Chubtone":2d287 said:
mentoneman":2d287 said:
i love that very much...the sound of
rock and roll
now that you are in that ballpark, it's just fine tuning time.
ps--did steve ever record any clips of the modded Peacemaker????
Pat,
I've been fine-tuning for 4 years!
What do you hear in there that you think it needs? Is it an eq thing, is it a gain thing? Is it a speaker thing? Believe it or not, the amp feels gainy enough to solo on now and that's with the amps treble volume knob only on 8. I used to run it on 10 all the time and was always reaching for my volume knob on my guitar trying to turn it up to get that last bit. With these tubes it feels gainy enough.
I'm also using a Duncan EVH instead of the Duncan '59 I used for years. I want to buy a Mojave pickup but dang man it's $$$$$$$$$. The Metro guys swear by the Voodoo's and the WCR's, both established, well known boutique pickup companies and both more affordable than Vics pickups???????????
pickups:
honestly it sounds wonderful and the fire is right there in regards to eq and pickup...the EVH pu is slightly nasally where the holmes 455 is fatter on top but slightly bassy like the duncan custom 59 for brown. vic's pu is like the top of the holmes 455 with the bottom more like the evh and if that extra measure of tone snobbery is desired, vic's pickup is cool.
tubes:
yes major differences occur in this department but outside of a handful of vintage tubes i've experimented with, this is an area i know relatively nothing about other than when i find a tube i hate, normally due to midrangey mud and dull/muted highs (ie early jj ecc83s and GT mullard ecc83 copies), i ditch it, and when i find one i like, which sweetens the top end, extends the tone control range in a positive way, and makes the amp quieter and more dynamic, i keep it.
loading & wet/dry:
i think i detect the fact that the amp is not sustaining/juicing quite as hard as eddie's tones indicated, which could be in part the lack of a load box aspect as well as the lack of a tiny bit of boost to make the amp's input dance more. ralle's early clips had that fair warning to panama liquid meltdown bursting at the seams quality in the lows and mids, and rockstah has the VH I-WACFchoir of twisting trumpets blasting chord factor and lead chirp nailed.
your clip sounds a teeny bit stacked up in the mids and highs, which i used to get from my peacemaker running mono, and gets cleared up significantly---cured really--- with the wet/dry config, especially if using an echoplex-type delay, and mixing the recording in classic vh fashion.
w/d allows you to seperate things enough to really bring clarity and length to your tone, and it also allows you to use less gain and distortion and opens the amp back up as a tone shaping machine and less of a "have to dime it" deal.
the question becomes how do *you* get there,
or if it really matters that much to CLONE VH tone...i reached a point with my peacemaker where i realized, yeah i could go all the way and commit to the load process, but after a while i noticed i was happy with the vh vibe of the tone at hand without all the trappings
micing and recording chain:
i did a recording w/ an acoustic once, and started by running a DI to the board...just ho hum results
then i mic'ed it using a nice mic/pre/compressor chain, and more than anything i noticed how much more realism, girth, and sustain i generated using that method. as the acoustic volume dropped the pre kept things warm as the comp dug in and pulled sounds out of the gtr, so the micing method could aid you greatly in that regard.
recently some guy at HRI did a test recording with a chandler preamp like mike landau uses. i was shocked how much "muscle" and dimension that pre added to the tone. jumping out of the speakers but more in the mids and realistic sparkling clarity, not like satriani bbe surfing sizzle. eddie's tone to ME sounds like it was significantly brighter than we are hearing on record, but the recording chain and mix shaped and filtered it into the warmer tone we know and love.
i did a bass track using a neve pre last year, running from bass->pre->POD bass modeller, and it was also a revelation how that thing adds vintage weight and warmth to the very generic starting tone without flub or boom which can happen easily with mic proximity.
speakers:
finally, some old celestions also do wonders to counteract any remaining bits of harshness and extend that far away crying vibe, and add that extra layer of grease on the strings...i have an old cream/grey celestion and it has a magic that immediately makes you think "vintage" without losing the fire. easily the best tone of any celestion i've ever heard, but it is rubbing a little....
.gif "guitar :m17:")
