You have saved a lot of guitarists a lot of money with the "What matters most with guitar tone" video. I don't see why anyone should complain. Thanks Glen.
I've watched most of your videos with respect to guitar tone and while I mostly agree with you...especially with speakers, however these other things you've discounted, imo, do affect your tone, but to a lesser degree. Guitars do sound different, even the same models vary. I have Gibson LPs and Gibson Vs...and while they do all sound like Gibsons, they're distinctly different. Testing you may ask? Well, lets just say 30+ years of playing guitar, gigging, recording, etc... I know man... However, pickups outside of output, not nearly as much. Freq response vary, but slighty..assuming set in the same position...Typically a guitar has an innate sound, and pickups will just give you some variation of that same sound. Dig your passion though....entertaining..😊
Bluegrass not metal? Tell it to the 27.5" scale mandolin I just bought from Eastwood. Can't wait until it gets here. this thing ROARS and GROWLS like a mad fucker Yeah, I six string, baritone, *mando* lol it's fookin glorious and everyone at the jam is gonna be jelly af when I start grinding it
Seriously though, I don’t play metal either. I play Canadian style Synth-pop (via Fishman Triple Play) and Shoegaze and I find Glen’s advice just as applicable to my little corner of the sonic landscape as it is to Metal. Music is music.
I really get the "don't do an album" thing in heavy metal and/or other more mainstream genres. I play metal and in a oi!/punk/streetrock band, we got a deal with a german company who published and payed for a debut album. The money was ok and they took care of all the publishing and other bullshit. The album was limited to a few hundred copies and we got 100 to us. Now the record is sold out and we are planning on making a vinyl release, so luckily it still works in some genres! :)
Think of pickups as little "mics" for each string. Change the mic, change the sound, same as changing mics on guitar/bass cab or a drum set when recording. Sincerely, a musician.
@@ryanschindler923 oof, sick burn. As an electronics nerd I've done a good bit of reading about pickup design. While I can't fault your analogy, I also can't see how it doesn't apply to literally any other part of the signal chain - different anything, different sound.
@@drumplestiltskin2582 While that holds true, it comes down to degrees. Sure everything changes the sound to an extent, but only certain things actually have a real tangible difference that you can instantly say "hey that really sounds different" and not "hm, it kind of sounds different, i think?" Speakers, mics, and pickups have the most change overall IMO. Although the first two have way more effect than pickups. That's just my take from over 20 years of making music.
Along with pickups, the pots make a difference as well. The Ohms, or resistance of a 250k is fairly different than a 500k, in fatness, and brightness on humbuckers. Even more difference on single coils.
Very general rule of wrist is humbuckers use 500k pots for more treble and single coils use 250k pots to tame down the treble. 500k is brighter, 250k is darker.
I know Ola got a Randall stack, full stack and he was talking about the cabinets have Jaguar speakers in it . He’s the guy as far as getting the Dime tones. I think it was a Randall RG something . Ola was very excited about the Jaguar speakers because they were what Dime had in his cabs .
Randall rg100es on cfh and gstk and the randal century 200 on vulgar and fbd i believe and yes the jaguar speakers is what was in the cabinets im pretty sure not 100% but possibly pretty close
@@Durkhead no. Dean ML ,bill Lawrence passive pick up like, Furman fq4, doubler, flanger, mxr eq, Randall solid state and speakers as close as jaguar...it's awful, noisy but it works Alone even if terry date is incredible.
7:40 that's why I watch Glenn. I understand that I can't take everything he says to an exact science (because I play punk rock) but I have never felt mislead buying anything he recommends.
The other good news for people like me who live in severe temperatures (desert) is that you can focus on guitar wood that doesn’t react as violently to the sudden heat and cold changes.
@@ashersolomon9560 My Jericho 7 Fusion arrived immediately after you guys got buried in snow, had to do a lot of work to it after it arrived here, but has been steady ever since.
Thank goodness that you still enjoy and love what you’re doing and you are not completely burned out, emotionally drained, or mentally exhausted. Thank you Glenn!
Your video about speakers finally laid my mind to rest. I literally spent years and years looking for the tone and sound that I wanted to get. Tried several amps, guitars... After a long time, I settled on a DiMarzio D-Sonic as my go-to pickup, but after having played through a Marshall cab for years, I was still missing something. Then I switched from a Crate Blue Voodoo to an Engl Fireball ànd discovered the Orange Jim Root signature cab and voila: found it. I just wish someone was around years earlier to tell me that speakers have this massive of an influence. It would have saved me an enormous amount of frustration (and probably money). Keep up the most excellent work!
I became an "It's the speakers that matter" guy in the early 70's; when my Twin Reverb's Power tubes went out during setup for a gig. So I borrowed a Super Reverb from a buddy for that show, Thinking that; same amp? Same settings, Yeah? The only difference between the amps were 2X12 VS. the 4X10's. But try as I may. That Super just sounded like "ASS" to me. Twisting the tone knobs couldn't get rid of the bright dirty nasties in it. "Lesson learned" I eventually ended offing the Twin, And using a Super Showman as my gig amp, Coupled it with with 2 cabs. One bassman style 2X12 Jensens and a Fender Rhodes 1X15 JBL signature. When I turned the tone knobs on that rig there wes a distinct tonal change. Always been "All about the Speakers Bro!" Just Say'in.
@Randy Haney It's true that the speakers in those 2 amps are very different but it's also true that the Twin and the super are very different amps. Different circuits, plus the Twin is around 80 watts and the Super is around 40 watts. The Super is a great amp if taken on it's own terms but I can imagine it felt awful to you when what you needed / expected was the feel / sound of a Twin. You were used to all that clean headroom and you suddenly lost a lot of it!
@@effsixteenblock50 Hey Man Thanks for the correction on the amps, Of their wattage and other attributes. I'd hate to spread falsehoods. That was not my intent. I was just going be what I was told and assumed at the time. I didn't mean to infer That the "Fender Super" was not a good amp for what it was made for. Just that I couldn't get it to work for me. However I will still always believe that the sound had to do with the speakers; more than the wattage. Just say'in.
Changing Pickups,speakers,even guitar pick materials & gauges will yield noticeable changes in tone. BUT,the most drastic change in tone I've ever experienced is when I swapped out the Saskatchewan seal skin bindings on my pedal board to pristine vintage virgin Brazilian NOS velcro straps! They're quite rare and expensive AF...but worth every penny.
It's funny, because 20 years or so ago(I'm 40) I had a guitarist friend who's thing was cabinets. He eventually built some "quick release panels" comprised of various speakers, in various combinations and patterns, set in various wood sheets. These sheets were wired in a way that they were ready to go, with snap connectors on the wiring. He'd get a new cab(or sometimes build one), remove the front panel, and router a perfect groove to slide a panel/sheet into. The groove was perfect and tight, so it was a nuisance to get one in/out, but it also prevented any variables such as wobble, ect. On semi permanent ones(combinations he liked a lot, so would use often) he would sometimes put some glue in the groove, or use some silicone. This enabled the ability to still rip the panel out with less effort than a full build, but was more solid than something he was still playing around with/undecided about. He always swore tone was predominantly in the pickups, amplifier, and cabinets - and I tended to agree.
Pickups make a huge difference! My Jackson had pickups that were made in house and I couldn’t get them to do Dimebag squeals. I upgraded to the exact pickups Dime used and voila!
Oh yeah, especially when it comes to bass. I had this old bass that had barely any top end whatsoever and sounded really dull and lifeless, even when I changed strings. Then I got another bass with better pickups and all of a sudden I'm getting huge bass tones with the same setup as before.
Yeah, but we're talking about the difference between mediocre and high spec pickups. Changing between two different high- output pickups of different makes will make very, very little difference at high gain levels. Which is the point.
Definitely. I had two similar guitars with different pickups and would layer them with exactly same tone settings. Sounded way fuller than just doubling one of them.
I can't wait for a pickup test! You should not only do brand X vs brand Y but also: Different magnets (ceramics vs different numbers of Alnicos). Different levels of output (PAF vs underwound PAF vs overwound PAF vs 12-14K vs 15-17K vs 18-20K). Active vs Passive. Different actives (various EMGs vs Blackouts vs Fishman). True single coils vs coil split humbuckers True single coils vs noisless single coils Full size humbuckers vs mini humbuckers vs hot rails There's so much stuff it's probably gonna be a 2 hour video made in 2 years
You could try out a "solid state tube" like an AMT Warm Stone 12AX7 replacement. If those are even remotely comparable to a set of actual 12AX7s I'd replace all my tubes in a heartbeat!
