You cant skate and stand tall timber you gotta crouch the grounds your nearest friend. I just cant be half pipein on skateboard. I dont have a car..I rollerskated last night to the store about 10 and in moonlight
@@hadleymanmusic Until you break your wrist. Then you won’t play guitar. My mom got hit by a drunk straying into her crosswalk at low speed. Her elbow doesn’t work right anymore and she can no longer play the guitar she named me after (a “vintage” Martin dreadnought that was new when she was 15). Please be mindful of the delicate parts of your body.
Lol you can do both, our band literally just released a video of us doing just that: ua-cam.com/video/SYRribQpMzs/v-deo.html . Our guitarist started the group and has been skating for decades, hospitalized and everything yet still rocking 🤘🏼 The Night Skate if you’re in LA and want to come skate with us, every Tuesday!
I would love to see Dweezil on the channel! I've been a fan of his, and his father, for as long as I can remember. He's also a great guy, I've watched him live a number of times and he always sticks around after the shows to chat with his fans. Get him on the show!
I concur. Dweezil is one hell of a musician and one heck of a nice, down to earth dude. The wife even got up on stage to dance along with the rest of the ladies he called up. Son's got his JH on his first guitar (uses it just for signatures). So, yeah do what you can to get him on the show. (Tell Ahmet to stay home)
you're crazy if you think they have the time to sit and watch these youtube videos and comment on them. The people getting angry generally are "musos" buying into youtube rubbish to begin with.
Every motorcycle manufacturer besides Harley Davidson: "We build cruisers that can get out of their own way, brake, and go around corners, AND they're reliable!" Dentists and Lawyers: "No."
I've applied almost every tip Glenn has thrown out of this channel and my mixes sound a massive amount better because of it. Never stop making this show!
a sound engineer with academins backround (college) and decades of expirience...yeah, thatguy is probably wrong with everything sound related 😂😂 Thats how these people sound... expirience and making it work means nothing to tjem.
One of the best guitar related and most informative channels on UA-cam, and Glenn's one of the nicest guys out there, despite the cantankerous facade, lol. Keep it up, Glenn! \m/
I started out as a synthpop and EDM artist but I've been gradually shifting into a more industrial sort of sound and your channel has been an amazing source of guidance as I start exploring how to do stuff with guitars and whatnot. My guitar player is a big fan and so I find that most of the time we're already on the same page cuz we watched the same videos. Great stuff! Thanks!
Just replaced the v30's that came in my Harley Benton 2x12 cab with some celestion EVH models. Huge difference! Could not be happier! Thank you for bringing accurate information to the light on the tone subject. I learn something new every day and I hope that never stops!
Oh yeah! Invite Dweezil on the show, Glenn. That would be amazing. So much respect for his championing of his dad's music, and his absolute mastery of the guitar. Do it, do it!
@The Tired Horizon That definately needs to happen. I'm a decent bass player when it comes to home recording, but hell it would be nice to get pro tips that you wouldn't typically find.
My journey so far since watching your videos: The three biggest changes on my tone in order are: new speakers, better electronics in Import guitars, and changing out the tone block on a Strat style bridge from stock (pot metal) to brass. These all had significant changes on tone and sound. The speaker is easy, a better speaker frees up more frequencies the rest of your gear is producing. Upgrading pots and capacitors to what Fender, Gibson and Boutique builders use is a no brainer. Typically it gets more range out of even stock pickups. Also it gets the most out of replacement pickups that the stock electronics are choking. Electronics on a guitar is a subtraction formula, you cannot add. The swapping of a stock block from factory to brass on a Strat style trem was very eye opening. You can hear and feel it acoustically on the guitar without plugging it in. Just make sure you buy the right block size for your bridge. Brass also affect Tele saddles too but it is more subtle than the Strat. Tubes... changing tubes has only yielded a very slight tone difference if the old tubes are working fine. I swapped Rubys for JJs and it was a slight difference. Now if you have tubes that are failing, putting in new working tubes will be a huge difference. Pickup changes... slight to medium. That's if you are swapping like for like. Most changes tend to be medium sized changes, not insignificant but not major. The guitar with the brass block, yeah I put a Filtertron, a SD Little 59, and a SD Quarter Pounder in that so it made a HUGE difference over stock, generic Strat pickups. Another guitar where I replaced stock cheapo pickups with Seymour Duncans and upgraded the electrics... i would day that made a very noticeable change but just short of significant. Other mods I have done HAVE made differences but typically its a cumulative effect from before to after if you are replacing most of the hardware, pickups, and electronics on a guitar. One off changes tend to be single digit (under 10%) percentage changes overall so you may hear or feel a slight change on its own. Changing hardware like a different bridge or replacing non locking with locking tuners has a decent amount of change to tone and feel. Getting a professional nut installed tends to bring out the most of your guitar feel wise. I hope this helps.
Re pickups: I think you're on point with a lot of this stuff - when it comes to hi-gain, which this channel is all about - but I also think that the Orient is finally catching up on *how* to make better pickups. In my case, back in 2001 I bought a Yamaha "Pathetica" that was just a complete plank for $400 and the first thing I did was replace the bridge with a JB and its like a veil was lifted off of it and shocked me and my band mates. This was common practice. My brother-outlaw worked at L&M back in those days as a Tech and was all about hopping up guitars before it became more common place and upgraded pups in a couple of beauty Epiphones and got me onto it.
Great channel, much learning achieved. Many years ago I met several pro musicians and every one of them could not stop talking about their speakers when I asked about how they got their tone. When I compared my amplifier through my shit cab to my friends who had great speakers I was shocked at how my amp sounded through their cabs. Amazing.
Hey Glenn, not gonna lie. I've been playing guitar since 2007, and also editing video/recording since 2009. Editing is a great skill, I've had more jobs with that than with music in general. Also worked for a local studio for 2 years, and filmed a music video you shit on on a live stream (I laughed, and took the critisism it was great) It seriously is a great skill to learn, and makes everything go full circle since the music business has been on a multi media visual centric path the last few years.
the funny thing is how most guitar players want to sound like someone like van halen and they end up with gear better than the original artist and still think they don't sound as good lol
Hey Glenn! Thank you so much for your contributions to tone science! You’ve saved me tons of money!😅 I was wondering if you have seen Jim Lills video on tone stacks in amps? I’m pretty sure I’ve heard you mention his video where he took the guitar out of the equation but this one is specifically amps. It’s really cool. His whole series on where tone comes from is insane. Thanks for your time!
Hey Glen, totally get what you mean by putting the money in the speakers. I have one amp and two different 1x12 cabs. One with a v30 and one with an AlNiCo blueback. I saved a bit of money by building my own enclosures and holy crap the difference is huge. What I love about IRs so much is the ability to switch and experiment so cheaply with a bunch of different gear. That’s how I settled on the two Celestions. Both pair great with a Boogie. You just saved me a buttload of cash, and I’m probably one of the few guitarists out there who’s actually content with what I have. Cheers!😊
I remember guitar mags with page after page of reviews and adds but you had no idea if any of it was actually good. Here we are today and it's like a whole other world. Loving your channel and seriously considering trying out your plugins. I don't really know how to set stuff up though. I have a PC, I have a Digital interface to plug in my guitar or bass. Technically I can plug my electric drum set in but I can't figure out how to Re-map it. I'd like to try your plugin but I don't have a lot of confidence in setting it up to work with my Roland V drums. You'd probably think it's super easy but I struggle. I watch videos and read manuals but struggle a lot. I'm often happy to just get sound coming out of the speakers, never mind optimizing my recordings. I'd really like to set up my drum kit and use all these cool drums to play back in real time but I just can't get it to work. I tried Cakewalk and struggled to even get sound out of it. I haven't tried reaper, I was looking at trying it but I'm a bit lost. I just want stuff that works out of the box. I really have spent time and effort trying to figure it out but after many hours and zero progress I eventually give up. I need a simple "step by step" starter guide on all of this. I just can't get my head around it.
