How do you like to shape your tone?

Started by Rick67, February 25, 2006, 12:42:43 PM

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In what ways do you shape it? I'm curious what your preferances are.

once amplified, do you keep everything (bass, mids, highs) down the middle? or do you like to tweak a bit?
Larrivee D-03R
Taylor 310CE

lots of variables involved there......which instrument, How big is the room (how high are the ceilings)  I personally just try to achieve making the live sound be as much like the instrument's natural tone as I can.   This can be very tricky and exasperating.  Then once you get it set in standard tuning without any capoing, you have to tweak it as you go when you capo up or drop tunings.   Under normal circumstances (whatever that is??)  I would attenuate the trebles a little bit, the mids a little more and take the bass down quite a ways.....this is because I use an I-beam passive/Gigpro for about 50% and an external small condensor for the rest....the mics can be too boomy if you don't take the low end and mids down.  The Baggs are pretty warm themselves, but the best sound will be achieved when the pickup is used to reproduce the lows and the external mic gets the mids and highs (creating the "air")     Very touchy business for a perfectionist - LOL
Charis SJ Koa/Sitka
Mcknight/Poling GC Koa/Italian
Loriente Clarita EIR/Euro spruce




"One small heart, and a great big soul that's drivin"

You could tweak forever like fitness said.  I was watching Union Station on HD the other day and noticed that they only use external mic's as pick up's.  (SM 57's?)  Sounded great.
OM-03
<title>myspace.com/harvestjones</title>

Ron Block uses some Baggs systems on a couple of his guitars, and I'm pretty sure the mics aren't 57's    The likely use a small condensor of some kind (Audio Technica, AKG or similar)   They do sound phenomenal, but it's after an hour long sound check I'm guessing - LOL
Charis SJ Koa/Sitka
Mcknight/Poling GC Koa/Italian
Loriente Clarita EIR/Euro spruce




"One small heart, and a great big soul that's drivin"

US have been using the Shure KSM32 LD condensor mic for most of their shows. They may use something else in a video or for impromptu shots.

A few years ago I saw a clip of them using internal mics on their guitars, the sound was not good.
Ron


The sound I'm going for live is authentic and honest at its core, with a larger than life result.  I use a good signal chain.  The raw pickup and mic signals are tweaked with eq, barely noticable effects, speaker placement and stereo imaging to get the sound I want.

Bass and Treb just past the middle going on 3 o'clock, Mid somewhat lower. Using Baggs ParaDI of course.

Dual Source System into a Rane AP-13 preamp with 2 ART Tube EQ's (will probably replace them with 2 PreSonus 3 band parametric EQ's - smaller, closer in function to the Pendulum Pre).

  I roll off the lhigh end of the Ribbon Transducer (AP-13 graphic eq) and the low to low mid end of the internal mic (AP-13 graphic eq).  The 2 semi parametric controls on each ART Tube EQ are used to get rid of whatever I don't like in the basic tone.  After that, the treble control on the mic channel Tube EQ and the bass control for the Ribbon Transducer Tube EQ tend to cover things for me if the house system is good.  The only effects are an Alesis NanoVerb that adds just a bit of space to the sound but never swims in reverb.

  I also send a signal out to an SWR Blonde on Blonde powered speaker as a monitor.  In a very small room, I can just blend a little of the speaker with the guitar's natural sound to make it sound bigger.  When I want the SWR to sound a lot closer to the actual sound of the guitar, I have a 10 band MXR graphic EQ that I can run between it and the Rane preamp (to help make up for the SWR's coloration).

Brett

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