A transducer (pickup) is a type of filter. There's a coil of wire with a magnet that senses when the magnetic field lines are broken (when the string vibrates). The inductance of the magnetic setup inline with the pots (adjustable resistors) constitutes a low pass filter (dampens higher harmonics but leaves lower ones) that is adjustable via the pots that are wired in series with the pickup (if any).
@@ruaine83 Well, what I had in mind was that pickups, microphones, and speakers are all transducers. And yes, the impedance each of those has does contribute to their filtering effects.
No, they are not. They are waveshaping devices. They react dynamically, they have their own resonances, ringing, overshoot, their parameters change all the time. A filter will only filter, the same way each time. Transducers are very different. Also: pickups are not transducers, not in the colloquial sense. Speakers and mics are transducers. A pickup is a pickup, it is a static device that only senses changes in the magnetic field and does it the exact same way, each time. Transducers are the "worst" device in any audio chain, by magnitudes of order. They reproduce or capture the signal quite poorly, their distortion is in the percents, frequency response can have 20dB differences, they do not stop moving when the signal stops, nor do they move instantly.. 1$ preamp can do 0.1% distortion or better, +-0.3dB frequency response and 80dB SINAD. You literally can not buy speakers that do that, let alone perform better not even with a million dollars. Transducers suck but they are all we got.
Victor Hugo: "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come." Neil deGrasse Tyson added, "second most powerful is the idea whose time is about to pass." People get up in arms when shown proof of what actually affects tone, but they're only the 2nd most powerful voice out there.
I never realized how much the tone of an electric guitar depends on the speaker(s) in your amp or cabinet. My fender needed work so I bought a cheap practice amp to fill in. Everything sounded shitty , but I had nothing else. Then I bought a pair of practice amps. One was a 20 watt Typhoon, with a 10 inch Celestion speaker, and an Orange Crush 12 watt, with the Ears of the World speaker. Holy shit. I fell in love all over again with the tones I was getting from these two little amps.
Yeah, the combination of the edge of EHV and the body of the Hempback really sounds unique and kinda refreshing! You really found a hidden gem in there! Can't wait to hear more experimentation on those bad boys haha Cheers!
Shit... Beat me to it. This seemed like a perfect instrument to quickly test various pickups and if they made enough of a difference, but it might not be proof enough for people who believe their vintage brand pickup winding is better no matter what - and Relish probably made the experience different for their options. I do not know how easy it would be to make solderless swappable Relish compatible cartridge out of some coveted pickup from 70s.
@@CobraFat2000 From what I've seen of them, it's supposed to be really easy to put any pickup into a cartridge thing. Just wire them to points on the cartridge and then contacts in the guitar and on the cartridge make the connection. If it is actually that easy, cool but it might be a little scary fitting vintage pickups
I've seen this on RUclips and it convinced me that different pickups definitely sound different. However! Since thinking about it more, maybe it's a bit more tricky. Firstly, that guitar is built with exchangeable pickups as a USP. I have no idea what has been done to make sure that the product lives up to the consumer's expectations of tone variation. Let's assume the manufacturer has done everything in good faith, and this isn't a "tube simulator" thing. I still expect Glen's conclusion to be: pickups are like a mic; placement matters, some are hotter than others, some might sound different and sh1tty because they're just poor quality. Expensive ones are pretty much indistinguishable from decent affordable ones, and you can get most tones out of the appropriate, basic equipment, set up properly. So, even through an idiot bass player like me knows how much strings and pickups can affect tone, whether it's crucial for the metal guitarist to have certain strings and pickups, whether the layman could hear any difference, whether it would make enough impact to affect a mix, whether it's more important than speakers? I reckon that's a debate you can never solve.
@@johnbehan1526 You're probably right. I can't see there being much room for differences in sound once you start using good quality materials. Apart from different magnets and more or less windings, surely it'll sound the same no matter who the manufacturer is. I've changed pickups in a couple of guitars for hotter pickups and aside from a volume boost, I couldn't hear a whole lot of difference in how they sounded. Could just be the ones I chose though
With your work on replacing the speaker and you posed a VERY convincing argument. In fact, after hearing the Celestion Hempback, now I’m looking to replace the Celestion speaker in my Marshall combo amp with one of those. I’m also looking to get a cheap Marshall 4X12 cab and replace those speakers with the Hempbacks.
I've been a singer most of my life and recently picked up guitar and bass along with all the sound/recording and so on stuff that goes with it IMO. Thru my experience I suspected the speaker factor as I also used to work with bands as a roadie back in the 80s and just seemed to notice it when a guitar player would fry a speaker and replace it you could tell his cab sounded different even if it was an identical speaker or when they changed cabs at all even more so obviously. Some of us who don't get distracted by "the shiny" actually learned a lot of this long ago without realizing it sometimes LOL. You rock bro. Keep up the great work and thank you.
Been on a Specter binge as of late and I enjoy your no nonsense FOCK YOUR FEELINGS approach to presenting information. Plenty of people just wanna hear their own opinions echoed back to them instead of hearing what they need to hear. Keep it up and f you!
I have two Jet City amps and they sound great and are designed for easy modding. Some models were designed by Soldano and some were designed by the creator of Victory Amps. I believe they are now owned by Epic Amplification and are only custom builds done in the USA now.
I had a Jet City JCA 2112RC a few years back, kinda wish I hadn't sold it. Kind fit in that medium/just on the verge of high gain space. Used it as a back up when my band was rehearsing to go into the studio, as my 50w Marshall was in need of repairs. Sounded good through the stock speaker, but plugged into my 412 cab, it was FEROCIOUS sounding, and was loud enough, even without the 412 to keep up with a HARD HITTING punk drummer.
I gotta say at first when I watched your videos I was turned off by the language, but now after many vids I have to agree with your opinions...you just speak absolute truth of mind on exacting science of Metal Audio Recording! Thanks for speaking the truth on all aspects! (JampacJ)
@@timbushong4387 Reapers great, I've been using it on trial for a decade... 😭 But ahhh yeah, also Samplitude ProX, if you've got the cash for it... God that's a great DAW
Thank you for the FREE work shop on The Basics. You put in a lot of time and effort and to give it away, well that tells me you really want to make a difference in the Metal music world Mike Glarry Music Canada
You're releasing new IRs? Hell yeah! I've been using your set from Lancaster for a while now (damn those lewitt mics sound great) and would love some new additions. Hopefully that greenback/hempback combo you showed a few weeks ago will make it onto those.
from friends who tended to buy pickups like madmen, i had a couple of their "leftovers" gifted to me, besides some pickups i bought myself. had a cheap JS- series jackson guitar where i went through some of the pickups i have (SD TB6, SD TB4, SD Thrashfactor, SD Dimebucker, DiMarzio D-Activator, DiMarzio FRED) . not really scientifically, but from what i can tell, it's that with my peavey 6505+ it changed the sound only so far as to how high the pickups output was, i could mostly tell ba the gain, sustain of single notes and "chunkyness" or "chuggyness" of the chords i played that something changed. with my Laney GH100R the differences seemed to be a little more nuanced.
"Louder generally sounds better" Fletcher Munson. ;-) Something you are overlooking is that speakers are an electromechanical device hence they "break in" and also wear out. The surrounds, no matter what they are made of, change compliance over time and how hard they are pushed. I once tried to explain what a compressor did to a guitarist I was working with, I got half way through and he looked like a deer in the headlights. He said "I didn't understand anything you just said but chrome plate it and I'll buy it."
I can speak from experience that while an eq before the pre absolutely amazing, it is more choppy than if you just had good pickups to begin with that did most of what you wanted and then used an eq to change just a few things.
Hey Glenn, your channel is my go-to for honesty when it comes to buying gear. I've bought a lot of the stuff you've recommended over the years and none if it has ever let me down. I got a harley benton fusion 2, joyo zombie, harley benton v30 2x12, a legator 7-string and a cockblocker. Thank you so much for your 'No bullshit' approach to gear and other music equipment, you're saving us no-nothing dumbshits thousands of dollars.
