"Modern" tone??

[WizardAmpIphoneClip]

"Modern" production in metal at least: triggered drums (mostly sampled sounds) , soft midrangy high gain guitar sounds with zero abrasiveness ( plug ins??). And an assload of bass and midrange added to the whole mix.
Productions of the 90's had more imagination and unique sounds. Scott Burns, Dan Swano, Peter Tagtren etc.
Gen Z and Millenial ears are trained to bland Andy Sneap productions like the plague

 

[CrystalSky]

I use "modern" mostly to describe a newer era of metal. As in, metal with chugs, heavier vocals, arrangements that span multiple genres and drums that don't sound like tin cans. This is, of course, apposed to 60 year old dudes yelling out of pitch while the drummer plays the same beat for 5 minutes, the rhythm guitarist palm mutes the same chords they've played for the last 30+ years, just in different sequences, and the lead guitarist sounds like he's having a convulsion on the fretboard.

Like his wah pedal is having a seissure*

 

[saxxamafone]

"Modern" production in metal at least: triggered drums (mostly sampled sounds) , soft midrangy high gain guitar sounds with zero abrasiveness ( plug ins??). And an assload of bass and midrange added to the whole mix.
Productions of the 90's had more imagination and unique sounds. Scott Burns, Dan Swano, Peter Tagtren etc.
Gen Z and Millenial ears are trained to bland Andy Sneap productions like the plague

+1
I'm really not into the soft midrange no abrasiveness tone a lot of dudes have today

to me this is still an example tone i think of for good modern tone... maybe i'm just old now:
I'm an old Millennial so yes Sneap was everywhere

 

[bubucci]

dafaq means soft midrange ? It is some sort of crystal lettuce ?
Modern means music/tone which is pissing off old farts grown on Hair Halen era. Rectifiers and 5150s, just ballsy guitar sound, maaan.

 

[CrystalSky]

dafaq means soft midrange ? It is some sort of crystal lettuce ?
Modern means music/tone which is pissing off old farts grown on Hair Halen era. Rectifiers and 5150s, just ballsy guitar sound, maaan.

Soft midrage I guess refers to those bass bloated tones without enough bite

 

[bubucci]

But bass are bass and bite is in the upper spectrum. Those reffered Sneap tone is full of 5150s mids and those are strong mids. I bet my ass if I want example, it will be some sort of V-shaped Valvestate tone but I like to be suprised with the opossite

 

[PiggySmallz]

I think there's a ton of modern sounds as music is constantly evolving. A lot of us just to tend to stick to what we like, but there are tons of different sounds out there if we search for them.

Most of the modern heavier bands are using amps that are a bit more compressed, have more usable gain, and they're tighter/more present. Basically the anti rectifier. Uber Ultra comes to mind. Their mixes are a huge wall of sound.

 

[dcburn mk.ii]

After Pantera I wasn't impressed with any of that stuff.

Amen!

 

[DanTravis62]

Mastadon did it where it really pricked up your ears melodically. The BM bands of the 80’s just made it sound like noise ala. Two metal zones in series’s plugged directly into a frying pan. Like Jesus and Mary Chain with less Jesus and more chain.
Hearing bands release an album sounding worse than what my boombox could record at band practice was always a treat..

Mastodon did it where boomers really enjoyed it for sure, and influenced the guys who were already trend hopping to switch from doom metal or indie rock to their style

Black metal bands did it in a way that influenced thousands of other people to start bands

 

[rottingcorpse]

Years ago when Matt Bellamy (Muse) put a Kaoss pad on his guitar, I thought that was pretty damn cool.

I wanted to incorporate that Kaoss pad into metal so badly! Thrash riffs with industrial/noise. The tap function could be used to trigger sounds very quickly,like drumming your fingers on the pad while fretting notes with your left hand.

 

[braintheory]

To me the ‘90’s, 2000’s and early 2010’s or so are not quite modern, but each getting closer in that direction. I think a lot of what characterizes a truly modern sound for me is the increasing lack of warmth, friendliness or humanity in the overall sound. It seems to get increasingly colder/more clinical and filtered. It sort of matches the general direction in most things overall getting that way

Looking at music more broadly I think even in the first half of the 1900’s or late 1800’s music had a lot more warmth to the feel of the compositions. None of this is necessarily good or bad, but just an inevitable change I think that matches artists all being products of their time and place

 

[rsm]

dafaq means soft midrange ? It is some sort of crystal lettuce ?
Modern means music/tone which is pissing off old farts grown on Hair Halen era. Rectifiers and 5150s, just ballsy guitar sound, maaan.

 

[SFW]

"Modern" production in metal at least: triggered drums (mostly sampled sounds) , soft midrangy high gain guitar sounds with zero abrasiveness ( plug ins??). And an assload of bass and midrange added to the whole mix.
Productions of the 90's had more imagination and unique sounds. Scott Burns, Dan Swano, Peter Tagtren etc.
Gen Z and Millenial ears are trained to bland Andy Sneap productions like the plague

Maybe I'm just out of touch, but this is what I think of when I think modern guitar tone...

 

[TheGreatGreen]

I think Mesa Mark II was the first truly modern high gain amp built, and that came out in 1980. Modern levels of gain on tap with all intended distortion generated in the preamp while the poweramp was designed to run clean, built-in ability to cut lows at the input, and extremely flexible EQ.




