I love Mk.Gee, his sound is super nostalgic to me- I couldn't afford a guitar amp so I used to play into a tascam tape recorder when I just started like he does.
Haha, me too. I can't play anything like him, but I think the most important thing is his touch of course and his guitar setup. 11s (flatwounds nowadays?) with a fairly low action and fairly straight neck. So I had to work on a light touch and when you dig in you get the right amount of snarl or growl from a Telecaster without choking out.
You mention Mk.Gee being a modern guitar hero. Nick Reinhart is my modern guitar hero. What's funny is David Rainger said he was inspired from seeing Nick Reinhart do some gated reverb stuff and that's how we now have the Reverb-X.
@@AudioHaze Nick was apart of a TH-cam collaboration with Juan Alderete called Pedals and Effects up until a few years ago when Juan got into an accident. If you look up Pedals and Effects:Pedal-X by Rainger Effects in that video Nick tells the story I was referring to. I also recommend checking out “TERA MELOS 40 Rods to the Hog’s Head Live @ The Media Club” just some insane improv and Nick uses like 30 pedals over the 11 minutes of the songs and most “Math Rock” is in alt tunings but it just blows me away with how much Nick is able to do in standard!
@@cadenbenton6235 Love seeing Tera Melos brought up! Nick has had a streak of bad luck yet everything I hear about him, he stays the nicest. Thanks for the reminder to listen to their album!
THAT'S why those tascam recorders suddenly got so expensive. I've been trying to get my hands on one. Side note: I love that you always take an ideas-first approach with these breakdowns. It's a cut above a lot of other people who go straight to the gear.
Thanks man! Yeah concepts before gear every time, I also the tascams and similar equipment keep going up with the lofi revival from Mac Demarco and stuff too. People want that raunchy tone I guess
I genuinely love that he celebrates the ultra dynamic Aspect of his Tone. In Modern Rock and Metal nothing seems to be anything close to Dynamic anymore. Everything is super compressed and tightly fighting into the correct pocket. Although i would turn the Tape-y Distortion way down. For me the Melody is still King, not the Sound.
Yeah I love that too! And its such a distinct example of how dramatic of an effect dynamics can have, not only in playing but using gates and distortions on your tone as well
Another important element of his sound is his use of a roland vg-8 processor and roland gk (hexophone) pickup. This processes each of his strings separately (you can hear him using this practically throughout the new album) and creates these synth-like textures. At concerts, he processes his guitar signal in parallel (mono signal from the tascam, and stereo from the gk pickup)
People are chasing tones kids make in their bed room with their starter gear now? Oh boy. Don’t get me wrong Mcgee is awesome and a fantastic talent. But the tone sounds like something cool we figure out by messing around with our first effects processor as new players. It’s not like some genius magic trick. What’s magic about him is his songwriting, chord voicing and singing.
This was an amazing video! I’ve been on a MkGee tone exploration for a while and this was spot on. The gated reverb thing in a DAW is a game changer here. Great insight! My 2 cents: Hornet Plugins makes de 644 plugin which emulates the Tape Machine preamp perfectly. And it’s a very affordable plugin!
Oh sick, I'll check that out! I've also had a few good recommendations for postastudio pedals as well, seems like there are lots of more affordable options out there
@@maciejrembikowski5415that looks awesome! I have Aberrant's Digitalis, which is the digital version of this (lots of shitty digital artefacts that can be dialled in to taste)...by far the most creative FX plugin I've seen. Will have to check this out!
I really like the different tiers, as someone who has no money for new gear atm. I'll add that making it mono at the end of the chain for the first 2 tiers might help it sit in the mix similar to the high tier. Excellent vid here will def be referencing :)
Killer video my dude! Super cool seeing you use an actual Tascam. I was expecting to see one of the IK Tascam plugins that they put out but excited to see the real deal.
Yes dude, been waiting for this one since you first teased it on Instagram! Would love to see your take on some Jack White tones as well, especially since he just released a new album. Maybe some song recreations too, like you did with RATM!
