Achieving Sounds

[connelly73]

Been looking through some forums after on the UG forum one member was looking for ideas on how to recreate particular types of sound using effects pedals, for example ACDC, Queen, Guns n Roses...

 

I know it is difficult to get it exactly right but not found much on these types of forum even trying to get a sound close or they are all over the place in the forums.

 

I have my own site and thought it would be good to try and make a whole collection of pedal setups to recreate different sounds. If anyone is interested in maybe adding some ideas (cos I don't have many myself) or think its a good idea and would be willing to post up some configs of pedal layouts please comment.

 

I know it would be difficult cos there are Boss, Behringer, Danelectro,etc... but a general like distortion, level at, tone at, drive at, I'm sure would give people a starting point on trying to recreate the sounds of their heroes...

 

[p90jr]

http://www.guitargeek.com

 

compiles live set-ups from various sources (interviews, techs, surveillance)

 

I think it's more of a matter of learning the gear you have and getting intuitive about how to make it do what you want (and a big part of that is developing an ear for the subtleties in what you're hearing) than worrying about brands. A lot of stuff comes down to EQ and touch/attack.

 

AC/DC is all about Malcolm Young's right hand hitting telephone wires strung on a gutted Gretsch plugged into a very loud and clean amp. Most people focus on Angus, who plays with overdrive and is the focal point, but the power and heft in that sound is ol' Malcolm in the background. I had to play "Shook Me..." and "Highway To Hell" at some gigs last week, and I did them on a Tele through a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube pedal on the clean channel with no overdrive dialed in into an AC30 set clean pushing two Hellatone 60s that were nowhere near breaking up. The guy playing lead on those songs looked at me with a huge grin on his face when I hit the first chords.

 

They make various amps and pedals to recreate the Queen sound, most of which is that guitar Brian May and his dad built and some tweaked amps and treble boosters and Echoplexes.

 

Classic GNR is Les Paul into overdriven Marshall with wah sometimes against cleaner AC/DC-type rhythm guitar (semi-hollowbody on a lot of stuff).

 

I think a lot of what you subconsciously hear and search for is the texture in those recordings that are rarely the result of one sound, one set up or one player... even if only one guy played on the recording he brought his influences with him into the studio. If you want to recreate the sounds of your heroes a necessary thing is diving into the sounds of their heroes and building all of that up in your head.

 

 

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

The really unasked question (mostly because nobody thinks about it) is, "how do they capture or create these sounds in the studio and on arena or theater stages?"

 

Most people hear a band via the recordings, and that puts several layers of processing between the output of the amp and the ears of the listener. Then we might hear them on a live stage but again, we aren't hearing the amp on stage, we're hearing the amp through the whole PA and signal processing chain, these days including several A to D and D to A conversions.

 

So, have you really -ever- heard the guitar player make the sounds that you associate with them?

[p90jr]

The really unasked question (mostly because nobody thinks about it) is, "how do they capture or create these sounds in the studio and on arena or theater stages?"

 

Most people hear a band via the recordings, and that puts several layers of processing between the output of the amp and the ears of the listener. Then we might hear them on a live stage but again, we aren't hearing the amp on stage, we're hearing the amp through the whole PA and signal processing chain, these days including several A to D and D to A conversions.

 

So, have you really -ever- heard the guitar player make the sounds that you associate with them?

 

Yep.

 

 

Yep.

 

 

Yep.

 

 

Isn't the story that the Davies brothers had a bonk phonograph so they thought Chuck Berry had tons of fuzz on everything? An extreme example, but - as we've discussed here before with The Stones and AC/DC - most people aren't even comprehending what's really on the records/live P.A. to begin with but coloring it with assumptions.

[tony conley]

The really unasked question (mostly because nobody thinks about it) is, "how do they capture or create these sounds in the studio and on arena or theater stages?"

 

Most people hear a band via the recordings, and that puts several layers of processing between the output of the amp and the ears of the listener. Then we might hear them on a live stage but again, we aren't hearing the amp on stage, we're hearing the amp through the whole PA and signal processing chain, these days including several A to D and D to A conversions.

 

So, have you really -ever- heard the guitar player make the sounds that you associate with them?

 

Great points here. I remember working for Michaael Schenker, and even he was frustrated at his inability to sound onstage as he did on record. I spent a great many hours explaining not only the physics involved (even down to weather and humidity) but also the mastering process and massive compression his tones were subjected to in the studio.

 

Michael knew when I changed battery brands in his cry baby though. At the time (1990-91) his playing was absolutely remarkable. The first night I spent with the band he came off the stage and proclaimed that he blew 4 notes that night. He was right, but that's out of how many thousand notes? What a joy that was, a true gift.

[simpleman3441]

All very insightful points.

 

I've had a lot of fun and learned a lot through the software Guitar Rig. Not to mention that it's a great help to me recording various artists in my low budget studio. I think playing around and trying to recreate the tones you may like from others can help you in developing your own tones and ideas for recreating what you hear in your head.

 

Now to clarify, a lot of what I learned was assumptions and other useless impressions since the modeling can also never be completely correct.

 

Which brings me to the other side... learning when it's close enough. To me the "tone" often lies in the notes themselves and if you can get your instrument close then your brain will infer the rest. Or maybe I don't have the ears that others do!