Mids with Ronnie Le Tekro & Oz Fox/Michael Sweet?

[Isaac]

How did these guys get that mid hump in their sound? Their rhythm tones stand out for me, because theirs something more going on with the rhythm tones of these guys. When they chugged on low strings it wasn't a typical metal rhythm tone, it had a pronounced precussive thing goin' on.

Any of you guys know what I'm talking about?

 

[Bronco]

Furman PQ3 I believe...I'm sure someone who knows exactly will chime in. In other words, a parametric EQ...DeMartini did this on Out of the Cellar as well.

 

[Hard&Heavy]

Well they used mesa mark III's series amps forever infact I just saw them in the fall and they were using mesa mark v and it looked like III's.

 

[Vrad]

Well they used mesa mark III's series amps forever infact I just saw them in the fall and they were using mesa mark v and it looked like III's.

Ronnie LeTekro used/uses Marshalls to the best of my knowledge.

 

[Mudder]

The flanger is key, maybe more than the eq. I think it's the Boss BF-3 that has the four knobs. Great flanger on the whole.

 

[MrDan666]

Check that out and tell me that isn't close enough Ralph (Gainfreak) posted that a while ago and he has it nailed IMO.

 

[gtr31]

There was another band called ICON in the 80's that did that weird mid hump it was the same as Stryper and Ratt .I am pretty sure the freq is a bump at 800 hz before hitting the preamp

 

[Chubtone]

There was another band called ICON in the 80's that did that weird mid hump it was the same as Stryper and Ratt .I am pretty sure the freq is a bump at 800 hz before hitting the preamp

I think Icon did it better than Stryper and I really liked Stryper. Icon's first two albums were just off the chart cool, especially the first one. Icon had one guy boosting at 400 and the other boosting at 800. They told how they did it recently. I wish they would have told how they did it in 1985.

 

[Little B]

Cant say for Ronnie, but as for stryper, Ive seen them 4 times,and had dinner w/ michael once way back in the day...For a long time they used,Mesa quad preamps w/ 4 strategy 400 poweramps( I have a live pic of that). then it was mk III's for a good while( perhaps thier best tone era),then when michael went on his own,he used a Triaxis, then a sansamp...When stryper first reunited, they were using peavey triple x's,now theyre onto boogie mk V's...ive seen oz fox use a recto, and michael had an elmwood, so who knows...but once I saw them in Pittsburgh and I counted 40 mesa boogie 4x12's on stage!...
For their best, richest,most meaty gain tones, check out-"soldiers under command" "In God We Trust" and "To Hell With The Devil," and even- "Against the law" albums...

 

[thiswaythatway]

There was another band called ICON in the 80's that did that weird mid hump it was the same as Stryper and Ratt .I am pretty sure the freq is a bump at 800 hz before hitting the preamp

I think Icon did it better than Stryper and I really liked Stryper. Icon's first two albums were just off the chart cool, especially the first one. Icon had one guy boosting at 400 and the other boosting at 800. They told how they did it recently. I wish they would have told how they did it in 1985.

Didn't Icon use some sort of solid state amp? And probably EQ'd all to hell. I used to dig them. And i thought Vito Bratta was almost close to this mid hump thing on the first White Lion album. Not the popular one but the album that had crap production.

 

[thiswaythatway]

Yeah, THIS is that tone.

 

[Chubtone]

danyeo,
That second album was great, but they were a little more metal and heavy sounding on the first album and their tone was wicked. I'm talking more about this from the first album.

 

[Cornfordcrunch]

It was the PQ3 on the early Stryper stuff. Oz has been using a POD x3 live for the past few years. Any amp that's been on stage with him recently is only for power to the cabs. All of his guitars have a switch that takes a coil from each humbucker and puts them out of phase. That's what always gave them the "metallic grind" in the Stryper tone. I played his Jackson with the bullet graphic and the silver and black sparkle soloist through one of those little GK amps with the 8 inch speakers and with that switch engaged it was the Stryper sound.

Leatherwolf had that kind of Icon sound too. Boogies again I think?

Anyone know anything about Sound Labs in Norway who worked on Ronni's amps?

 

[ttosh]

Regarding Stryper another key factor to their tone is the coloring of the Eventide H3000's, it is very apparent to me in most everything they did. Take pretty much any percussive type amp (MKIII being best for Stryper Stuff), add an H3000 and the EQ spoken of in this thread and you can nail Stryper tones.

