expression part way through a piece.
I also now have a new practice amp - just a moderate price digital amp with multiple amp models and a software suite. But it is reputed to be pretty tailorable, and useful for teaching one the basics of how to modify one's amp sound. Certainly I find it more tailorable than my old one.
So now I am watching this, and lapping it up. And just yesterday, Rhett dropped a video on how to dial in an amp. It was about tube amps, the stuff about finding what range your volume and gain knobs give you to work with, and where your EQs really open up, definitely applies to this amp, even though it is digital.
So all this is just gold for me right now. The Three Amigos have done it again!
Not to be an amp snob, but a lot of what this video, and Rhett’s, are talking about really dont apply to digital modeling amps. The compression they are referring to is tube compression. Digital amp modeling is great for a lot of things (especially getting a lot of sounds as a beginner) but if you’re into this idea, get yourself a tube amp. (It doesn’t have to be 50 or 100 watts, either…a 15 watt Princeton or something works)
@@marcsullivan7987 The stuff I am focussing on seems to. Right now, I am following the collective suggestions to learn how to make use of my various pots, both on amp and guitar, to shape things. Both videos give some ideas on how to do that, and I am getting some interesting results. It's a good exercise. Might some of it be different on a tube amp? Very possibly. But part of the point of all this is to learn how to explore, so that whatever new gear you are faced with, you can figure out. So I'm starting. This has helped.
@@seanbaines 👍enjoy the journey
Great conversation. You need to demo the LOUD. That's what enlightens.
As ALWAYS: Thanks for having Dave on!!
The first Marshall I bought was from a local music store a buddy of mine worked at. They had a “clinic” room. Kind of an auditorium. They had several Marshall’s lined up. They were getting rid of their rentals. He just told me to grab a guitar go in there, close the door and crank one up. It was wonderful
I learned how to control amps by “growing” through a series of amps that were successively larger and more “pro-level”. I’m talking small Peavey poverty box amps up through my first 212 solid state combos up to my first half stacks. It’s a lost art these days. Another huge leap forward to me was moving up through guitar quality and pickups. I was searching for my path into better gear, in order to find guitars that didn’t screech and squeal. Guess what I discovered when I had better gear? I discovered how sloppy my playing was! Back to the drawing board lol.
Talking about high gain dynamics, you reminded me about Mattias Eklundh.
That's s why i also use Ernie ball volume pedal.
The MVP version is great, no more treble loss when lowering volume , unlike common guitar volume knob.
You can push more gain for sustaining leads or pinch harmonics. Subtract gain for clarity, during chords and arpeggio . Hence, making your playing more clear and dynamic.
During pause, back it off to zero to prevent amp feedback.
This pedal will save your money on noise gate too. No more tap dancing for gain.
No loss trying out good things!
I suspect Steve Vai has increased the treble in his tone over time due to high frequency hearing loss. I saw him live in 2012 and was near the stage. The ear-splitting treble of his distorted amp made his playing nearly unlistenable for me. With earplugs in everything was just muddy, so I wasn’t able to enjoy the performance as much as I had hoped. His musical performance was Amazing, but the excessive treble made it difficult to enjoy. Hearing Dream Theater live was fantastic sound. A cranked amp off-stage completely being heard through the mains mixed in with the rest of the band was awesome. It was loud, but not painful 😂
Dave Weiner has said that he would not attend a Steve Vai gig without ear plugs...
Zack wlyde was the same way. Ice pick!!
Saw Vai as part of G3 with Lukather and Satch in 2012. Lukather's mix was straightforward. Vai's mix was, well, it seemed really bad. Satch, who finished the show, had an absolutely perfect mix. As an amateur muso there would be occasions where a mixer would favour their friend's band over the other support acts. Surely this wasn't the case here!? I was disappointed with the sound of Vai's set. Had seen so many professional videos of Vai's live shows with great mixes but this was, sheesh, trebly and didn't have much mids to it.
Why not have one output for the player and one for the technician. So the player can hear what they want and the audince to get a mix that is more appealing to non abused ears.
JP's Boogies have more than a little to do with that. I have an old Boogie like the one his signature amps are bassed on, and it's hard to make it shriek with painful treble. Always sounds thick and beefy. :-)
Great and very valid points but I was waiting for you to mention one additional thing: High watt amps are not designed to be played at bedroom level. I am sure the full tone and timbre the designers and builders had in mind for the amp only comes into play at proper levels. Especially the speaker.
I bought a Mesa Fillmore 100 combo in 2018-19 and brought it home and plugged in my Epiphone Sheraton II, no pedals, and cranked it up about 3/4. Wow, what a monster. The top of the Epi was vibrating and resonating...it was almost alive. It sounded fantastic and MADE me play both the guitar and the amp. They were acoustically coupled and it sounded so sweet. Too bad you can't do that live with a bar band anymore.
