The guitars of VENOM - Mantas & Cronos - The early years.
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- Black Metal and NWOBHM instigators Venom's early years discussed.
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Cronos gear over the years:
Bass guitars
Bulldozer Bass (Aria Pro with custom Trem Bar/wCustom Neck)
Aria Pro II SB1000 (Matte Black with Natural Stripe/wCustom Neck)
Aria Pro II SB1000 (Red with Natural Stripe/wCustom Neck)
Ibanez Destroyer Bass (Red Finish - left in USA after 1985 tour)
Gibson EB-3 Bass (Originally owned by Andy Fraser of band 'Free')
Ibanez Bass (Black Finish/wCustom Neck - Cronos band USA 1988 to 1992)
Fender Jazz Bass (Black Finish/with LED Lights/wCustom Neck)
Fender Jazz Bass (Red Finish - made fully fretless in 2010)
Fernandes 4 String Tremor Bass (Black Finish/wCustom Neck)
Fernandes 4 String Tremor Bass (Burgandy Finish/wCustom Neck) x 2
The Behemoth (custom made by 'Bass Professor' with thick piano strings)
Cronos also owns both Aria and Ibanez acoustic basses. He had two other basses which are seen on the DVD which comes with the deluxe version of Black Metal. These basses have been destroyed.
Cronos owns various 6 string guitars also which he plays to compose his songs with.
Now he uses a metalzone and sansamp along with a
Amplifiers
Acoustic 220 and 230 Bass Amplifiers
Acoustic B1000HD 1000W Bass Amplifiers
Peavey 500w Bass Amplifiers
Carlsboro Bass Amplifiers
Marshall Bass Amplifiers (also will play the JCM 800 & 900 series)
H&H 600w Power Amplifiers x 2
White 4x12 for recordings with the Acoustic Amp
Guitars (early gear)
Big blue fuzz. Pos homemade.
Flying V copy
Les Paul copy
Strat copy.
Marshall JCM800
Guitar cab from a mystery company
Ibanez Destroyer
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Venom was the loudest live band I've ever seen. I saw them when they were touring Possessed, and they both had two full stacks each. I literally couldn't hear right for a week afterwards.
🤓 but was if as loud as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark? Lol (kidding)
Rock on.
Me and my best mate call this sound Bathtub Metal, cause that's what it sounds like it was recorded in. Glorious!
For thirty years I've been very carefully stockpiling vintage bathtubs and old boombox tape recorders specifically to recreate that classic sound perfectly. I shall soon become filthy rich selling them to tone snobs...
This is a very accurate description of that sound 👏😂
Yea most people call it black metal...
Man i was convinced that nobody could pull this off, but this is so close!. Videos on old bm and the tone is so scarce, so thanks alot for doing this!
Sick pfp! All hail
@@gabrielnolasco9732 hell yea! Cardiel is the man
Mantas is such an underrated guitarist he came up with some really exotic soundscapes and crazy solos like on flytrap. Eine Kleine Nacht Musik is their shining moment in my opinion. Its my favorite live album of all time. its got so much atmosphere.
Excellent.
Have shared this on a Venom fans group.
Mantas' tone was always filthy but in a good way.
Glad Venom, Bathroy, and Celtic Frost were more self aware and more musically based bands. Those 3 kill on every album.
Yep. Early Hellhammer/Frost etc were influenced by Motorhead but they did thier own thing with it. Frost were influenced by Venom too imo.
These guys r m
orons basing music on a couple clowns they cherrypick
@@holysmoke8439would you mind elaborating on what you're trying to communicate?
"Its the attitude that people most respect about Venom..." you hit the nail on the head. I love Venom.
I don't care if Venom is "lo fi" or "badly recorded" there's plenty of bands that supposedly are and sound like trash. Welcome to Hell especially sounds awesome, loud everything and harsh. Sounds perfect. Also I appreciate what you're doing from my own interest in audio engineering, this is a great RUclips series.
Yep it sounds evil.
2:19 = Do the Mosh Potato.
quit stealing my moves!
