George Lynch tone?

  • Thread starter Thread starter MrFlexx
  • Start date Start date
...And if you are talking about tones, then you're just admitting you suck at emulating anyone else's :ROFLMAO:


Other people don't have that problem :dunno:
 
Kapo_Polenton said:
I think what is happening here is that when we say " fingers" I think some of us are equating it to the physical fingers while most of us are saying the tone is in the fingers is the culmination of the mind, phrasing, vibrato style, and right pick attack and timing. That is where the tone comes from. At that point that person plays on anything and sounds like them. So if you don't have that feel, nothing will give you the tone. It seems clear to me. We aren't talking about fingers here people...

But yeah of course you can get close to it and in some cases nail it when you can play in that style. Like Levin does.
Click to expand...

What happened is that the OP was asking about specific pieces of gear with a certain timbre in mind, and then people decided to superimpose their own definition of tone so they could show everyone else how broad-minded they are when it comes to where "tone" REALLY comes from.

The point about fingers is that of course it's not in the fingers, but the same sense of taste and creativity and quirks and whatever else goes into how someone touches and finesses the guitar, also reflects in the gear they choose and how they dial it in. An echoplex into an NMV Marshall sounds different than a tube screamer into a blackface. Even if the same player is recognizable through both, they still sound different. Maybe your definition of tone is narrow enough to exclude gear, but gear plays a role nonetheless, which is what the OP was asking about. He wasn't asking about gear that would give him Lynch's "mind, phrasing, vibrato style". In fact, he explicitly said he knew the difference. His question was very specifically about gear.

Lot's of well-known players have an m.o. when it comes creating their base tone. How many guys in the 80s had that Furman PQ3/Marshall tone? They didn't necessarily play alike, but there were similar qualities in the timbre of their tones because of the gear, and someone looking for those qualities in their own tones would reasonably ask about the gear. I might inquire about Yngwie's gear, and then I find out that what I like is the effect of layered/driven gain stages. I mean, plenty of people are goosing tube amps with pedals, right? That doesn't mean I think a DOD250 into a superlead is going to give me Yngwie's vibrato or "mind", lol. Just like lots of players have discovered their own voices by building on the knowledge of what was used to create other sounds they like.
 
blacknoizemachine said:
What happened is that the OP was asking about specific pieces of gear with a certain timbre in mind, and then people decided to superimpose their own definition of tone so they could show everyone else how broad-minded they are when it comes to where "tone" REALLY comes from.

The point about fingers is that of course it's not in the fingers, but the same sense of taste and creativity and quirks and whatever else goes into how someone touches and finesses the guitar, also reflects in the gear they choose and how they dial it in. An echoplex into an NMV Marshall sounds different than a tube screamer into a blackface. Even if the same player is recognizable through both, they still sound different. Maybe your definition of tone is narrow enough to exclude gear, but gear plays a role nonetheless, which is what the OP was asking about. He wasn't asking about gear that would give him Lynch's "mind, phrasing, vibrato style". In fact, he explicitly said he knew the difference. His question was very specifically about gear.

Lot's of well-known players have an m.o. when it comes creating their base tone. How many guys in the 80s had that Furman PQ3/Marshall tone? They didn't necessarily play alike, but there were similar qualities in the timbre of their tones because of the gear, and someone looking for those qualities in their own tones would reasonably ask about the gear. I might inquire about Yngwie's gear, and then I find out that what I like is the effect of layered/driven gain stages. I mean, plenty of people are goosing tube amps with pedals, right? That doesn't mean I think a DOD250 into a superlead is going to give me Yngwie's vibrato or "mind", lol. Just like lots of players have discovered their own voices by building on the knowledge of what was used to create other sounds they like.
Click to expand...

Honestly I think we are all saying the same thing and coming at it from different angles at this point. I don't even know what the point of the discussion is anymore. I've made my suggestions gear wise and I have said my piece about the " fingers". Everyone else can decide for themselves.

For the record, I get close enough to the tones I like with pedals and Marshalls so I am happy. Speakers are probably as big a factor as are amps and pedals by the way but then you are back to the style, timing, licks blablabla to really have it sound right. Oh and for extra credit, don't forget the role the board or mic pre played in the coloration and then the production. If you gear guys want to go down that road then you can't leave that out either. There is no right answer here, only opinions. Decide for yourselves and spend lots of money finding out. It's the journey not the destination after all.
 