Putting an EQ in front of an amp is great. You can take a thin sounding single coil and give it a little more low end, and if you boost the signal you can use it to overdrive the signal going into the amp which has some interesting sounds. Tom Morello uses a basic Boss 7 band EQ in his rig before the amp, as a boost pedal for solos. So, he just cranks everything up to the maximum and let’s it rip, and going straight into the amp will give a nice gain boost and some pleasant distortion if you’re using a tube amp. I know this is a metal channel and Tom Morello might not be everyone’s thing, but it’s mine and I bought a Boss EQ pedal to try it out, and I love it. The hard part is deciding where I want it in the signal chain, because you can use it to shape the sound going into and out of distortion pedals and get very different sounds-like a wah pedal, which is also a filter. I usually make it the last stop before the amp, which can shape or boost things as needed. I’m sure there are better EQ pedals out there, but the Boss 7 band EQ is simple, and has frequency bands that are going to make the dramatic changes to the tone of a guitar.
See, this is why I like Lace Sensors. They’re basically a really clean, clear, even platform which you can then use your amp settings & such to build the tone you want
Your guitar tone myth videos have certainly been eye-opening and interesting - great job on those! But I gotta say, even though I know very well that this is a metal channel, your conclusions definitely make it sound like these are absolute conclusions to be taken across the board. I know this is a tall order, but it would be really interesting to see all these tests done on the "less distorted" end of things where we might actually hear some differences, especially these days where metal is incorporating more and more non-metal elements. Anyway, keep the science coming!
For me it's more about the feel of the wood than any tone difference. I personally think the wood matters more in an acoustic setting and non distorted as well. Also you can accent notes if you set up your pedals and sound correctly to where the way you play (dynamics can change your sound).
When my guitarist’s amp head gave out we used a combo amp plugged into the cabinet and despite sounding completely different as a combo in the cab they were virtually indistinguishable from each other
I had the same experience with my Marshall JVM, it was sounding really weird and crappy and I decided to swap all the tubes and re-bias it with Tung-Sol tubes, originally I thought it sounded amazing with the new tubes, but I really only chose the brand after experience told me Russian made lasted longer than the Chinese Marshall ones that died with little use in 2 years. Your video just proved I fell in love with the amps sound and the tubes had nothing to do with it. Glad I didn't fall into the trap of buying the "special" tubes the seller kept trying to sell me... 🤣
I wonder if anyone is ever going to make a solid state “tube” alternative that you can install in place of tubes in an amp and never think about it again? Like it changes the sound slightly, but you never have to change tubes again. Or it could even be a solid state thing that emulates different tubes so you can choose what flavor you want.
@@MisterRorschach90 well maybe once they can correctly emulate tubes to begin with. At the moment even the best technology gets close, but it doesn't respond like a real amp. A tube is just so different to the way a transistor circuit works that you have to emulate a lot and emulsion requires a lot of processing power and knowing every possible reaction the tube could have. So if it ever does exist, it's not going to be cheaper, but probably cost 10x as much, and seeing as tubes last 5-10+ years on average, it just wouldn't be worth it... If you want emulsion, just get a memory kemper and be happy with your "close enough" sound.
@@MisterRorschach90 also not to mention that tubes run at very high voltages and you would need to regulate the power to the solid state circuit, which would occupy a lot of space and then boost it back up on the output. The packaging just wouldn't be practical if not impossible with current tech and most definitely very expensive... The circuit in a tube amp just wasn't designed for this...
@@MisterRorschach90 A Russian company called AMT makes 12AX7 replacements called AMT Warm Stone. I've been itching to get a set of them to test out but I'm unable to get them myself. There's a number of videos that test them out, but they aren't really representative since they're comparing one tube to one replacement instead of an entire set, and also they use hybrid circuits to test them out, where the drive stage is not driven just by a tube, but also a transistor, so the results aren't really representative. I'd really love to see Glenn put them to the test.
@@phunniguy very interesting, but as you say I haven't found any proper tests either, would be very interesting to see what happens in a full tube circuit... 🤔
Great video as usual Glenn! Have you ever though of making video about music production and audio engineering on Linux? There's a great channel about it called Unfa. I recently found ~10 years old laptop in a trash and I decided to install Linux on it and use it for recording live shows and "studio" tracks when there's no PC available.
I swear I have learned more and have more of a confidence boost from watching Glens channel then I did when i went to school for Audio in Toronto in 2009. Beyond thrilled that I found a channel like this, and its even better hearing all this info from a fellow Canadian. Keep it up!!!
Oh man, you could do an entire series just on studio construction. The guy who commented on the room being soundproof and having a lack of reverb needs a lesson. Sound proofing and acoustical treatments are two completely different things. The former is a measure of how much sound can escape (or get into) a room. The latter is a measure of how well a room is treated, or constructed, for the purposes of acoustics. Also, I used to work with John Sayers at the home recording forums about 20 years ago! He let me mod it for a while with him. He's such a great guy.
I recently bought a roland kit and am triggering the GGD metal kit for screwing around at home. My band has a dedicated practice spot with the acoustic kit fully miced. It depressing how good the GGD kit sounds versus my efforts to record and mix my Bison kit. ...... I get why people use these software "solutions" now. Kind of defeating.
Another addition to these "filters" and tone is the cabinet design. -Front vs rear loaded speakers on the baffle -Lined vs un-lined -Chambered vs un-chambered -braced vs un-braced 👍
When you do the pickup test, you could use loaded pick guards, so you're only wiring up at the output jack. Have a single volume and single bridge pick up, and just swap those pickguards on a strat
Your point on speakers & cabinets is well made. People don't talk that much about them compared to various revered and heads. And yet those same people will rabbit on and on about various IRs...
Pickups can definitely have a huge impact on tone. The speakers are still the most important, but how the vibration is picked up and translated…very particular. I personally think the best method is to get a full sounding pickup with a balanced eq, or slightly warmer. You can always add brightness and gain through the amp/pedals.
I’m so glad I’ve seen your videos about speakers. I’m a DIY’er and have been thinking of building myself a speaker cab to go with an amp I’ve had for years, your stuff has been far more informative than anything else I’ve seen! Admittedly I’m a classic rock guitarist and not so much metal anymore but I like your videos and have been able to learn a hell of a lot!
Hey Glen just an idea about the switching pickups vid you are thinking of doing. GFS makes a system called QuickPlug which literally lets you unplug a pickup, plug into another one, screw it in and your done. No soldering, no muss, no fuss. You can easily swap out pickups in less than 5 minutes. Surely you know somebody that has a guitar like this. It would make your video so much easier to film. Just a suggestion. Thanks for what you do. Ive learned so much and still have tons more to go. YOU ROCK!!!
The pickup video would be so great. I’ve been looking for something like that and all the videos pick up a strat and go “well this is how single coils sound like” then pick up a les paul and go “this is the sound of a humbucker”.
Being "electro-acoustic engineer with the degree", all I can say is that for all the great lab work you are doing you deserve honoris causa degree from a number of notable Universities :).
Got 2 2x12s with V30s and Greenbacks. With 4 Sm57 with Wilkinsons clips and a Behringer crappy console before my preamps... All thanks to you Glenn!!! With my Triple Rectifier, let's say I have a monstrous tone that sounds amazing and versatile inside Reaper :)
I think your experiments provide a very good place to kinda bring people down to earth. I do think there can be subtle differences, but those differences… really go into the hobby area for fun more than practicality.
i always equated the saying "tone is in the hands" for solos, because everyone will accentuate notes very differently, than another player, not for rhythm guitar
I think that intent of the phrase "tone is in the hands" goes in the direction of the technique and the nuances of the guitar. Tone isn't in the hands but the hands must play the instrument with competence
I am a semi-professional pickup winder. Pickups make a nice finishing touch on your guitars tone. There is an art to getting the right pickups for the guitar/genre, but the differences are not as dramatic as different amps/cabs/speakers.
The speaker thing makes loads of sense. This is why we test mixes on different speakers. Didn't think about applying it to guitar tone til you explained this. Cheers from a few hours to the east!