There is also a big part of his sound, at least live, that comes from the blending of his amp rig with patches from the VG88. From live pictures you can see both Mike and Andrew using it live with a GK3 going in parallel to their amp rig. This piece of gear can especially be heard on Andrew Aged's tone, which most of the time plays keys/washy guitar parts behind Mike on some songs. As I reckon the GK3 allows you to split the strings into different sounds, allowing Mike to play bass only on lower strings on certain songs. I'm curious if you'd be able to recreate Andrew's tone the same way, which sounds to me like the perfect blend of chorusy guitar with spacious DX7-esque patch
Dude, yes! I've been obsessed with his album since the Rhett Shull vid turned me on to him. I recently ordered the MXNHLT Effects Porta424 pedal for the channel strip sound. Figure it it's smaller and way, way cheaper than what those tape recorders go for now haha. Great vid!
I literally just heard about the pedal from another commenter that probably would’ve saved me some cash hahahaha, oh well, the tape deck is super fun to play around with
@@AnthonyEvans-wl5ts I've had the Rainger Reverb X and it nails a lot of the gated verb/distortion. But the tape preamp pedal really gets that bite in his tone when settings are near maxed.
I think 17:02 was my favorite tone in here tbh- fantastic demo of a lot of mk.gee tones but I think this shows that it’s a good idea just to use these ideas as a stepping stone for your own experimentation
Love my Rainger. Pretty sure Mike puts at the end of the chain but gonna try it near the start. Worth emphasizing how light his touch is like none of this would work if his clean playing wasn’t so nuanced
The Chase Bliss Gen Loss is a fun pedal to use for a clipped tape preamp sound. Its not the Mk.gee thing exactly but if you want that gritty, tape thing I highly recommend
I would LOVE some video editing tutorials from you (or your editor if you have one) those plugin screen effects are awesome! And as always amazing job on the reconstruction of the sound ❤ Love this channel
Thanks Brenda! This one I edited myself, but I do have an editor and we typically split the work :) those are effects in premiere, the glitch is VR digital glitch, and using keyframes to automated the master amplitude, and the 3D effect is called basic 3D, and you just keyframe in the tilt!
This reminds me of how kevin parker got crazy tones out of the boss BR600/864. It’s Always some random piece of gear that explodes in value once people find out about them. Same with the KTG.
It's great you're going through different options and methods. I'm never one to really want to mimic or copy a sound, but I want the jist or similar elements so I can work it into my own tone where it fits for me.
Yeah honestly a lot of the tones I found with this setup inspired a bunch of riffs! Thats the great thing about finding new sounds, they lead to an entirely different way of playing sometimes
Great video! Another very important aspect of his tone is the roland VG-8 that he uses with their midi guitar pickup (the one ductaped to his guitar). It's a guitar/amp emulator (like a pod kinda) but with a really unique synth section for each individual string, and thats where a lot of the synthiness of his sound comes in. I have a roland gr-30 that's pretty close sounding and specifically the "bowed string" preset is i believe what he uses on the more agressive songs like candy and alesis. It also has its own onboard flanger/chorus and reverbs so I believe the flange for his live tone mostly comes out of that as well :)
Btw they are super hard to find anywhere and the ones i've seen are like upwards of 500 bucks so just something to keep in mind, the gr-30 i got gets damn close for a lot cheaper (250-300 bucks) and has a lot of it's own character and other sounds that are pretty inspiring imo
Thanks for the info dude!! Lots of people mentioning the vg8 which is definitely something I missed, the individual strings part is crazy though, had no idea
So the overdriven preamp of the 424 is a thing now.... I guess the holy grail transistor in the gray 424 search is on and we'll see price of these go up to the thousands.
Great stuff man, really cool and useful idea dialing in the tone using hardware and software gear and compare them, I would love to see the same thing as this video but trying to re-create some of Jack White's tones (not the White strips era but the newer one) ... cheers
Diud you mention the most important part? Fingers. had fun cranking rubbish old behringer mixers, and fostex 4 tracks for years. you can get those (if the cassette part is not working) basically for free. just try with whatever you have.
That would be a super cool study! I feel like a lot of the vocal production is similar to Dijon in how they use omni room mics to capture a distant kind of tone
Great job on the general tone! You probably came across this while researching, but he does utilize a Roland VG8 (which may or may not be harder to get than the Rainger....) that I believe is heavily utilized on both the videos for Alesis and Dream Police. I wanted to add for Dream Police, I think it is closer to a more synth/MIDI sound where lighter notes have a longer attack and digging in gives more bite. I found using Ableton's Gate with a low bar (when you p[lay lightly, it should pass through easily) with an attack anywhere from 75-150ms kind of gives it the sound I was looking for. I think Envelope Follower could get it even better, however, I only have Ableton Lite (which again, LOVE getting more free options, big fan of the BritPre but got a better idea on the Fx chain) Would DEFINITELY love a recreation of any of his live songs! Interested in some of his other sound design elements outside of his guitar
McG. Bro is ordering McDonalds. Great vid once again AH. I feel like you’re destined to make a Clairo video soon. One of the four horsewomen of the indie folk scene :)
Bass VI is basically a modified Jaguar. You can get one of those and put lighter strings on it, or stick with the bass strings and honestly it sounds super thick.