To get Lynch tone:

Marshall flavored amp.
Bass - 3
Mids - 8
Treble - 6
Gain - 7

TS Boost - Level 11:00; Tone - 1:00; Gain - 2:00.

Delay - set to moderate levels with about two repeats.

Chorus - Level - 10:00; rate - off; depth - 10:00.

4x12 cabinet with Greenbacks. (Reissues will be fine.)

Maple bodied Super Strat with a Super Distortion in the bridge.
 
Last edited:
I’ve never thought Lynch’s tone was great other than ULAK but that’s like 5 blended amps. Never bad though, and always good. But one thing is certain; it’s changed with every single record he did. I have not a clue as to what pedals he used to shape his tone; as much as he switched amps I’ll bet he was even worse with pedals.
 
Racerxrated said:
I’ve never thought Lynch’s tone was great other than ULAK but that’s like 5 blended amps. Never bad though, and always good. But one thing is certain; it’s changed with every single record he did. I have not a clue as to what pedals he used to shape his tone; as much as he switched amps I’ll bet he was even worse with pedals.
Click to expand...

You're right, the guy is a tweaker and tone chaser. His pedals are far worse than his amp rotation. He has a compulsion for overdrives. I think the two big ones that factored in on the iconic tones were a TS and the lowly SD-1. but in the last 10 years, just pull up a pic of his live board, you will see a ton of varierty of Batio's overdrive to boutique TS clones and standard drive boxes. Wouldn't surprise me if he brings a bunch on the road and depending the venue that night, swaps them in and out.
 
Lynch has used more amps and pedals than any player in the history of guitar !
He leans towards marshall modded sounding amps.
I have said this before and still believe it.
The most consistent sound he had was his Bogner years mid 90's through early 2000's I think ?
I would say the biggest part to sounding like George is in You're vibrato and phrasing plus a modded type marshall flavor.
Best of luck.
 
He has a very discernible way of executing each note. I believe this is a function of his picking action (slicing movement) and the timing of pick contact and fretting. We are talking microseconds here, but it gives his sound a roundness and fluidity that is unique.

That sort of thing is for sure "in the hands". :-)
 
What's with everyone dissing the Metal Zone?? It's works great as a boost ya know... Level maxed, drive off, all tone knobs at noon, put that in front of a dual or triple rectifier and you got yourself Cannibal Corpse's tone, or put it in front of a SS Randall RG and you got yourself Crowbar's brutal tone!. It's a great pedal.
 
George could take any rig and flick 4 knobs and be FUCKING GEORGE LYNCH.

This retarded hunt that us retards hunt on, is so dumb. Its about the player.
 
SoooRad said:
This thread was doomed from the OP. Like it was said, Lynch’s tone is different on every album. Drastically so sometimes. He must’ve been exchanging fingers with somebody...
Click to expand...
I provided specific settings on the Lynch tone earlier. Just dial the amp in like I showed, and poof - instant Lynch tone. 😉
 
SQUAREHEAD said:
In 1979, Eddie Van Halen came to Toronto Steve’s Music store one afternoon before the show they were playing, everyone In the store, as you can imagine, went completely nuts !

Now, Steve’s Music didn’t carry Marshall Amplifiers at that time, So they plug him into a late 60s fender and cranked it up…
Yes, there it was, EVH!!
...but his ‘tone’ was absolutely horrible.
Click to expand...

Those were the days when Steve's music was great! That would have been amazing to see Eddie there!
I remember as a kid going down there and that was like a major fun trip to take from the burbs to see all of the amazing gear and dream! I always dealt with a guy named Peter. Super nice. The manager Gerry was a complete douche nozzle though.

Nowadays? MEH x 20.
 
Mr. Willy said:
Yes! I think Eddie’s rhythm playing is just as exciting as his lead playing. Especially on 5150.
Click to expand...

Not a big fan of the Sammy era but I agree 1000% that Eddie's rhythm playing is 'Off the charts' amazing and two examples that really blew me away back in the day was his rhythm playing on songs like 'The Full Bug' and 'Hang em High' off Diver Down . It was so amazing that I was convinced I was hallucinating.
 
I found this information a while back when I was researching how to nail George Lynch's tone from Dokken's Under Lock & Key record. This is straight from Michael Wagener. Wagener is the King Kong of getting the best guitar tone to tape in the world as far as I am concerned. I was kind of bummed when I first read this and realized there was not some holy grail Marshall amp out there with the greatest tone ever. George uses all kinds of stuff live trying to get close to his best recorded tones.