Ok, so here in the Western world, we tune to Concert A, 440 Hz. This means, essentially, that regardless of how you tune your strings, an A is an A, a G# is a G#. So the pickup takes that note and passes it to the amp where it gets processed, over-driven, compressed, and tubed. This is then pushed to the speaker, where we get the results of the whole package. It only makes sense that the speaker, which is reproducing the sound created by that string, vibrating at 440 Hz, will be what affects tone the most. Also, I'm a bass player, need a ride to the gig, nust be able to transport an 8x10 cab...
I'm still rocking a Crate BV120 through a line6 cab that has G12-75's. Sounds great to me. Total price for the pair when I purchased them, $600 20 years ago lol. Thanks for saving me a bunch of money when I learned what I have is good for what I do, Glenn!
@@Gainovermg I can still find them from time to time. The only knock on my rig is that crate head is a FULL sized head and the line 6 cab is a mini-4x12 so the BV120 is a little precarious sitting on top.
I had the 60 watt combo that got modded by a local amp builder. He turned it into a real Doom monster. Great little amp, convertible from 6l to EL , but it ran hot like many of them do.
I posted a similar comment on the previous push notified VC video I saw, but what the heck... Speakers: line them up and let us hear it side by side, you could also even throw in a spectrum analyzer so we can see what the difference we hear actually is as well (after all, knowing which frequencies does what is quite useful when tweaking guitar tone). Perhaps lining up three identical cabinets and putting in 12 different speakers (one of which should be a V30 for comparison) in them with an on/off switch for each of them might be a way to go about it? I think a video like that could be very helpful in both proving, and driving home, your point with the whole speaker aspect of guitar sound, not to mention the HUGE help it would be in letting all of us know what to actually expect if we swap out speaker A for speaker B. Of course, most of us will hear this through our crappy phone or laptop speakers, but I believe it would still illustrate the relative difference between the various cabinet speakers and thus give us a rough idea of which one is the right direction for what we're after.
I still love the in room feel of a tube amp. It's not about volume, but responce and feel. It's so much easier to use a plug in to record no doubt, but like I said in the room live, I have yet to have toe same sound. I have several solid state amps & plug in's, that sound good, but not when I play them back to back with an amp, and it's not about price. Speakers are key and 50-70% your sound depending on gain and style. Love your insight even if I don't agree all the time.
Glenn has taught me a lot. Now the issue with budget vs high price guitars I already knew. Glenn if you ever get a chance to try a late 80's early to mid 90's Fernandes Japan, do it. The two I have blow away many instruments in the 2 grand and more arena.
I took Glenn's advice & ordered a TON for speakers from Sweetwater. They were delivered on a freaking pallet. I have a warehouse in LA where my band & I store our gear. I pulled out a bunch of my cabs that are in storage as I normally use my PRS tuxedo 2x12 cabs for everything (they sound amazing). I started changing out speakers in 6(2 each of 1x12, 2x12 & 4x12) cabs with my same head, a Mesa Mark V, and noticed a drastic difference between the tones but also the way those speakers interact with a 1x12, 2x12 & 4x12 cabinet. Some sounded great in a 2x12 but not as good in a 4x12. The 1x12 started to become the reference standard as most speakers sounded great in that configuration. The speakers were (4) Celestion Vintage 30, (4) Eminence Texas Heat, (4) Celestion Hempback, (2) Celestion Blue, (4) Celestion G-12 Neo & (4) WGS G12A AlNiCo. To our ears, the Eminence sounded best in a 4x12. The Celestion Blue were the best 2x12 & all of them sounded good in a 1x12. We didn't use a spectrum analyzer or anything, just our earballs. It was a very fun & kind of expensive project, but it was very enlightening when you see that the speakers that come in your 'matching cab' for your amp head aren't the best sounding with that amp. Now, I realize that we didn't take the time to break in these speakers and the 3 of us had some friendly arguments over tone preferences, but I never would have thought to do this without Glenn's work. Well done, sir!! PS- I'm currently planning on putting all of the excess speakers on Reverb if anyone needs some replacement speakers at a bit of a discount.😃
Dumbles have for a great majority EVM-12L speakers. The special thing about Dumbles is that you have lushious sustain without much distortion. Played one and it's not for everyone but I like it.I had those EVM-12L's too in several amps, it was standard in my Dynacord 100 watt midi tube combo and built it myself in a Fender Showman tranny combo. Now almost all my amps and cabs have Celestions and half of them are V30's.. Recently changed a V30 for a Eminence Cannabis 12" and that's still a good decision. The thing is that you're in that heavy metal circuit where every tone is filtered. In the rest of the world pups, speakers and amps do make a difference. This evening I played my Fender AVRI '62 Strat and my HB LP on practice. Both on the same Fender combo and both sounded completely different. Thing is.... I don't play metal and then it's notably different. Metal guitarists seem to filter every specific tone out and always sound the same, take Ola Englund (who has the same FFing annoying background noise) for instance.
Hey Glen i just passed up a white ephione lespaul for a copper color harley benton les paul type guitar and that was inspired by you and hell i saved like 23.$ not a world of difrence but compaired to how much better the harley feels naww i got the way better buy and cause of you i entertained the idea otherwise i might not have looked at the harley at all and as it is iam so freaking happy THANK YOU BROTHER GLEN keep on being you kicking ass and fighting the good fight even if most folks are too dumb to realize peace my Canadian brother
I'm only just discovering Glenn, but used to gig back in the early 00's. A lot of what this guy says is the same thing me and my band mates just kind of understood by taking our beater amps and import twangers into shops to test out gear for our rigs before buying. But I do have a question for you, and yes I'm too lazy to go into the backlog of your vids at the moment- what are your thoughts on the Orange "Voice of the world" speakers? I've used orange in my giging days, but have since sold most of my gear other than some sentimental guitars and an old amp, but looking for possibly lower cost alternatives to the VoW with similar sounds to build my own cab.
Greetings Glenn! I've been a subscriber since you posted the video about recording bass about 8 years ago - your insight has been invaluable in making my decisions on purchasing home studio gear - from Kali LP6, Lewitt 440, Reaper tutorials, and the list goes on. Since guitar tone relies heavily on the speaker, I was thinking you could shatter some more bass myths - from what I've read so far, bass speakers resemble more like full-range ones, and some recording techniques dispense altogether with recording the actual sound of the cabinet. Many have pointed out on the different tonal characteristics on the strings themselves (Stainless steel, Nickel plated steel, roundwounds vs flatwounds) and the pickup type. I'd love to see a test, on how much the strings and pickups actually influence the tone of the bass, since there's no speaker to filter those characteristics - or even a DI vs speaker, and how much it actually translates in a full mix. Of course, I'm talking about fresh strings. I think that would be really helpful in shedding some light on how different pickups with different types of strings could help in a mix. Keep making these awesome videos, for 8 years you're a great inspiration, your tutorials have been invaluable in my band's recording process during the pandemic (mostly recorded and mixed at home)! Cheers from Transylvania, Romania, you awesome Sir! :)
Re the comment at about 13 minutes: I’m a noob with a pawnshop special “Marshall” 10w. When I finally learned enough to hear the “tone wood” I threw away the particle board from my amp and put the speaker and circuit into a box I built from 6’ of 1x8 pine. I matched the original internal dimensions of the MG10mkii and, wow, it actually sounds pretty good. It’s what the engineeers originally designed, before marketing nerfed it. I mean it’s still a dinky speaker, but it’s not strapped to the exact two grades of 1/2” particle board you see in the cheapest flat pack dresser drawers. I don’t want a new amp anymore… However, now I want to plug the circuit into a used 12” speaker of decent quality. Amps using this exact (other than copyright variations) circuit topology are being sold TODAY as a “secret sauce” guitar pedal. Every sound is a tool to the right artist. Me, I can’t even make clean tone sound good yet. But gear won’t replace practice. My hypothesis: Crappy little particle board practice amps are a conspiracy of amp company marketing departments to make guitarists unhappy and want something more expensive. They were better engineered amps than they’re built and sold as. All of them. Prove me wrong.
