Food for Thought

Zoso · Post by **Zoso** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 2:27 am

I was just browsing through some pedal reviews and saw something that got me thinking. One of the reviews was comparing a new pedal to the vintage one it was trying to clone, and he mentioned about the old days when there was no true bypass pedals. Now, I understand what it is and how important it is, but at the same time it occurred to me that all these great tones from the "old days" that we all know and love and strive so hard to achieve were made with pedals with no true bypass. And I would even wager with basic cheapo guitar cables with no regard to "gold plated connectors" and "low capacitance" and so forth. Don't get me wrong, I understand the flaws inherent with old gear, I just think it's a little ironic. We talk of how wonderful the tones on all those recordings are, and spend loads of money to get those sounds, and never stop to think that those sounds were made with "flawed" equipment. I know Hendrix, Clapton, Page, and many others didn't use loops to bypass effects or have switch boxes. All the footage I've ever seen of Hendrix shows him just daisy chaining all his pedals together and then running into his amp, with what looks like cheapo cable at that. And for that matter, he didn't even use small 6" cables between the effects, he usually looked like he had 4-6 foot cords between each one. But yet his sound isn't dull or flat, it's great. Like I said, I understand the purpose of true bypass, but it just gives you something to think about.

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 8:09 am

I'd think that the "flawed" non-bypass pedals are easily one reason why old records sound so much rounder on the guitar sounds. By the time you plug just a Crybaby in you're fighting to get your treble back!!
Don't forget classic analog tape and those old inefficient "colored" consoles and mics!! Today's mixers seem to focus more on the noise floor and dead flat frequency response, which seems to work against the average home recording enthusiast who can't even afford one preamp from a Neve console, let alone the whole shebang. If I just had the time to build a bank of tube pre's for my recording gear, and time to record!

dosmun · Post by **dosmun** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 9:23 am

Another thought. If you are going by recordings they aren't going to give you the "true" sound of the rig. If some of the high end was loss that can be made up at the board. Pretty much IMHO any sound you hear on a Record is going to be hard to nail exactly because of all of the studio tweaks.

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 10:23 am

Another thing mising is room sound. Page, Hendrix, Clapton, etc... There was so much room in the tracks. Todays engineers just shove a mic in the cone, angle it the right way to kill the harshness and call it a day. Maybe theyll mix in a subtle amount of a second room mic but the room was a big part of those early recordings. In my opinin it has more to contribute to the album sound then most people think. Makes the amps sound fatter and bigger. They found creative ways to mic the amps instead of the easy way of just close micing the cone. Im sure theres good engineers out there but the ones Im used to working with at the place my band records, if I start talking about micing the guitar in a way thats not going to translate the sound as clear and accurately as possible and isnt going to result in the highest db level possible or wasnt taught to them their heads would explode. The thing missing from engineers today is musicality. Their more technical then musical which is fine but there pretty much worthless to me if their going to do it their way and I have no say. I dont care about frequency responce and noise floor and db levels. Thats not art and if thats what you know then dont try to be creative, their not the ones getting paid to play music and be creative. I just want the recording to sound interesting like they used to. With all the modern tools the engineer has the sounds on the radio are sickeningly bad.

myker · Post by **myker** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:20 am

the main difference between old recordings and new ones is mastering.. now everything is squashed until there is no dynamic range so that it can be loud or louder than everything out there. and the room is no longer important because they use effects reverbs and room modelers! shitwhack! listen to the heavy metal recordings of rick rubin...no room, close mic'ed super duper compressed...or even worse bob rock!
modern mastering is evil!
mike

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:37 am

They dont use them to the same effect as room micing. Its a taste here and some gated verb on the snare and yadayada. Everything is right in your face and sounds bad. Its done too cerebral and not at all musical. Recording should be another performance not some cerebral, science experiment of how to most accurately capture the precise sound and make it as loud as possible on the cd. And squish the @#$% out of it cuz god forbid theirs a peak anywhere you wont be able to get that extra .1db higher then the average radio song.

Zoso · Post by **Zoso** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 5:29 pm

Yeah, I know exactly what you guys are saying. Luckily, the recording program I attended in college had a lot of old gear and faculty who knew how to use it right. EVen though I don't have any of that, I still try to apply those principles to my recordings and use the tools I do have to achieve the best performance and sound, and not necessarily the loudest or most transparent.