An EQ pedal in front can give total tone/shape control. you can make a rectifier sound like a Friedman, a revv sound like a Fender, a vox sound like a marshall etc etc... as long as you know the frequencies to boost/cut
Glen, pickups, wire in wago connectors into the switch/pot wiring, use a direct mount guitar. You should be able to drop new pickups in then just by clipping them into the connectors and be able to lift them out by just loosening the strings
Back when I couldn't afford a decent amp, I learned how to build them. This art is all about signal. magnitude, bandwidth, frequency blah blah blah. The most important thing to understand about this is that you cannot use it if it isn't there. A guitar signal begins at the pickup. it's tonal shape is determined by that pickups ability to convert vibration into electrical current across a range of frequencies. So , yes Virginia, pickups matter. Assuming a direct cable to the amp, the next stop for major tone shaping is not the tubes, but rather the tone stack, which is a passive network of capacitors and resistors. Yes a good amount of customization can be had here as well, but understand, at 400V of a tube fired amp, "one flash, you're ash" is in full effect. to a much lesser degree within the amp are the passive components that set up each stage of the amp. As for the tubes themselves, the argument for them begins and ends at response. Useful in nuanced musical forms such as blues. but entirely useless in metal where we want things clean, or fully saturated and could care less how the amp might transition between them. Even then, there is greater effect to be found in the passive components. The final word on all of it is the speaker. It can only use the signal it's given, and can only produce what it's capable of
Spot on about speakers being single most important tone shaper . A solid state amp with mid level celestians will sound better than any tube amp with the speakers most manufacturers use. Speaker change will improve tone by a third
Tube amplification stages have been shown to change their input impedance dynamically in response to the signal, which, guess what - changes the characteristics of the filter. Transistors do not - they chop the top off of the signal but don't have a dynamic impedance response. Short story - a tube amplification stage acts as a dynamic filter as it approaches clipping, a transistor amplification stage is always a fixed filter.
That's how I understood it too, but now "guitar tone" apparently means only radical equalization, that even if noticeable isn't enough to recognize as a change ...also, high gain sounds specific to metal now equal all guitar tones.
@@Ninjametal is the type of guy to show up on a channel dedicated to the art of recording metal guitar and complain that Dumbles clips are underrepresented.
For the pickup shootout. It might be an idea to solder a wire with something like deans connectors to the place where you would normally wire you pickups to and put the other half on connector on the guitar pickup, that way you can swap them out in no time at all if pickups do make all the difference you got one hell of a versatile guitar. Bonus is that you can clamp deans connectors on so you don't even have to solder anything after you put the deans on the internal wiring of the guitar
On pickups being a filter: yes, they're a resonant low pass, you can emulate a covered pickup or a swap to alnico with a gentle (~3db) band cut at around 3kHz, although a parametric eq works much better than a graphic. Doing the opposite is possible in this situation. You can make a bright pickup sound like an overwound pickup with a lowpass filter, and maybe have a bit of fun if you have a parametric filter with a bit of resonance. Wht you can't do is compensate for a lack of overall sensitivity, there's a difference between a covered low output pickup and a ton of boost and very sensitive pickup with less boost or even a bit of attenuation. Similarly you can't really move the frequency response upwards, it's hard to undo a lowpass as the signal has just fansihed into the noise floor. Where replacing pickups or using a different guitar is important then is if a pickup is too dark (looking at you DiMarzio ToneZone and Gibson 498T) or if vintage pickups are unpotted or the potting has deteriorated to the point they dont work well with a lot of gain.
You are so right, I have a Friedman JJ Jr. There is a huge difference between the tones when you put an eq in the loop as opposed to no eq in the loop. Also, you can hear a striking difference in tone between my Marshall 4 x 12 MF280 cab, Marshall 4 x 12 cab with 25-watt greenbacks, and my 2 x 12 cab with Vin 30s. To my ear, the EQ makes the biggest difference. I am using a Boss GE-7. In my view, the only time the tube makes a real difference in tone is when you put new tubes in. I noticed a difference at first, then my ear got use to the sound.
2 года назад
Hey Glenn! I i do something i like to call 3 EQ technique one eq in front of the amp, one in the fx loop one after the cab sim/after the mic... and this changed everything
That mxr 10 band pedal is amazing! Has 2 outputs to use a d.i. track with as well. I use it as my first pedal just to clean out muddiness and harsh highs but theres so many options with it
Just watched how vital speakers are to tone last night and I was wondering all along if I’d somehow missed the section on pickups, which was my answer in the the survey So glad to see this
Pickups have a huge effect on the tone of an electric guitar. I bought an Ibanez S series used from a pawn shop and when I plugged it in at home, it sounded horrible. After doing some research on that specific model, it turns out that the configuration was H-S-H, nota dual humbucker configuration (a sticker was hiding the hole where the missing single coil should have been. Anyway, long story short, I got a set of DiMarzio Evolution pickups and pulled out what turned out to be a set of Seymour Duncan Slash pickups, and I have never looked back. The change of pickups was instantly noticeable in the tone and output. The Evolutions have a higher output and a brighter top end.
I have another thought, and this Is directly related to the tone wood itself. I, at one point, owned two Telecasters. One American Standard, one Mexican standard. Both sounded very similar (even though they weren't identical pickups, they were both sounded like your average Telecaster pickups, with subtle differences) Mexican was an alder body, the American is ash. But the difference was in the feel. I could "feel" the ash guitar vibrate against my body in a way that the alder body one just didnt. So perhaps, we mistake tone for "feel" if that makes sense? 🤔 cheers Glenn! *and yes, the Telecaster in my avatar is one of the guitars I'm mentioning in this comment, can you guess by the "tone" in the photo which one it is? Haha!*
As for the transistors vs tubes difference in the power amp, they are different even when they are not overdriven. And there’s a simple explanation for that: The solid state (transistor) power amp is a voltage amplifier, this meaning the input of the amp is the voltage delivered to the load (speakers), just amplified. The tube power amp is a trans-conductance amplifier, the voltage applied to the input imposes a current to the load, not a voltage, unlike the solid state amplifier (let’s partially ignore the power amp feedback loop, which makes a tube amp “behave like” a voltage amp). The difference between the two amp’s output signals over the speaker is the shape of the impedance of the speaker, which is heavily frequency dependent, which means is a filter. This means a tube amp makes you hear “more” of the speaker impedance/tone if you will. The reason why tube amps are actually a trans-conductance amps is due to the need of an output transformer to adapt impedance (tube handle high voltages but low currents) and the use of a push-pull circuit topology. Solid state amps do not need an expensive output transformer (they can handle high currents without an issue), so they have a different circuit topology that behaves extremely different on the speakers
I love your channel because I have no real preconceived notion on what effects your tone and I'm an evidence based person so I'm glad to know what's real.
You have saved a lot of guitarists a lot of money with the "What matters most with guitar tone" video. I don't see why anyone should complain. Thanks Glen.
Most people would rather be “right”, unfortunately. They’re not gonna let a little thing like scientific fact get in the way of their opinions. Lol
The guitar industry complains.
Guitarists NEED to be humbeled.
I've watched most of your videos with respect to guitar tone and while I mostly agree with you...especially with speakers, however these other things you've discounted, imo, do affect your tone, but to a lesser degree. Guitars do sound different, even the same models vary. I have Gibson LPs and Gibson Vs...and while they do all sound like Gibsons, they're distinctly different. Testing you may ask? Well, lets just say 30+ years of playing guitar, gigging, recording, etc... I know man... However, pickups outside of output, not nearly as much. Freq response vary, but slighty..assuming set in the same position...Typically a guitar has an innate sound, and pickups will just give you some variation of that same sound. Dig your passion though....entertaining..😊
Nothing more metal than bluegrass dude! This shirt is awesome man!
I mean them alternate picking everything scares the shit out of me
I was raised on Bluegrass music and Heavy Metal.
Bluegrass not metal?
Tell it to the 27.5" scale mandolin I just bought from Eastwood. Can't wait until it gets here. this thing ROARS and GROWLS like a mad fucker
Yeah, I six string, baritone, *mando* lol it's fookin glorious and everyone at the jam is gonna be jelly af when I start grinding it
*Cough* Panoptikon *cough*
Seriously though, I don’t play metal either. I play Canadian style Synth-pop (via Fishman Triple Play) and Shoegaze and I find Glen’s advice just as applicable to my little corner of the sonic landscape as it is to Metal. Music is music.
I really get the "don't do an album" thing in heavy metal and/or other more mainstream genres. I play metal and in a oi!/punk/streetrock band, we got a deal with a german company who published and payed for a debut album. The money was ok and they took care of all the publishing and other bullshit. The album was limited to a few hundred copies and we got 100 to us. Now the record is sold out and we are planning on making a vinyl release, so luckily it still works in some genres! :)
Happy to hear it,
Good luck on your other work 😊
They took your publishing?
Glen is providing a value service for guitar players. I wish I knew many of these things when I was younger.
The way I've always looked at it is that the speaker and cabinet are the ONLY part of a guitar rig that actually *make a sound*.
Sincerely, a drummer
Wel then you never kicked a guitar player. 😆
Think of pickups as little "mics" for each string. Change the mic, change the sound, same as changing mics on guitar/bass cab or a drum set when recording.
Sincerely, a musician.
@@ryanschindler923 oof, sick burn.
As an electronics nerd I've done a good bit of reading about pickup design.
While I can't fault your analogy, I also can't see how it doesn't apply to literally any other part of the signal chain - different anything, different sound.