@@Citizen_J but I was born to dance...
I like the rant on black metal and the overhyped origins. You hear a guy like Hellhammer or especially Necrobutcher talk like they were gods among men while they were just a bunch of gatekeeping creepy kids in a recordstore basement
It's hilarious and sad because so many of those folks ranted so hard about posers, and so much of what they did was nothing *but* posing.
i waited for this video since the day i found this channel, thank you so much for making this
Glad you stuck around man! I get there in the end.
I was actually looking for this info to make a Cronos bass tone! Thanks man!
The opening of "Witching hour" delivers probably the most brutal bassnoize ever recorded...It's Like hell opens it's gates...
Hell yeah!!!! Circle of tone channel always kicking ass!!! Keep the vids coming man!!
Thanks Jason.
When I came back with the "At War With Satan" LP that actually looked like it was leather bound, my parents had THE TALK with me about my music choices and punk rocker looks... Jeez, they thought it would make me change... 😈 that's when I actually joined a heavy metal band and I am still playing in a metal band ever since!!!
Haha. The talk.
That's how it happens for the most part. I guess I was very lucky that my parents were amazing and pretty much let me choose my own path in life in regards to everything.
The main comment from Cronos that stood out to me in about 84 was "Why would you want to sacrifice a virgin?'. Something along those lines.
For the record I was just kidding about Iommi with a hello kitty strat on the middle pickup. It doesnt have a middle pickup. Its an honor to get roasted by Tony. You got damn close with the neck.
Lol. That's pretty funny.
Thanks so much for posting this. The classic Venom is one of my all time favorite bands and one of the bands that introduced me to extreme music. Always wondered how Mantas achieved such a crazy tone. Thanks again mate!
Oooh my good man, I was eager to see this
Venom! Damn, what's next The Mentors? LOL
Great vid, 15yo me from 1987 is giving you a fist bump.
Thanks for this! Everybody I know wants to hate on them for being "such terrible musicians" etc. So what? I still like how the music sounds and how it makes me feel. I'd rather listen to all of Venom's "worst" stuff than to listen to any of Steve Vai's "best" stuff.
Exactly. When it came out it was groundbreaking and evil sounding. I heard it without seeing the image on tape and I thought it sounded evil.
Candlemass... now that is a band I haven't heard of in a long while.
There is a thread on the facebook group about the gear they used on thier classic album.
Made one of this years best albums
As soon as I heard "LAY DOWN YOUR SOUL TO THE GODS ROCK AND ROLL!" I reverted back to a 14 year old version of myself. Thanks dude!
Haha. Nice.
Hey O...I once sat next to one of the original members of the Circle Jerks flying to Europe...talked punk rock and the SF Bay Area Punk Rock Scene the whole way...I think his mane was Dave...played Sax...was living in Pacifica, CA at the time... had his address and everything but never caught up with him...regret that now man! What a cool dude! Thanks again for sharing these awesome stories! 😎🎸
That's awesome.
Do the guitar tones on Discharges 'hear nothing see nothing say nothing'now that would be interesting also.
This album was out at the same time as black metal, and blew everything out of the water at the time😎
ahhh , Venom. one of my favorites. I remember the first time I put that album on my turntable and being blown away with how brutal they sounded, good times. can you do a video on Celtic Frost, early W.A.S.P. or Testament next ? love your channel , keep up the great work.
I've done one on Celtic Frost. I have a folder on the other two. Glad you like it!
Hats off to you making this video. And tackling the vocal parts. Awesome! Heh heh well done sir.
Do Darkthrone's tone with "In The Shadow Of The Horns"
Awesome! I’ve been looking forward to this one for about 2 years!
Glad you liked it!
When I started listening we already had early Slayer, Possessed, etc. But they just seemed like some regular dudes from California. The guys in Venom had a reputation and image of being scary deviants. :D
I bought my first Venom album (and many others) in a small town record store in Wisconsin that also happened to be the only place in town where you could buy VHS porno tapes, and they only accepted cash. Rumor had it the owner also sold weed and shitty coke, but I didn't really know him and never worked up the guts to ask. I felt dirty and ashamed just for walking into that dump, and by gawd that's the way it *should* be.