@@AudioHaze Trust me when I say it sounds great. Now I don't have a lot of real amps. Just a practice amp and a ToneX pedal. If you turn the bass cut switch on, and run it through a guitar amp/sim and not a bass amp/sim, it sounds super good with heavy OD/fuzz
I played through my dad's Sears and Roebuck stereo and shredded the speakers as a kid...they sounded only slightly worse that this. I have a Tascam 424, so I may still experiment an approximation out of curiosity sake...
Correct! Lots of people mentioning the vg8 which I failed to bring up in the vid, although I will say it seems to mostly apply to tones like candy and such
Prices of cheaper cassette portastudios will fly to the moon now :D BTW, there is pedal "Mid Fi Demo Tape Fuzz" that reimplements input circuit of tascam's portastudio. Kinda channel strip in pedal. And there're also some kits of clones to build("B-side fuzz" for example).
Yeah I've had a bunch of cool tap emulator pedals recommended! Good to know there's lots of options to getting good tones out there. lol I hope the cassette prices stay low-sh...they're legit insanely fun to play around with
Good job man I was looking forward to this. For budget friendly stuff Valhalla space modulator is a free really cool flanger. Sketch cassette 2 is not free but really cheap and great. Billie and finneas like it so it's not just me lol
Yeah I love space modulator! Should've definitely reached for that, although the cassette plugin is actually Tape Cassette 2 by Caelum audio! Totally free
Love the channel and love the video as always, really helpful info here! I'm confused by the first sentence though. The closest we have to a guitar hero in 2024? There are other modern legends I'd give that to over him who have had monumental influence on the world of guitar (Tosin Abasi for instance) - unless you're just talking about mainstream accessibility?
Actually I cut the second like where I mentioned that Tosin Abasi and Tim Henson could be considered hero’s as well, then talked about how Mk gee’s style is more reminiscent of a less technical era, but I cut it because I thought it was ramble 😂
@@AudioHaze That totally makes sense! 😂 I think there is something to be said about people making guitar cool for a more mainstream audience as opposed to the more progressive music world. Mk.Gee could have a similar effect to when John Mayer was coming up, or John Frusciante inspiring more "pop" audiences to pick the instrument up
I got the tascam and rainger a couple months ago before the prices blew up to get this tone, I'm still trying to figure out the rest of his sound so a full breakdown would be great!!
i think you were close, but his rig refinetly has a really clear dry blend or buffer, thats what your tone is missing. it sounds like a fuzz, and phaser clearly instead of that glasslike tone because theres no buffer
People also don’t seem to realize that mkgee doesn’t really use the gate on the reverb x, he just turns it on and off mostly controlling the gate himself. You can hear the pedal click off and on.
Most of it would be string tension! Because the baritone is a longer neck, the strings would stay at a comparably similar tension to a regular guitar in standard tuning, whereas my guitar here had super bendy strings :) it may also make tuning a bit more of a pain compared to a baritone. Hope that helps dude!
I love Mk.Gee, his sound is super nostalgic to me- I couldn't afford a guitar amp so I used to play into a tascam tape recorder when I just started like he does.
And now those tape recorders are worth more than a lot of guitar amps hahahaha
@@AudioHazestill got my 424 mk iii from ‘99 😎
You nailed it! Also, since no one else is saying it: you're an ace guitarist! Def underrated. Would love to see a full recreation.
Thanks David!! Appreciate it, I usually don't get to jam too much on the channel so it was a cool change of pace :)
I'm chasing Julian Lage and saving money on pedals.
lol yes you definitely don't have to worry about blowing your paycheck, meanwhile tape decks keep going UPPPP
yes but losing pedals on expensive guitars, amps and most important of all: lessons lol
this is correct.
Haha, me too. I can't play anything like him, but I think the most important thing is his touch of course and his guitar setup. 11s (flatwounds nowadays?) with a fairly low action and fairly straight neck. So I had to work on a light touch and when you dig in you get the right amount of snarl or growl from a Telecaster without choking out.