@@drumplestiltskin2582 While that holds true, it comes down to degrees. Sure everything changes the sound to an extent, but only certain things actually have a real tangible difference that you can instantly say "hey that really sounds different" and not "hm, it kind of sounds different, i think?"
Speakers, mics, and pickups have the most change overall IMO. Although the first two have way more effect than pickups. That's just my take from over 20 years of making music.
Along with pickups, the pots make a difference as well. The Ohms, or resistance of a 250k is fairly different than a 500k, in fatness, and brightness on humbuckers. Even more difference on single coils.
Which ones are fatter and brighter?
Is that a difference that one could pick out in a blind test?
So what's better for metal lead? 500k or 250k
Very general rule of wrist is humbuckers use 500k pots for more treble and single coils use 250k pots to tame down the treble. 500k is brighter, 250k is darker.
don’t forget you can go straight to the jack without any pots :)
I know Ola got a Randall stack, full stack and he was talking about the cabinets have Jaguar speakers in it . He’s the guy as far as getting the Dime tones. I think it was a Randall RG something . Ola was very excited about the Jaguar speakers because they were what Dime had in his cabs .
Randall rg100es on cfh and gstk and the randal century 200 on vulgar and fbd i believe and yes the jaguar speakers is what was in the cabinets im pretty sure not 100% but possibly pretty close
Unpopular opinion, dimes great tone was from terry date eq not from his amp or guitar
I think he definitely got everything to sit in the mix just right Far Beyond Driven and Trendkill sound huge compared to the rest .
RG100T with solide state in preamp but tube for amp section.
@@Durkhead no. Dean ML ,bill Lawrence passive pick up like, Furman fq4, doubler, flanger, mxr eq, Randall solid state and speakers as close as jaguar...it's awful, noisy but it works Alone even if terry date is incredible.
7:40 that's why I watch Glenn.
I understand that I can't take everything he says to an exact science (because I play punk rock) but I have never felt mislead buying anything he recommends.
Dude! Punk Rock rules! 👍
Hell yeah!
Check out my pop punk record! Lol
ruclips.net/p/PL4T_iwXXKUyoD_HUs5iS6kL5O6KSn3sld
@@nerdsforcardgames Dude, that's good stuff! Sounds kinda like Green Day. Are you doing the vocals, the guitars, or both? I like it a lot!
Thanks a lot! I did vocals guitar and bass on every song. The only songs I didn't do bass on was human condition and bad man.
Drums are ez drummer.
That Jedi Priest shirt is amazing. May the force be screaming with vengeance!
The other good news for people like me who live in severe temperatures (desert) is that you can focus on guitar wood that doesn’t react as violently to the sudden heat and cold changes.
Here in Texas the weather has an identity crisis every day, humidity and temperature
Carbon fiber sounds like the solution
Carbon Fiber guitars don't suffer from environmental changes like wooden guitars.
@@ashersolomon9560 My Jericho 7 Fusion arrived immediately after you guys got buried in snow, had to do a lot of work to it after it arrived here, but has been steady ever since.
Thank goodness that you still enjoy and love what you’re doing and you are not completely burned out, emotionally drained, or mentally exhausted. Thank you Glenn!
Your video about speakers finally laid my mind to rest. I literally spent years and years looking for the tone and sound that I wanted to get. Tried several amps, guitars... After a long time, I settled on a DiMarzio D-Sonic as my go-to pickup, but after having played through a Marshall cab for years, I was still missing something. Then I switched from a Crate Blue Voodoo to an Engl Fireball ànd discovered the Orange Jim Root signature cab and voila: found it.
I just wish someone was around years earlier to tell me that speakers have this massive of an influence. It would have saved me an enormous amount of frustration (and probably money).
Keep up the most excellent work!
I became an "It's the speakers that matter" guy in the early 70's; when my Twin Reverb's Power tubes went out during setup for a gig.
So I borrowed a Super Reverb from a buddy for that show, Thinking that; same amp? Same settings, Yeah?
The only difference between the amps were 2X12 VS. the 4X10's.
But try as I may.
That Super just sounded like "ASS" to me.
Twisting the tone knobs couldn't get rid of the bright dirty nasties in it. "Lesson learned"
I eventually ended offing the Twin, And using a Super Showman as my gig amp, Coupled it with with 2 cabs. One bassman style 2X12 Jensens and a Fender Rhodes 1X15 JBL signature.
When I turned the tone knobs on that rig there wes a distinct tonal change.
Always been "All about the Speakers Bro!" Just Say'in.
@Randy Haney It's true that the speakers in those 2 amps are very different but it's also true that the Twin and the super are very different amps. Different circuits, plus the Twin is around 80 watts and the Super is around 40 watts. The Super is a great amp if taken on it's own terms but I can imagine it felt awful to you when what you needed / expected was the feel / sound of a Twin. You were used to all that clean headroom and you suddenly lost a lot of it!
@@effsixteenblock50
Hey Man Thanks for the correction on the amps, Of their wattage and other attributes.
I'd hate to spread falsehoods. That was not my intent.
I was just going be what I was told and assumed at the time.
I didn't mean to infer That the "Fender Super" was not a good amp for what it was made for.
Just that I couldn't get it to work for me. However I will still always believe that the sound had to do with the speakers; more than the wattage. Just say'in.
Pickups affect the pick attack of notes under heavy distortion and can totally change the character and feel of playing.
Changing Pickups,speakers,even guitar pick materials & gauges will yield noticeable changes in tone. BUT,the most drastic change in tone I've ever experienced is when I swapped out the Saskatchewan seal skin bindings on my pedal board to pristine vintage virgin Brazilian NOS velcro straps! They're quite rare and expensive AF...but worth every penny.
It's funny, because 20 years or so ago(I'm 40) I had a guitarist friend who's thing was cabinets. He eventually built some "quick release panels" comprised of various speakers, in various combinations and patterns, set in various wood sheets. These sheets were wired in a way that they were ready to go, with snap connectors on the wiring. He'd get a new cab(or sometimes build one), remove the front panel, and router a perfect groove to slide a panel/sheet into. The groove was perfect and tight, so it was a nuisance to get one in/out, but it also prevented any variables such as wobble, ect. On semi permanent ones(combinations he liked a lot, so would use often) he would sometimes put some glue in the groove, or use some silicone. This enabled the ability to still rip the panel out with less effort than a full build, but was more solid than something he was still playing around with/undecided about. He always swore tone was predominantly in the pickups, amplifier, and cabinets - and I tended to agree.
You should try the G12H-75 creamback. Amazing speaker for metal. Some people like it in a blended cab with some V30s in there too
Yes, you are correct. Such a great speaker and can do so so much.
Pickups make a huge difference! My Jackson had pickups that were made in house and I couldn’t get them to do Dimebag squeals. I upgraded to the exact pickups Dime used and voila!
Oh yeah, especially when it comes to bass. I had this old bass that had barely any top end whatsoever and sounded really dull and lifeless, even when I changed strings. Then I got another bass with better pickups and all of a sudden I'm getting huge bass tones with the same setup as before.
Yeah, but we're talking about the difference between mediocre and high spec pickups.
Changing between two different high- output pickups of different makes will make very, very little difference at high gain levels.
Which is the point.
Definitely. I had two similar guitars with different pickups and would layer them with exactly same tone settings. Sounded way fuller than just doubling one of them.
im on the same quest to find my ideal pickup per guitar
My prestige won't squeal I bet this is why. Just got a schecter with emgs and I actually can squeal good. Wasn't sure if that was it but makes sense.
I can't wait for a pickup test!
You should not only do brand X vs brand Y but also:
Different magnets (ceramics vs different numbers of Alnicos).
Different levels of output (PAF vs underwound PAF vs overwound PAF vs 12-14K vs 15-17K vs 18-20K).
Active vs Passive.
Different actives (various EMGs vs Blackouts vs Fishman).
True single coils vs coil split humbuckers
True single coils vs noisless single coils
Full size humbuckers vs mini humbuckers vs hot rails
There's so much stuff it's probably gonna be a 2 hour video made in 2 years
You could try out a "solid state tube" like an AMT Warm Stone 12AX7 replacement. If those are even remotely comparable to a set of actual 12AX7s I'd replace all my tubes in a heartbeat!
Seeing a theme of "transducers are filters". I'm on board with that.
yes! 🤘
A transducer (pickup) is a type of filter. There's a coil of wire with a magnet that senses when the magnetic field lines are broken (when the string vibrates). The inductance of the magnetic setup inline with the pots (adjustable resistors) constitutes a low pass filter (dampens higher harmonics but leaves lower ones) that is adjustable via the pots that are wired in series with the pickup (if any).