It was a far fucking cry from buying "underground" music at a brightly-lit, spotlessly clean store or ordering it with the click of a mouse with mommy's credit card, that's for sure.
@@dystopiagear6999 I lived in the Twin Cities, so I think I just got my vinyl Welcome To Hell at the Great American Music in the suburban mall LOL. But the mall store would only stock one or two of an album like this so I used to have to scour the racks frequently to avoid missing the few interesting metal albums they got in stock.
@@brooksrownd2275 That's funny. I guess they were afraid you might overdose on too much killer stuff at once, lol. :)
Well yea especially since venom were a band before any of those l..
Cheers for the mention Owen.
Thanks for your help
13:20
I appreciate the call out hahaha. Agreed.
yes !!
i had the same theory about bas news and venom !
you could fell the fire
when it rained burning pyros
on bloodlust back in the days ..
Came for the tone, stayed for the beautiful historical analysis of black metal. That bit was awesome. Elitists rather than Revolutionaries. The best definition to fit for black metalheads
You sir have a knack for revisiting all of the artists whose tone I am interested in. Great channel!
Thanks man!
Great job!!!
I remember them commenting that the metal of the time was so safe sounding - that they wanted to make a hellish racket, that was not a musical statement,really fuck things up , they definitely achieved that.
Yep. I could see the influences of Alice Cooper and Kiss but what I love is they made it thier own and went hyperspeed.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE yeh cronos loved gene simmons demon character - priest motorhead punk too
It's a shame Mantas had the visa issues during the taping of the Ultimate Revenge VHS release. It would have been great to see live Venom from Studio 54 on that release. I always wondered why it was only Cronos and Abaddon during the interview.
what a surprise, this is fantastic dude!!!!
I can't even begin to tell you how cool it is when you do this. Also you nail it everytime.
I love the drum sound.
Good info man, and highly entertaining - that Venom story was rather explosive hahaha... =DDD
I recommend "Neat & Tidy" by John Tucker for an accurate portrayal of early Venom/ Conrad Lant at Impulse Studios. Snakepit Mag also had some interesting information as well.
Yay! You finally did Venom!
Haha. Yep.
Yeah I think that was a almost exactly a year ago when you said you were gonna do it.
Reminds me of how Samhain recorded and it sounded bad but great. The dude recording them didn't do rock bands he did like disco etc which explains the weird but amazing atmosphere and also the harsh di guitars on some of the songs because it was a guitar into a dod250 straight into the board.
Awesome info. Where did you hear about the dod direct?
@@CIRCLEOFTONE I asked Pete (Damien) on Facebook once what he used and he mentioned it along with his Marshall 1987 model, and some of the guitars like his Iceman, his SG, and also the aluminum neck Kramer axe owned by Eerie and Steve which that was used on Unholy passion. There also used to be an interview of him here on RUclips but I can't seem to find it now it might've been taken down. In it he also showed some of the chords to some of the songs as well which is why I looked it up to try and learn them but couldn't find it.There is also this video where they supposedly have Damien's actual pedal signed by him and they're using it direct as you can hear like it is on the album somewhat. I find all the gear and recording of Samhain very interesting because in studio it was just very ambient and dark and weird but still in your face with those di guitars mixed in and then live it was full unbridled ripping Marshall tone and aggression. Even in some of the live footage with bad sound you can hear it.
ruclips.net/video/MvwRA3e2OXc/видео.htmlsi=Xy9ErDok2AatlV4L
Crazy to think they almost toured with Metallica on the master of puppets tour in Europe in 86... Wouldve been some insane shows and probably a true fourth Samhain album called Grim. Just based on rumored track listings it could've been insane, like a Samhain sequel to walk among us. We technically got it in a way if you count the reel platinum versions of misfits songs done by Samhain and some of the tracks off final descent. It's all rumors I have nothing to back that info but it's cool to imagine
Apologies for my ramblings hopefully some of this was helpful to you. Maybe you can hit up Pete on Facebook like I did he might be willing to tell you more ?