That feeling when the guitar comes alive in your hands is sooo good. I felt that early on, playing crappy little shows but on older wooden stages that resonated nicely. Totally set the hook for me.
Your channel is a treasure trove, and I sure hope some of the younger generations take heed and makes use of the resource you have created. My dad was a small time studio engineer/producer when I was coming up in the 80's, and I got such a leg up over most folks because of my access to him and his experiential knowledge. Rick is like listening to my Dad talk, but with substantially more knowledge. Seriously: viewing any of Rick's content is time well spent for anyone serious about music.
Great discussion! I was just playing around with it and looking for a Plexi and your video popped up. I have a couple of loud lower watt amps and an Axe fx3. I find that cranking the amp and playing off the guitars volume control gives you your own tone and is very dynamic. Thanks for the video!
And even without massive volume, if you're not muting the strings you don't want to ring out, it's gonna sound like s. Essential for good playing. Great video as always!
Love hearing Yngwie get spoken of on the channel. I think Dave mightn’t have seen the whole signal chain. There would’ve been a booster in that signal chain. The NS-2 and a DOD250 or 308 is a no-compromise Yngwie necessity.
So glad you adjusted the title of this to include "protect your hearing". I know from real experinece that when the high frequencies go, they don't come back. And by the way, all music sounds colored when you wear hearing aids.
I've found a happy medium by using a 20 watts tube head with a closed back 2x12. It sounds well at home volumes, and with the master around 6-7 it's loud onstage but not insanely so. I find no point at pushing the volume envelope beyond that, I like lower stage volume even for heavy music.
Terrific video, and great timing for me personally. I've been realizing more and more that my playing is not where I want it to be because I've never learned enough to play guitar loud. Watching Paul Gilbert recently talk about muting was an absolute revelation for me.
Loved this episode Rick and Dave. One of my first amps was a late 60's Fender Twin, and aside from the occasional AM radio station coming through the speakers, that thing was my tone nirvana. Also, a little Mesa 50 caliber were best, because both had a distinctive wallop characteristic. Would love to see an episode detailing and/or characterizing "wallop" - maybe the waveform view in Pro Tools could visually show and represent the harmonics and envelope of it. Of course, muting and other playing style aspects would change the envelope. But maybe some simple and repeatable technique of lifting a mute over the strumming area could make the technique repeatable and see how fast the preamp reacts to the sudden presence of a note - think IR. Great discussion. Thanks!
I agree.
There's magic in playing near the amp/speakers, finding the right angle to keep it in control, and using the volume knob to fine tune it.
Watch some live footage of Hendrix, EVH or SRV for a masterclass in volume knob usage.
I was hoping Dave would throw something in there about Siamese Dream. I can’t wait to hear his recollection of the making of that album!
Dave is not listed in anything to do with making of Siamese Dream.
Well, I don’t think he was doing Butch Vig’s job or anything, but Rick has mentioned a few times that Dave was at least working at the studio when that album was being recorded.
This is a great subject
And i dont mean to repeat what was so eloquently discussed.
But srv played vancouvers commodore ballroom in 86 ....i wasnt of age yet. But i went down and im not kidding when i say. I could clearly hear him for a 4 block radius in every direction. It made a lifetimes impression on me
Dave was absolutely right about Eddie's sound throughout the years. It just got more and more gainey and buzzsawy as time went on. From vh3 and that tour on
The buzzy, high treble phenomenon was really obvious to me when I saw CSN in 2012-2013. Stills needed that to hear. Bless him.
Two of my favorite tones of all time…….Led Zeppelin Communication Breakdown and James Gang Funk #49. Both recorded on small amps with a Tele. It doesn’t always have to be loud to be great. A Les Paul may look cool slung low on stage, but the Tele has the bite that has produced many a great rock and roll tone!
Great show. I am an electric player since 1970. BandMaster, 1972 50 Watt Marshall. Used to have the 8x10 bottom, now 4x12. Play a Schroeder amp with two 12 and a VibroKing with the three 10 plus the 2x12 cab. Nothing like moving air. NOTHING! Also play a lot of slide guitar. Muting with both hands, controlling the volume with the pick attack and using the volume knob on my guitar are all "Tools" of my playing. I play the amps together or in different combinations or alone. Play it loud.
Yes, playing loud and practicing loud simply makes you a better player. You learn how to control everything that emits from your guitar and control is everything. And you sure are right about those amps. There is nothing in the world that sounds better than a "cooking" Marshall dimed. As a matter of fact...that's the only way to get a Marshall to sound right lol.
The biggest challenge for modern guitarist (including me now) is playing in a modeler/IE world trying to get the loud amp/guitar interaction. I dont care how great it sounds it just doesn't "feel" right. I miss playing my Mesa Boogie Mark lllc though a 4x12. It didn't have to play super loud, but once you hit the sweet spot, it was glorious. The "pop" from single note runs is where I want to live. Now I use compression all the time to get the tone and feel right through my Headrush. I've gain so much appreciation for great compression now!