Wait until u see the price of a vintage fender champ 😢😢😢
You mention Mk.Gee being a modern guitar hero. Nick Reinhart is my modern guitar hero. What's funny is David Rainger said he was inspired from seeing Nick Reinhart do some gated reverb stuff and that's how we now have the Reverb-X.
Oh sick thanks for sharing! Is that in an interview anywhere I can check out?
Seconding Nick Reinhart being sick af, even just his rig rundown was inspiring
@@AudioHaze Nick was apart of a TH-cam collaboration with Juan Alderete called Pedals and Effects up until a few years ago when Juan got into an accident. If you look up Pedals and Effects:Pedal-X by Rainger Effects in that video Nick tells the story I was referring to. I also recommend checking out “TERA MELOS 40 Rods to the Hog’s Head Live @ The Media Club” just some insane improv and Nick uses like 30 pedals over the 11 minutes of the songs and most “Math Rock” is in alt tunings but it just blows me away with how much Nick is able to do in standard!
Agreed nick reinhart is the goat guitarist for me personally. So inspiring
@@cadenbenton6235 Love seeing Tera Melos brought up! Nick has had a streak of bad luck yet everything I hear about him, he stays the nicest. Thanks for the reminder to listen to their album!
Man just decided to drop the most comprehensive mkgee tone chaser video!! phenomenal job. it makes up for everytime you said mc jee 😉
hahahaha I seriously thought was correct for like 2 months and now I'm manually deprogramming it from my brain
THAT'S why those tascam recorders suddenly got so expensive. I've been trying to get my hands on one. Side note: I love that you always take an ideas-first approach with these breakdowns. It's a cut above a lot of other people who go straight to the gear.
Thanks man! Yeah concepts before gear every time, I also the tascams and similar equipment keep going up with the lofi revival from Mac Demarco and stuff too. People want that raunchy tone I guess
The Tascams had already blown up in the synth scene due to Alessandro Cortini’s use of the 414 in his Nine Inch Nails live rig.
Ran into you at 14th street guitar center a couple months ago and recently have been on a hugeee mkgee craze, vid couldn’t have been better timed !!!
Dude great meeting you! Glad this video could help in a tiny way :)
You forgot one crucial thing about his sound, THE ROLAND VG-8
i was thinking the same... thats like the most important element
Yes! I've been looking forward to this!
Enjoy my friend!!
Dude I have been waiting for this video ever since you started teasing it. You absolutely killed it man.
Thanks man glad you liked it!
i speak for every guitar player when i say, thank you for this
Happy to help my friend :)
I've been enjoying your vids for a while, but the level of detail in this one is one another spectrum, unbelievable work man love it!
Appreciate it Jamie!!
Yes! Was waiting for a breakdown like this
Glad I could provide my friend!
absolutely loved this video - PLEASE grace us with a full breakdown of Mk.gee
Noted!
I would love a full recreation!! great video!!!
Thanks my friend! Noted on the full recreation :)
JHS better start working on making that preamp a pedal
For this use case I think the Tark Audio 144 should be close enough
LOL I think a brand did make a similar thing! Another commenter mentioned that
Check out the porta424 by mxnhlt effects! Exact recreation of the preamp circuit from the 424
You could already get pretty similar results with the JHS Colour Box, its a similar kind of distortion
@@yeeb3132 GAS ACTIVATED! Yeeeeessss
I genuinely love that he celebrates the ultra dynamic Aspect of his Tone. In Modern Rock and Metal nothing seems to be anything close to Dynamic anymore. Everything is super compressed and tightly fighting into the correct pocket. Although i would turn the Tape-y Distortion way down. For me the Melody is still King, not the Sound.
Yeah I love that too! And its such a distinct example of how dramatic of an effect dynamics can have, not only in playing but using gates and distortions on your tone as well
was so hyped for this video since you teased it in a short :)
Enjoy my friend!
I really appreciate you making this video. Just the fact you did your best to replicate a tone at different budget levels is so valuable to people!
A full recation would be dope; I'm super interested in Mk.gee's drum sound.
Yeah haven’t even looked into his drum sound!
@@AudioHaze you gotta check his previous album drum sounds then, museum of contradiction 😳
I admire the production quality and effort you put into every single video. Creatively and intellectually! Thanks so much for sharing this one :)
Appreciate the kind words my friend!