@@CryptToneMusic fantastic info man.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE hope it helped, if you ever do a Samhain video I'd be eternally grateful 🙏 (or a misfits video haha)
Tone suggestion: Ritchie Blackmore with Deep Purple in the 70s.
I have a folder on that one. If anyone knows what he used for SURE on machine head let me know.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE oh man. Who knows what Ritchie had done to those Majors.
Vox ac 30 with treble booster. many boosted warm clean tones. Major to big for studio. Fender strat with yabby cs69 single coil. He also had humbuckers in a strat early. There's pic from Manchester 74 gig.
The one and black metal God Mantas cool video
The scream at the end reminded me very much of Bloodborne... Great work! Really enjoyed this! Well done Owen!!!
Thanks man. Lots of fun.
The MXR Blue Box was a sub octave fuzz. You can dial it in for sub octave or more like a regular fuzz/overdrive. I bet it that pedal because it was available at the time.
Not even Tony can have strop over this one man ;p excellent as always \m/
Haha. Cheers.
The Live in London video is classic. And yes, the bass solo is ridiculously awesome.
I like how it's the big show... The cameras the expensive drum riser, the pyro etc etc and Cronos breaks a bass string on black metal and you can't even tell the difference in sound. Haha.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE Forgot about the bass string.... Have not watched the video in almost 20 years. Yeah dude they are playing a huge rock concert that is Judas Priest sized. VENOM.... Of all bands to pull it off heh heh
I love your videos man, helps me a lot.
Thanks man.
Finally. Perfect
Gr8 shout about vim fuego being based on mantas , i always thought that too.
Mantas also played a Westone Dimension IV, seen in quite a few concert vids from around 84-85
Great info man.
Kudos, Owen!
Awesome video man! Any chance of seeing a video on Burzum - Filosofem? Just a stereo with some fuzz, treble for days!
2:10 YEAHHHH!
18:48
the greatest early metal band i have loved them for 35 years. COUNTESS
😆 \m/ this intro, I definitely have to work on vocals in addition to guitar to do that
Blue fuzz pedals: first things that come to mind are Foxx Tone Machine, Hornby Skewes or a Zonk Machine. Could also be blue Sola Sound Tone Bender...?
Thanks. We came up with a few of those on the facebook group when I started a thread about it but nobody mentioned the zonk machine so I'll put it on the list.
Nice work! The other night I saw a local cover band of old farts who all had *very* expensive custom shop & vintage repro gear, and once again I was reminded what a complete crock of shit that is. Nearly all the true innovators of rock & metal used whatever the hell they could get their hands on, and much of it was quite cheap. Some of them modified or boosted it however they could with whatever they had. They all still stand out today because they sound unique. Barely any of the awesome classic tones you study and recreate would ever make it onto an album now, because almost none of them are "perfect" enough. Fuck perfection. Rock'n'roll should have sonic warts and scars and sound like it's just about to utterly fall apart.
Dam dude that sounds great! You nailed the vocals! It was so good I thought it was 1987 and i was 16 again!!! Fuck yes i love your attitude!
Haha. Thanks man.
You forgot about the bass tone the guitar tone was good but the bass tone is what made it epic
CSL SUPER FUZZ
according to his own website, which should be sort of a tobebender mk iv
You should check out Death from Above 1979 for more crazy bass tones if you haven’t already.
Venom , Bathory, Celtic Frost ! The roots Of black metal
Agreed. I've done Celtic Frost in the past and I'm working on Bathory right now. So if anyone knows what what used let me know.
More like the first sprouts
When I heard that first album I was like holy shit this is as fast as New York City hard-core
I remember thinking it sounded evil. Very vibey.