Back to the other, I know recordings aren't the most accurate reference,but I still don't think the actual guitar tones gotten with old pedals and such is terrible and was fixed in the recording. I'm sure some EQing and such was done, but the tone has to be good for the most part or it will sound bad to tape, regardless of what tricks are used, or at least that's my experience. I've had to spend many a session trying to make some buzzy, shitty, tone sound good for a client. As the saying goes, you can polish a turd.......

myker · Post by **myker** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 1:08 am

i never was a pedal guy, i always felt they colored the sound too much, but i have heard pedals in fron of plexi's and old metalfaces that just plain rock. and i have just recently tried a few pedals in front of my 18watt and it loves them.. so i agree with you, some old pedals and other old gear just plain sounded great, even if their wasn't true bypass. i dont think their has really been any significant improvement in the music instrument/amplifier/recording industry in the last 30 years or so, maybe longer. i think the quality of gear is regressing
your damn right about the turd analogy...if the tone isnt there in the first place, you cant get it on tape, however someone's always asking you to "dial it in" and make it sound listenable...
mike

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 12:50 pm

Zoso, I thought your original point is that, though we think effects without true bypass are evil, thats what they used at the time and it may have contributed to the sound right? I dont find that hard to believe at all. Nobody was worried about all the Eric Johnson stuff. If all you had was a 20ft cable thats what you ran between 2 pedals. And instead of recording each sound one at a time, youd have all your pedals plugged in and record whole tracks in one take as opposed to a different track for each guitar sound. Right?

dosmun · Post by **dosmun** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 1:47 pm

Here's my take on the True Bypass thing. It is nice in certain pedals. I used to use an old EH Small Stone, it was a great sounding phaser but when "bypassed" you could still faintly here the phasing. Wah pedals are another that TB helps. Buffered pedals are also good to have. If you have too many TB pedals they can degrade your sound as well, a buffer helps keep the signal strong.

I personally use a True Bypasss strip and run all or most of my peds through it. I like the convenience of having all of the switches at the front of my board and plus I don't have to worry about beating up my old vintage stuff. It is a luxury though and not a necessity.

All in all TB is nice and does help but is a bit overhyped IMO.

As far as gear getting worse, I disagree with that. The Modeling stuff has come a long way. I still preffer my tube stuff over it but they are starting to get closer to the prize with the new technology. There is no doubt in my mind that someday (if they keep trying) that Tube amp modeling will be so close you won't be able to really tell the difference. It just takes time. I will always treasure my Tube amps but I am not going to say they will always be my first choice to take to a gig. Who knows what the future may bring.

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 2:18 pm

Noones sayin TB is better or worse (all my effects are TB) just that the lack of it may have had a large contribution to the sounds on early recordings.

As far as gear getting worse, I disagree with that. The Modeling stuff has come a long way. I still preffer my tube stuff over it but they are starting to get closer to the prize with the new technology. There is no doubt in my mind that someday (if they keep trying) that Tube amp modeling will be so close you won't be able to really tell the difference. It just takes time. I will always treasure my Tube amps but I am not going to say they will always be my first choice to take to a gig. Who knows what the future may bring.

I couldnt agree with that less. Everyones different but I dont hear much improvement since the first few big modelers. When has any technology to do with guitar sound improved? SS circuitry still sounds no better then it was at first, Tube circuitry no better. Improvements may be made in functionality and reliability and noise and more and more sounds added to things but as far as 'tone' being improved given a technology the time havent seen it. Not outside of the realm of subjectivity at least or even an area where, although subjective, a large amount of people agree it sounds better instead of just different. Personally I dont see how modeling stands a chance. Its an inherent problem in the technology itself. The natural physical world is faaaaaar to complex to ever start to simulate in a digital environment. At least in our lifetime.

I had a PODxt for a while. I liked to mess around with it at home the way I do now with my Boss microcube. But after all the hype I didnt think the xt sounds better in any way then the 2.0. It just focused on vintage sounds more. But it didnt sound more accurate or more dynamic, or more natural in any way shape or form as did any modeling unit Ive ever played. Different strokes. I dont have anything against digital modeling amps and its only my opinion but personally I completely disagree that given a timeline they will eventually be hard to tell apart from the real amps.

