Owen Vickers

My Tone Quest

A page in progress…

26 June 2009

Right, time to go on one of those “tone quests” that all guitarists seem to do at some stage in their guitar playing life.

I haven’t often been happy with the sound of my gear, sometimes I have tricked myself into thinking it sounds good, but there always seems to be niggles in the back of my ear at what it all sounds like.  I’ve spent a lot of money on gear, but it’s more a case of buying lots of cheap stuff on a whim as opposed to buying stuff that will improve my sound.

So, to start with I need to take a good look at my gear, and work out what I need to keep, what I need to get rid of, and what I need to change. It would also help if I had an idea in my head of what I want to sound like…

When I think of a good tone, I think in terms of a lead sound, never a rhythm sound. I’m happy with that, so this quest will be about getting a lead sound that I am happy with both at home and live (or band practice at this stage).

I guess I’ll start with a list (as at June 2009) of what I have:

Amps

• Peavey JSX – 120 Watt tube amp with 4xEL34′s and 4x12AX7 tubes
• Epiphone Valve Junior – 5 Watt tube amp with 1xEL84 and 1x12AX7.  Upgraded output transformer and JP1 mod done.

Speaker Cabinets

• Laney GS212IE – 2×12″ Celestion Seventy80 speakers
• Marshall VS112 – 1×12″ Celestion Gold Back speaker

Guitars

• Yngwie Malmsteen Fender Stratocaster – DiMarzio HS-2 (neck and middle) and SD Cool Rails (bridge)
• 1993 Fender Fat Strat – Stock
• Custom Allparts Strat with Ibanez RG neck – Rio Grande Bladerunner’s (neck and middle) and Railgunner (bridge)
• Custom Allparts Strat – DiMarzio Cruiser (neck and middle) and DiMarzio HS-3 (bridge)
• Jackson J Custom – Bare Knuckle Crawlers
• PRS Tremonti SE – Stock
• 2 x Ibanez JEM555′s – Stock
• Ibanez JS100 – DiMarzio Air Norton (neck and middle) DiMarzio Steve’s Special (bridge)
• Ibanez RT450 – in pieces currently…
• Celebrity LP copy

Effects

• Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster
• AMT Electronics Fatal Tube
• Vox Satchurator
• G2D Custom Overdrive
• Dr Boogey
• Cusack Screamer
• Coffin Blood Drive
• Vox Time Machine
• EVH Phase 90
• Marshall Reflector
• Digitech EX-7 Expression Factory
• Zoom 9150

Now to work out what I am trying to achieve…

What’s the problem?

The main problem lies between sounding good at a low volume at home, and then sounding quite awful at a higher volume!

I think the main issue is in two things, the amp and the speakers.  OK, so that’s a bit general   More specifically, I haven’t spent much time dialing in a good sound on the amp (I’m talking the JSX here).  And I have a wide variety of guitars, some awesome and some dire.  The better guitars are certainly capable of making some great sounds!

There are some combinations of gear that do sound good.  Fender Fat Strat > G2D Custom Overdrive > Epiphone Valve Junior sounds really good to me, as does the Ibanez/Realtone into the same pedal and amp.  The only problem is that the VJ isn’t all that loud, I have to run it into slightly broken up territory at band practice to get over the drum volume, which means no sparkly cleans.

What to do now?

To do list looks like this:

• Get new speakers for the Laney cab
• Get new tubes for the JSX
• Decide which guitars suit me for now

To be continued…

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