Happy trails everyone!!! Love you brother and have a blessed day!! Guitar max posted a video a couple of weeks ago about Jimi Hendrix old speaker cabinet was for sale and he had blown up the old speakers!! It was a fender cabinet that fender replaced the speaker with JBLs which was the normal practice back then!!! Also might be part of the LA sound that everyone has been using for years!!! You might want to check out one or two JBLs just in case!!!
I think we emailed about this...I did a shootout between a very used 1999-2000 V30 vs a brand new Weber Gray Wolf 75 watt speaker. Same amp settings and mic placement. Two different guitars, an Aria Pro II with stock pickups and a 2007 Carvin with Lollar replacements. The V30 had no significant difference between the guitars, aurally, in the DAW in playback. Quite a bit of difference through the brand new Weber that isn't broken in at all yet. Would be cool to do the test again and run it through a spectrum analyzer. I got one of those re-amp boxes you recommended and the mic to do the analysis...now I just need to do it!!!
So much great info in your videos! I’ve been using amp VSTs for a year because of one of your vids and bought the AT2020 today because of your review, don’t know why I wasn’t subscribed sooner!
Hey Glenn, a plugin company called Melda have a new one out called DrumStrip that seems to have a resonance function to track the fundamental, 2nd, and 3rd harmonics like the AIXDSP DrumEQ except also with a whole host of other features for $6 less. It's got reverb, compressor, maximizer, saturation, bleedkill, gate, etc. Might be a good one to have on the show, and the company has tons of other useful plugins that often go on sale for a good value *this comment *not* brought to you by Melda, I promise
Let's gooo Glenn, took your advice about changing the speakers(with my EVH 5150 Iconic combo) to get a better tone, was hesitant at first but I got a creamback, the tone did get better but still wasn't what I was looking so I went for a greenback G12M instead. Definitely what I was looking for which is SWEET, now I know that if I want the sound I like, I just gotta get some greenbacks and not chase endlessly for a different amp, pickups, tubes, guitar, etc.
Glenn! With kyle bull recently showing that the 6505s and 5150s sound exactly the same. Id love to see the two of you get together for some mythbusting.
Re ; The cabinet question- Yes, solid pine cabinets are a thing and I really like them. Especially if you have to lug it around. I believe Mojotone makes a lightweight cabinet line that uses pine too. Mojotone speakers are really, really good. I have a couple of the new Anthem speakers in my Fender amps that nail the old Oxford sound. Not really a metal thing though. I still buy NOS tubes, but it’s not for the way they sound. Right now, they’re not that much more than new production tubes and they easily last 5 to 10 times longer(typically much, much longer).
I don't record....just a basic play at home player. While the delusional part of my brain still thinks my $2000aud Epiphone LP sounds better than my $500 Epi LP.....it simply has better play-ability with the neck and tuning stability out of the box. Which makes me play better & cleaner. The Fishman split coil/2 voicing Heafy set are a nice bonus. Focusing too much on what piece of gear you think will improve your tone takes away from actually playing your instrument. Of course,having a great speaker & mic is where the secret is at for recording. No argument here. Thank you for helping me personally focus on what I find most important.....just playing. Keep up the great work Glenn.
One of the biggest mistakes I ever made when I was 13-15years old letting myself collect and buy guitars and never upgrade my speaker or amp situation and then I wondered why my tone never changed for the better.
Glenn, this was a really good & informative show. Do a quick short when the contest starts running. Would like give it a go with one "brand" eco-system for the amps and drums, and only using Mixbus 7 with no additional plugs for the mix.
I’ve spent a shit ton of money on expensive guitars, mainly Gibsons. I only did it cause I’m a Gibson fan boy. I’m not ashamed to admit it. While they all sound great, the best sounding pickups out of ALL my guitars are the ones in my Schecter Reaper 6 FR. They are as hot as ghost peppers and are actually the only set of pickups I’ve ever heard that sound amazing while coil-tapped! In my defense, I was working for guitar center when I bought most of my expensive shit at very deep discounts.
Love what you do, Glenn! I'm old-old school. You and I share similar music history and auto factory history. Can you touch more on bass gear and speakers? All my gear is early mid 70s. Sunn Coliseum bass head and Sunn 4×15 cab. Cheers!
Honestly I love gear and the vibe of some of it but if anything the powerful thing that these tests are revealing is that the sound is really coming from the players and their ideas at that point in time, with all the sound engineers and everything else. It sounds so different because of the soul imparted by those involved in the musical creation. And let's not forget how the guitar tone is effected by the drum sound and vice versa for example. It's everything, and it's real practical and measurable stuff that goes into the mojo of a song. Disproving the voodoo is coming closer to the reality of tone, and the reality is far more powerful and in focus than any ideas about it will ever be. As long as you follow the gear and methods you are drawn to the rest will fill in itself because of everyone's collaboration on the record and your unique tone will find itself through the creative process
Johan Segeborn's amp demos are awesome. I love it when he finds these hidden gems like old Peaveys and show you how good they sound plugged strait in, no effects.
Glenn trying to help people of all budgets to succeed in home recording and be a smart buyer. The internet: WRONG!!!! YOU ARE WRONG!!! MY LUXURY GEAR IS THE ONLY RIGHT OPTION!!!!!!!!!!!! (someone needs Validation i see)
Tone wood in speaker cabinets... One of the music stores I did electronic repairs in had a luthier that was a real monster at his craft, and he got sold sold these 4x12 cabs made of mahogany. He asked me if I could check them out. We were both working late hanging out that night, and we drug them in from his van as he starts waxing reluctance over what he spent on these cabinets, and claiming that he liked the way they sound except certain chords he'd hit caused a high pitched percussive sound that hurt his ears. He asked me if I thought it could be the mahogany causing it, because they had his favorite speakers that never caused this. So I listened as he hit a few chug, chunk, & wank chords and I walked over behind the counter and pulled out a pair of claves and said, "It sounds like this, doesn't it!" while clanking them together. He does this Three Stooges Curly floor drop, flailing in total OMFG mode as we both laughed our asses off at this "lights back on" moment! And then he was just heart broken! He told me he couldn't dump them off on someone else, knowing that. I LOVE when I find someone else with a fucking conscience! (Why I Love This Channel!) I think he told me later that someone approached him saying they loved his sound and he offered to sell the cabs. I don't know how long the honeymoon lasted. At first you love the sound, and you just think damn! That sounds so fucking load! But then that sound is just always there like Chinese water torture or eating the same cereal every morning, until one day you just can't fucking take it anymore!
Another plus 1 on getting Dweezil on the show. I've shown your 5150 cabinet video to a friend of mine who just got one - might get him to try swapping the speakers in as close to real time as possible and maybe recording it.
I can vouch for the benefit of mixing speakers in same cab. I just did some recordings and did an a/b between Jensen Falcon and Celestion G12-75 .... MASSIVE difference. But ... overall I'm very ubsatisfied with my results using a SM57 and various cabs and guitars .. cannot figure it out !
Hey Glen. As entertaining as it is too see these keyboard experts argue about high-gain guitar tone. It would be nice to see some content, tips on recording clean/low gain guitars. Yes, this is metal but a lot of metal songs do have clean guitar tone parts not played on acoustic. Any eq/effect considerations especially blending them with high-gain guitars? There's plenty of videos on recording pop/folk/funk clean guitar, but not metal. From a literate bassist turned music producer in Saskatchewan.
Glenn, have you ever used a Lafayette Solid State amp? Loved mine back when i played, but it might have had something to do with the repair / upgrade of the toasted 8" speaker with a Radio Shack full range. It just has so much more everything (even from before the orig speaker was toast)
Someone tried to call me a pickup shill because I said that pickups do make a difference. It's true that the more gain you use, the smaller that difference makes, but I am far from a pickup shill. I think I've bought 2 pickups in the past 20 years, and the reason I bought those pickups was for one thing. Output. I had one guitar that was quieter than the rest of my guitars, so I swapped it out with a higher output pickup, and now I don't have to mess with volume levels on stage in the middle of a show. It's like anything else in guitar sound. Identify the problem, and then find the proper solution. for that particular problem, the solution was a new pickup. If you're looking for big changes in tone, speakers might be a better choice, depending on the changes needed.
