Deep Dive into Adam Jones's Tones

I didn't listen to Tool a lot but from what I've found on youtube it doesn't sound like a cranked 1959 to me which is kind of flat and boxy.
The modern MD421-II sounds like ass with a huge 4kHz spike from the demos I found online which is why I don't own one.
You have a vintage MD421?

Edit:
I have a e906 which is more pushed at the 3-4kHz region and less fizzy compared to the SM57.
 
James Freeman said:
I didn't listen to Tool a lot but from what I've found on youtube it doesn't sound like a cranked 1959 to me which is kind of flat and boxy.
The modern MD421-II sounds like ass with a huge 4kHz spike from the demos I found online which is why I don't own one.
You have a vintage MD421?

Edit:
I have a e906 which is more pushed at the 3-4kHz region and less fizzy compared to the SM57.
Click to expand...
I have a 421 U-4 which the older design, and definitely is smoother and less pokey than the II. When blended the differences between vintage and II don't seem to be quite as drastic, though. On its own I find the vintage ones a lot more useable.




This riff at 4:40 ish sounds very much like the Marshall to me - more power amp distortion involved. I'd imagine Stinkfist has a lot of Marshall in. Eulogy sounds more Recto (on the heavy bits). 46 and 2 I think you can hear it switching between them quite clearly.

With the older Tool stuff you can kind of hear when parts are overdubbed if the balance of amps changes. A lot of parts are single tracks and it makes it easy to identify. On later stuff it feels more blended, with also the blends changing whichever amp is more prominent. All guesswork ultimately but I think a 1959 is such a distinctive sound that is nothing like a Rectifier (and not really like the Diezel, although that's maybe somewhere between the 2).
 
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Eulogy is my go-to when I want the deluxe all you can eat buffet of AJ tones. You have the intro with the really cool sounding flanged, the palm muted verses with that super dry not-from-this-planet weird pick attack, big distorted tones in the chorus, kick ass breakdown where everything but guitar drops out, then the spacey bridge with the flanger and delay. It’s all there.

I find I can get 90% of his tone with a Les Paul and 1959 with a PPIV. It’s way more “rock” than conventional wisdom would have us believe. There are plenty of videos out there where he’s just using 2 1959 heads and it sounds just as punishing.
 
EOengineer said:
Eulogy is my go-to when I want the deluxe all you can eat buffet of AJ tones. You have the intro with the really cool sounding flanged, the palm muted verses with that super dry not-from-this-planet weird pick attack, big distorted tones in the chorus, kick ass breakdown where everything but guitar drops out, then the spacey bridge with the flanger and delay. It’s all there.

I find I can get 90% of his tone with a Les Paul and 1959 with a PPIV. It’s way more “rock” than conventional wisdom would have us believe. There are plenty of videos out there where he’s just using 2 1959 heads and it sounds just as punishing.
Click to expand...
Pretty cool on Eulogy, chorus 1 at 2:35 the guitars are mono. 2nd Chorus at 3:55 it spreads out to 2 takes hard panned. Left guitar has more bottom, right has more nasal bite. Listening again, I think a lot of the guitars outside of the chorus are predominantly Marshall. There's some tones that have noticeably more low end and less of that upper midrange thing.
 
MirrorProfiles said:
Pretty cool on Eulogy, chorus 1 at 2:35 the guitars are mono. 2nd Chorus at 3:55 it spreads out to 2 takes hard panned. Left guitar has more bottom, right has more nasal bite. Listening again, I think a lot of the guitars outside of the chorus are predominantly Marshall. There's some tones that have noticeably more low end and less of that upper midrange thing.
Click to expand...
100% agree. You can definitely hear the recto come in on those choruses. I’m going to the grave yelling the Superlead/Recto combination was peak AJ.

We’re all gonna be filling Gear forums about this stuff forever. My generation’s VH1 tone.
 
EOengineer said:
100% agree. You can definitely hear the recto come in on those choruses. I’m going to the grave yelling the Superlead/Recto combination was peak AJ.

We’re all gonna be filling Gear forums about this stuff forever. My generation’s VH1 tone.
Click to expand...
Couldn’t agree more. Tbh for years it always felt like everything you read online made it sound like everything on early Tool was his mystical Marshall but I think Recto deserves way more credit and the real secret to AJ’s all powerful magical Marshall is more to do with the fact that he’s using several amps and constantly changing up what you hear. The Marshall to me sounds pretty standard 1959
 
Orvillain said:
And yes, I know. I don't know how to play Stinkfist properly. :rofl
Click to expand...
I’m not going to admit publicly how many hours I’ve dedicated to trying to learn to play that main riff like the album, but a huge revelation for me was how much heavy lifting is done by the delay once you get it synced up. I still don’t think I get it all that close to the album.

One day we will have to compare to see who has the worst stinkfist. Yeah, I said it.
 
That one is definitely better and is a great sound in its own right. Still something a little off when it comes to the AJ thing though. Can't quite put my finger on it, but the texture of the distortion just seems a bit too modern still.
 
EOengineer said:
One day we will have to compare to see who has the worst stinkfist. Yeah, I said it.
Click to expand...
It is a date.

gremlin GIF
 
Orvillain said:

Here's a quick AJ concept just using my Mark V on the crunch channel. Definitely not as metal sounding as any of the 5150 variants.
Click to expand...
feedback and grind are great. Defo a bit more fizzy and percussive than I think of with AJ. I'd imagine MV higher, presence up, less GEQ brightness would probably open it up a bit more. Sounds sick in its own right though.


James Freeman said:
Here's another attempt with Sennheiser e906.
Not boosted and lower gain, still the 5150.

Click to expand...

Yeah this is more like it. I'd maybe push the resonance a bit more just to approximate some of the recto low end but it's definitely more in the AJ direction. If you try the Marshall remember to bias really cold, there's a fair bit of crossover distortion in his sound too.
 
More resonance.
Personally speaking, I don't love that tone, I like tight 80s gain so I probably don't have the ear to tweak it properly.
That's a raw track with no eq, just blending the sm57+e906.
 
EOengineer said:
I’m not going to admit publicly how many hours I’ve dedicated to trying to learn to play that main riff like the album, but a huge revelation for me was how much heavy lifting is done by the delay once you get it synced up. I still don’t think I get it all that close to the album.

One day we will have to compare to see who has the worst stinkfist. Yeah, I said it.
Click to expand...


Some riffs just don't sound right played on their own unless you're playing them along with a bass player. I feel Stinkfist is one of them. Same for Bulls on Parade etc. The bass is really doing the heavy lifting.
 
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