 

[zz666]

There was another band called ICON in the 80's that did that weird mid hump it was the same as Stryper and Ratt .I am pretty sure the freq is a bump at 800 hz before hitting the preamp

I think Icon did it better than Stryper and I really liked Stryper. Icon's first two albums were just off the chart cool, especially the first one. Icon had one guy boosting at 400 and the other boosting at 800. They told how they did it recently. I wish they would have told how they did it in 1985.

Where did you read that about the Icon dudes?

 

[Gainfreak]

ahhhhhh 3 of my 80's faves mentioned in this thread!!


Just to clear up some things that Ive read....
I spoke to Oz Fox and Michael Sweet via e-mail and in person and here is what the told me and Ganiac at the Stryper expo in 2000 when we met them. When they used the Boogie Mark series amps and not preamps they used Boogie MKII's not the MKIII's or IIC+'s. Oz said that his amp might have been close to the MKIII because he got his amp right about when the MKIII's were just comming out and he said that his amp just sounded mean as hell and it had the Import transformer.
Both Michael an OZ slammed the Front end of their amps with the Furman Pq3 bumping up the midrange at a narrow bandwidth , cutting the lows and the level on the PQ3 was set at 8 to max which increases the gain by +26db. Both mark series amps had graphic Eq's and they were set to the scoop setup. When you have the Boogie graphic scoop combined with the PQ3 in the front of the amp you get that tone. Ive nailed that tone on any of the Marks series amps with an EQ and PQ3. Its really the parametric EQ that is needed for that tone.
The Marks series amps and PQ3 combo was used on Soldiers and THWTD.
In God we trust they swapped out the MKII's for a Quad preamp Strategy 400 Poweramp and PQ3 and on against the Law they went back to straight MKII's without the PQ3 slamming the front end.

OZ told me that they used Boogie Halfback Cabs loaded with 4 EV speakers. He said that some speakers could not handle that sound but the EV's were great for it.

They also used Noise gates because you will find out that slamming the front end and boosting mids will add a shitload of noise lol!!

As far as effects were concerned OZ told me that they used Digitech stuff and the only thing he used was a chorus with 26ms of delay between cabs and he used Delay Live on the THWTD tour. Other then that everytime Ive seen him Live he just used Chorus.

I hope this helps!!


As far Letekro is concerned he did pretty much the same thing that stryper did by hitting teh front end of the amp but its the Flanger that acts like the EQ in order to get that Midrange Hump. How he figured that out is beyond me and it Was Curt(Chubtone) Who hipped me to the Flanger !!

Icon use the same thing as Stryper but they used Valley Arts Parametric EQ. Wexler set his midrange Bump to 800hz and the other guitarist had his at 400. They recorder them together and that's what gave them the sound. They also used Musicman solid state amps which would not have the bottom end Stryper had and it would be a bit tighter.
If you Listen to Reason for the season by Stryper that was more in the 800hz Freeqency ala ICON!

Hope this helps!

~R~

 

[Little B]

That furman really did wonders to the sound..although you can get fairly close w/out one too..(but that mid change will be mssing)...I found[*] a live pic from Stryper(its either THWTD,or IGWTrust tour) theyve both got pretty good size racks going on....Then last year(09') I saw them and got to check out thier stuff after the show- Michael was using a mk V, and Oz was using a line 6...

 

[Cornfordcrunch]

One thing to keep in mind and those that have seen them live recently can vouch for...Michaels tone is very scooped while Oz has a ton more mids...Ive heard their rigs on stage and it was shocking to me how different their tones actually were coming out of the cabinets....FOH has them balanced a little closer for the mains.

 

[mixohoytian]

only person I've heard mimic the "spaz" Le Tekro lick and nail the tone is chubtone


weirdest spazzy fast rock solo:
tnt "wisdom" from intuition
wtf is that?!
must be the 1/4 step guitar..anyone have a pic of that guitar?

 

[Chubtone]

only person I've heard mimic the "spaz" Le Tekro lick and nail the tone is chubtone


weirdest spazzy fast rock solo:
tnt "wisdom" from intuition
wtf is that?!
must be the 1/4 step guitar..anyone have a pic of that guitar?

Ralphie nailed it great too a few months back. I think he nailed it better than I did. And Gainzilla can play that Ronni Le Tekro machine gun picking thing that for whatever reason I can't do. I can do the jerky, spazzy Ronni type stuff though. I love that style that sounds like he is being electrocuted but still fighting through it to solo.