How important are your amp tones... really?

[Orvillain]

Sorry for slightly clickbait title

So this could be better described as - How important are MY amp tones... really? In the context of one particular song.

This is the chorus section of a song. I've been working on this song on and off since December, as a part of my new album.

It was written very much as a stream of consciousness industrial tinged hard-rock meets synths kinda track, and is probably the most "pop" thing I've ever done! I started it off using Helix Native, and pretty much till today I was relying solely on the Revv Red amplifier in Helix Native, boosted with a Boss SD1 and hitting the front of the amp with a very subtle delay in order to make it gallop slightly.

Now, please bear in mind, I'm not calling this mix finished at all. I just found this interesting. How much difference do guitar amps really make??

Here's the chorus with the original Revv Red takes - double-tracked of course:


And here's the same guitar tracks in isolation:


And here's the track with no guitars:



Now....

Here's a version where the guitars switch every couple of bars to a different amp. Same buss processing. Same cabinet impulse. Same DI signal. The amp is the only difference. I attempted to dial each amp in to the song:


Here are the guitars without drums, just the core song elements:


And finally, here are just the guitars:

Various Guitar Amps

Listen to Various Guitar Amps by drewtnbd #np on #SoundCloud

soundcloud.com

Hopefully you can hear... once you focus in on a specific element of the song (IE: guitars only) you can really hear tons of differences. But when you pull back and consider the song as a whole... can you really distinguish the different amps?? In some cases perhaps, but on the whole? Not really.

The cause is known as frequency masking. When you add a bunch of individual elements together, frequencies add and subtract against one another in the final mix. This is what causes bass frequencies to become huge when you're listening to multiple tracks, and also what causes high frequencies to become duller.

Mixing is an art. Just as much as deciding what notes to play, what amp to use, what pedals to use, what cab to use, etc.

Now this mix isn't finished... but it's already clear to me. For this sort of pulsating drone-orientated guitar riff, where the underlying rhythm is more important than the notes... the actual amp doesn't matter. What matters are the core tone aspects - having enough pick attack, not being flubby, and generally being able to at least sit next to the vocal.

Hope that gives some of you food for thought... it's certainly given me stuff to think about today. I would've tracked more vocals for more songs, but I've got a cold and can't sing right now - some may say I never could, but whatever....

Cheers!

 

[jellodog]

@Orvillain I know you posted the song for the sake of discussion, but I'm really liking your new song already. Can't wait to hear the finished piece.

(also I take your point about guitar tone in a mix)

 

[Steinmetzify]

Dude that was actually really cool to listen to; to hear the parts in a full mix and then hear them isolated etc.

For me it doesn’t really matter so much but I do a lot more practice and just drunk jamming than I do recording, so the amp tones matter to me for those but I can see what you’re saying.

Honestly didn’t matter in the full mix; there’s no way I would have even been able to pick out my own amp, let alone which you used.

The one that switched every few bars was interesting though…

 

[Orvillain]

Dude that was actually really cool to listen to; to hear the parts in a full mix and then hear them isolated etc.

For me it doesn’t really matter so much but I do a lot more practice and just drunk jamming than I do recording, so the amp tones matter to me for those but I can see what you’re saying.

Honestly didn’t matter in the full mix; there’s no way I would have even been able to pick out my own amp, let alone which you used.

The one that switched every few bars was interesting though…

I honestly think that all this forum and Youtube stuff leads guitarists down the garden path. We focus on tone to the detriment of our creativity and songwriting.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

I honestly think that all this forum and Youtube stuff leads guitarists down the garden path. We focus on tone to the detriment of our creativity and songwriting.

Fuck yes that's been my experience lately too. My old band has gotten back together after a hiatus lasting a few years and when I wasn't gigging or recording I built a shit ton of pedals and obsessed over really small details of 'tone'.

Now that Greeny (our singer) and I are writing and recording again I've just been using Native for our demos with pretty minimalist patches and they sound great. I've barely used any of my pedals which 9 months ago I would have said were 'better' than the closest equivalents in Helix but in the mix it just doesn't matter. The song itself is way more important and easily getting a sound that works in the mix stops me getting hung up and keeps my momentum going to actually get tracks finished.

Oh and don't get me started on the obsessing I used to do on picking the perfect IR.

 

[Stratzrus]

I honestly think that all this forum and Youtube stuff leads guitarists down the garden path. We focus on tone to the detriment of our creativity and songwriting.

I have to disagree with that.