The setup for George Lynch's guitar tone on "Under Lock And Key" was as follows:

"We had two Marshall heads and two Laney heads, not sure which models, but one of them was a Plexi. We had cabs in three different rooms: two cabs were placed in the big room at Amigo, one connected to a Marshall, the other connected to the Laney. The Marshall was responsible for the high end part of the sound and the Laney was set to take care of the low end. There were 14 (fourteen) mics set up in that room in various psoitions around the cabinet and some further away to get some room tone. The second Laney was sent into a very dead room and had a Boss chorus pedal in front of it, set to very slight chorus. The second Marshall was sent into a small, tiled bathroom, to add a different room tone. Those 16 mics came in on the MCI 500 console mic pres. They were bussed to one bus and that bus had a UREI 530 EQ on it (best guitar EQ ever). George mentioned that he always gets a great tone with his Fostex 4track recorder when it's in total overdrive, so I asked him to bring it in. So after the 530 everything was sent to the Fostex 4track, which lived under a packing blanket under the console, so nobody would see it. The Fostex was on stunn, completely overdriven and was sent on to the 3M 32 track dig machine from there."
 
Lots of guys have posted settings/gear, totally agree with tons of what's been said.

Lynch was a lot of the basis of the tone I was trying to dial in when I was a kid, and no matter what gear I've bought over the years, I still dial it in pretty similarly. Yeah, his tone has differed on the albums and sometimes noticeably, but a lot of times different flavors of pretty straight-forward 80's high gain hard rock tone.

I've never been dependent on any one thing to dial in Lynch's tone, I've used tons of combinations of amps, cabinets/speakers, rack gear, pedals, guitars, pickups...lots of ways to get there. Back in the day, I used at various points a Randall RG80, JCM800, Rockman gear, ADA MP-1, Soldano SLO...and later on lots more flavors of Marshalls, modelers, etc. Friedman stuff gets me there, my old Cornford Hellcat, and tons of other amps. Tube screamer works, but an SD-1 and plenty of other overdrives have worked well too. It's more just knowing how to EQ, adding all the time based effects right since there's a lot of signature George sound there, and having a good ear while you experiment and put it all together. I feel like I've put together a credible "George rig" a bazillion times over the years.

Yes, it assumes you can also channel George's style in your playing, but I feel like that's a given and could be a "disclaimer" in most artist gear discussions.
 
anomaly said:
What's with everyone dissing the Metal Zone?? It's works great as a boost ya know... Level maxed, drive off, all tone knobs at noon, put that in front of a dual or triple rectifier and you got yourself Cannibal Corpse's tone, or put it in front of a SS Randall RG and you got yourself Crowbar's brutal tone!. It's a great pedal.
Click to expand...
It depends on how you use it...it can be used as a boost as you mentioned for the brootz.

I can get one dialed in for more hair metal tone on the cheap by stacking it with an OD. Put a tube screamer or SD-1 in front, use the Metal Zone for your main gain and tweak the EQ controls on it to that somewhat elusive sweet spot (a lot of settings can sound pretty bad on it), run some additional EQ and other effects to taste after that in the chain all into a clean amp that takes pedals decently. It's not tone heaven, but might surprise a lot of naysayers, and not shabby at all for someone on a small budget.
 
Rock Bodom said:
It depends on how you use it...it can be used as a boost as you mentioned for the brootz.

I can get one dialed in for more hair metal tone on the cheap by stacking it with an OD. Put a tube screamer or SD-1 in front, use the Metal Zone for your main gain and tweak the EQ controls on it to that somewhat elusive sweet spot (a lot of settings can sound pretty bad on it), run some additional EQ and other effects to taste after that in the chain all into a clean amp that takes pedals decently. It's not tone heaven, but might surprise a lot of naysayers, and not shabby at all for someone on a small budget.
Click to expand...
They sound really good in the loop of some amps. Plug straight into the effects return of a decent tube amp and you got yourself a pretty mean tone. In front of an amp, it's a little more difficult to use as a main distortion but i used one through a SS combo way back when I first started playing guitar, and I loved the pedal back then. Now, not so much for distortion, but it's a great boost for brutal metal.
 
one of the best bootleg recorded examples of prime live ulak years lynch tone i’ve heard



my friend was a big lynch fan and had a few of the signature esp kamakazes. those are SOOOOPER bright guitars. through his tsl it was a knife in the face. through my pedal driven peacemaker in a w/d rig, way better. he ended up with a herbert and was dialed.

my other fave tone moment of his

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top