Good point... I yanked my guitar out of Guitar Rig this afternoon and plugged it into a '75 Princeton and felt a goodness soak through the room.


It was fun.


best regards,
mike

BTW, the guy that designed that '75 Princeton amp didn't actually play electric guitar... he just invented them.

:-)

Haha...I wasn't erroneous with the high gain term. I'm a guitar player....we say gain, high gain, distortion, not "square wave". Regardless what the theory of it is, no one says that other than someone trying to act more intelligent than they really are in a thread where a man asked a question about why his new guitar sounded similar to his older ones. I gave a simple, in depth answer as well as some examples of what I talked about. You used technical jargon that has absolutely nothing worth any meaning for the purpose of this thread other than to see your own text. THAT was what was erroneous.

I didn't decide to make anything a personal grudge or a battle of the bands. I decided to give you a dose of truth and will continue to do so every time you try to pull the wool over someones eyes. The battle is within yourself. You can't seem to accept that you've been annihilated once again. 75 Princeton amp...there's a real winner for high gain. See my point? This is the kind of stuff you share all the time. All this old vintage gear on a constant basis....yet, you are the guru of what high gain is....oops...excuse me, square wave. Maybe when YOU play it, it's square...when I play it, it's high gain and pure bliss. :)

-Danny

Did I suggest that the Princeton was an example of high gain?

That's just the raw hatred getting you confused and grasping for what ever you can get your sights on.






I didn't suggest anything about the Princeton other than the fact that I plugged in and instantly enjoyed it. 

Your use of it as an example once again suggests that you don't even know why you use the word "gain"... you just mimic the last guy that borrowed it from a conversation they heard and started using it wrong. The guys that design the amps you love... they know what it means and they just don't care that you don't. I don't really care either.... you're the one that seems real uncomfortable with it.



I'll bet you'll be real interested in reactance once it's your idea. It's fascinating stuff and you have a mind for that kind of detail. Your curiosity is going to get the better of you and you'll be caught up in it soon enough... in your own good time.


best regards,
mike

Raw hatred? I don't hate you Mike. I'd even go as far as to say I don't even dislike you. I just don't like it when you start talking about things that you may have heard about in theory that you don't know in practice or real, continuous use.

But hey, you can call it hate if you want. You've struck at me many times for no apparent reason to where I've only struck back to defend myself or when you seemed so out of context, someone had to step in and point it out. Truth be told, I'd even help you if you submitted to not knowing as much about something as you claim to and asked me about it. I wouldn't even consider it a win for myself....I'd consider it a win for you as well as the forum because quite often you truly are misleading and substitute a simple answer with a bunch of technical stuff that really doesn't help the person in need nor does it have a relevance in a particular situation.

Oh I'm well aware of reactance and know what and how it feels. I also have a knob on my power amps called "reactance" which is darned close to the real thing that increases it for times when you may be using a transistor front end. Real reactance has become a part of my sound and feel which comes from my tube front end....but I still wouldn't go far enough to call it necessity. It's just a feel element that is or isn't a preference of an idividual. I get enough reactance from my tube front end which is way different than that of a transistor front end.

Tube and transistor (minus the warmth of tubes) is a lot like my clean passive/active example. Tranny sounds are sort of limited as in "limiter" where the reactance in a tube sound allows more distinct dynamics and touch. The natural sustain of tubes is just that...a natural, light sustain that isn't to the point of "limited" or "resampled" so to speak like the artifacts we get out of a transistor tone.

So trust me, I know quite a bit about reactance and how it can really play a role when using a power tube back end. I just don't like to go that loud to where you feel THAT much of it and still don't think it's an absolute necessity or a deal breaker. Good tone is good tone...if it comes by way of transistor, amp sim or tubes, it remains a good tone. I don't think anyone can argue about that. If how you get from A to B works and is a good sound, it's safe to say you're right where you want to be.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but if you were to take a poll of guitar players and asked them whether or not they felt the term "high gain" or "square wave" was correct, I'd bet all I own "high gain" wins. I'm not mimic'n anyone. I'm telling you facts that guitar players in this world do not say square wave...we say gain, high gain, drive, distortion. Do a poll. I guess the entire guitar community would be wrong and a community of mimic's because you think you know something again? See my point? You aren't this type of guitar player to even be having this discussion. It's like Paul Simon trying to tell Steve Vai how to get gain. You don't listen to Simon in this situation because as great as he is, he would have no business being involved in a high gain discussion.

