What we have learned so far about modeling: 3 simple rules

 So, here is how i understand it:

There a 3 stages:

1) Pre amp

2) Power Amp

3) Cab and Mic

1) Pre amp is the first and easiest thing to emulate. Indeed there are also simple analogic pedals that mimic the functioning of valve preamp with nice results. What make the diffrence in the preamp stage are gain stages and EQ stack.

2) Power Amp: a valve power amp works in a way that you can get output and headroom 3 times than  solid state amps. So you should compare a 20w solid state with a 5w valve, a 50w solid state with a 15w valve, a 100w solid state with a 30watt valve. In the same way, to get the push of a 100w valve you will need 300w of solid state power, and so on. This make comparisions a bit more difficult. So, set your expectations to one third of the nominal power.

3) Cab and Mic or impulse response. The result of this element of the equation is a powerful eq filtert. Cab and Mic (or IR) are a core stage in crafiting your tone.

the legend of the guitar woods and pickup voicing

 While my crush for the British 70 model AKA MArshall Plexi takes its course i realized where all the fuss about the relevance of that type of wood and that pickups cames from.

With certains amps the difference in tone from one guitar to the other is about a notch of the tone knobs.

But when you have a Marshall style amp that knobs need to be maxed so there is no EQ tweak to be done. Only gain adjustment is an option.

On the other side my suggestion is: when you use a marshal style amp or model, let your guitar tone bloom. Dont let you be underwelmed by differences and peculiarity of your guitars. Just enjoy what you have!

Iron maiden Early 80 tone

 Recently i've been noodling on "Revelations" from "Piece of Mind" so i make my attemp to nail that tone.

It is pretty simple and it revolves aruond a classic plexi tone(remember that marshall amp works better with all tone knobs maxed):

As always i used the delay to "double" the guitar and added a touch of reverb. I think that maybe a plate would have been closer but i like out it sound this way,

Then i've tried to push this peset with some overdrive and got some good tone for "Loasfer Word (the big horra)" from "Powerlave". Oddly to get a closer i had to switch off the usual delay-doubler.

Here are settings of the fender overdrive for the leads:

May look like a joke but all you need is push the plexi so it works best this way... When you play liquid, rounded lead solo the full basses will help your tone. Also remember when you play that type of lead you need to be gentle in your picking attack and led the gain stages do the work.

Add delay to taste. I did no research on that so i will not screenshot a setting. i use a standard 20-30% mix with a 250ms near or less. Standard.

And finally the rythm tone for powerslave. The same plexi setting but we need to get the bass tight so:

At the time Murray had one of this in his rig:

As a bouns, if you add some chorus you can get a pretty decent tone for the interlude of "Wasting love".

Here's my subtle settings:

Maybe i should try with a flanger...

Here's some more Iron Maiden if you like:

http://ridingthemustang.blogspot.com/2016/09/resource-review-blog-with-iron-maiden.html

http://ridingthemustang.blogspot.com/2013/07/fender-mustang-iron-maiden-preset.html

Harley Benton DNAfx GiT REVIEW vs Mooer GE 150

 Today Harley Benton announced its first multi effect unit. It is priced at 144€ and goes directly against the MOOER GE 150 that goes for 159€ at thomann.de .

So many of us are wondering for a review that answer to the question: will the DNAFX sound better than the GE150?

The answer is her: it will not because it is the same unit!

Let's have a look at the basic specs:

55 amps

26 cabs

impulse response loader

up to 9 effect from a list of 151

An 80 seconds looper.

This are exacly the same of the Mooer GE 150.

But if you are not convinced, let's have a look to some other detail.

This is the back of the  units:

Also the size is similar.

Here are the controls:

As you can see we have the same konbs, the same buttons and the same lights.

So i think that if you want to know if the hb dnafx is the baregain for you all you have to do is have a look at some of the mooer ge 150 review. It is a good unit for the price.

How do it mesures in my point of view?

Effect chain is fixed and this may look like a problem, but you have the ability to get pitch shifter and delay together and this is a big point.

You only have only 2 stomps so if you want to use a 3 presets setup (clean, rythm and solo) you may need to stomp twice to change from clean to solo and back. No the fastest way. There may be other tricks like make a sequence of repating preset (ex: solo, clean, rythm, clean, rythm, solo) and go always up or control the gain with the pedal but they may work or not for you.

I would have prefer to have an extra switch instead of the pedal but it may be an interesting choice, especially for the price.

New Slash Tone Preset - Guns and Roses Era

I was revisiting my preset list to make room for a new one (post coming soon) and i found myself reworking the old Slash preset.

As i gain experience i found myself wanting different thing. And it is ok.

The original preset

http://ridingthemustang.blogspot.com/2013/08/slash-preset-appetite-for-destruction.html

was done with the intro from Sweet child o'mine in mind. I was searching for that attack and that gain and tone.

I was happy with the job but i find myself wanting something that is a bit more flexible so i set to less gain and less highs and some more bass. Obviously this has been done in the overdrive stomp.

Here is a screen of the thing:

This allows me to move better in the territory of the Marshall/JCM tone by using the volume knob. It works nicely also without the overdrive stomp but if you have read this

http://ridingthemustang.blogspot.com/2020/07/gain-stages-compression-and-tone-stacks.html

You will know that i like better the tone from layered overdrives. An interesting note is that the British 80 model is based on the JCM800 and this amp has a clipping stage to add gain to  the gain channell. In fact i think that the JCM800 was the first Marshall to use this "trick". So it is like this preset is using at least 3 stage of gain: the stomp, the brit pre and a clipping stage that i guess is reproduced by the Fender modeling.

Enjoy!