The differences in the type of tones you used in your clip may not make a big difference but as you said the parts are more rhythmical than melodic.
With clean tones, overdrive, crunch, or even high gain used in a more melodic or harmonic context tone can make a significant difference.

When hanging out here and when watching YouTube clips, I'm not focusing exclusively on, or obsessing about, tone. I'm just as much interested in functionality; gear that will better enable me to do what I'm trying to do.

I learned about the Blackstar St. James combo here and bought one not for its tone but for its portability, headphone out, CabRig DI, reactive load, and USB audio out. It's now my main practice amp and saves wear and tear on my gig amps. I can also grab it and go jam with my buds much easier than any other tube amp I own. If I hadn't been on this forum I never would have known about it.

Sure it's possible to focus on tone to the detriment of other things but I only come here when I want to take a break from playing, not instead of playing. In fact, I usually come here when I need to take a break from watching a TV show that went to commercial and I'd rather be here than watch the Charmin bear enjoying the go.

 

[GreatGreen]

I think most people are aware that most amps will get them to a relatively similar place as long as it’s a part of an otherwise identical signal chain, and dialed in by them.

I think people obsess over tone (or at least the reason I do) is simple. It’s fun. It’s fun to chase that dragon and slowly move the quality of your sound and overall sonic capability forward bit by bit. It’s an incredibly romantic idea to find Excalibur, so to speak, that one platonic ideal of a rig that exists as a direct extension of your own creativity, effortlessly giving you everything you want out of your instrument along with the inspiration to write and play music that will enable you to fully express yourself and take over the world, or just whatever you want to do with it.

Whether that imaginary ideal setup is reasonable or achievable is debatable, along with how much of a difference that “perfect rig” will actually make compared to just whatever you plug into. But I think the romance of complete connectedness to one’s instrument is why people do it.

Obsessing about tone in the way most people on guitar forums do makes less sense when the discussion is framed around recording whole songs as complete pieces of art and finding the sound that best works with the mix or whatever, I think. It makes more sense when viewed from the context of an artist trying to find their own voice though a single instrument.

 

[northern_fox]

Outside of specific cases where people actually recognize / remember songs because of the guitar tones or where they're a hallmark characteristic of a player, they're not really important at all. In a mix especially, the listener does not know and really doesn't care at all, as long as it fits / sounds good. In fact, most actual listeners don't know the first thing about amps or tones and are listening to the singer or whatever else. But they're important to us personally, which is why we spend so much energy on them. Guitar tones are for guitar players

 

[Sleezy E]

I honestly think that all this forum and Youtube stuff leads guitarists down the garden path. We focus on tone to the detriment of our creativity and songwriting.

Agreed.

I never knew how hard it was to get a good guitar tone until I started reading forums.

Good thing I'd already been playing out for a while before I did that, or else who knows where I'd be.

 

[laxu]

The cab is such a huge factor. If you keep the same cab sim and start rolling through amp models in any modeler you will find a lot more similarities than if you were to swap cab sims. This applies to real cabs too, which is how for my last real amp setup I ended up with specific cabs for specific amps to coax max variety out of them. It's also part of the reason why I've gravitated towards fullrange setups with modelers - that ability to pair the "perfect" cab sim to the amp.

For live use that might not be desirable though. Having a consistent sound is more useful as you don't want the sound to differ so much the soundman would have to readjust the whole mix etc. I'm fine with something much simpler for that - an amp with a few sounds into one cab.

I think subconsciously a lot of us end up dialing the same sounds out of any amp too. In the Mark VII thread someone posted for example Blake Mansfield's channel and if you listen to any of his clips from a wide variety of high gain amps, it's just subtle flavor differences between them rather than a drastically different sound because that's how he ends up dialing the amps.

For us guitar players it's fun obsessing over the fine details, even if they get buried in a mix. I don't think most guitarist consider how their amp would sound in a mix when they are buying it, they just want something that sounds good to them when playing by themselves, playing with a band etc.

I recently tested all of the Marshall Superlead models that Fractal offers - which is a good number! If I took any of those, I could make it sound great in a mix, but maybe for getting the best performance out of me, a particular model might be preferred over the others because it sounds and responds in a way that makes me forget about tone and just play. For me that's kind of the funny thing about great tone - you stop thinking about tone and focus 100% on playing.

 

[2112]

"Use the first thing that works" is usually a good rule of thumb.

For me that's kind of the funny thing about great tone - you stop thinking about tone and focus 100% on playing.

This is spot on.

