Treble on '0' ?

[romanianreaper]

"I saw a interview about Eric Johnson and his guitar tones and he runs his treble at zero."

I saw EJ with Mike Stern, neither had any treble on or "bright" toggles switched on.

Blanket coverage on all tone.

A MESA/Boogie Mark series amp without the GEQ is an amp with a blanket over it even with the treble cranked. Fender twin amps are very very bright sounding amps to start with and sound bright with the treble low and the bright switch off.

I think he does it with his Marshalls as well. It is crazy because I think in my head I always thought he had this bright tone but goes to show how my memory is. My buddy got me his debut album as a gift and listening to those songs, you can hear the lack of high end but part of his sound.

 

[chadprsman]

No.

 

[peckhart]

I did it with my Quickrods. They have a treble blend that acts very different than the treble on any other amp I have played. Even with treble on 0 on a Quickrod you aew not hurting for high end or getting buried in the mix. Presence and mids were better for dialing the high end.

 

[sytharnia1560]

I think it's case by case. It also may be different with different preamp tubes and their brightness, speakers, etc.

yep so true

Also I find at home my treble is full but as the volume increases the treble knob gets turned down more and more (as does the gain)

 

[skullfxr]

I think it's case by case. It also may be different with different preamp tubes and their brightness, speakers, etc.

yep so true

Also I find at home my treble is full but as the volume increases the treble knob gets turned down more and more (as does the gain)

Total truth.

I also usually run more presence than treble if I intend to make the amp more in the high end spectrum.

Mids are the most important IMO.

 

[mchn13]

Definitely depends on the specific amp. Oddly enough the two amps that ive owned that this works on is a recto and a jcm800. I think the original post was about a recto. It works for a lead tone imo, and i still do it with the red channel on my recto, but my rhythm channel is thinned out and i use a good bit of treble there, and way less mids. Definitely doesnt get lost in the mix. Quite the opposite.

 

[Speeddemon]

It was the 'secret handshake' for H&K Tubemeister 18 owners. Bass and Mids maxed, treble on 0. Was the best tone for that amp.
I gigged with it (on an Engl 4x12 with V30's) and then I raised the treble to 9 o' clock, since our seriously loud drummer (>120dB) uses Paiste Rude series cymbals and luuuuuvs his china.

 

[Chris O]

I heard that Schenker did something akin to that - B-6, M-6, T-0, P-6, G-10. Then again I've read articles he was in that said everything to 10...so who knows? I'm experimenting with it a bit though. Can't decide if I like one over the other.

 

[311splawndude]

A few years back I read about people running there Quick Rods with the treble on 0 and sure enough it was a pretty cool tone but I preferred it with the treble bumped up. The treble on 0 didn't have the same effect on my Super Sport , sounded really muddy

I've now been experimenting with the Treble way up. It gets a little piercing but you also get that machine gun chugga chugga. I can kinda see how the muddiness might be there with the Treble on '0'. I've been running it that way for so long now I kind of got used to it. For me, it doesn't seem muddy but more 3D like.

I can see how others would say cabs, speakers, tubes, volume, etc will affect all of this. I guess that's true with lots of different things.

I ran my QR treble @ 0, I run my MW Dual Recto treble @ 0, I run the treble just a touch above ) on the VH140c, and I run the MCII @ 0 most the time as well.

Don't know what the technical reason is, but it works for me.

On my Splawn Quick Rod it can't be a 'touch above' to work. Need to play more with the Single Rectoverb, and what you are saying might be it with that amp.

I always dial my high end with the presence first....start with treble on 0. Most of the time I end up with the treble at 2 or so, but one of the SLOs I've owned stayed at 0. But I've never had the presence AND treble at 0. I do know a guy who ran his Marshalls with the mids maxed and treble at 0 for years. He ran a 68 50w and had enough high end to cut your head off, even with the treble off.

What's interesting is that a lot of the older Marshalls are Cathode followrs on the tone stack. Quick Rod is not. But I think it is safe to say that most amps have the signal path going T, M B, P so what you are saying makes sense.

I saw a interview about Eric Johnson and his guitar tones and he runs his treble at zero.

Wow. Did not know that. That is surprising.

I have a jcm800 clone when I crank it I put the treble at zero, I bring a bit of the highs back with presence killer sound

Same

I do it with the Uberschall. I put all tone controls on 0 and roll mid mids up until it sounds good (usually around 10 oclock). Then adjust presence to around 10 oclock to add some cut.

Does that mean that on that amp your Mids and Bass are on '0'? Now that would be interesting.

My nitro and promod have the treble at zero, but the presence is at 11 o'clock. I think it's best that way for me anyways.