Cab m and a few pedals....I can get from jazz to thrash and everything in-between. Thanks for the encouragement/constant reminders to not fall under the marketing spells.
*Speaker swap question:* I mainly use my Kemper for recording but every now and again I like to mic up a real amp. I’ve had a Peavey 6505+ 112 and a Line 6 Spider Valve 112 for ages, but neither really cuts the mustard tone-wise. Although the 6505 is clearly the better amp, the L6 has a much nicer speaker (the 6505 had a 12” 8-ohm Sheffield speaker and the Line 6 has a 12” 8-ohm Celestion Vintage 30 speaker). As the two speakers are identical in size and resistance, would it work (safely!) if I take the V30 out of the L6 and drop it into the 6505 to replace the Shitfield?
If only, players listened to people who record for living. Every take is benefited by suggestions by these people who listen for living. Thank you Glenn.
I think the reason why people don’t like what Glenn says is they only view him as a producer, not a musician as well. There are countless stories of people shit talking producers (many times rightfully so) and the producers input. People assume he’s just there to record you and take your money.
The cabinet material is another hot spot for some people. I can attest firsthand to what Glen said about the bedliner plastic coating some higher end PA speakers have. Its the shiznit for many reasons. Particle board/mdf is heavy and relatively week. I still believe the engineered birch plywood panels are the best all around material for cabs. When it's coated with the bedliner plastic treatment it's acoustic properties are still much tighter sounding than mdf, plastic covered or not. Saving money doesn't mean you have to settle for plastic or mdf cabs. Yamaha has a new factory in India where they're building some damn good active PA speakers for a decent price. The DHR15's I grabbed from Sweetwater when they first came out are excellent for the money.
12:30 pine works. All that birch is russia china. What kinda density you want? Multi density fiberboard has all kinds densitys white oak and red oak ply are hard and heavy very dense but expensive..ive used pine 3/4 and double walled it to 1.5" when you knock your knucles on that double wall you dont hear no inside hollow echo
Yo Glenn! Please forgive the profile name buuuuut! I'd love to see what you think of the Warehouse Guitar Speakers products. My personal favourite is their Veteran 30, (a V30 replacement that truly fills a few gaps in tone for me,) I also loved pairing them with their ET-65 speakers, and having enjoyed G12-65's from Celestion, these thumpy, syrupy beasts sound absolutely unreal together in an X pattern, truly hit that "woody" tone your Blackbacks achieve with more wattage. I put a used Laney VH100R ($650CAD at that time and even cheaper now,) through them in an Avatar cab, (another affordable option you should check in to, I think they'll get you stoked,) and played an EMG82, (used as well,) loaded $350 Ibanez RG-350 and the tone was ridiculous! I'd be happy to send you the old band's recordings so you can check it out. I personally love the used market, and the VH100R is what the new Laney Foundry amp pedal sounds like essentially, kind of the Ironheart's daddy. Speakers were definitely the BIGGEST shift in my tone and the Warehouse Guitar Speakers stuff really upscaled things for me and basically pulled me away from your beloved Celestion V30's, which were my only speaker for years beforehand. WGS is dirt Dirt DIRT cheap at $95-$110USD a pop, and when they started I got my first quad of cones at $50USD a piece ':{0. Definitely worth your time and their cult following would LOVE to hear what you have to say about their work! Thanks for waving the "buy smarter not snobbier" flag, you're a gift my dude!
5:12 fuck yeah get Dweezil on the show! Having a Bad Day was released on my 13th birthday, and "Let's Talk About It" was a fucking jam. Tbh, I was a fan of Dweezil before I was Frank. In my defense, rare is the 13 year old that can dig Frank Zappa, so Dweezil was kinda my gateway drug lol. But yeah, would love to see a sit down with him 🤘
That first guy really said that Glenn, the guy that says you to buy Valveking instead of Soldano, not change expensive Amp, use Harley Benton Guitar and Cabs are....pushing us to buy expensive gear???? WTF! This channel is the paradise of cheap gear for home studio.
Love the content As a audio and video production student I have used your videos as framework for my own recordings Such as vocal layering (for drums and vocals) Reverb Eq Im not top tier but at least your helping me learn my craft❤❤❤
@@guthhalf5484 Price point is fantastic. You essentially have every amp and cab sim at your fingertips. Our favorite part tho: No more lugging around heavy amps to shows.
glad you acknowledge cheap gears don't mean cheap. Can you do an episode using cheap Chinese amp sim pedals? - Mooer GE150 - Sonicake Matribox - Valeton GP100 - Nux MG300 All about $150 ish.
Something that's nice about buying new speakers is its really easy to try before you buy with impulse responses, hell Celestion sell impulse responses of most of their speakers for like 20 bucks, and even have versions of them in different cab sizes, one of the few other things Jim Lill found actually has an affect on the tone. edit: just got to the bit where you also mentioned Jim Lill with the cab shame/size :D
I feel there should be a review of the Celestion G12-65. It hardly ever gets mentioned for rock and metal but it was a rather important part of Hetfield's signal path for Ride the Lightning. BTW - the official Celestion IR sounds excellent. The "Thin" file options double tracked sound absolutely massive (proper double tracking to get the little differences. Not that lazy cut and paste crap that doesn't work like playing again).
Question about pickups though, if you already have a good amp and good speaker cabinet and are only chasing slight tone changes is it worth it to change pickups or are you better off running into an eq pedal before the amp?
A- Oh yeah, you can definitely hear that quilted maple neck with rosewood fretboard. Anyway, my signal chain is Gibson Custom Shop 1963 SG Custom plug with Vovox sonorus protect A350 into Keeley Compressor Plus, Wampler Ego Compressor Pedal, MXR Timmy, Electro-Harmonix Nano Big Muff, Boss EQ-200, Walrus Audio Lillian, into EVH 5150III Iconic with Walrus Audio Iron Horse, MXR M109S Six Band EQ Pedal, Strymon BigSky and TC Electronic Flashback 2 in FX-loop, into Mesa Rectifier 4x12 Cab. B- What's the speaker in your cab? A- Who cares??
I love this show! These poor people looking for validation haven’t realised that the best kit for a home recording is usually the kit you have -look after it and learn to use it! As far as the armchair experts go… funny story - I had an online discussion with someone claiming to be a recording expert… who claimed that the recording heads actually moved the particles around - inside the tape…? He couldn’t understand the physics behind how you improve a brand new tape’s frequency response by erasing it a few times to orient the magnetic field of the tape to give a more uniform response… and minimise dropouts!
It's funny that Jim Marshall had no idea what he was doing in creating his cabs. He was just trying to put 4 12" speakers in a box that was small enough but still fit. Those cabs are still some of the greatest cabs ever built.
Maybe it’s just me but my 1x12 Peavy cab has a Celestion Greenback and I can hear a slight difference between guitars with different pickups and also when I change them in a guitar. Slight difference but yeah I believe a good speaker is most important
Here's an experiment: if anyone is unsure as to how important the speaker is for electric guitar tone, I humbly suggest unplugging the speaker cabinet and listening for a change...just for a baseline reference...seriously, though, as a guy who mostly plays acoustic instruments, your description of cabinet geometry and construction is an awful lot like the way we discuss body-size, bracing, tone-woods, and the like in the acoustic guitar world...hmm...almost as if the big box generating the sound somehow influences the tone...
Hey, I loved your video on pickups. I'm currently in the process of swapping all of my name brand pickups with $20 ones. Have you thought of doing a video on comparing cheap pots with upgraded pots (electronics) ? Thanks again, keep fighting the good fight!
I find with pickups the difference is there, emg vs emg x (the x series has a different preamp with more headroom so they tend to sound more clear especially chords), emg vs seymour Duncan distortions (the duncans have less low end and more output making then seem more present), stock ibanez pickups tend to be muddy in extended range instruments, etc. This can mostly be corrected with eq, compression, or even pickup height adjustments. Nothing as extreme as a speaker swap(i agree btw 90% of the sound is the speaker), but they're all small pieces of a bigger picture and sometimes the missing piece is the small piece.