@@ruaine83 Well, what I had in mind was that pickups, microphones, and speakers are all transducers. And yes, the impedance each of those has does contribute to their filtering effects.
No, they are not. They are waveshaping devices. They react dynamically, they have their own resonances, ringing, overshoot, their parameters change all the time. A filter will only filter, the same way each time. Transducers are very different.
Also: pickups are not transducers, not in the colloquial sense. Speakers and mics are transducers. A pickup is a pickup, it is a static device that only senses changes in the magnetic field and does it the exact same way, each time. Transducers are the "worst" device in any audio chain, by magnitudes of order. They reproduce or capture the signal quite poorly, their distortion is in the percents, frequency response can have 20dB differences, they do not stop moving when the signal stops, nor do they move instantly.. 1$ preamp can do 0.1% distortion or better, +-0.3dB frequency response and 80dB SINAD. You literally can not buy speakers that do that, let alone perform better not even with a million dollars. Transducers suck but they are all we got.
@@squidcaps4308 "they have their own resonances, ringing, overshoot," those are literally characteristics of a filter.
Victor Hugo: "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come."
Neil deGrasse Tyson added, "second most powerful is the idea whose time is about to pass."
People get up in arms when shown proof of what actually affects tone, but they're only the 2nd most powerful voice out there.
I never realized how much the tone of an electric guitar depends on the speaker(s) in your amp or cabinet. My fender needed work so I bought a cheap practice amp to fill in. Everything sounded shitty , but I had nothing else. Then I bought a pair of practice amps. One was a 20 watt Typhoon, with a 10 inch Celestion speaker, and an Orange Crush 12 watt, with the Ears of the World speaker. Holy shit. I fell in love all over again with the tones I was getting from these two little amps.
Yeah, the combination of the edge of EHV and the body of the Hempback really sounds unique and kinda refreshing!
You really found a hidden gem in there! Can't wait to hear more experimentation on those bad boys haha
Cheers!
Might be worthwhile looking into Relish guitars for the pickup test. You can hot swap the pickups with no soldering, so that would save a ton of time
Shit... Beat me to it. This seemed like a perfect instrument to quickly test various pickups and if they made enough of a difference, but it might not be proof enough for people who believe their vintage brand pickup winding is better no matter what - and Relish probably made the experience different for their options. I do not know how easy it would be to make solderless swappable Relish compatible cartridge out of some coveted pickup from 70s.
@@CobraFat2000 From what I've seen of them, it's supposed to be really easy to put any pickup into a cartridge thing. Just wire them to points on the cartridge and then contacts in the guitar and on the cartridge make the connection. If it is actually that easy, cool but it might be a little scary fitting vintage pickups
I've seen this on RUclips and it convinced me that different pickups definitely sound different. However! Since thinking about it more, maybe it's a bit more tricky.
Firstly, that guitar is built with exchangeable pickups as a USP. I have no idea what has been done to make sure that the product lives up to the consumer's expectations of tone variation. Let's assume the manufacturer has done everything in good faith, and this isn't a "tube simulator" thing.
I still expect Glen's conclusion to be: pickups are like a mic; placement matters, some are hotter than others, some might sound different and sh1tty because they're just poor quality. Expensive ones are pretty much indistinguishable from decent affordable ones, and you can get most tones out of the appropriate, basic equipment, set up properly.
So, even through an idiot bass player like me knows how much strings and pickups can affect tone, whether it's crucial for the metal guitarist to have certain strings and pickups, whether the layman could hear any difference, whether it would make enough impact to affect a mix, whether it's more important than speakers? I reckon that's a debate you can never solve.
@@johnbehan1526 You're probably right. I can't see there being much room for differences in sound once you start using good quality materials. Apart from different magnets and more or less windings, surely it'll sound the same no matter who the manufacturer is.
I've changed pickups in a couple of guitars for hotter pickups and aside from a volume boost, I couldn't hear a whole lot of difference in how they sounded. Could just be the ones I chose though
You can do that yourself with spade connections.
With your work on replacing the speaker and you posed a VERY convincing argument. In fact, after hearing the Celestion Hempback, now I’m looking to replace the Celestion speaker in my Marshall combo amp with one of those. I’m also looking to get a cheap Marshall 4X12 cab and replace those speakers with the Hempbacks.
That, Hempback sounded horrible though 🤷
I've been a singer most of my life and recently picked up guitar and bass along with all the sound/recording and so on stuff that goes with it IMO. Thru my experience I suspected the speaker factor as I also used to work with bands as a roadie back in the 80s and just seemed to notice it when a guitar player would fry a speaker and replace it you could tell his cab sounded different even if it was an identical speaker or when they changed cabs at all even more so obviously. Some of us who don't get distracted by "the shiny" actually learned a lot of this long ago without realizing it sometimes LOL. You rock bro. Keep up the great work and thank you.
Been on a Specter binge as of late and I enjoy your no nonsense FOCK YOUR FEELINGS approach to presenting information. Plenty of people just wanna hear their own opinions echoed back to them instead of hearing what they need to hear. Keep it up and f you!
I have two Jet City amps and they sound great and are designed for easy modding. Some models were designed by Soldano and some were designed by the creator of Victory Amps. I believe they are now owned by Epic Amplification and are only custom builds done in the USA now.
Were those amps used by DeGarmo and Wilton to record this song?
ruclips.net/video/rmiy9aMcbB4/видео.html
😁
Jet City Amplification is owned by Douglas White.
@@Eric_S Douglas "Doogie" White the rock singer?
Martin Kidd is the guy from Victory....
I had a Jet City JCA 2112RC a few years back, kinda wish I hadn't sold it. Kind fit in that medium/just on the verge of high gain space. Used it as a back up when my band was rehearsing to go into the studio, as my 50w Marshall was in need of repairs. Sounded good through the stock speaker, but plugged into my 412 cab, it was FEROCIOUS sounding, and was loud enough, even without the 412 to keep up with a HARD HITTING punk drummer.
I gotta say at first when I watched your videos I was turned off by the language, but now after many vids I have to agree with your opinions...you just speak absolute truth of mind on exacting science of Metal Audio Recording! Thanks for speaking the truth on all aspects! (JampacJ)
Me too - and Glenn convinced me to finally make Reaper my main DAW back in 2018. Great material here, man.
Just think of him like the metal Lewis Black.
@@timbushong4387 Reapers great, I've been using it on trial for a decade... 😭 But ahhh yeah, also Samplitude ProX, if you've got the cash for it... God that's a great DAW
I have changed my speakers and I got a drastic change for the better sound thanks to you!!!
Thank you for the FREE work shop on The Basics. You put in a lot of time and effort and to give it away, well that tells me you really want to make a difference in the Metal music world
Mike
Glarry Music Canada
You're releasing new IRs? Hell yeah! I've been using your set from Lancaster for a while now (damn those lewitt mics sound great) and would love some new additions. Hopefully that greenback/hempback combo you showed a few weeks ago will make it onto those.
from friends who tended to buy pickups like madmen, i had a couple of their "leftovers" gifted to me, besides some pickups i bought myself. had a cheap JS- series jackson guitar where i went through some of the pickups i have (SD TB6, SD TB4, SD Thrashfactor, SD Dimebucker, DiMarzio D-Activator, DiMarzio FRED) . not really scientifically, but from what i can tell, it's that with my peavey 6505+ it changed the sound only so far as to how high the pickups output was, i could mostly tell ba the gain, sustain of single notes and "chunkyness" or "chuggyness" of the chords i played that something changed. with my Laney GH100R the differences seemed to be a little more nuanced.
Send me a pickup, I just had one go bad in my Schecter. Thanks in advance!
@@CraigKeidel i can send you one of the stock ones i took out xD
"Louder generally sounds better" Fletcher Munson. ;-) Something you are overlooking is that speakers are an electromechanical device hence they "break in" and also wear out. The surrounds, no matter what they are made of, change compliance over time and how hard they are pushed.
I once tried to explain what a compressor did to a guitarist I was working with, I got half way through and he looked like a deer in the headlights. He said "I didn't understand anything you just said but chrome plate it and I'll buy it."
Yep Glen you are correct. My Jet City 100 says designed by Soldano right under the input jack
I can speak from experience that while an eq before the pre absolutely amazing, it is more choppy than if you just had good pickups to begin with that did most of what you wanted and then used an eq to change just a few things.