Hell if you ask me even digital is getting worse as more and more companies are makign digital modeling units and competing for the bottum line.

tonejones · Post by **tonejones** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 9:42 pm

I do think modeling technology is improving....(see the Virtual Stack pedal for reference), but am still not going to say it will one day equal the sounds of our prized tube amps (too much road left untraveled betweeen those two destinations as of yet).

I do have a POD XT (hate the blasted thing) and use it for effects only (via efx loop) and as a backup amp on gigs. Just like with the Variax trying to do LPs and Strats/etc., you can't get a Marshall/Fender vibe in one box....the vibe simply is not there.

Dosmun said something very prevalent in that alot of us are trying to equal the guitar sound of a polished recording, and this may be very implausible (but yet I keep trying)!!! I am actually thinking of using a small plexiglass shield a foot or two in front of one of my speakers when I gig to help get a little of that room reflexion sound.

Something to be said for True Bypass (and the same that can be said about this forum) is I really dig the idea that guitarists have said ENOUGH!!! to all these companies putting out piece of shit products with crap components to pad profit margins whenever anyone with a little time, patience, ingenuity, and a soldering iron can put together something that completely blows them out of the water!!!!

Viva La Revolution!!!!!

Zoso · Post by **Zoso** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:39 am

Billy Batz wrote:Zoso, I thought your original point is that, though we think effects without true bypass are evil, thats what they used at the time and it may have contributed to the sound right? I dont find that hard to believe at all. Nobody was worried about all the Eric Johnson stuff. If all you had was a 20ft cable thats what you ran between 2 pedals. And instead of recording each sound one at a time, youd have all your pedals plugged in and record whole tracks in one take as opposed to a different track for each guitar sound. Right?

Yes, that is exactly my point. I just think it is something to consider. I'm not saying true bypass is bad or that all new gear sucks. I just think that people get caught up in certain things and don't stop to think about what was used to make their most beloved tones in the first place. And I know guys even back then had their pedals modded, so who knows, maybe Roger Mayer came up with some way to make the wah true bypass in 1968. But then again, maybe he didn't and that's part of the reason why Jimi's Strat tone wasn't ear piercing like many single coil tones I've heard.

Coincidentally, I was reading an article about Warren Haynes gear today and his tech said that he had a 20' lead from his guitar to pedals, and another 20' from pedals to amp, for 40' total. He said that it knocked off just a tiny bit of high end, but that Warren liked it that way. So there you go, good example of someone doing it the "wrong" way and still coming up with a great tone.

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 6:53 pm

Zoso wrote: Coincidentally, I was reading an article about Warren Haynes gear today and his tech said that he had a 20' lead from his guitar to pedals, and another 20' from pedals to amp, for 40' total. He said that it knocked off just a tiny bit of high end, but that Warren liked it that way. So there you go, good example of someone doing it the "wrong" way and still coming up with a great tone.

Playing an SLO-100 myslef I cant blame him for wanting to tame a bit of high end any way possible.

Hey tonejones. Coincidentaly I also used the xt exclusively for the digital effects while I had it. I started using it just for effects and wondering why Line6 doesnt come out with a little unit with FX like those in the xt instead of those stomp pedals.

tWreCK · Post by **tWreCK** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:22 pm

I'm not saying gear isn't important etc - I just feel that musicians of today (meaning you & I and joe schmo) take the gear stuff way too serious - to the point where it gets the upper hand of what's really important - the music. Music is what it's supposed to be about not NOS black beauties, vintage this and that, etc. Don't get me wrong, I like plexis, vintage amps & tubes as much as the next guy but there comes a point when you have to stop tweakin' and start playing again.

As an example I saw Eric Johnson a couple of years ago do a clinic at a local GC and he if anybody has taken the concept of tweaking for tone to it's absolute limit but yet at this clinic he didn't have his own equipment with him. He was playing on a an American std strat through a reissue Fender and Marshall DSL head. Not exactly sure what pedals he was using except for a budda wah and a Fulltone '69. He sounded just the way he always sounds - like himself even though he was using what most of us consider to be "cheap/crap" gear. It was all in his hands and head.

I don't think any gear in the world can make up for all the hard work and effort it takes to become a great musician. I sincerely believe that tone is a function of a musicians ability to translate/express their feelings through their instrument - it comes from within and that's what makes us all unique. We should all spend more time learning our instruments and writing music than worrying about which 12AT7/AX7 sounds the best in the phase inverter etc. Just my 2¢

Now, if I can only make up my mind which color tolex I want when I order one of George's kits.............