Klay

Hello friends,

today I was testing a new (cheap!) ribbon microphone I just bought and was jaming on Thin Lizzy longs to check the recorded tone. While doing it Rocket Queen came to mind.

I think GN'R had a huge influence by the great Thin Lizzy and Rocket Queen is the example of that. As Axl said, Phil Lynott died to soon as he would have loved to met him.

This was just a recording test of 2 rhytm guitars for study proposes with a Marshall Vintage Modern, a Shure SM57 and a Cascade Fathead type of ribbon mic; I was not trying to capture the natural sound of the amp, not trying to make it sound like the AFD recordings.

Anyway I think Rocket Queen would be the perfect excuse for a GN'R jam with Thin Lizzy, maybe Fortus can bring it together?

Do you also get the Thin Lizzy Vibe in Rocket Queen ending?

Guitars only:

Mixed with the original:

Do you see the same influence?

I'm a fan of Gilby, I really liked his previous band record before joining GN'R - Kill For Thrills Dynamite From Nightmareland; I still listen to it. His solo albuns are also cool and he sings ok.

If either he had the right chemistry to write GN'R songs we'll never know. Just don't judge it based on his solo albuns as it wouldn't be fair - none of the solo albuns by Slash, Duff, Izzy, Steven,... sound like GN'R either; GN'R is one of those cases where the band together is much more than the sum of it's members individually.

A shame really, BBF seemed to be a great guy, who obviously has remarkable guitar skills.

But this band isn't about BBF or DJ or any of the other "aditional" musicians; it started long before any of them joined and while their contribution was really important, I'm sure GN'R will find a way to move forward as they always did and bring us great things in the future. It's 2015 and it's great that there's still a band to talk about, no-one would have predicted it in 1985 when the band was formed.

Great score, I'm jealous!

I keep dreaming about a 1959 and a 2203 to finish my already great amp collection; actually it's nonsense as we both already have great amps, but like everyone else we always want more.

I wouldn't mod it, it's perfect the way it is - if you need more gain just boost it with a tube screamer, it's classic Marshall tone as heard in hundreds of great records. The only mod I would ever think about would be adding an extra gain stage because I don't like pedals, I prefer to control it by the volume pot on the guitar and the Plexi doesn't delivers a lot of gain, even when cranked you could use a little more.; but the tone is the best thing ever!

You really need to do a recording demo of this one! Or maybe not, so that I don't get tempted to find one for me. They're really expensive here in Europe nowadays, with the GBP raising and raising against the Euro; also you don't find many great deals on Ebay (from European sellers) and there's no such thing as craiglist here.

Bring on that demo!

You guys should cover a modern song, like Catcher or The Street Of Dreams, they are very cool and involve the full band.

"Oh my God!!..."

I'm sad to announce the electric guitar is over.

That's bad but if you let it go than it's because you still prefer the Cameron.

I'm keeping an eye on the Engl E606 Ironball, it's small, portable and it's 20 watts are loud enough to gig:

On the other hand, EVH is about the launch the lunchbox head version of the 5150 III which should be real cool if it's like it's big brothers:

Alright.... without further adieu:

I'm calling this the tone tower!

It's a Soldano Avenger, 100 watt. I didn't great a lot of time to play with it, just 30 minutes or so, but it's awesome. Single channel, dual input, no FX loop. Bare bones. The seller told me it was the 50 watt version, but I opened the back to inspect the state of the amp, and there were 4 5881's, so it's definitely the 100 watter. And the fact that on the back of the amp it has a "100" written next to the serial number.

Not sure if I want to retube, currently it's all Tung Sols in it, 5881's and 12AX7's. I did not like Tung Sols with my Marshalls, but this is a different beast. It sounds freaking great though, great high gain tone, it's my first Soldano, but I can hear the Soldano sizzle and sweetness. It doesn't really need any pedals for tone shaping/more gain, but I did use a TS9 a bit as a clean boost to get it into serious metal territory.

The best part, I paid 3 digits for it..... the guy needed it moved fast! It was a fair bit under $1000, which is a sick deal for this head in this condition. Not sure what year it is and I don't think Soldano's serial numbers follow a specific formula, but I'm going to call tomorrow to find out what year it is, and whether it has the Mercury, O-Netic, or DeYoung output transformer.

I'll try to get some clips next week of this head and the Old Bitch, proper SM57 clips. Though no fancy interface, just a Tascam handheld connected to the SM57.

So, where's your demo of the Soldano beast?

I don't get all the hype around here just because Ron and DJ left the band.