 

[James Freeman]

Objectively, not important.
Subjectively, critically important.

We are guitarists, objectively doesn't exists.
Next song.

edit:
Great sound and mix btw.

 

[Badonkey Kong]

Dude. Your drummer is totally fucking with your guitar tone...

 

[Orvillain]

Dude. Your drummer is totally f*****g with your guitar tone...

Murder him.

Great sound and mix btw.

Cheers dude! Not 100% yet, but getting there!

 

[Orvillain]

What I notice is the Revv Redd and Axe3 5153 Red, are reasonably similar in tone... I mean, they all are.. but those two have very striking similarities with the pick attack and body of the notes. Which makes me think the Revv is sorta based on a 5153 ?? Dunno really.

What I can say is, Leon is ultimately right... go with the first thing. I'm emotionally connected to the Revv Red model on Helix, because I've been writing so much with it.

 

[Orvillain]

Outside of specific cases where people actually recognize / remember songs because of the guitar tones or where they're a hallmark characteristic of a player, they're not really important at all.

I don't go quite that far.

Tones are important. But the differences between amps are not as important as we sometimes think.

For instance, this song doesn't work with a small Fender tweed combo on my Axe FX 3, because the amp simply doesn't do the slightly scooped aggressive high-gain thing I'm after. So that's a difference that does matter.

But the brand loyalty thing... that's kinda what I'm getting at. Marshall, Diezel, Orange, EVH, Laney, Revv... whatever... it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, they can all dial in the tones I want.

 

[laxu]

I don't go quite that far.

Tones are important. But the differences between amps are not as important as we sometimes think.

For instance, this song doesn't work with a small Fender tweed combo on my Axe FX 3, because the amp simply doesn't do the slightly scooped aggressive high-gain thing I'm after. So that's a difference that does matter.

But the brand loyalty thing... that's kinda what I'm getting at. Marshall, Diezel, Orange, EVH, Laney, Revv... whatever... it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, they can all dial in the tones I want.

To be honest I have lost interest in high gain amps because so many of them are "wait a minute, that just sounds like a 5150" type stuff. There's always someone pushing the "tightest, chuggiest, meanest" metal monster amp that ultimately doesn't bring anything new to the table. Feature sets are perhaps a bigger differentiator.

 

[Stratzrus]

I don't think most guitarist consider how their amp would sound in a mix when they are buying it, they just want something that sounds good to them when playing by themselves, playing with a band etc.

 

[Badonkey Kong]

Dude. Your drummer is totally f*****g with your guitar tone...

Jokes aside this is very cool and you make a great point. I would counter that there are times in a song where the guitar is the focus, and maybe you want to be more precise there (after you murder your drummer, for instance)...

And the song sounds great! Looking forward to hearing more.

I have, and have always had going back to the 80's, a mental weakness with my tone. If it's not there, it bugs me, and my playing suffers. I drove a few bandmates crazy, but they also saw and heard the difference in my playing from when i was happy with my tone to when I wasn't.

 

[la szum]

I have to disagree with that.

The differences in the type of tones you used in your clip may not make a big difference but as you said the parts are more rhythmical than melodic.
With clean tones, overdrive, crunch, or even high gain used in a more melodic or harmonic context tone can make a significant difference.

When hanging out here and when watching YouTube clips, I'm not focusing exclusively on, or obsessing about, tone. I'm just as much interested in functionality; gear that will better enable me to do what I'm trying to do.

I learned about the Blackstar St. James combo here and bought one not for its tone but for its portability, headphone out, CabRig DI, reactive load, and USB audio out. It's now my main practice amp and saves wear and tear on my gig amps. I can also grab it and go jam with my buds much easier than any other tube amp I own. If I hadn't been on this forum I never would have known about it.

Sure it's possible to focus on tone to the detriment of other things but I only come here when I want to take a break from playing, not instead of playing. In fact, I usually come here when I need to take a break from watching a TV show that went to commercial and I'd rather be here than watch the Charmin bear enjoying the go.

I agree. Orvillain's example is so dense (the mix, with a lot of instrumentation going on) that it doesn't make
as big of a difference as it would in a sparser mix. Not everyone is stacking multiple instruments, and multiple
tracks of similar instruments, and different instruments occupying the same frequency spectrum. In that context
you would not notice a difference in amp choice as much as in a mix with more space and less instrumentation.

I agree 100% with your point that with fewer parts/instruments the choices become MORE important, not less.

Oh, and cool track, @Orvillain