-Danny

Did someone say "high gain?"

mike_mccue


Hi Steve,

Do you have any personal thoughts about "reactance" or are you just going with what someone tells you to think?


:-) 

best regards,
mike

 
It really depends on who's doing the telling Mike.
 
I'd never even heard the word used with regard to guitars/amps until this thread. If I need it explaining to improve my guitar tone, I'll know who to ask.
 
 

I tried this but it didn't deliver on its promises...

 
  I sure didn't mean for this whole thing to turn into something bad . I was really glad when Danny and Zungle showed up to offer their opinions/advice because I know these guys are all about metal and have played a guitar or two and a few amps.

  I am the type to understand laymans terms a little better than raw electronic theory and this is coming from a guy who once serviced electronics. I think a lot of the approach comes from the way a person thinks. I think Mike was offering help in a way he understood things which were different than the way many other seasoned metal players look at them. The guys who invent and design the equipment we use must take to this kind of logic in order to put a design down on paper and make it work. Almost nothing technical would ever be achieved without someone who is all about numbers theories and mathlematic calculations. 

  I usually only go to anything associated with the theory on how something works if I absolutely need to. Most other times I am more concerned about doing something with the thing. Knowing a little background theory is always helpful in getting a better understanding on how something works but like I said...not really my forte'. I still appreciated looking at what seems to be happening from Mikes technical vantage point.
 
 Distortion is clipping... no way around that.  In metal music it is about using the distortion and clipping or as Mike says, square wave and/or feedback as tools in the actual music making process and I can't think of anyone who is probably better at that than Danny and others like zungle who record and play metal music,have experemented with various techniques and determined which ones work best with what types of equipment.

 Zungle, you are right here, the pickups are actually EMG 81TX bridge and 89R in the neck. At least some of my problem with my first impressions was with me not knowing where the volume controls were exactly. A quick look at the manual revealed that they put the bridge volume as the first pot(the one closest to the neck). Seems kind of assbackwards to me. When I figured this out I knew better what to do. I tried a few licks with drop D and after a few adjustments had things sounding pretty sweet. You'll need to pry this guitar away from my cold dead fingers now lol. Both pickups are tapped so there is an incredible amount of flexibility here in the kinds of sounds you can get. This guitar seems to be out there in several different configurations. In one version there is an 81/85 setup in another version there are seymour duncans instead of EMGs....my particular guitar was made in 2011 according to the SN and I think I got a pretty good setup here. I know these are mass produced but they made the abalone cross and body inlays look custom,they even inlayed the headstock.

 So Danny I tried the GHS  strings out on my other guitar and they are working great. I have a set of cobalt 9s I am thinking about throwing on the Schecter as I'm not sure what strings are on  it now. A new set of strings will probably make a huge difference. The Schecter manual recommends Ernie Ball 2221s which I also have a pack of. Too many choices here!

 From what you guys have said it looks like I need to seriously learn a little more about what happens after the guitar . That track Danny made of the tube preamp minus the power amp and cabs was sweet. So I have a decent start thanks to the help I got here. Thanks guys!

 FWIW here are the results of the tracks I posted. You might be surprised!

The JTV 69 settings are using a Les Paul 1958 standard emulation.

1 JTV69 bridge

2 Schecter C-1 Hellraiser bridge EMG 81TX

3 JTV69 neck

4 Schecter C-1 Hellraiser neck

5. Laguna custom alinco humbucker bridge

6 Laguna custom alinco single coil neck

Power chords-

7 Schecter C-1 Hellraiser neck

8. JTV69 bridge

9. Laguna bridge

10 Schecter C-1 Hellraiser bridge

Starise


 
  I sure didn't mean for this whole thing to turn into something bad. 

It's just a matter of context (if it's anything more than that, then I chose to ignore it).  If you've read the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement manual (a great reference book) and want to run sound at the FOH, then you'll need to know some of what Mike was presenting.  However, if you're just trying to juice up your guitar tone, then you don't need to know any of that.
 
To drive a car you need to know how to add gas, turn the ignition key, use the parking brake, transmission shifter, pedals and steering wheel.  You don't care about how many amps from the battery are needed to kick over the starter and defeat the indent torque on the crankshaft of the engine.  Context is everything here (with apologies to Mr. Parsons).