Lol, I watch your videos and laugh dude. Most of my guitar purchases are because they look cool and bragging rights. My favorite guitar though is my last guitar... bought a used beat up black evh 5150 with an ebony fretboard. Stuck some red and old beat up looking steal trem pieces on it with a beat up steel (I think they call it aged silver), then stuck a piece of red duck tape on it. Stuck some retro chrome fender knobs on it. And the big thing, was swapped out the really good EVH pickups with some Seymour Duncan Nazguls... why? Cause I thought they would look cool (they happen to sound great lol). Why is it my favorite? I've thought about it, I think it comes down to it has a kill switch and looks metal af. 3d printed some red back covers.... it's siiiiiiick!!!! Has nothing to do with the way it sounds lol.
Any time I have guitars that sound different through the same amp, it's still always variations on a theme, and tbh it probably has more to do with the output and active vs passive. Whenever I do have a passive guitar with pickup issues, I generally have two go-to combinations. Seymour Duncan, and Guitar Fetish/GFS. I'm epsecially fond of Guitar Fetish pickups with Seymour Duncan Active Blackouts prempas. Anything under 10 or 11k output or so will always work well with an active preamp if you want more output and less background noise on already solid pickups. As Glenn always says, get whatever works that you can afford. GFS pickups run for $25-40 apiece, and the Blackouts preamp costs $80.
Speaking of pickup output. Is there good way to make guitar output level consistent, except for changing every guitar pickup to the same model or manually adjusting to a level meter? Using a compressor/limiter?
I have chasing guitar tone my entire life. Own a PRS, yes the $4000 dollar model, Mesa Boogie heads and never thought about replacing the fucking speakers. Got a hold of the new cheap marshal cab, $334.69 and will be replacing the speakers next week with the speakers that Glenn is calling out. I will keep you posted if I find Valhalla.
Here's a helpful guitar tip: Don't roller-skate.
You cant skate and stand tall timber you gotta crouch the grounds your nearest friend. I just cant be half pipein on skateboard. I dont have a car..I rollerskated last night to the store about 10 and in moonlight
@@hadleymanmusic Until you break your wrist. Then you won’t play guitar. My mom got hit by a drunk straying into her crosswalk at low speed. Her elbow doesn’t work right anymore and she can no longer play the guitar she named me after (a “vintage” Martin dreadnought that was new when she was 15). Please be mindful of the delicate parts of your body.
Rob Scallon took this tip personally and played "Rain" on a skatepark...
I concur
Lol you can do both, our band literally just released a video of us doing just that: ua-cam.com/video/SYRribQpMzs/v-deo.html . Our guitarist started the group and has been skating for decades, hospitalized and everything yet still rocking 🤘🏼
The Night Skate if you’re in LA and want to come skate with us, every Tuesday!
I would love to see Dweezil on the channel! I've been a fan of his, and his father, for as long as I can remember. He's also a great guy, I've watched him live a number of times and he always sticks around after the shows to chat with his fans. Get him on the show!
He makes a damn good duck
I concur. Dweezil is one hell of a musician and one heck of a nice, down to earth dude. The wife even got up on stage to dance along with the rest of the ladies he called up. Son's got his JH on his first guitar (uses it just for signatures).
So, yeah do what you can to get him on the show. (Tell Ahmet to stay home)
Glenn: *crafts a gauntlet covering a wide range of gear and breaks down how each affects the tone*
Dentists and Lawyers: "No."
you're crazy if you think they have the time to sit and watch these youtube videos and comment on them. The people getting angry generally are "musos" buying into youtube rubbish to begin with.
Every motorcycle manufacturer besides Harley Davidson: "We build cruisers that can get out of their own way, brake, and go around corners, AND they're reliable!"
Dentists and Lawyers: "No."
I've applied almost every tip Glenn has thrown out of this channel and my mixes sound a massive amount better because of it. Never stop making this show!
🤘🤘
a sound engineer with academins backround (college) and decades of expirience...yeah, thatguy is probably wrong with everything sound related 😂😂
Thats how these people sound... expirience and making it work means nothing to tjem.
One of the best guitar related and most informative channels on UA-cam, and Glenn's one of the nicest guys out there, despite the cantankerous facade, lol.
Keep it up, Glenn! \m/
Shhhhhhhh!
I started out as a synthpop and EDM artist but I've been gradually shifting into a more industrial sort of sound and your channel has been an amazing source of guidance as I start exploring how to do stuff with guitars and whatnot. My guitar player is a big fan and so I find that most of the time we're already on the same page cuz we watched the same videos. Great stuff! Thanks!
Just replaced the v30's that came in my Harley Benton 2x12 cab with some celestion EVH models. Huge difference! Could not be happier! Thank you for bringing accurate information to the light on the tone subject. I learn something new every day and I hope that never stops!
Oh yeah! Invite Dweezil on the show, Glenn. That would be amazing. So much respect for his championing of his dad's music, and his absolute mastery of the guitar. Do it, do it!
The dumb bass player jokes have absolutely not gotten old. Some things are just timeless.
This bass player concurs. 👍
Timeless as the bassists playing !
@The Tired Horizon That definately needs to happen. I'm a decent bass player when it comes to home recording, but hell it would be nice to get pro tips that you wouldn't typically find.
@@martyshwaartz971 Ba dm tss
I'm a bassist and can agree that I are am have no smartf/
Glenn, you ABSOLUTELY must get Dweezil on the show, he's such a talented and cool guy.
"Harley Benton double cut" is my favorite space on the SMG bingo board
My journey so far since watching your videos:
The three biggest changes on my tone in order are: new speakers, better electronics in Import guitars, and changing out the tone block on a Strat style bridge from stock (pot metal) to brass. These all had significant changes on tone and sound.
The speaker is easy, a better speaker frees up more frequencies the rest of your gear is producing.
Upgrading pots and capacitors to what Fender, Gibson and Boutique builders use is a no brainer. Typically it gets more range out of even stock pickups. Also it gets the most out of replacement pickups that the stock electronics are choking. Electronics on a guitar is a subtraction formula, you cannot add.
The swapping of a stock block from factory to brass on a Strat style trem was very eye opening. You can hear and feel it acoustically on the guitar without plugging it in. Just make sure you buy the right block size for your bridge. Brass also affect Tele saddles too but it is more subtle than the Strat.
Tubes... changing tubes has only yielded a very slight tone difference if the old tubes are working fine. I swapped Rubys for JJs and it was a slight difference. Now if you have tubes that are failing, putting in new working tubes will be a huge difference.
Pickup changes... slight to medium. That's if you are swapping like for like. Most changes tend to be medium sized changes, not insignificant but not major. The guitar with the brass block, yeah I put a Filtertron, a SD Little 59, and a SD Quarter Pounder in that so it made a HUGE difference over stock, generic Strat pickups. Another guitar where I replaced stock cheapo pickups with Seymour Duncans and upgraded the electrics... i would day that made a very noticeable change but just short of significant.
Other mods I have done HAVE made differences but typically its a cumulative effect from before to after if you are replacing most of the hardware, pickups, and electronics on a guitar. One off changes tend to be single digit (under 10%) percentage changes overall so you may hear or feel a slight change on its own.
Changing hardware like a different bridge or replacing non locking with locking tuners has a decent amount of change to tone and feel. Getting a professional nut installed tends to bring out the most of your guitar feel wise.
I hope this helps.
Re pickups: I think you're on point with a lot of this stuff - when it comes to hi-gain, which this channel is all about - but I also think that the Orient is finally catching up on *how* to make better pickups. In my case, back in 2001 I bought a Yamaha "Pathetica" that was just a complete plank for $400 and the first thing I did was replace the bridge with a JB and its like a veil was lifted off of it and shocked me and my band mates. This was common practice. My brother-outlaw worked at L&M back in those days as a Tech and was all about hopping up guitars before it became more common place and upgraded pups in a couple of beauty Epiphones and got me onto it.