I KNEW YOU WOULD PULL THROUGH WITH THIS
AYYYE Thanks man!!
Gah, big thanks for introducing me to this guy. Jaw dropped. Let the binge begin
A+ vid as always
Thanks man glad you enjoyed it!
Another important element of his sound is his use of a roland vg-8 processor and roland gk (hexophone) pickup. This processes each of his strings separately (you can hear him using this practically throughout the new album) and creates these synth-like textures. At concerts, he processes his guitar signal in parallel (mono signal from the tascam, and stereo from the gk pickup)
Thanks for the info! Appreciate anyone adding info to the vid
Full recreation of that ish!!!! Sounds amazing and wonderful vid 🫡
thank you so much man. really appreciate someone going so in depth
I’m happy to man, it was super fun :)
Yoo, the editing is improving! really loving it.
Appreciate it dude! This was one of the simpler edits but I guess it was effective :)
@@AudioHaze I used to get bothered how you use chromatic aberration in some of your old videos haha.
@@AudioHaze simple is good. No need to overdo it. I really dug the 3D'd Ableton FX chain though, that was neat :)
People are chasing tones kids make in their bed room with their starter gear now? Oh boy. Don’t get me wrong Mcgee is awesome and a fantastic talent. But the tone sounds like something cool we figure out by messing around with our first effects processor as new players. It’s not like some genius magic trick. What’s magic about him is his songwriting, chord voicing and singing.
man, you're so great at this stuff. Appreciate all your work. Thanks for leading through this so comprehensively.
Thanks Josiah! This one was tough, such a specific tone to try and match
This helps a lot! Ive watched the videos youve mention as well. This is a great summary of his tone. Please give us more. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
good shit bro - will def try this - would love your take on the Strokes sound :)
Yeah a Strokes recreation would be sick!
@@AudioHazeyeah definitely, pls make it happen
This was an amazing video! I’ve been on a MkGee tone exploration for a while and this was spot on. The gated reverb thing in a DAW is a game changer here. Great insight!
My 2 cents: Hornet Plugins makes de 644 plugin which emulates the Tape Machine preamp perfectly. And it’s a very affordable plugin!
And IK multimedia has a whole Tascam emulation line too. Not cheap though…
Oh sick, I'll check that out! I've also had a few good recommendations for postastudio pedals as well, seems like there are lots of more affordable options out there
@@AudioHaze another one is sketch cassette, in the manual they have info that they were inspired by the 4-track tascam recorder :)
@@maciejrembikowski5415that looks awesome! I have Aberrant's Digitalis, which is the digital version of this (lots of shitty digital artefacts that can be dialled in to taste)...by far the most creative FX plugin I've seen. Will have to check this out!
I really like the different tiers, as someone who has no money for new gear atm. I'll add that making it mono at the end of the chain for the first 2 tiers might help it sit in the mix similar to the high tier. Excellent vid here will def be referencing :)
that highly dynamic playing is very much complimented by the flat wound strings
Killer video my dude! Super cool seeing you use an actual Tascam. I was expecting to see one of the IK Tascam plugins that they put out but excited to see the real deal.
To be honest I didn’t even know there WAS a Tascam pedal 😂 this things sick tho! Been using it on lots of stuff since I got it
Yes dude, been waiting for this one since you first teased it on Instagram! Would love to see your take on some Jack White tones as well, especially since he just released a new album. Maybe some song recreations too, like you did with RATM!
That would be sick!! Would love to interview him at Third Man too like literal dream material right there
@@AudioHaze yessir, third man is a literal wonka factory for musicians hahaha
Hey, keep the videos coming. We always learn something.
Thanks guys!!!
There is also a big part of his sound, at least live, that comes from the blending of his amp rig with patches from the VG88. From live pictures you can see both Mike and Andrew using it live with a GK3 going in parallel to their amp rig. This piece of gear can especially be heard on Andrew Aged's tone, which most of the time plays keys/washy guitar parts behind Mike on some songs.