Import Guitars in 2020: High quality, High End, the new era and my opinion

As you my know, i've always gone toward what i consider the best quality vs price balance when i buy a guitar.

Cort factory in Korea has always been a good place to build guitars, but clearly remember the day i entered a shop and found for a really cheap price an Ibanez AXD81. It was made in china and it was the main reson it was not selling.

I love how it looked andd there was not a single flaw in the construction. No visual defects. No other issues.

It was around 2003-2006, brands made the first step to change the quality of import guitar. As far as i know they send people from the "custom shops" to the big factories to train both in building and QA check.

And that move leads to today market.

I take this as the main example:

It's a beautyful MAJ200XFM fro Sterling. Its priced around 1800 euros and it is made in Indonesia. It really tells us how the world is changing.

But, where do brands want to go with similar moves?

Let's look at the situation. We have all the brands that we all look at (Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, Music Man, ESP, Jackson, Schecter, Charvell, Dean, Yamaha to name a few) with their own small factory for high end production and the a small number of imort builder like Cort and World Music Instruments that ghost build the most of their lower priced guitars.

Some brand will hint this by using a different name (Squier for Fender, Epiphone for Gibosn, Sterling for Music Man) some will use the same brand (like Ibanez, Schecter, Jackson). But the stratigy is no different.

You want that guitar, you can afford the real deal, we can offer you a better deal.

But as they rise the quality (and also the price) of their import lines, they are eating their own high end market. Why?

My guess is that. You need to have a high end production, more for the reputation than for the money you directly made from that sales. Squier sells more than Fender and i think the earn from Squier (in percentage, not per single sale, obviously) is better. For a lot of reason. Production cost vs market price. Facility cost. Taxes.

So, if i build better quality import instruments that people are happy with. As a brand, i can focus on being a designer and a promoter of my brand. And let someone else do the hardwork.

That is the future i am thinking of. We will be buying more import guitar, better made, probably in the same factory, with the same quality and we will be choosing focusing on the design we like better than on the build quality.

So if i want a classic strat, i can buy a Squier, i can buy a cutlass from sterling, a charvel dinky, an ibanez AZ (to name some) just by choosing the desing a like better, knowing that it will be build by the same hand and at the same quality.

A tip on buying a guitar in the far low end of the price range. If you are buying for the chapest, as you go down there will be less quality check and the quality may vary from one to one. Go to a real shop. Spent some more money but get your hand on the one you will buy. Just check that everything is ok with your eyes. The finish, the fretwork. You wil find a better one, one that you will be happy with for a longer time. 

Be your own quality check department!

This is the safest way to buy a cheap guitar and find a good deal (the cheap guitar that rivals the expensives ones) and avoid the lemon, to avoid issues.

good luck on your next import guitar!

Gain stages, compression and tone stacks made simple

Understaing how gain (overdrive and distortion) works is a lot helpful to control your tone.

I like to think that  also your picking and the pickups are gain stages. It helps understand all the layers and how to get the right tone.

This is a bit of explaination of the "tone is in your finger" thing.

Let's say that anything that affect volume also affect gain stages and then overdrive (distortion) and tone.

Then, how hard you hit the string, the pickup power and its volume control, any gain stage that come after and you may know and control, or not.

First of all, lets get rid of one thing: the boost.

A BOOST is a gain stage that rise the volume of the signal without distorting or overdriving it. I know, the final effect may be overdriving of distorting. But that job is done by the next stage. The boost  in fact, help the following step in its work by rising the signal and making the next step overdrive sooner and better.

Since it rises the volume, usually it also compress the tone. What does it mean? Pratically, it shorten the gap between the higher and the lower part of the signal. This may be good or bad, depending on your taste and needs, and also the amount. Too much may be too much. I will come later on this because is relevant part of the gain stages game.

Usually boost have some sort of EQ controls.

TIP: any overdive pedal, with the drive control set at zero can be used as a boost. Obviouls in the same color of the pedal itself. A tube screamer is  frequently used as a mid boost by setting the drive to zero.

So, if you dont mind, i would like, after this explainations, to take all the boost thing out of the equation and concentrating on the overdrive stages and tone stack on its own.

So, why do we stack overdrives? Let's look at pedal stacking for one moment. A lot of pepole se it this way:

"I put 2 overdrives on my pedalboard, a light one (we will give it a value of 3) and a mild one (we will give a value of 5), if i use it together i wil get an higher one (3+5=8!)"

But it not just that. 2 gain stages gives you a slightly different result than a single gain stage of the same "amount". Flavor apart.

Now lets get into it! Let's consider something relitively simple like a plexi. Britsh overdirve in one of is classic incarnation. As we raise its gain from 0 its sweetspot we may notice the first rule of the gain game,

High frequncies distort sooner. 

I think this is the gold rule when you manage gain stages.

Lets think american vs british. american is mid scooped, british is mid pushed. You get something noticeably different when you push the gian in the low overdrive territory. At hte same amount of gain, the american amp will have a lot more high freq overdrive, and a lot less mid freq overdrive, resulting in a arsher, raw overdrive. On the other side the britsh will even mid and high freqs, making the mid frequences overdrives at the same time of the higer ones. This will. result in smoother tone.

So we can see, overdrive flavor has a lot to do with how much we can distort various frequency.

But if you where in the golden era of the plexi you would have want more of it. The first thing to do was rise the volume and use the power section as a second stage with the obvious porblem of the volume.

Then, people like Jose Arredondo stard modding amps to get more gain stages. Modern amps have more gain stages, both valve and solid state. The classic JCM800 has a clipping stage to name one. Just like a fixed overdrive pedal in its gain channel.

Why?