General Music Chat

Glen yeah I noticed from your videos that you are a Mesa man, I understand the fuel situation, in my wallet! LOL!

Haley Mesa makes a Mini Recto now, I played on one but didnt really like it, dont know what it is about the bigger amps, but I just love them. Its not really a volume thing, I keep mine pretty low, in fact the last few gigs my drummer was saying turn it up, now 10 years ago I would have gone over and jumped my master volume on the amp, but these days I leave my amp set all night and just bump up the monitor a little til he says its fine, that way it doesnt mess up the FOH mix, I guess over time we learn a few things.

Anyone reading this, other than old non master volume amps, tone has nothing to do with volume, I spent years being the loudest guitarist in my area.

Heres a little video of me cutting up on my guitar last night

For those that know about Mesa's this is the 3rd channel in modern mode, I run my gain, treble, bass and presence roughly around 12 oclock, I run the mid down around 8-9 oclock, this is at my gig volume which isnt super loud. The video doesnt give a sense of the bottom of the guitar, it sounds a little thin when I listen to it compared to sitting there, but I turned the cab a little off axis to the camera so it didnt over drive the camera mic.

Just curious what folks think of this tone, I use this about 80% of the time when Im playing with Aint Yo Mama, mainly use the volume knob on the guitar

heres a little short one of the band practicing at my house, not much to this one

Your tone is MAGNIFICENT! Even listening thru these little puter speaks at work it sounds real punchy and well like a Paul thru a tripple rec is supposed to sound! How is your clean sound? A good clean sound without breakup is important to me when I play.

One more to add, this one Im just playing a little EBCG change up on rythym and embellishing it as I go, somewhere in there I morphed into Little Wing, or my lame attempt at it LOL, for anyone interested I kick in my delay pedal, I have a ducking delay programed which I use live a lot, in this program as long as Im picking there is no delay, but once I stop picking and the level hits a threshhold it kicks in the delay, I hate a delay where it overwhelms the original signal and I like this one, plus there is a few bars where I get on my Bad Horsie II Wah, I have it on the contour setting at around 1 oclock and then the volume wide open.

I guess I like this tone, because I was only going to record a minute or two and kinda went a little longer.

Haley it has a pretty good clean tone, I dont use it that much, I ussually just drop the guitar volume on my 2nd channel which is not as crisp as channel 3, I have it set for vintage.

One of the reasons I like the Triple is because it has enough watts to get a really good loud clean tone, I loop all the channels thru the effects loop and use the effects loop master as my overall volume control, I think the master on my clean channel is around 3 oclock, the 2nd channel vintage master is at 12 oclock and then the 3rd channel is at around 9-10 oclock. They seem to balance out pretty good.

If I get a chance I will record a few bars in clean mode and post them in a day or two.

Originally I planned to run thru my channels from clean to dirty to show the different tones, but as always I went straight to the raunchy sound that I seem to use most of the time.

I know you are familiar with Mesa's man they are just great amps, I need to record some with my little Subway its awesome also. But I just love to play on a halfstack, in the video you see my Laney cab sitting there, it isnt hooked up in this, but I ussually use both cabs life, the Laney is a more tight sounding cab than the Mesa and they seem to compliment each other.

Dang John you sound more Texan than me! Great tone! I agree on the delay that is a good setting. I usually set a delay that has about 3 repeats and the volume decays so quickly you almost can't hear the 3rd delay!

Haley Im using that Line 6 Delay Modeler Pedal, you can program 3 in there, plus sample with it.

One I have is an old echoplex, the thing i did was tighten up the repeats real tight, so you cant hear them, it kind of doubles it iof that makes sense, but I can tap the tempo in a bar and it streches it out, I use this for the noise section in WHole Lotta Love when we play it, sometimes we dont play the moise section and just funk it up, never really know, but I kick the tap with the hi hat, then I also use my whammy pedal with a 2 octave up setting, and I can make some crazy noises that sound real close to what pagey did, I looked it up and he used and echoplex, so I just research what my fav players used and go from there.

I have a backwards echo set up, but I dont use it much, mainly the one you heard on there, you dont hear it until you back off which for me is cool.

Say Ive got some Tex in me, well Im from TN so they arent that far apart in my mind.

I like to jack around with chord changes and then add little things, in my band its 3 piece with a singer, so I have to take up a lot of sonic space at times, without leaving it to empty, so I go between little lead licks and rythyms constantly, keeps me on my toes, but I enjoy that challenge, I would hate to have to coordinate with another guitar player, cause I may change chords thru out a verse section just to keep amused! LOL!

I am playing in two bands and they are both 3 piece outfits. I prefer that kind of scenario as I don't like to get lazy. I find that when I play with another guitar player I tend to get a little lazy as the other guy usually covers half the leads. Unless they are a rythm player. I just don't like to stifle a musician and few guitar players want to just play rythm.

At this point I dont think I could play full time with another guitar player, just not enough space sonically for both of us! LOL!

Besides who wants to make another cut when it comes to money, most audiences dont have a clue anyway.

The second band I am the substitute player. The other guy is a good player but he plays in 3 bands. I am picking up the slack and playing with them 3 to 4 gigs a month. That band is only 3 piece with the bass player, drummer and myself singing. Mission Imposter is a 3 piece band with lead singer. In MI we treat the sound guy as a member so we are splitting the pay 5 ways. The Minimum for that band is 6oo.oo a night.

Our minimum is 600, but we got rid of our sound man, so its a 4 way split.

Everyone seems happy with it that way.

We play about once every 6 weeks these days, its an easy gig, we dont ussually practice, just wing it.

Obey Ive played bass also and have kept an old P Bass around, it has a BaddAss tailpiece and a EMG active pickup, its a great bass and always covered all the bass sounds I need to do gigs, record or whatever.

As far as guitar if I have a distortion pedal I can ussually get the tone I want with any guitar and amp. SS or Tube I just need a good nasty sounding guitar to make me want to play.

My rig may seem big to some, but I used to carry around a couple of half stacks, over the years Ive refined it to what I need. I have my pedal board powered so I can set up in a few minutes. It works for me.

Too right that tone IS NOT volume, although some *guitarists* would disagree as they bleed from the ears!
I love my Line 6 Spider amp because I can get whatever tone I want/need out of it with a little flicking of the dials or the presets.
In the Beatles tribute band, I play acoustic most often so keep a fairly clean and clear sound, but dial in a little distorted VOX amp sound for the semi-hollow body electric stuff (my Epi Dot) and throw a little more gain or distortion in for the solid-body guitar songs.

Good stuff JW! Mike I agree the Line 6 Spider is a great little amp.