As I reckon the GK3 allows you to split the strings into different sounds, allowing Mike to play bass only on lower strings on certain songs. I'm curious if you'd be able to recreate Andrew's tone the same way, which sounds to me like the perfect blend of chorusy guitar with spacious DX7-esque patch
Great info thank you! I’ve heard the Vg8 is a huge part of the tone but this is a good description of how it may be implemented :)
Check out a live version of Dnm for an example of this - all of the low end is coming from the jaguar
You should do a breakdown on Hazlett, he is SOOOO underrated and I feel like you either already or will love all of his songs!! ♥️
Dude, yes! I've been obsessed with his album since the Rhett Shull vid turned me on to him. I recently ordered the MXNHLT Effects Porta424 pedal for the channel strip sound. Figure it
it's smaller and way, way cheaper than what those tape recorders go for now haha. Great vid!
I literally just heard about the pedal from another commenter that probably would’ve saved me some cash hahahaha, oh well, the tape deck is super fun to play around with
@@AudioHaze It’s sick, by the way! Absolutely nails it
@@MustafaShaheen you reckon it's spot on hey? Have you bought other pedals to try nail his sound?
@@AnthonyEvans-wl5ts I've had the Rainger Reverb X and it nails a lot of the gated verb/distortion. But the tape preamp pedal really gets that bite in his tone when settings are near maxed.
@@MustafaShaheen sweet so definitely buy a porta424?
I think 17:02 was my favorite tone in here tbh- fantastic demo of a lot of mk.gee tones but I think this shows that it’s a good idea just to use these ideas as a stepping stone for your own experimentation
Its a MONSTER of a sound for sure, looking on an EQ it literally fills out the entire frequency spectrum equally its crazy
@@AudioHaze sickk
Love my Rainger. Pretty sure Mike puts at the end of the chain but gonna try it near the start. Worth emphasizing how light his touch is like none of this would work if his clean playing wasn’t so nuanced
Most of the stuff I saw showed it at the beginning of the chain! But I'm sure it changes depending on the night. His clean playing is amazing :)
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mk.gee got the idea to experiment with baritone tuning after hearing Madison Cunningham
The Chase Bliss Gen Loss is a fun pedal to use for a clipped tape preamp sound. Its not the Mk.gee thing exactly but if you want that gritty, tape thing I highly recommend
I would LOVE some video editing tutorials from you (or your editor if you have one) those plugin screen effects are awesome! And as always amazing job on the reconstruction of the sound ❤ Love this channel
Thanks Brenda! This one I edited myself, but I do have an editor and we typically split the work :) those are effects in premiere, the glitch is VR digital glitch, and using keyframes to automated the master amplitude, and the 3D effect is called basic 3D, and you just keyframe in the tilt!
Great video man! Killin' it!
Thanks Russ!
would love a video delving into his recording techniques for the latest record, amazing stuff man
Good to know, and thanks!
New video! Awesome will watch soon!
Appreciate it dude, hope you like it :)
@@AudioHaze sure will! this type of video you make is my fav on your channel, i try to leave a comment every time to be sure to help the algorithm 🫶
This reminds me of how kevin parker got crazy tones out of the boss BR600/864. It’s Always some random piece of gear that explodes in value once people find out about them. Same with the KTG.
He is an incredibly skilled and musical guitarist. Would sound great on an acoustic.
Would love to hear that too!
I love his sound.
It's great you're going through different options and methods. I'm never one to really want to mimic or copy a sound, but I want the jist or similar elements so I can work it into my own tone where it fits for me.
Yeah honestly a lot of the tones I found with this setup inspired a bunch of riffs! Thats the great thing about finding new sounds, they lead to an entirely different way of playing sometimes
Great video! Another very important aspect of his tone is the roland VG-8 that he uses with their midi guitar pickup (the one ductaped to his guitar). It's a guitar/amp emulator (like a pod kinda) but with a really unique synth section for each individual string, and thats where a lot of the synthiness of his sound comes in. I have a roland gr-30 that's pretty close sounding and specifically the "bowed string" preset is i believe what he uses on the more agressive songs like candy and alesis. It also has its own onboard flanger/chorus and reverbs so I believe the flange for his live tone mostly comes out of that as well :)
Btw they are super hard to find anywhere and the ones i've seen are like upwards of 500 bucks so just something to keep in mind, the gr-30 i got gets damn close for a lot cheaper (250-300 bucks) and has a lot of it's own character and other sounds that are pretty inspiring imo
Thanks for the info dude!! Lots of people mentioning the vg8 which is definitely something I missed, the individual strings part is crazy though, had no idea
@@AudioHaze yeah its pretty wild stuff, crazy that they came out with it back in the 90s haha
Yo thanks for the shoutout dude! Means a lot :)
Ofc dude, wonderful vid!
the vg8 really builds the synth tone man
Yeah saw that from another commenter! Definitely will keep that in mind if I do a full recreation of Candy :)
So the overdriven preamp of the 424 is a thing now.... I guess the holy grail transistor in the gray 424 search is on and we'll see price of these go up to the thousands.