🤟 VENOM Rules
How about doing Celtic Frost
Already done! ruclips.net/video/xazmEIl22yM/видео.html
tomas gabriel fischer has the best rhythm guitar tone of all time - good shout
Can't believe I missed it, my bad
@@CIRCLEOFTONE thanks for the link you're channel kicks ass
nice christmassy one
ruclips.net/video/ApZoGyUtDzI/видео.html
Bad news was class
"You will pay for these ruddy trousers!" Is one of my fav lines in cinema.
I went over to a buddies in 81-82(??) He was listening to venom and mercyful fate I heard the venom and figgered priest was better and dismissed the mercyful unfortunately now 40 yrs later I'm a big king diamond fan 🙏🙏🤟🤟🤟🤟
You had to've been there black metal to us kids was actually a bit dangerous
The only big blue fuzz I can think of from back then would be a JHS (John Hornby Skewes) FZ III Fuzz, which was a rebranded JEN fuzz pedal manufactured in Italy, and basically a form of Tonebender.
Yep that came up in the facebook group when I was trying to find out. This is what we speculated:
MXR Blue box octive fuzz (sons of Satan etc had an octive effect)
Dan armstrong BLUE Clipper (too small)
FUZZ FACE
Fresh Fuzz
Super Fuzz (octive and LOTS in the UK)
Park Fuzz
Jen Fuzz AKA JHS/JHS FZ III Fuzz
Colour sound solar sound
Fuzz sound
Honey Special Fuzz
Does anyone know what Blasphemy used?
First heard in 81 and me and my friends laughed... Laughter quickly turned us into being fanboys. Love em forever.
Nice Owen!! If you're doing black metal, how about Bathory next time?
Yep that's coming next week.
Awesome! I love it.
Interesting you say this sounded like it was recorded underground - I always had that though about Into the Crypts of Rays by Celtic Frost - ever since I heard it when I was 13 in 1987 - I could never think of a better way to describe it and still cant - I have never heard anyone else use that term so I'm stoked.
Awesome band.
Hi Owen.
I am interested in all the gear the bands used to record. As a bassplayer I naturally would love to hear more about the bass gear.
A friend of mine has the verry same Acoustic 220 solid state head, bought it in the mid/end of the 1970's. He still plays it.
And I bought a copy of that amp, made in China, in 1978. It was the exact same amp, just with another name, and the color sceme was red and white. First I played it over the built in speaker of my bass combo, then together with a Marshall 118" cab.
Next I made a deal and got a 215" for the huge and heavy Marshall Cab.
So it all started.
Good to know! I'll be doing a video series called fat strings Friday soon and I'll be showing the mic positions, speakers, tricks etc i use.
Just requested to join the FB group.
I have a book on the history of stomp boxes. I'll try and find it. Maybe I can find out the mysterious blue fuzz.
Saw Venom in October '85 at the Brum Odeon. Great night. Cronos and co. just owned the crowd. Quite surprised they didn't burn the place down with the pyros!
To keep a balance, two months later it was Marillion at the NEC. haha :)
Nice. My first good that band that I was in was called Seasons End.
The Odeon survived V because enom's pyro's were not fired as planned that night as they had been banned by the Birmingham Odeon Fire Officers. They did however trigger some silver sparks during Bloodlust. It was a great night though, I agree.
Cronos buys Gibson bass that used to used by Free and smashes it on stage: that's the most metal thing ever! And black metal never got any better after that! Hahaha!
Hell yeah.
people forget Metallica supported them on tour WHAT A FUCKING BAND
Haha. Epic.
Almost all early norwegian bm bands copied every aspect of Bathory in their earlier demos before finding their own voice. That says a lot for these pioneers.
I think Henry Rollins talked about touring with Venom at one point and he said they were very Spinal Tap. Compartmentalized like Slash, but also barely able to play their instruments. No idea if it’s true, don’t really care. The image in my head is glorious either way and I can still listen to Venom and enjoy it. Cronos’ voice is still a killer instrument, as evidenced on Dave Grohl’s Probot album.
You may have jogged my memory. I think he talked about that when I saw him do his first story set tour about 12 years ago. May not have been venom but I remember him talking about the METUL!!! aspect of some of the bands from back in the day.