Interesting topic and talk. At least I think so, it was hard to hear you guys over my tinnitus.
OK, I kid my tinnitus isn't quite that bad. Although I have to confess, I have some reservations about anything encouraging guitarists to crank it up louder for the tone. Too much experience in guitars too damned loud; it's not just about the ear punishment and damage, either. (I mean, e.g., if it's a live gig and the drummer wants the drums in the monitors so they can hear themselves, the guitar(s) might be way too loud.
I know, I get it, I understand why, and this isn't just about being an old guy (past 60), I thought the same things when I was, like, 25. I've always looked for ways to try to get the sound without the massive volume; I remember way back when I first found out about van Halen's variac trick, I thought "that's brilliant, what a great idea, this guy is thinking!".
But there is a little problem with the discussion. I'm talking about you guys badly misusing the word "gain".
Gain is an electronics term. In simplest form, it's a ratio, some multiplying factor comparing the output level of an amplifier circuit (of any kind) to the input level. If an amplifier circuit has a gain of some number X, that means at any given instant, the amplitude of an output signal (whether you're measuring power, voltage, or current) is X times the amplitude of the input signal. In common practice amplifier gain will often be addressed by taking that input/output ratio and expressing it in terms of decibels.
The problem is that you guys are badly misusing the term in a way loads of guitar players do, and you doing it, in a setting where education is a main thing, it's a bad thing to take a term that is used often and help to perpetuate and propagate more misuse of the word, by people who pick up on things like its use here and then misuse it themselves, and out it spreads.
It was especially grating when you were talking about varying the volume control on the guitar and talking about this changing "gain". Gain is not involved there. If you have a guitar with active electronics, then, alright, there is an amplifier circuit in there and you will be varying the gain of that. Otherwise, no. You will vary the output level of the signal coming out the output jack of the guitar, but that's not changing gain. If you're doing nothing other than turning the guitar volume knob up and down, you are not changing gain anywhere in the system.
Volume is not "gain".
The amount of clipping and resulting harmonic distortion is not "gain".
Being an old fart an watching how things have gone in electric guitar world for decades, I think some of this might have started when people started having separate volume knobs in a guitar amp to adjust preamplifier stage gain and power amplifier stage gain ("master") separately, so you could wind up the preamplifier gain to drive the snot out of the power amp input and smash it into the ceiling of clipping, while turning down the power amp section gain to lower the level where it would go into saturation and clipping and harmonic distortion, while reducing the volume level coming out of the speakers (notably, the early Mesa Boogies). That's not the only example, of course... running through a distortion pedal, you can try to get a tone maybe something like a clipping guitar amp by having two amplifier circuit stages in the box, with the first having really high gain and then that overdriving the input of a second amplifier circuit stage in the pedal, producing clipping, but maybe with an output amplitude level coming out of the distortion pedal roughly similar to the level when it's bypassed (or maybe not). The gain increase in that scenario is in the first stage of the pedal's circuitry. As I said, you might adjust everything, in that kind of case, so that you get the massive harmonic distortion, but maybe with the same overall volume coming out of the speakers, more or less.
I'm just saying, don't use the word "gain" unless you actually MEAN "gain".
This might seem like pedantic nitpicking to some people, but understanding and using words as what they actually mean is important. Otherwise, things just turn into a Tower of Babel of confusion.
More of you and Dave please... Love the conversation....
Always great to listen to you guys, even if it's casual chat it is a gold mine of information ! Do you have tips to protect your ears while playing loud without losing too much of the sound texture ?
Love these conversations, thanks guys!
I have.a studio in a building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. small space. I have a Marshall JCM 800 combo and a Fender Deluxe, and I just recently acquired the Boss Tube Amp Expander. Rick, have you ever used a reactive load attenuator? IT'S INCREDIBLE. Now I can crank the Marshall, preamp or power amp side, and it doesn't destroy my ears. Guitarists still feel like they're playing a loud amp. Anyway, again, curious if you have any insight or experience working with attenuators. I'm a convert! Thanks for all you do and Happy New Year!
The spirit of your conversation and the nature of
phenomenology share a duality, and liminality of space ... SOUND as discussed, creates space, an ease of mind and maybe even a meditation on one's life ... . Pushing air maybe no bad thing ... .
I have been interested in the Fender deluxe reverb tone master. You can crank it up and get the gain etc. you want but it has a switch in the back and you can reduce the volume drastically and still have the sound of cranking it to 11. I do realize this is not a tube amp but what Fender has done with the modeling is pretty amazing.
But there is no effects loop. roland blues cubes are better. Tam
@@TAM-gz5tc I didn't notice that. I don't use that normally but if you do yep no effects loop. Not as familiar with the Roland. I will check it out.
I always hear people with lots of experience and knowledge talk about using the volume knob on the guitar a lot but I just never even thought that way. As the lead singer and only guitarist in a punk band I just used the volume knob for on and off.