Reel dealuxe pedal + fx pedal is imo a way to achieve same tone easier routing !
Yeah I’ve actually just recently been introduced to that pedal, looks sick!
amazing video, but the true expensive way adds the roland vg-8 for the synth sounds
Great stuff man, really cool and useful idea dialing in the tone using hardware and software gear and compare them, I would love to see the same thing as this video but trying to re-create some of Jack White's tones (not the White strips era but the newer one) ... cheers
Jack Whites tone would be sick!! That's a great example of a really complex and specific tone that only uses a tiny amount of gear to achieve it
Great video
choom's packin some serious chrome
Oh shit, cosmodio and the pet yeti kick ass! Bunch of very nice people and the pedal is great I highly recommend checking it out
I LOVE THE YETI
Expensive rig is bang on
Mk.gee is amazing. You should check out Jai Paul. It would be cool to see a video from you on his recording style and techniques. Great work!
I’ll check him out!
The Chroma Console alone can get pretty close.
More wonderful work thank you
Appreciate you watching!
Diud you mention the most important part? Fingers. had fun cranking rubbish old behringer mixers, and fostex 4 tracks for years. you can get those (if the cassette part is not working) basically for free. just try with whatever you have.
Yeah I had an old Foster once upon a time! I wish I played with it more than I did, its still lying around my folks house somewhere...
For what it's worth, I Approximate the reverb by using an EHX attack decay, with a rv-5 and a distortion in its fx loop.
Begging you to do his vocals/ vocal chain too!
That would be a super cool study! I feel like a lot of the vocal production is similar to Dijon in how they use omni room mics to capture a distant kind of tone
Great job on the general tone! You probably came across this while researching, but he does utilize a Roland VG8 (which may or may not be harder to get than the Rainger....) that I believe is heavily utilized on both the videos for Alesis and Dream Police.
I wanted to add for Dream Police, I think it is closer to a more synth/MIDI sound where lighter notes have a longer attack and digging in gives more bite. I found using Ableton's Gate with a low bar (when you p[lay lightly, it should pass through easily) with an attack anywhere from 75-150ms kind of gives it the sound I was looking for. I think Envelope Follower could get it even better, however, I only have Ableton Lite (which again, LOVE getting more free options, big fan of the BritPre but got a better idea on the Fx chain)
Would DEFINITELY love a recreation of any of his live songs! Interested in some of his other sound design elements outside of his guitar
Thanks for the info!! Yeah I may have to grab a VG8 for a full recreation some day :) I'll have to check out envelope follower!
Bro your video work is fantastic. What you use for editing?
Would love to hear a full breakdown of his sound!
Great to know!
Well done
Thanks!
One thing is clear. However you say his name, he must have to retune his guitar constantly. Especially when it’s hot outside.
LOL very true
McG. Bro is ordering McDonalds. Great vid once again AH. I feel like you’re destined to make a Clairo video soon. One of the four horsewomen of the indie folk scene :)
Clairo would be sick!! Been on the radar for a while :)
Who are the other three?
I’d say it’s Clairo, Phoebe, beabaadoobee and maybe Adrianne Lenker. Honourable mention to Laufey, mitski and the other boygenuis members.
Bass VI is basically a modified Jaguar. You can get one of those and put lighter strings on it, or stick with the bass strings and honestly it sounds super thick.
I’ve always wanted to try a Bass VI, I have a theory they sound absolutely ridiculous with a massive fuzz :)
@@AudioHaze Trust me when I say it sounds great.
Now I don't have a lot of real amps. Just a practice amp and a ToneX pedal.
If you turn the bass cut switch on, and run it through a guitar amp/sim and not a bass amp/sim, it sounds super good with heavy OD/fuzz
I played through my dad's Sears and Roebuck stereo and shredded the speakers as a kid...they sounded only slightly worse that this.
I have a Tascam 424, so I may still experiment an approximation out of curiosity sake...