Great channel, much learning achieved. Many years ago I met several pro musicians and every one of them could not stop talking about their speakers when I asked about how they got their tone. When I compared my amplifier through my shit cab to my friends who had great speakers I was shocked at how my amp sounded through their cabs. Amazing.
"but what if there's no speaker" well then there's no sound, duh
Hey Glenn, not gonna lie. I've been playing guitar since 2007, and also editing video/recording since 2009. Editing is a great skill, I've had more jobs with that than with music in general. Also worked for a local studio for 2 years, and filmed a music video you shit on on a live stream (I laughed, and took the critisism it was great) It seriously is a great skill to learn, and makes everything go full circle since the music business has been on a multi media visual centric path the last few years.
the funny thing is how most guitar players want to sound like someone like van halen and they end up with gear better than the original artist and still think they don't sound as good lol
Hey Glenn! Thank you so much for your contributions to tone science! You’ve saved me tons of money!😅 I was wondering if you have seen Jim Lills video on tone stacks in amps? I’m pretty sure I’ve heard you mention his video where he took the guitar out of the equation but this one is specifically amps. It’s really cool. His whole series on where tone comes from is insane. Thanks for your time!
Hey Glen, totally get what you mean by putting the money in the speakers. I have one amp and two different 1x12 cabs. One with a v30 and one with an AlNiCo blueback. I saved a bit of money by building my own enclosures and holy crap the difference is huge. What I love about IRs so much is the ability to switch and experiment so cheaply with a bunch of different gear. That’s how I settled on the two Celestions. Both pair great with a Boogie. You just saved me a buttload of cash, and I’m probably one of the few guitarists out there who’s actually content with what I have. Cheers!😊
OMG GLENN!! Dweezil would be an INSANE guest to interview or have on the show. I would love to listen to him talk or play for hours on end!
Glenn thank you for being the metal guru we all need 🤘🏻
I remember guitar mags with page after page of reviews and adds but you had no idea if any of it was actually good. Here we are today and it's like a whole other world. Loving your channel and seriously considering trying out your plugins. I don't really know how to set stuff up though. I have a PC, I have a Digital interface to plug in my guitar or bass. Technically I can plug my electric drum set in but I can't figure out how to Re-map it. I'd like to try your plugin but I don't have a lot of confidence in setting it up to work with my Roland V drums. You'd probably think it's super easy but I struggle. I watch videos and read manuals but struggle a lot. I'm often happy to just get sound coming out of the speakers, never mind optimizing my recordings.
I'd really like to set up my drum kit and use all these cool drums to play back in real time but I just can't get it to work.
I tried Cakewalk and struggled to even get sound out of it. I haven't tried reaper, I was looking at trying it but I'm a bit lost. I just want stuff that works out of the box. I really have spent time and effort trying to figure it out but after many hours and zero progress I eventually give up. I need a simple "step by step" starter guide on all of this. I just can't get my head around it.
Ok, so here in the Western world, we tune to Concert A, 440 Hz. This means, essentially, that regardless of how you tune your strings, an A is an A, a G# is a G#. So the pickup takes that note and passes it to the amp where it gets processed, over-driven, compressed, and tubed. This is then pushed to the speaker, where we get the results of the whole package. It only makes sense that the speaker, which is reproducing the sound created by that string, vibrating at 440 Hz, will be what affects tone the most. Also, I'm a bass player, need a ride to the gig, nust be able to transport an 8x10 cab...
Glenn, you're the best! This is my go-to gear and recording channel! Eternally grateful Sir.
Great work Glenn. Educational, informative and entertaining channel for sure.
I'm still rocking a Crate BV120 through a line6 cab that has G12-75's. Sounds great to me. Total price for the pair when I purchased them, $600 20 years ago lol. Thanks for saving me a bunch of money when I learned what I have is good for what I do, Glenn!
Line 6 cabs are a great deal, really don’t sound much different from a Marshall cab.
My BV60 is still an amp I wish I didn’t get rid of. Maybe I’ll find another some day.
@@Gainovermg I can still find them from time to time. The only knock on my rig is that crate head is a FULL sized head and the line 6 cab is a mini-4x12 so the BV120 is a little precarious sitting on top.
I had the 60 watt combo that got modded by a local amp builder. He turned it into a real Doom monster. Great little amp, convertible from 6l to EL , but it ran hot like many of them do.
@@therealjoshuacaleb4873 yeah. They were beefy heads to carry. I’d use it in a basement studio these days so I wouldn’t need to carry it. Lol
I posted a similar comment on the previous push notified VC video I saw, but what the heck...
Speakers: line them up and let us hear it side by side, you could also even throw in a spectrum analyzer so we can see what the difference we hear actually is as well (after all, knowing which frequencies does what is quite useful when tweaking guitar tone). Perhaps lining up three identical cabinets and putting in 12 different speakers (one of which should be a V30 for comparison) in them with an on/off switch for each of them might be a way to go about it?
I think a video like that could be very helpful in both proving, and driving home, your point with the whole speaker aspect of guitar sound, not to mention the HUGE help it would be in letting all of us know what to actually expect if we swap out speaker A for speaker B.
Of course, most of us will hear this through our crappy phone or laptop speakers, but I believe it would still illustrate the relative difference between the various cabinet speakers and thus give us a rough idea of which one is the right direction for what we're after.
0:49 if anyone's wondering glenn has an episode on windows and mac, detailing the pros and cons of each, it's a good video.
I still love the in room feel of a tube amp. It's not about volume, but responce and feel. It's so much easier to use a plug in to record no doubt, but like I said in the room live, I have yet to have toe same sound. I have several solid state amps & plug in's, that sound good, but not when I play them back to back with an amp, and it's not about price. Speakers are key and 50-70% your sound depending on gain and style. Love your insight even if I don't agree all the time.
Glenn has taught me a lot. Now the issue with budget vs high price guitars I already knew. Glenn if you ever get a chance to try a late 80's early to mid 90's Fernandes Japan, do it. The two I have blow away many instruments in the 2 grand and more arena.
I took Glenn's advice & ordered a TON for speakers from Sweetwater. They were delivered on a freaking pallet. I have a warehouse in LA where my band & I store our gear. I pulled out a bunch of my cabs that are in storage as I normally use my PRS tuxedo 2x12 cabs for everything (they sound amazing). I started changing out speakers in 6(2 each of 1x12, 2x12 & 4x12) cabs with my same head, a Mesa Mark V, and noticed a drastic difference between the tones but also the way those speakers interact with a 1x12, 2x12 & 4x12 cabinet. Some sounded great in a 2x12 but not as good in a 4x12. The 1x12 started to become the reference standard as most speakers sounded great in that configuration. The speakers were (4) Celestion Vintage 30, (4) Eminence Texas Heat, (4) Celestion Hempback, (2) Celestion Blue, (4) Celestion G-12 Neo & (4) WGS G12A AlNiCo. To our ears, the Eminence sounded best in a 4x12. The Celestion Blue were the best 2x12 & all of them sounded good in a 1x12. We didn't use a spectrum analyzer or anything, just our earballs. It was a very fun & kind of expensive project, but it was very enlightening when you see that the speakers that come in your 'matching cab' for your amp head aren't the best sounding with that amp. Now, I realize that we didn't take the time to break in these speakers and the 3 of us had some friendly arguments over tone preferences, but I never would have thought to do this without Glenn's work. Well done, sir!! PS- I'm currently planning on putting all of the excess speakers on Reverb if anyone needs some replacement speakers at a bit of a discount.😃
Dumbles have for a great majority EVM-12L speakers. The special thing about Dumbles is that you have lushious sustain without much distortion. Played one and it's not for everyone but I like it.I had those EVM-12L's too in several amps, it was standard in my Dynacord 100 watt midi tube combo and built it myself in a Fender Showman tranny combo. Now almost all my amps and cabs have Celestions and half of them are V30's.. Recently changed a V30 for a Eminence Cannabis 12" and that's still a good decision. The thing is that you're in that heavy metal circuit where every tone is filtered. In the rest of the world pups, speakers and amps do make a difference.
