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

[Little B]

Oh ya!!! TNT and Stryper from the 80's!....I recall my highschool days ,tryin to come to grips as to how these two bands came out of nowhere w/killer guitar tones!

 

[RockNRun]

I actually liked some of the stuff on Realized Fantasies (Downhill Racer, Indian Summer, hell, Easy Street was even interesting for them).

 

[Little B]

I 2nd that w/ TNT!!!!!

 

[gtrlw]

I'm reviving this thread because Icon is one of the reasons I started playing guitar 25 years ago.

 

[phil b]

Hell Yea....!!!!!!! This thread should never die..!!!!!
I always thought I was the only person that bought the Icon albums! I bought their 1st album the day it came out on a whim and was blown away with the guitar tones. There was really no bands that had that sound back then. Way cool stuff...

 

[ke2]

DAMN, Oz can sing!!!
He sounds like Michael, actually!

 

[Chubtone]

Hell Yea....!!!!!!! This thread should never die..!!!!!
I always thought I was the only person that bought the Icon albums! I bought their 1st album the day it came out on a whim and was blown away with the guitar tones. There was really no bands that had that sound back then. Way cool stuff...

I was absolutely obsessed with the first Icon album. I read a review in Kerrang where they talked about how Icon destroyed the first Queensryche and Malice releases that came out at the same time and I had to find that album. The guitar tones just ruled and that singer was a monster. It's a shame they never went anywhere. The second album was brilliant too but was more melodic metal than metal. Then the singer left and that second singer made me want to find a very tall building and jump off.

 

[Anonymous]

The second album was brilliant too but was more melodic metal than metal.

That was the worst thing about being a fan of Metal in the 80's... So many of our favorite bands would have to release the "wuss out" album to compete with Bon jovi, Poison, Motley, etc.

Once the power ballad took off bands starting wimping out left and right...

Priest - turbo
Ozzy Ultimate Sin
Van halen - 5150
Krokus - the blitz
TNT - Intuition
Accept - Eat the Eat
King Kobra - Thrill of a lifetime ( there first disc ruled )
Whitesnake '87 ( I am going to have to duck and run over this one...It was actually a good disc but far removed form there british rock roots)


and the list goes on.

You were never sure what your favorite bands were going to put out around that time....

 

[Badronald]

Love this thread! Stryper was so good it was silly. Loved TNT. Great band!

 

[rupe]

The second album was brilliant too but was more melodic metal than metal.

That was the worst thing about being a fan of Metal in the 80's... So many of our favorite bands would have to release the "wuss out" album to compete with Bon jovi, Poison, Motley, etc.

Once the power ballad took off bands starting wimping out left and right...

Priest - turbo
Ozzy Ultimate Sin
Van halen - 5150
Krokus - the blitz
TNT - Intuition
Accept - Eat the Eat
King Kobra - Thrill of a lifetime ( there first disc ruled )
Whitesnake '87 ( I am going to have to duck and run over this one...It was actually a good disc but far removed form there british rock roots)


and the list goes on.

You were never sure what your favorite bands were going to put out around that time....

Agreed for the most part except for The Ultimate Sin...no power ballads on that one (although Ozzy got ridiculously glammed out)

 

[Chris O]

THIS. THREAD. DELIVERS.

"My Religion" is arguably the best album TNT ever did. Front to back awesome. I haven't heard the stuff with Tony Mills. I don't plan to.

Love Icon. I had my ex- convinced that I played one of the songs on "Right Between"...

Stryper really brought it with "Against the Law".

 

[killertone]

Im one of the few that Like processed tones as well as a good cranked Plexi. I know the Stryper tone isn't for everyone but I dig it

Me, too. I catch a bit of shit for it but SUC and THWTD are ridiculously good albums. Killer songwriting, tone, and playing all the way around. Always loved that Schenker-ish tone that they had...even for rhythms. Saw them when they first re-united and they were using XXX's, the tone wasn't there for me. Glad to her they went back to the Mesas.

 

[Ultron]

both great bands, and great lead singers. I must have a thing for singers that sound like their nuts are being crushed.


