Solid State Amp (models) / School me on Randall

[MirrorProfiles]

Admittedly I've barely listened to Pantera since I was a teenager. I always thought the guitar tone was pretty fucking amazing for what it is. No, I wouldn't use it for anything other than that kind of riffy metal, but there's a hell of a lot of tones I wouldn't use in certain situations and its perfectly obnoxious and appropriate for the music.

I'm working with a band atm where the vibe of the guitar tone is very much in this style. We dialled in something pretty great with the 8100, but I thought this would be my time to learn how to get that Dimebag style thing out of a Randall. Unfortunately Randall's aren't common in the UK at all, so I'm going the plugin route.

Weirdly, I think these amps are seriously under-represented. Pantera are far too influential for there not to be more focus on these tones, and they aren't exactly the only band to have used them. Same goes for the 8100, and possibly even 8200.

The only emulations I'm aware of are:

- Amplitube Randall Warhead
- Amplitube Randall RG100ES
- Audiority Randall RG100ES
- Audiority Randall RH150

I haven't played ANY of those real amps before, so I have no familiarity with how they like to be dialled in or their quirks. In lieu of that, I've been diving into youtube videos to figure this shit out.

First things I've noticed:

- Boost is necessary. MXR and Furman EQ if you want to copy Dimebag, Tubescreamer/SD-1/TC Preamp can work just as well if you keep the drive down
- very vague information on cabs/speakers. Sounds like Eminence Jaguars are the one? But a lot of people seem to use V30's and get a good enough representation of the tone. Can also blend in a 2x15, although I think they typically do some weird crossover stuff that might be fiddly to set up.
- goes without saying, but playing aggressively and OTT is essential. Weak playing will sound AWFUL with this kind of setup.
- The RG100ES seems to have some channel bleed (at least in Plague Scythe's video). This must surely affect the tone in some way, but I don't think the plugins model this behaviour:



I think I generally like Dimebags CFH tone the least, I like as it gets a bit more aggressive and polished on the later albums. The earlier stuff sounds slightly more muffled and limp to me.

Some Randall tones:





(tone is good with pedals+a lot of work, hilariously awful without)



Wes seemingly realised Amplitube needs a ridiculous input level:



The tuning being out has always bugged the shit out of me on this, but still a great ref:

- YouTube

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.

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- YouTube

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.

www.youtube.com

 

[0XI0]

rack eq mid boost pre-gain and rack eq mid-scoop in the fx loop, floppy strings on a double locking floating trem, keep your palm down. I have no idea how they did cascading gain staging in solid state amps back in the day, how many stages or what they used for the stages. I'd pay money to get an interview of Randall solid state amp designers, and whoever did the crate flexwave preamp. Crate flexwave preamp crunch channel and DS-1 were made for each other, i got bubbly breakup out of a gfx212t crunch channel (gain 1) and a DS-1 that mesa doesn't even do, and i haven't been able to find any other preamp that does. I know who did a bunch of Crate solid state stuff

Carlos Bedoya - About Us - WSIE FM The Sound | SIUE

page

www.siue.edu

 

[Gordo_W]

Interesting - one other plugin with a Randall model is tonelib gfx/metal - both seem to have a model of a warhead. Might be worth checking out as a comparison to the amplitude version if that one's not up to par!

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Interesting - one other plugin with a Randall model is tonelib gfx/metal - both seem to have a model of a warhead. Might be worth checking out as a comparison to the amplitude version if that one's not up to par!

good shout! I always forget about that one. And that’s reminded me of another one that skips my mind, TH-U!

 

[MirrorProfiles]

- Boost is necessary. MXR and Furman EQ if you want to copy Dimebag, Tubescreamer/SD-1/TC Preamp can work just as well if you keep the drive down

This is the tricky part for me, the Randall RG100ES on its own won't really sound gainy or aggressive enough. I think there is a particular way of slamming into it, which may or may not be the EQ's clipping and saturating.

Also something that came to mind, generally we assume digital has an easy time modelling solid state stuff, so the focus should be on those magical valves. And yet with Helix/Fractal etc, we're constantly complaining about certain overdrive pedals not quite being right, or the interactions when stacking things being weird.

Would be very interested to see a side by side of some of the Randall emulations vs the real thing. I've done some with Audiority's VS8100 plugin, which was pretty close but not quite the same as the 2 amps I've compared with.

 

[la szum]

My first big boy amp was a Randall RG100ES with the Randall 4 x 12 with Jaguar speakers. 1987
was an hot minute ago.

It had the push/pull pot on it that was ESSENTIAL to getting the levels of drive necessary to get
into Hair Metal territory (Tooth And Nail-era Dokken) let alone Dimebag territory. Pulled out on
the Drive Channel it brought on some tasty compression and saturation. I must have owned the
amp for 6 months to a year before I even realized it had that feature.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

It had the push/pull pot on it that was ESSENTIAL to getting the levels of drive necessary to get
into Hair Metal territory (Tooth And Nail-era Dokken) let alone Dimebag territory. Pulled out on
the Drive Channel it brought on some tasty compression and saturation. I must have owned the
amp for 6 months to a year before I even realized it had that feature.

From what I've read, Dimebag never engaged that sustain boost and he'd just slam into it with pedals. On basically every example I've seen, the noise gate is ESSENTIAL to get it anywhere near stable. Without it engaged, its kind of loose/farty sounding to me?

 

[MTB1973]

 

[la szum]

From what I've read, Dimebag never engaged that sustain boost and he'd just slam into it with pedals. On basically every example I've seen, the noise gate is ESSENTIAL to get it anywhere near stable. Without it engaged, its kind of loose/farty sounding to me?

I am clueless when it comes to Dimebag and how he used it.

I do know it was marketed as a solid-state JCM800--and the hype
on them was real for an hot minute in the mid to late 1980s. Including
endorsements from George Lynch (who hated it! :lol) and Vivian
Campbell. Dimebag was Hair Metal for a long time, too. Until he
wasn't.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Drummer buddy of mine was in a band with Grady back in the 80s and played extensively with Pantera during the glam days.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Who’s the Randall expert around here then?

RH/RT/RG/RM/RD? what’s the main differences between models and different series (solid state/hybrid/all valve/etc?) Which ones did Fortin design? which are the duds? which are the sleepers?

 

[MirrorProfiles]

this channel is quite good for solid state tones. Lots of examples here direct and with various boosts