GN'R have survived a lot worse and Axl always kept the engine runing, it never stalled - you got to give him a big credit for this, even when so many others have turned their backs on GN'R (weather you agree with the motives or not).

It's normal that band members get in and out of bands, don't be histerical about it.

For example, just look at the amount of musicians (including singers) that Slash has worked through all these years - Snakepit I and II, VR, BluesBall, solo album, now with Myles and the Conspirators, who knows what's next?

GN'R themselves started as a mixture of several local bands.

Just a little patiente, I'm sure everything's being taken cared of as it always was; DJ and Ron's departure means a whole new window of oportunity, with new musicians, who knows what the future will bring.

Marty Friedman, Brian May, Doug Aldrich.

Thanks, I'm real glad you enjoyed these songs!

When I get some time I'll record more and when I'm done I'll try to find a singer because they were meant to be sung and sound kinda strange on these "karaoke" versions.

Good music is timeless.

Nice score! I never played a Soldano but all the demos I've heard sound great, a different flavor of the Marshall tone.

Many great players used the SLO100 (Lynch, Gary Moore, Mark Knopfler...) which is an amp I keep an eye on.

Bring those demos!

Thanks a lot guys, your comments are very encouraging to me.

This song/opening riff came about 1 year ago but only now I had the oportunity to record it.

I've got several others waiting to be recorded, just not enough time...

Hello,

just finished another track; this is part one, there's more to come someday / sometime.

Nice playing!

Where's the toggle switch?

The right one looks better to me...

Here's the original guitars recording just like they were captured, without any post-EQ / processing:

Here's the version with the high end presence enhanced:

Which do you prefer?

The Vintage Modern is a single channel with 2 modes, much like the AFD100:

- in Low Dynamic Range (LDR) mode you only have 1 pre-amp tube for gain stage (first tube, V1)

- in High Dynamic Range mode (HRD) a aditional pre-amp tube is added to the circuit signal (first V1 and second V2 pre-amp tubes are used for gain)

All controls including the gain knobs are shared. Due to this design when you change from LDR to HDR you have a big jump in gain and volume.

Some people use a single mode and then either in LDR with a boost pedal for lead playing or in HDR adjusting the volume knob for playing rhythm when needed.

I love both modes so I want to use them both when needed. I like to have LDR with maximum gain, it's still low overdrive and gives you perfect and dynamic/responsive plexi tones from the 70's (Led Zep, Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, ....); but then when I switch to HDR it's too much gain and would have to reduce it to 6/10.

What I did was remove the stock ECC83 pre-amp tube in V2 and put a lower gain ECC81 which has around 40% less gain; however with the gain on 10 it's still to much in HDR so I'll swap it with a ECC82 which has around 80% less gain than the stock ECC83.

Thanks ZosoRose!

Omar, I'm not really after Slash's tone or any other tone. The Vintage Modern is my voicing,

distinct Marshall grainy tone! On top of that, it has great sustain and all the gain you could wish, no need for pedals

which I never used anyway - actually it has too much gain so I replaced a pre-amp tube to lower the gain.
My problem is capturing the right representation of the tone I hear in the room, which is just great.

I do like trebly tones and I set my amps like that; I think that the lower frequencies should all come from bass and kick

drum, the guitar should be all upper mids and treble to make a nice contrast and don't overlap. But you are right,

frequently and with different amps I hear comments that my tone is trebly (even on live shows), it seems like only I enjoy

these tones!

For hard rock tones I like George Lynch's Dokken tones from the 80s (some recorded with the same original Marshall AFD amp

as used in Appetite) , Brian May (Rangemaster treble Booster + AC30) and Mick Mars Motley Crue Girls Girls Girls album

(modded Plexi) - they're all upper mids ad treble.
Above all of that is Peter Green; he played Fenders, Marshall's, Oranges and always sounded amazing; some say it was the

out of phase pickups but Gary Moore bought him his Les Paul and never sounded anywhere as good.

My favourite tones are Peter Green , Brian May , George Lynch, Slash, Mick Mars and they all have thinner treble tones , I seem to like them but often people do tell me it lacks low end.

Thanks Omar; indeed I cut lows in post recording eq and added highs in post recording eq.

I dunno but it seems like I tend to like thiner / high presence tones on a mix context.

Currently I'm doing sound recording tests, I'm unhappy with the results I achieved previously.

Today I was testing the Vintage Modern just fooling around (not a real song, I recorded the riffs and then added midi bass and drums) and it came like this, what you think of the tone?