I'm even a huge fan of King Diamond too..

 

[zz666]

I was stuffing around with a Boss EQ into my modded 800 last night, I bumped 800 and cuts the lows and highs, and also cranked the input - viola! Stryper tone - the def a sweet spot there. Too much and it's like you have a wha on the whole time, which is Michael Sweet's tone (I'm watching a live in Sweden 2006 dvd as I type) At this gig Oz has the more scooped tone. But I really had a ball at my gig last night, the EQ was better than any overdrive or distortion Ive ever used

 

[wildchild8699]

I know this is a pretty old thread but I have some info that I found from a few years ago that I had copied from OZ Fox website SINDIZZY.com it's not on there anymore. I wanted to share it with the Forum.
Here it is He explains in detail how he gets/got his tone.
"Copied from Sindizzy.com"

Hope you guys enjoy the info.....This was a great thread to read....
Glad some others appreciate how great these bands were.
If any one has any more info on ICON I would love to know what gear Dan Wexler and John Alquilino used on "ICON" and "Night Of The Crime" I know on the liner notes it says they also used a Guitar synth on some tracks. I think they have some of the best tone there was also "Out For Blood" is like the shit, love that song. The info so far is awesome....I hope you enjoy mine.

 

[Gainfreak]

I know this is a pretty old thread but I have some info that I found from a few years ago that I had copied from OZ Fox website SINDIZZY.com it's not on there anymore. I wanted to share it with the Forum.
Here it is He explains in detail how he gets/got his tone.
"Copied from Sindizzy.com"

Hope you guys enjoy the info.....This was a great thread to read....
Glad some others appreciate how great these bands were.
If any one has any more info on ICON I would love to know what gear Dan Wexler and John Alquilino used on "ICON" and "Night Of The Crime" I know on the liner notes it says they also used a Guitar synth on some tracks. I think they have some of the best tone there was also "Out For Blood" is like the shit, love that song. The info so far is awesome....I hope you enjoy mine.

Glad to see that I wasn't the only one who downloaded that info off of Ozzies site before he pulled it

With that said, Icon got there sound from doing the same exact thing that Stryper did. They used Audio Arts parametric Eq's in front of Music man RD Amplifiers. Wexler used a mid bump at 800hz and Alquilino used a Mid Bump at 400hz and when they mixed the two, you got the sound that you are looking for.
With all this said, you either love that sound or you hate it lol! I have had long debates about these types of tones with many guitar players and it has been my experiance that there are as many people who hate that soound as there are people who love it lol!

 

[GtarLover]

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

That is pretty damn close, if not perfect!! Love that sound. Used to play that tune with a cover band back in the late 80's/early 90's. Always liked playing that one...like someone else mentioned, they kinda lost their way as a band, but that sound, sweet!

 

[Mark Day]

There was a Canadian band in the early 80's called Wrabbit. The guitarist John Albani had a rack rig and was slamming his Marshall JMP with the PQ3. I saw them in 82' . His tone was crazy cool. I went out and bought all the shit he had in the rack. A Furman PQ3, Boss Noise Gate, 2 Ibanez AD202 (one for delay and one for the Doubling which was a monstrous chorus thing), a dual 15 band graphic (1 for dirt one for clean). I remember hearing Stryper a few years later and said "Hey they copied Albany's sound too" lol. Same with Icon. John went on to play with Lee Aaron and kept that tone for a lot of her stuff too, until the record company told him he couldn't use that tone anymore...sounded too much like Wrabbit.

I have tried the Boss Flanger trick and it works great. I also like the Koko Boost with a Boss PQ4...that works even better to get the Stryper tone. Of course the Furman into a JMP is totally killer.

Mark

From 1984 two or three years after I saw John's rig for the first time. Yes swashbuckler rock for sure, but the guitar tone is like Icon and Stryper

 

[thiswaythatway]

Long live mid-hump metal tone.

 

[phil b]

Long live mid-hump metal tone.

Yep, that quote and this thread deserves another bump.