Same

Tried this on a DSL100HR last night. Previous settings were in the ballpark of:

Res - 11:00
Pres - noon
Bass - 9:30
Mids - 10:00
Treble - noon

Settings after:

Res - 11:00
Pres - 3:00
Bass - 10:30
Mids - 3:00
Treb - off

Worked out pretty well. Darker and thicker. Worked out great for some things but lacked some bite with others. I will leave it like this for a while and keep tweaking.

Thicker is what I'm getting. Seems you've adjusted other things to compensate a bit maybe. I can't run my Pres and Mids that high but will try again. No idea how the DSL is set up relative to a Plexi, or 800 or Splawn. I'm assuming it is fairly similar.

I did it with my Quickrods. They have a treble blend that acts very different than the treble on any other amp I have played. Even with treble on 0 on a Quickrod you aew not hurting for high end or getting buried in the mix. Presence and mids were better for dialing the high end.

Yep. Makes sense.

Definitely depends on the specific amp. Oddly enough the two amps that ive owned that this works on is a recto and a jcm800. I think the original post was about a recto. It works for a lead tone imo, and i still do it with the red channel on my recto, but my rhythm channel is thinned out and i use a good bit of treble there, and way less mids. Definitely doesnt get lost in the mix. Quite the opposite.

My original post was more about my Splawn but I've heard other people doing with other amps. I can see needing more treble possibly for rhythm stuff. Still playing around with the Recto tones.



So in conclusion what I've learned so far is that it is very amp, cab, speaker, tube, person and 'genre' dependent and possibly pickup, pedals, room, etc as well.

I just got home from a long weekend and I'm reading on Page 52 of my 'Guitar Amp Handbook' - Hunter that the old Marshall (JTMs) and Fenders (Tweed) used cathode following tone stacks. So...very popular. The other base tones stacks would then be comprised potentially of Fender Backface circuits, Vox Top Boost circuits, Dr Z had a unique take and then the 'Braxandall' topology. That last one would be indicative of many flavors of Orange, Magnatone, Traynor, Ampeg and others. I do know Scott Splawn has indicated several times that he does not use a cathode follower.

Keep in mind, in most all amps the T, M, B pots are attenuating the signal down (to ground) vs literally bumping frequencies. So when people say 'crank the mids', for example, they are not really cranking it, they are just not attenuating it down as much as others.

 

[311splawndude]

these were/are the settings that you know who dialed in on my nitro.

just saying.

You're killing me

and

Gain seems a little low....just sayin'

 

[zz666]

The last few months on my 800, I've been running the presence on full and treble on 1, sounds awesome.
I think I got that tip from someone here - works great for Marshall's

 

[JSutter]

What I've been doing lately while jamming along to my favorite music.

3 channel triple rectifier, channel 2, modern, T 0, M 10, B 5, P 10
SD1 L 7.5, G 0, T 5, Mesa Stiletto 412 V30s.

MXR 10 band, 500 -12, 8k -5, 16k -12 (loop modded to series).

 

[maddnotez]

On my old Rev 2 putting the treble extremely low made it sound much more aggressive. I know that amp is unique and may interact differently than others but that is how I ran it.

The only problem I had I think someone may have mentioned, being in a band mix that became a problem. 1 Guitar was fine but as soon as you add a second guitar it would not cut at all. Volume wars are not the ideal solution so I had to bump the treble up a bit.

 

[Ventura]

i will layer a lot of times with one amp with the bass and treble cranked and the mids scooped, then another with the treble and bass at 0 and the mids on 10.

+1 on this.

In stereo - 4 mics.

 

[sluice]

I ran the treeble on 0 on my last JCM 800 2204...
It still was too bright and ear piercing for me.

 

[chadprsman]

I guess volume would make a difference, duh. IF cranked...

 

[Ventura]

I guess volume would make a difference, duh. IF cranked...

This is the only place an amp really ought to be test driven for its inherent tones - with higher SPLs and volumes. Otherwise it's all chicken shit, I can make a dozen amps sound the same with barely touching the EQs if they're at Madison Square Bedroom levels. But once 100W or even 50W amps get pushed passed noon or 1 o'clock on the MVs, that's when the magic starts to really happen tonally. At least in my experience (and this goes for the tubes too - can't really tell how pre or power glass truly sounds till the pants start flapping).

2 cents.

 

[skullfxr]

Somebody made a really good point. Treble controls change a LOT with volume.

 

[311splawndude]

I made this quick test with decent volume. Not sure if you can hear a difference when I roll it to '0'. I can, but maybe it's because I'm used to it. A tad thicker, edgier and more 3D like. Cheap phone mic doesn't help. More pronounced in the room. Apologize in advance for the phone clipping.

 

[peckhart]

A tad thicker, edgier and more 3D like.

Nail on the head right there and exactly why I could never use the treble. The tone just isn't the same on the QR with any treble setting. It's the only amp I've ever seen react that way.