People also fail to mention he uses a guitar midi pickup on some songs and he's actually blending his guitar with synths
Correct! Lots of people mentioning the vg8 which I failed to bring up in the vid, although I will say it seems to mostly apply to tones like candy and such
Very much enjoyed this, great work as usual and I’d also enjoy a full breakdown. I much prefer real AudioHaze.
Believe me I do too lol
The gate keeping is over 😭
VCV RACK gangy. Free free free and u can defo make mk.gee esque sounds. Also baby audio
When I send his record to people I tell them its kinda like Prince and MacDemarco had a baby
Add in a bit of bon iver too, especially with that vocal production
you should do a full remake of a mk.gee song that would be cool to see what you do
I would love to, got a few cool vids coming down the pipeline but a full mk gee remake is definitely in the cards :)
I think I might not love that Mk. Gee sound 😂 Great playing though!
This is the comment I was hoping to see so I don’t feel alone lol. I don’t like MkGee’s guitar tone at all.
an i supposed to feel old or out of the loop if i havent heard of this Mk.Gee person til like now
Prices of cheaper cassette portastudios will fly to the moon now :D
BTW, there is pedal "Mid Fi Demo Tape Fuzz" that reimplements input circuit of tascam's portastudio. Kinda channel strip in pedal.
And there're also some kits of clones to build("B-side fuzz" for example).
Yeah I've had a bunch of cool tap emulator pedals recommended! Good to know there's lots of options to getting good tones out there. lol I hope the cassette prices stay low-sh...they're legit insanely fun to play around with
Good job man I was looking forward to this. For budget friendly stuff Valhalla space modulator is a free really cool flanger. Sketch cassette 2 is not free but really cheap and great. Billie and finneas like it so it's not just me lol
Yeah I love space modulator! Should've definitely reached for that, although the cassette plugin is actually Tape Cassette 2 by Caelum audio! Totally free
@@AudioHaze I know I meant as a recommendation to try out sc2 if u don't have it already
Love the channel and love the video as always, really helpful info here!
I'm confused by the first sentence though. The closest we have to a guitar hero in 2024? There are other modern legends I'd give that to over him who have had monumental influence on the world of guitar (Tosin Abasi for instance) - unless you're just talking about mainstream accessibility?
Actually I cut the second like where I mentioned that Tosin Abasi and Tim Henson could be considered hero’s as well, then talked about how Mk gee’s style is more reminiscent of a less technical era, but I cut it because I thought it was ramble 😂
@@AudioHaze That totally makes sense! 😂 I think there is something to be said about people making guitar cool for a more mainstream audience as opposed to the more progressive music world. Mk.Gee could have a similar effect to when John Mayer was coming up, or John Frusciante inspiring more "pop" audiences to pick the instrument up
this fucking ruled thanks m8
Thanks dude!
You’re the best!!!
Sick pedal!!
I got the tascam and rainger a couple months ago before the prices blew up to get this tone, I'm still trying to figure out the rest of his sound so a full breakdown would be great!!
Lucky you! And noted :)
would love a vid about some of his synth tones
That would be sick! They blend really well with the guitar tones too
Highly recommend flat wound strings too
Definitely!
sounds like Mk.Donalds pizzeria
I have no idea who McGee is. I’ll check it out after this video.
Yeah give him a shot! Its kinda like 80s disco Bon Iver with a crazy guitar tone...
I think this video was made for me
Hell yeah glad to hear!
i think you were close, but his rig refinetly has a really clear dry blend or buffer, thats what your tone is missing. it sounds like a fuzz, and phaser clearly instead of that glasslike tone because theres no buffer
People also don’t seem to realize that mkgee doesn’t really use the gate on the reverb x, he just turns it on and off mostly controlling the gate himself. You can hear the pedal click off and on.
Oh no way! Do you have an example of where you can hear the click in one of the tracks? Would love to check it out
@@AudioHaze ya clipped his rig rundown at about 3 minutes, in that clip you can hear and see his leg click it on and off
Thanks for working hard on these videos AH ❤ is there any advantage to having baritone guitar instead of tuning down normal one?
Most of it would be string tension! Because the baritone is a longer neck, the strings would stay at a comparably similar tension to a regular guitar in standard tuning, whereas my guitar here had super bendy strings :) it may also make tuning a bit more of a pain compared to a baritone. Hope that helps dude!
You should check out the new game changer audio eurorack style pedals. They have a dynamic reverb which would do some of the ranger stuff
Looks sick but it also is more expensive than the Rainger!