This evening I played my Fender AVRI '62 Strat and my HB LP on practice. Both on the same Fender combo and both sounded completely different. Thing is.... I don't play metal and then it's notably different. Metal guitarists seem to filter every specific tone out and always sound the same, take Ola Englund (who has the same FFing annoying background noise) for instance.
I looked back one last time. I smiled. Man was it fun! Things either change or come to an end. Change is amazing because it provokes direction.
Hey Glen i just passed up a white ephione lespaul for a copper color harley benton les paul type guitar and that was inspired by you and hell i saved like 23.$ not a world of difrence but compaired to how much better the harley feels naww i got the way better buy and cause of you i entertained the idea otherwise i might not have looked at the harley at all and as it is iam so freaking happy THANK YOU BROTHER GLEN keep on being you kicking ass and fighting the good fight even if most folks are too dumb to realize peace my Canadian brother
I'm only just discovering Glenn, but used to gig back in the early 00's. A lot of what this guy says is the same thing me and my band mates just kind of understood by taking our beater amps and import twangers into shops to test out gear for our rigs before buying.
But I do have a question for you, and yes I'm too lazy to go into the backlog of your vids at the moment- what are your thoughts on the Orange "Voice of the world" speakers? I've used orange in my giging days, but have since sold most of my gear other than some sentimental guitars and an old amp, but looking for possibly lower cost alternatives to the VoW with similar sounds to build my own cab.
Greetings Glenn! I've been a subscriber since you posted the video about recording bass about 8 years ago - your insight has been invaluable in making my decisions on purchasing home studio gear - from Kali LP6, Lewitt 440, Reaper tutorials, and the list goes on. Since guitar tone relies heavily on the speaker, I was thinking you could shatter some more bass myths - from what I've read so far, bass speakers resemble more like full-range ones, and some recording techniques dispense altogether with recording the actual sound of the cabinet. Many have pointed out on the different tonal characteristics on the strings themselves (Stainless steel, Nickel plated steel, roundwounds vs flatwounds) and the pickup type. I'd love to see a test, on how much the strings and pickups actually influence the tone of the bass, since there's no speaker to filter those characteristics - or even a DI vs speaker, and how much it actually translates in a full mix. Of course, I'm talking about fresh strings. I think that would be really helpful in shedding some light on how different pickups with different types of strings could help in a mix. Keep making these awesome videos, for 8 years you're a great inspiration, your tutorials have been invaluable in my band's recording process during the pandemic (mostly recorded and mixed at home)! Cheers from Transylvania, Romania, you awesome Sir! :)
Re the comment at about 13 minutes: I’m a noob with a pawnshop special “Marshall” 10w. When I finally learned enough to hear the “tone wood” I threw away the particle board from my amp and put the speaker and circuit into a box I built from 6’ of 1x8 pine. I matched the original internal dimensions of the MG10mkii and, wow, it actually sounds pretty good. It’s what the engineeers originally designed, before marketing nerfed it. I mean it’s still a dinky speaker, but it’s not strapped to the exact two grades of 1/2” particle board you see in the cheapest flat pack dresser drawers. I don’t want a new amp anymore…
However, now I want to plug the circuit into a used 12” speaker of decent quality. Amps using this exact (other than copyright variations) circuit topology are being sold TODAY as a “secret sauce” guitar pedal. Every sound is a tool to the right artist. Me, I can’t even make clean tone sound good yet. But gear won’t replace practice.
My hypothesis: Crappy little particle board practice amps are a conspiracy of amp company marketing departments to make guitarists unhappy and want something more expensive. They were better engineered amps than they’re built and sold as. All of them. Prove me wrong.
Happy trails everyone!!! Love you brother and have a blessed day!! Guitar max posted a video a couple of weeks ago about Jimi Hendrix old speaker cabinet was for sale and he had blown up the old speakers!! It was a fender cabinet that fender replaced the speaker with JBLs which was the normal practice back then!!! Also might be part of the LA sound that everyone has been using for years!!! You might want to check out one or two JBLs just in case!!!
I think we emailed about this...I did a shootout between a very used 1999-2000 V30 vs a brand new Weber Gray Wolf 75 watt speaker. Same amp settings and mic placement. Two different guitars, an Aria Pro II with stock pickups and a 2007 Carvin with Lollar replacements. The V30 had no significant difference between the guitars, aurally, in the DAW in playback. Quite a bit of difference through the brand new Weber that isn't broken in at all yet. Would be cool to do the test again and run it through a spectrum analyzer.
I got one of those re-amp boxes you recommended and the mic to do the analysis...now I just need to do it!!!
So much great info in your videos! I’ve been using amp VSTs for a year because of one of your vids and bought the AT2020 today because of your review, don’t know why I wasn’t subscribed sooner!
Hey Glenn, a plugin company called Melda have a new one out called DrumStrip that seems to have a resonance function to track the fundamental, 2nd, and 3rd harmonics like the AIXDSP DrumEQ except also with a whole host of other features for $6 less. It's got reverb, compressor, maximizer, saturation, bleedkill, gate, etc. Might be a good one to have on the show, and the company has tons of other useful plugins that often go on sale for a good value
*this comment *not* brought to you by Melda, I promise
Let's gooo Glenn, took your advice about changing the speakers(with my EVH 5150 Iconic combo) to get a better tone, was hesitant at first but I got a creamback, the tone did get better but still wasn't what I was looking so I went for a greenback G12M instead. Definitely what I was looking for which is SWEET, now I know that if I want the sound I like, I just gotta get some greenbacks and not chase endlessly for a different amp, pickups, tubes, guitar, etc.
Glenn! With kyle bull recently showing that the 6505s and 5150s sound exactly the same. Id love to see the two of you get together for some mythbusting.
But GLENN! How am I going to raise my status if I don't get my luxury purchases validated??? WTF?
Re ; The cabinet question- Yes, solid pine cabinets are a thing and I really like them. Especially if you have to lug it around. I believe Mojotone makes a lightweight cabinet line that uses pine too.
Mojotone speakers are really, really good. I have a couple of the new Anthem speakers in my Fender amps that nail the old Oxford sound. Not really a metal thing though.
I still buy NOS tubes, but it’s not for the way they sound. Right now, they’re not that much more than new production tubes and they easily last 5 to 10 times longer(typically much, much longer).
+1 on the Mojotone speakers. Fantastic stuff!
I don't record....just a basic play at home player. While the delusional part of my brain still thinks my $2000aud Epiphone LP sounds better than my $500 Epi LP.....it simply has better play-ability with the neck and tuning stability out of the box. Which makes me play better & cleaner. The Fishman split coil/2 voicing Heafy set are a nice bonus. Focusing too much on what piece of gear you think will improve your tone takes away from actually playing your instrument. Of course,having a great speaker & mic is where the secret is at for recording. No argument here. Thank you for helping me personally focus on what I find most important.....just playing. Keep up the great work Glenn.
One of the biggest mistakes I ever made when I was 13-15years old letting myself collect and buy guitars and never upgrade my speaker or amp situation and then I wondered why my tone never changed for the better.
Glenn, this was a really good & informative show. Do a quick short when the contest starts running. Would like give it a go with one "brand" eco-system for the amps and drums, and only using Mixbus 7 with no additional plugs for the mix.
I'm still rocking my Digitech GSP 21 Legend.
I’ve spent a shit ton of money on expensive guitars, mainly Gibsons. I only did it cause I’m a Gibson fan boy. I’m not ashamed to admit it. While they all sound great, the best sounding pickups out of ALL my guitars are the ones in my Schecter Reaper 6 FR. They are as hot as ghost peppers and are actually the only set of pickups I’ve ever heard that sound amazing while coil-tapped! In my defense, I was working for guitar center when I bought most of my expensive shit at very deep discounts.
"Let's make some great music together" is a very wholesome note to end the video on! 🤘
Love what you do, Glenn! I'm old-old school. You and I share similar music history and auto factory history. Can you touch more on bass gear and speakers? All my gear is early mid 70s. Sunn Coliseum bass head and Sunn 4×15 cab. Cheers!