If you consider the other extreme of "modern" guitar tone, which would be hyper-clean and compressed tone with digital ambient reverb, that was available in the late 70's, so only a couple years before modern high gain tone.

So yeah, I think "modern" guitar tone has existed in some form or another for around 40+ years. Sure it's been iterated and improved upon since then, but the basic foundation of "modern" tone has existed for about about that long.

If you ask me, the biggest paradigm shifts in guitar since then have mostly centered around taking existing tones and making as many of them as possible as instantly available to players as possible through switching systems, and these days, the game is to make all those tones available in smaller and lighter packages, either through smaller amps, elaborate pedalboards and pedal platform amp rigs, or digital modeling.

At this point, I don't know if it's possible to take modern guitar tone to a completely different place without doing something as drastic as converting it into a MIDI controller or something and fundamentally changing what it is at its core.

I don't think this is a bad thing, however. Nobody ever demands the sound of a violin to be fundamentally altered in service of some kind of "advancement" of the instrument, and it's been popular for 500+ years now. Historically speaking, the guitar is a relatively "new" instrument but I do think it's reaching a kind of evolutionary maturity now. However, I also think it's already tonally varied enough to be relevant for as long as people keep making music.

 

[braintheory]

I think Mesa Mark II was the first truly modern high gain amp built, and that came out in 1980. Modern levels of gain on tap with all intended distortion generated in the preamp while the poweramp was designed to run clean, built-in ability to cut lows at the input, and extremely flexible EQ.




If you consider the other extreme of "modern" guitar tone, which would be hyper-clean and compressed tone with digital ambient reverb, that was available in the late 70's, so only a couple years before modern high gain tone.

So yeah, I think "modern" guitar tone has existed in some form or another for around 40+ years. Sure it's been iterated and improved upon since then, but the basic foundation of "modern" tone has existed for about about that long.

If you ask me, the biggest paradigm shifts in guitar since then have mostly centered around taking existing tones and making as many of them as possible as instantly available to players as possible through switching systems, and these days, the game is to make all those tones available in smaller and lighter packages, either through smaller amps, elaborate pedalboards and pedal platform amp rigs, or digital modeling.

At this point, I don't know if it's possible to take modern guitar tone to a completely different place without doing something as drastic as converting it into a MIDI controller or something and fundamentally changing what it is at its core.

I don't think this is a bad thing, however. Nobody ever demands the sound of a violin to be fundamentally altered in service of some kind of "advancement" of the instrument, and it's been popular for 500+ years now. Historically speaking, the guitar is a relatively "new" instrument but I do think it's reaching a kind of evolutionary maturity now. However, I also think it's already tonally varied enough to be relevant for as long as people keep making music.

I agree that the Mark II was such a huge step forward and can still today not seem dated, but it's to me still to rich and warm tonally to be modern to me. The IIC+ is also still one my all time favorites for high gain

I don't think a "modern" tone is necessarily so radically different, but they say the devil is in the details and to me those details (or in some ways lack there of lol) is how cold, clinical, filtered and cardboard-y recent tones have gotten in the last few years. Pretty much any piece of gear I've tried from lets say 2010 or earlier just wasn't capable of those qualities to that degree (thankfully to me lol)

Like I think you mean (?), I don't think guitar sound need at this point to be changed so hugely. It's just a lot younger in its development than instruments like the violin and the music itself can still evolve to have more depth

 

[Techdeth]

To me the ‘90’s, 2000’s and early 2010’s or so are not quite modern, but each getting closer in that direction. I think a lot of what characterizes a truly modern sound for me is the increasing lack of warmth, friendliness or humanity in the overall sound. It seems to get increasingly colder/more clinical and filtered. It sort of matches the general direction in most things overall getting that way

Looking at music more broadly I think even in the first half of the 1900’s or late 1800’s music had a lot more warmth to the feel of the compositions. None of this is necessarily good or bad, but just an inevitable change I think that matches artists all being products of their time and place

So to you what is now a modern tone .

 

[DanTravis62]

Productions of the 90's had more imagination and unique sounds. Scott Burns, Dan Swano, Peter Tagtren etc.

Interestingly

All 3 of those producers have made albums I would describe as "lush" sounding

All the sneap/ fricker types constantly use that word to describe the sound they are going for, but all those modern productions sound anodyne and banal

Ie listen to the synth intro in edge of sanity "Twilight" and then listen to Tammy Hanson

 

[rsm]

 

[braintheory]

So to you what is now a modern tone .

It's hard for me to give examples since I don't care for most of those bands. Probably Polyphia or many newer metal bands you pick from the last few years. I mostly just listen to classical guitar and even in there also listen to any recent recordings and everything about the sound and playing itself and interpretation is a lot more modern in very similar ways. It's more about being a product of one's time. I'm speaking also more broadly here than even just the sound of the instruments

 

[Techdeth]

It's hard for me to give examples since I don't care for most of those bands. Probably Periphery or many newer metal bands you pick from the last few years. I mostly just listen to classical guitar and even in there also listen to any recent recordings and everything about the sound and playing itself and interpretation is a lot more modern in very similar ways. It's more about being a product of one's time. I'm speaking also more broadly here than even just the sound of the instruments

Id say periphery modern too but they are 10 years old . Like what’s THE tone of today . I can’t find new shit except for new death metal