Hey Glenn, you’re my new dad. Thanks.
Hey Glenn, your channel is my go-to for honesty when it comes to buying gear.
I've bought a lot of the stuff you've recommended over the years and none if it has ever let me down.
I got a harley benton fusion 2, joyo zombie, harley benton v30 2x12, a legator 7-string and a cockblocker.
Thank you so much for your 'No bullshit' approach to gear and other music equipment, you're saving us no-nothing dumbshits thousands of dollars.
Putting an EQ in front of an amp is great. You can take a thin sounding single coil and give it a little more low end, and if you boost the signal you can use it to overdrive the signal going into the amp which has some interesting sounds. Tom Morello uses a basic Boss 7 band EQ in his rig before the amp, as a boost pedal for solos. So, he just cranks everything up to the maximum and let’s it rip, and going straight into the amp will give a nice gain boost and some pleasant distortion if you’re using a tube amp. I know this is a metal channel and Tom Morello might not be everyone’s thing, but it’s mine and I bought a Boss EQ pedal to try it out, and I love it. The hard part is deciding where I want it in the signal chain, because you can use it to shape the sound going into and out of distortion pedals and get very different sounds-like a wah pedal, which is also a filter. I usually make it the last stop before the amp, which can shape or boost things as needed. I’m sure there are better EQ pedals out there, but the Boss 7 band EQ is simple, and has frequency bands that are going to make the dramatic changes to the tone of a guitar.
See, this is why I like Lace Sensors. They’re basically a really clean, clear, even platform which you can then use your amp settings & such to build the tone you want
Your guitar tone myth videos have certainly been eye-opening and interesting - great job on those! But I gotta say, even though I know very well that this is a metal channel, your conclusions definitely make it sound like these are absolute conclusions to be taken across the board. I know this is a tall order, but it would be really interesting to see all these tests done on the "less distorted" end of things where we might actually hear some differences, especially these days where metal is incorporating more and more non-metal elements. Anyway, keep the science coming!
For me it's more about the feel of the wood than any tone difference. I personally think the wood matters more in an acoustic setting and non distorted as well. Also you can accent notes if you set up your pedals and sound correctly to where the way you play (dynamics can change your sound).
When my guitarist’s amp head gave out we used a combo amp plugged into the cabinet and despite sounding completely different as a combo in the cab they were virtually indistinguishable from each other
I think the “big statement” video coming before the VC videos is a smart move. Good idea
I had the same experience with my Marshall JVM, it was sounding really weird and crappy and I decided to swap all the tubes and re-bias it with Tung-Sol tubes, originally I thought it sounded amazing with the new tubes, but I really only chose the brand after experience told me Russian made lasted longer than the Chinese Marshall ones that died with little use in 2 years. Your video just proved I fell in love with the amps sound and the tubes had nothing to do with it. Glad I didn't fall into the trap of buying the "special" tubes the seller kept trying to sell me... 🤣
I wonder if anyone is ever going to make a solid state “tube” alternative that you can install in place of tubes in an amp and never think about it again? Like it changes the sound slightly, but you never have to change tubes again. Or it could even be a solid state thing that emulates different tubes so you can choose what flavor you want.
@@MisterRorschach90 well maybe once they can correctly emulate tubes to begin with. At the moment even the best technology gets close, but it doesn't respond like a real amp. A tube is just so different to the way a transistor circuit works that you have to emulate a lot and emulsion requires a lot of processing power and knowing every possible reaction the tube could have. So if it ever does exist, it's not going to be cheaper, but probably cost 10x as much, and seeing as tubes last 5-10+ years on average, it just wouldn't be worth it... If you want emulsion, just get a memory kemper and be happy with your "close enough" sound.
@@MisterRorschach90 also not to mention that tubes run at very high voltages and you would need to regulate the power to the solid state circuit, which would occupy a lot of space and then boost it back up on the output. The packaging just wouldn't be practical if not impossible with current tech and most definitely very expensive... The circuit in a tube amp just wasn't designed for this...
@@MisterRorschach90 A Russian company called AMT makes 12AX7 replacements called AMT Warm Stone. I've been itching to get a set of them to test out but I'm unable to get them myself. There's a number of videos that test them out, but they aren't really representative since they're comparing one tube to one replacement instead of an entire set, and also they use hybrid circuits to test them out, where the drive stage is not driven just by a tube, but also a transistor, so the results aren't really representative. I'd really love to see Glenn put them to the test.
@@phunniguy very interesting, but as you say I haven't found any proper tests either, would be very interesting to see what happens in a full tube circuit... 🤔
Great video as usual Glenn! Have you ever though of making video about music production and audio engineering on Linux? There's a great channel about it called Unfa. I recently found ~10 years old laptop in a trash and I decided to install Linux on it and use it for recording live shows and "studio" tracks when there's no PC available.
I swear I have learned more and have more of a confidence boost from watching Glens channel then I did when i went to school for Audio in Toronto in 2009. Beyond thrilled that I found a channel like this, and its even better hearing all this info from a fellow Canadian. Keep it up!!!
Oh man, you could do an entire series just on studio construction. The guy who commented on the room being soundproof and having a lack of reverb needs a lesson. Sound proofing and acoustical treatments are two completely different things. The former is a measure of how much sound can escape (or get into) a room. The latter is a measure of how well a room is treated, or constructed, for the purposes of acoustics.
Also, I used to work with John Sayers at the home recording forums about 20 years ago! He let me mod it for a while with him. He's such a great guy.
I recently bought a roland kit and am triggering the GGD metal kit for screwing around at home. My band has a dedicated practice spot with the acoustic kit fully miced. It depressing how good the GGD kit sounds versus my efforts to record and mix my Bison kit.
...... I get why people use these software "solutions" now.
Kind of defeating.
Another addition to these "filters" and tone is the cabinet design.
-Front vs rear loaded speakers on the baffle
-Lined vs un-lined
-Chambered vs un-chambered
-braced vs un-braced
👍
You have the most rocking name you Frickin monster! Love your work brother!
I'm not even a metal guy but I keep tuning in every week for tips
This channel is amazing. The tests are so helpful and should be shown to every guitarist that gives a damn about anything
Glenn... i love your show and i love your honesty... Best regards from Germany
When you do the pickup test, you could use loaded pick guards, so you're only wiring up at the output jack. Have a single volume and single bridge pick up, and just swap those pickguards on a strat
this man is a prophet. he saves many lives with his honesty.
Your point on speakers & cabinets is well made. People don't talk that much about them compared to various revered and heads.
And yet those same people will rabbit on and on about various IRs...
Pickups can definitely have a huge impact on tone. The speakers are still the most important, but how the vibration is picked up and translated…very particular. I personally think the best method is to get a full sounding pickup with a balanced eq, or slightly warmer. You can always add brightness and gain through the amp/pedals.
NGL the editing is great. Good job Jack!
I’m so glad I’ve seen your videos about speakers. I’m a DIY’er and have been thinking of building myself a speaker cab to go with an amp I’ve had for years, your stuff has been far more informative than anything else I’ve seen! Admittedly I’m a classic rock guitarist and not so much metal anymore but I like your videos and have been able to learn a hell of a lot!
Hey Glen just an idea about the switching pickups vid you are thinking of doing. GFS makes a system called QuickPlug which literally lets you unplug a pickup, plug into another one, screw it in and your done. No soldering, no muss, no fuss. You can easily swap out pickups in less than 5 minutes. Surely you know somebody that has a guitar like this. It would make your video so much easier to film. Just a suggestion. Thanks for what you do. Ive learned so much and still have tons more to go. YOU ROCK!!!
i love your videos. they made rethink a few things about my tone and now I'm loving playing again. keep up the great work.
The pickup video would be so great. I’ve been looking for something like that and all the videos pick up a strat and go “well this is how single coils sound like” then pick up a les paul and go “this is the sound of a humbucker”.
This is why I love this channel.
Thanks Glen, amazing video as always 👍🎶🎙️🎸🥁🎹
Being "electro-acoustic engineer with the degree", all I can say is that for all the great lab work you are doing you deserve honoris causa degree from a number of notable Universities :).
Got 2 2x12s with V30s and Greenbacks. With 4 Sm57 with Wilkinsons clips and a Behringer crappy console before my preamps... All thanks to you Glenn!!! With my Triple Rectifier, let's say I have a monstrous tone that sounds amazing and versatile inside Reaper :)
Would be fun to see one of those tone shift videos with bass stuff, like strings and bass cabs!