CIRCLE OF TONE. Or maybe it was Buzzo? I dunno, for some odd reason him and Henry sort of occupy the same space in my brain. Ooh, maybe a tonal deep dive into Buzz/ Melvins? The guitar part wouldn’t take too too much work. His rig is pretty simple overall. Hasn’t changed too much over the years, either. When I saw them in Boston I think he was still using beta lead heads and custom cabs (which at one point he joked about badging as “Blown” so whenever someone asked him what cabs he’s using he’d say ‘blown ones!’).
Anyhosers, I appreciate you and your content. Cheers!
cronos is actually a really good bass player on venom songs. his live bass "solo" not so much. but if you listen to what he's doing during the mantas solos, its some pretty intricate stuff.
Good show! Venom came into the NWOBHM scene later on, as bands like Tygers of pan tang, Angelwitch(both epic!) or Vardis and Diamond Head were much more earlier front runners. Early Venom was really very different from the "musicality" of NWOBHM. I saw the band in late 82' and early 84' with a world of difference between them. As far as i can remember both Cronos and Mantas did not have a pedal board in front of them, it was basically volume driven amps in utter relentless fashion! At the time , there were not many bands in this genre who could afford Gibsons or Fenders, and a lot of the Japanese copies were (ARE!)at the time(Electra,Aria, Hondo,etc..) really great sounding guitars for a small buck! I dig the rawness(lo-fi garage sound) and the harder sound they had in the beginning, later on they became much like a cartoon version of themselves, basically the same happened with the Norwegian scene.If you isten to early Mayhem and Burzum you simply can not get rid of a persistent "déja-vu" feeling so I lost interest very quickly. Might be interesting to do a feature on "hybrid" sounding bands or guitarists, there lies a real challenge! ;)
Diamond Head were so good. If anyone knows what they used let me know. I love the TV performances. I don't know why they didn't blow up. I actually suggested the V may be the Electra James Hetfield used but the knobs did not align. Good info though. Speaking of Mayhem, I'm doing Bathory soon ;-)
Not too many times i can remember laughing at and loving an album at the same time. Early venom rule.
I saw interview where Venom said that they kind of heard the album The Destroyer album from Kiss and kind of base their sound on that but just made it faster
"Bulldozer bass was born, playing a bass throught a guitar amp" Haven't Lemmy done it for years before which I think Motorhead had a big influence on Venom?
All roads in death, thrash and black metal lead to Lemmy
Lemmy's bass was never raw and brutal as Cronos'.
They wanted to be a faster Motorhead
Mxr blue box.. coron.. Memphis pedal
I think his fuzz pedal was a CSL super fuzz
This was great..I even remember a band that I loved which was close to Venom and they were Bathory, which was also a Venom song. The lead singer even claimed to be a vampire..I used to think he was the real Lestat when Lestat was a rockstar in the Vampire Chronicles..great stuff. I could never find any Bathory actual recordings ..all I ever had were recopies of cassettes but I loved it. Very early Sepultura were great and sounded identical.I just read that Quorthon had a heart attack and died in 2004..guess he wasn't a vampire after all huh? Bad News was awesome. So funny.
18:19 did you ever do that Cronos gear Video?
Hey, could it have been a Univox Superfuzz? Some of those had a big blue and orange box.
Good shout. That came up on the facebook group when we were speculating about what big blue fuzz it was?
The Foxx Tone Machine also came in blue for a bit as well- similar sound profile of fuzz too
The fuzz pedal was similar to a Sola Sound tone bender mk 2, but I forget the brand name.
More NWOBHM in general, particularly DH.
MXR Blue bOX USED ON nECK PICKUP AND TONE ROLLED BACK?
I don't know about the guitar tone, but the snare in this tune sounds like one of those round tin things you get Christmas cookies in, am I wrong?
Haha.
Wow nice pipes man 😎
Hehe. That was fun.
CIRCLE OF TONE. 😎👍