A Perfect Circle tone

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Revson

Revson

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Last night I was putting together a cover of "Judith" and as I was listening to the real song to get an idea of the tone, I realized just how growling and monstrous it is. I mean, it's a thing of violent beauty when those palm muted riffs start in. I always liked the guitar sound on the APC albums, but I just never paid that much attention to it until last night. I guess Howerdel was using a Friedman Naked JMP as his main tone.

His use of effects is also really cool to me. I have never been much of an effect driven player (anything more than a guitar->cable->amp setup is too much work) so trying to figure out what he was doing was eye-opening to me.

If you're interested in hearing how close I came, I finished an instrumental of the song this morning.

Instrumental cover of APC's "Judith"
 
I wonder what cab he used during the "Mer de Noms" sessions. I know he's used VHT cabs with V30s and Greenbacks and I imagine that and the micing plays a huge part in what we're hearing. Maybe I layer a couple more guitar tracks in there tonight, try to get a little closer to his sound.
 
Chasing recorded tone is often a losing battle. Expensive preamps, multi-layered tracks, studio magic, etc.
 
Regardless, your cover sounds great. A little too much flange going on here and there. I would probably slow the rate down. Other than that, sounds fantastic.
 
se7en":3nl09p13 said:
Chasing recorded tone is often a losing battle. Expensive preamps, multi-layered tracks, studio magic, etc.
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I know, but hot damn I love the challenge of it.

FourT6and2":3nl09p13 said:
Regardless, your cover sounds great. A little too much flange going on here and there. I would probably slow the rate down. Other than that, sounds fantastic.
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Thanks! :rock: I'm still not entirely sure what I'm doing with guitar effects. I'll tweak with it a little more tonight I'm sure.

ejecta":3nl09p13 said:
Cool cover! Did you program the drums?
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Yup. There's a lot of fills and random cymbal hits that I left out. One of my drummer friends wants to record drums for real, so once I get another cover or two down the fake drums will go bye-bye.
 
Clip sounds good btw. Something around :03 seconds sounds off to me, but maybe I'm just used to hearing the song in full context.
 
Owning a Friedman Naked I can say, the amp gets you in the right ballpark for the APC tone, not enough to say " their it is!" But close. As far as the effects go, It's really hard to dial in those perfectly timed effects outside a studio. Layering is a must. But It doesn't downplay Howerdel's ability to incorporate effects into his overall tone, it's what makes it so original.
 
se7en":14ij45mo said:
Clip sounds good btw. Something around :03 seconds sounds off to me, but maybe I'm just used to hearing the song in full context.
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Ha, yeah, it sounds like I didn't get the left side guitar a full slide up to the proper note. Easy fix.
 
Revson":1g7jderf said:
se7en":1g7jderf said:
Clip sounds good btw. Something around :03 seconds sounds off to me, but maybe I'm just used to hearing the song in full context.
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Ha, yeah, it sounds like I didn't get the left side guitar a full slide up to the proper note. Easy fix.
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I hate to nitpick, because it sounds really good otherwise. Just a heads up. Great job.
 
lowmantotempole":33wzthit said:
Revson":33wzthit said:
Last night I was putting together a cover of "Judith" and as I was listening to the real song to get an idea of the tone, I realized just how growling and monstrous it is. I mean, it's a thing of violent beauty when those palm muted riffs start in. I always liked the guitar sound on the APC albums, but I just never paid that much attention to it until last night. I guess Howerdel was using a Friedman Naked JMP as his main tone.

His use of effects is also really cool to me. I have never been much of an effect driven player (anything more than a guitar->cable->amp setup is too much work) so trying to figure out what he was doing was eye-opening to me.

If you're interested in hearing how close I came, I finished an instrumental of the song this morning.

Instrumental cover of APC's "Judith"
Click to expand...

I do know there is some serious layering going on in those tracks. Who knows how many tracks were recorded as well...

I have no idea how he is getting those tones... I say that because I have a 1971 Marshall that Dave Friedman modded with the APC mod and I'm not getting those tones. Then again, I'm not using what he uses for a guitar and effects.
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They get close to the Mer De Noms tone in this demo around the one minute mark.

 
I was almost certain he was using Marshalls and Recto's back in the early 2000's.
 
He uses an LP classic with an H3 and H1+. I think he was given it by Trent Reznor
 
Billy has always used his Friedman '78 super lead and used to use a ton of rack gear along with it. Not sure if he ever used Mesa. That Friedman Naked was always his core tone.
 
Nice recording. If I were to nitpick, I would tell you to slow down and concentrate on getting your rhythm playing into the pocket. You are playing way ahead of the beat.
 
LPMojoGL":wh4f6z85 said:
I read that he used Ampfarm for to record Mer de Noms.
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I think he used it for the bass.

Gearslutz post with some info collected from various interviews

Lution":wh4f6z85 said:
Nice recording. If I were to nitpick, I would tell you to slow down and concentrate on getting your rhythm playing into the pocket. You are playing way ahead of the beat.
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Thank ye. For the most part I was learning the riffs as I was recording them. I guess this just goes to show how important rehearsing is for recording.
 
I learned years ago that [studio magic] plays a huge roll in tone. Mics catch and amplifies nuances that you don't normally hear if that makes sense.
 
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