I think your experiments provide a very good place to kinda bring people down to earth. I do think there can be subtle differences, but those differences… really go into the hobby area for fun more than practicality.
I really like the fender humbuckers ATM. Never used them before. Very clear
i always equated the saying "tone is in the hands" for solos, because everyone will accentuate notes very differently, than another player, not for rhythm guitar
I think that intent of the phrase "tone is in the hands" goes in the direction of the technique and the nuances of the guitar. Tone isn't in the hands but the hands must play the instrument with competence
I am a semi-professional pickup winder. Pickups make a nice finishing touch on your guitars tone. There is an art to getting the right pickups for the guitar/genre, but the differences are not as dramatic as different amps/cabs/speakers.
I assumed that last video took a lot of time and effort. I was thinking, “damn, they’re switching out speakers in this video, that’s bold.”
The speaker thing makes loads of sense. This is why we test mixes on different speakers. Didn't think about applying it to guitar tone til you explained this. Cheers from a few hours to the east!
Great series Glenn!! Very informative
This is my favorite series on RUclips I love your tests!
An EQ pedal in front can give total tone/shape control. you can make a rectifier sound like a Friedman, a revv sound like a Fender, a vox sound like a marshall etc etc... as long as you know the frequencies to boost/cut
As a guitarist I really appreciate this! Thanks for getting down to brass with this. I’ll definitely keep it in mind.
Glen, pickups, wire in wago connectors into the switch/pot wiring, use a direct mount guitar. You should be able to drop new pickups in then just by clipping them into the connectors and be able to lift them out by just loosening the strings
Back when I couldn't afford a decent amp, I learned how to build them.
This art is all about signal. magnitude, bandwidth, frequency blah blah blah.
The most important thing to understand about this is that you cannot use it if it isn't there.
A guitar signal begins at the pickup. it's tonal shape is determined by that pickups ability to convert vibration into electrical current across a range of frequencies.
So , yes Virginia, pickups matter.
Assuming a direct cable to the amp, the next stop for major tone shaping is not the tubes, but rather the tone stack, which is a passive network of capacitors and resistors. Yes a good amount of customization can be had here as well, but understand, at 400V of a tube fired amp, "one flash, you're ash" is in full effect.
to a much lesser degree within the amp are the passive components that set up each stage of the amp.
As for the tubes themselves, the argument for them begins and ends at response. Useful in nuanced musical forms such as blues. but entirely useless in metal where we want things clean, or fully saturated and could care less how the amp might transition between them. Even then, there is greater effect to be found in the passive components.
The final word on all of it is the speaker. It can only use the signal it's given, and can only produce what it's capable of
Spot on about speakers being single most important tone shaper . A solid state amp with mid level celestians will sound better than any tube amp with the speakers most manufacturers use. Speaker change will improve tone by a third
Tube amplification stages have been shown to change their input impedance dynamically in response to the signal, which, guess what - changes the characteristics of the filter. Transistors do not - they chop the top off of the signal but don't have a dynamic impedance response. Short story - a tube amplification stage acts as a dynamic filter as it approaches clipping, a transistor amplification stage is always a fixed filter.
That's how I understood it too, but now "guitar tone" apparently means only radical equalization, that even if noticeable isn't enough to recognize as a change ...also, high gain sounds specific to metal now equal all guitar tones.
@@Ninjametal is the type of guy to show up on a channel dedicated to the art of recording metal guitar and complain that Dumbles clips are underrepresented.
Please start releasing vc on Saturdays, this is great
I read the title and that alone made me chuckle and hit play. This should be a good one. Lol.
For the pickup shootout.
It might be an idea to solder a wire with something like deans connectors to the place where you would normally wire you pickups to and put the other half on connector on the guitar pickup, that way you can swap them out in no time at all if pickups do make all the difference you got one hell of a versatile guitar.
Bonus is that you can clamp deans connectors on so you don't even have to solder anything after you put the deans on the internal wiring of the guitar
That last one was funny as hell!!!!!
I've experienced that exact thing a number of times.....lmao!
Great shoutout to WGS. I’ve used their stuff for years. Awesome speakers.
GLEEEENNN! Hi. There are guitars out there with a pickup quick change option. Bonus fearless gear review!
On pickups being a filter: yes, they're a resonant low pass, you can emulate a covered pickup or a swap to alnico with a gentle (~3db) band cut at around 3kHz, although a parametric eq works much better than a graphic. Doing the opposite is possible in this situation.
You can make a bright pickup sound like an overwound pickup with a lowpass filter, and maybe have a bit of fun if you have a parametric filter with a bit of resonance.
Wht you can't do is compensate for a lack of overall sensitivity, there's a difference between a covered low output pickup and a ton of boost and very sensitive pickup with less boost or even a bit of attenuation.
Similarly you can't really move the frequency response upwards, it's hard to undo a lowpass as the signal has just fansihed into the noise floor.
Where replacing pickups or using a different guitar is important then is if a pickup is too dark (looking at you DiMarzio ToneZone and Gibson 498T) or if vintage pickups are unpotted or the potting has deteriorated to the point they dont work well with a lot of gain.
You are so right, I have a Friedman JJ Jr. There is a huge difference between the tones when you put an eq in the loop as opposed to no eq in the loop. Also, you can hear a striking difference in tone between my Marshall 4 x 12 MF280 cab, Marshall 4 x 12 cab with 25-watt greenbacks, and my 2 x 12 cab with Vin 30s. To my ear, the EQ makes the biggest difference. I am using a Boss GE-7. In my view, the only time the tube makes a real difference in tone is when you put new tubes in. I noticed a difference at first, then my ear got use to the sound.
Hey Glenn! I i do something i like to call 3 EQ technique one eq in front of the amp, one in the fx loop one after the cab sim/after the mic... and this changed everything
If I want the truth , with no ulterior motive I come here. I have saved So much money on useless crap because of you . Keep Rockin
That mxr 10 band pedal is amazing! Has 2 outputs to use a d.i. track with as well. I use it as my first pedal just to clean out muddiness and harsh highs but theres so many options with it
another reason for me to try new amps and love my guitars. much love glenn.
Just watched how vital speakers are to tone last night and I was wondering all along if I’d somehow missed the section on pickups, which was my answer in the the survey
So glad to see this
Have an upvote! A pickup video would be cool to see... I bang on about them enough. 😂
Pickups have a huge effect on the tone of an electric guitar. I bought an Ibanez S series used from a pawn shop and when I plugged it in at home, it sounded horrible. After doing some research on that specific model, it turns out that the configuration was H-S-H, nota dual humbucker configuration (a sticker was hiding the hole where the missing single coil should have been.
Anyway, long story short, I got a set of DiMarzio Evolution pickups and pulled out what turned out to be a set of Seymour Duncan Slash pickups, and I have never looked back. The change of pickups was instantly noticeable in the tone and output. The Evolutions have a higher output and a brighter top end.
I have another thought, and this Is directly related to the tone wood itself. I, at one point, owned two Telecasters. One American Standard, one Mexican standard. Both sounded very similar (even though they weren't identical pickups, they were both sounded like your average Telecaster pickups, with subtle differences) Mexican was an alder body, the American is ash. But the difference was in the feel. I could "feel" the ash guitar vibrate against my body in a way that the alder body one just didnt. So perhaps, we mistake tone for "feel" if that makes sense? 🤔 cheers Glenn!
*and yes, the Telecaster in my avatar is one of the guitars I'm mentioning in this comment, can you guess by the "tone" in the photo which one it is? Haha!*
As for the transistors vs tubes difference in the power amp, they are different even when they are not overdriven. And there’s a simple explanation for that: The solid state (transistor) power amp is a voltage amplifier, this meaning the input of the amp is the voltage delivered to the load (speakers), just amplified. The tube power amp is a trans-conductance amplifier, the voltage applied to the input imposes a current to the load, not a voltage, unlike the solid state amplifier (let’s partially ignore the power amp feedback loop, which makes a tube amp “behave like” a voltage amp). The difference between the two amp’s output signals over the speaker is the shape of the impedance of the speaker, which is heavily frequency dependent, which means is a filter. This means a tube amp makes you hear “more” of the speaker impedance/tone if you will.
The reason why tube amps are actually a trans-conductance amps is due to the need of an output transformer to adapt impedance (tube handle high voltages but low currents) and the use of a push-pull circuit topology. Solid state amps do not need an expensive output transformer (they can handle high currents without an issue), so they have a different circuit topology that behaves extremely different on the speakers
I love your channel because I have no real preconceived notion on what effects your tone and I'm an evidence based person so I'm glad to know what's real.