Honestly I love gear and the vibe of some of it but if anything the powerful thing that these tests are revealing is that the sound is really coming from the players and their ideas at that point in time, with all the sound engineers and everything else. It sounds so different because of the soul imparted by those involved in the musical creation. And let's not forget how the guitar tone is effected by the drum sound and vice versa for example. It's everything, and it's real practical and measurable stuff that goes into the mojo of a song. Disproving the voodoo is coming closer to the reality of tone, and the reality is far more powerful and in focus than any ideas about it will ever be. As long as you follow the gear and methods you are drawn to the rest will fill in itself because of everyone's collaboration on the record and your unique tone will find itself through the creative process
Johan Segeborn's amp demos are awesome. I love it when he finds these hidden gems like old Peaveys and show you how good they sound plugged strait in, no effects.
Glenn trying to help people of all budgets to succeed in home recording and be a smart buyer.
The internet: WRONG!!!! YOU ARE WRONG!!! MY LUXURY GEAR IS THE ONLY RIGHT OPTION!!!!!!!!!!!! (someone needs Validation i see)
3:50 glenn firing shots at the entire prog genre, couldn't agree moar
I would love to see Dweezil on the show. He has some amazing stories.
Tone wood in speaker cabinets... One of the music stores I did electronic repairs in had a luthier that was a real monster at his craft, and he got sold sold these 4x12 cabs made of mahogany. He asked me if I could check them out. We were both working late hanging out that night, and we drug them in from his van as he starts waxing reluctance over what he spent on these cabinets, and claiming that he liked the way they sound except certain chords he'd hit caused a high pitched percussive sound that hurt his ears. He asked me if I thought it could be the mahogany causing it, because they had his favorite speakers that never caused this. So I listened as he hit a few chug, chunk, & wank chords and I walked over behind the counter and pulled out a pair of claves and said, "It sounds like this, doesn't it!" while clanking them together. He does this Three Stooges Curly floor drop, flailing in total OMFG mode as we both laughed our asses off at this "lights back on" moment! And then he was just heart broken! He told me he couldn't dump them off on someone else, knowing that. I LOVE when I find someone else with a fucking conscience! (Why I Love This Channel!)
I think he told me later that someone approached him saying they loved his sound and he offered to sell the cabs. I don't know how long the honeymoon lasted. At first you love the sound, and you just think damn! That sounds so fucking load! But then that sound is just always there like Chinese water torture or eating the same cereal every morning, until one day you just can't fucking take it anymore!
Another plus 1 on getting Dweezil on the show.
I've shown your 5150 cabinet video to a friend of mine who just got one - might get him to try swapping the speakers in as close to real time as possible and maybe recording it.
I can vouch for the benefit of mixing speakers in same cab. I just did some recordings and did an a/b between Jensen Falcon and Celestion G12-75 .... MASSIVE difference. But ... overall I'm very ubsatisfied with my results using a SM57 and various cabs and guitars .. cannot figure it out !
The 75s are horrible. Try the EVH or some Hesu Demons
Hey Glen. As entertaining as it is too see these keyboard experts argue about high-gain guitar tone. It would be nice to see some content, tips on recording clean/low gain guitars. Yes, this is metal but a lot of metal songs do have clean guitar tone parts not played on acoustic. Any eq/effect considerations especially blending them with high-gain guitars? There's plenty of videos on recording pop/folk/funk clean guitar, but not metal. From a literate bassist turned music producer in Saskatchewan.
Glenn, have you ever used a Lafayette Solid State amp? Loved mine back when i played, but it might have had something to do with the repair / upgrade of the toasted 8" speaker with a Radio Shack full range. It just has so much more everything (even from before the orig speaker was toast)
I think it would also be cool to see your take on the old aluminum basket peavey scorpions and black widows.They were completely field rebuildable.
Someone tried to call me a pickup shill because I said that pickups do make a difference. It's true that the more gain you use, the smaller that difference makes, but I am far from a pickup shill. I think I've bought 2 pickups in the past 20 years, and the reason I bought those pickups was for one thing. Output. I had one guitar that was quieter than the rest of my guitars, so I swapped it out with a higher output pickup, and now I don't have to mess with volume levels on stage in the middle of a show. It's like anything else in guitar sound. Identify the problem, and then find the proper solution. for that particular problem, the solution was a new pickup. If you're looking for big changes in tone, speakers might be a better choice, depending on the changes needed.
Cab m and a few pedals....I can get from jazz to thrash and everything in-between. Thanks for the encouragement/constant reminders to not fall under the marketing spells.
*Speaker swap question:* I mainly use my Kemper for recording but every now and again I like to mic up a real amp. I’ve had a Peavey 6505+ 112 and a Line 6 Spider Valve 112 for ages, but neither really cuts the mustard tone-wise. Although the 6505 is clearly the better amp, the L6 has a much nicer speaker (the 6505 had a 12” 8-ohm Sheffield speaker and the Line 6 has a 12” 8-ohm Celestion Vintage 30 speaker). As the two speakers are identical in size and resistance, would it work (safely!) if I take the V30 out of the L6 and drop it into the 6505 to replace the Shitfield?
If only, players listened to people who record for living. Every take is benefited by suggestions by these people who listen for living. Thank you Glenn.
I think the reason why people don’t like what Glenn says is they only view him as a producer, not a musician as well. There are countless stories of people shit talking producers (many times rightfully so) and the producers input. People assume he’s just there to record you and take your money.
@@withinthrall1445 I agree. People who do the recording are often forgotten. They are the sound, more often than not.
As Glenn said, he teaches people how to play. It is a brutal truth.
The cabinet material is another hot spot for some people. I can attest firsthand to what Glen said about the bedliner plastic coating some higher end PA speakers have. Its the shiznit for many reasons. Particle board/mdf is heavy and relatively week. I still believe the engineered birch plywood panels are the best all around material for cabs. When it's coated with the bedliner plastic treatment it's acoustic properties are still much tighter sounding than mdf, plastic covered or not. Saving money doesn't mean you have to settle for plastic or mdf cabs. Yamaha has a new factory in India where they're building some damn good active PA speakers for a decent price. The DHR15's I grabbed from Sweetwater when they first came out are excellent for the money.
12:30 pine works. All that birch is russia china. What kinda density you want? Multi density fiberboard has all kinds densitys white oak and red oak ply are hard and heavy very dense but expensive..ive used pine 3/4 and double walled it to 1.5" when you knock your knucles on that double wall you dont hear no inside hollow echo
I still think about piano lows frequently.
Good to hear ANYTHING about DZ! Thanks for the update… was kind of getting worried about him 😜🍷
Yo Glenn! Please forgive the profile name buuuuut! I'd love to see what you think of the Warehouse Guitar Speakers products.
My personal favourite is their Veteran 30, (a V30 replacement that truly fills a few gaps in tone for me,) I also loved pairing them with their ET-65 speakers, and having enjoyed G12-65's from Celestion, these thumpy, syrupy beasts sound absolutely unreal together in an X pattern, truly hit that "woody" tone your Blackbacks achieve with more wattage.
I put a used Laney VH100R ($650CAD at that time and even cheaper now,) through them in an Avatar cab, (another affordable option you should check in to, I think they'll get you stoked,) and played an EMG82, (used as well,) loaded $350 Ibanez RG-350 and the tone was ridiculous! I'd be happy to send you the old band's recordings so you can check it out.
I personally love the used market, and the VH100R is what the new Laney Foundry amp pedal sounds like essentially, kind of the Ironheart's daddy.
Speakers were definitely the BIGGEST shift in my tone and the Warehouse Guitar Speakers stuff really upscaled things for me and basically pulled me away from your beloved Celestion V30's, which were my only speaker for years beforehand.
WGS is dirt Dirt DIRT cheap at $95-$110USD a pop, and when they started I got my first quad of cones at $50USD a piece ':{0. Definitely worth your time and their cult following would LOVE to hear what you have to say about their work!
Thanks for waving the "buy smarter not snobbier" flag, you're a gift my dude!
Good thing im just a Bass player . Right through the Amp. No effects LOL . Thanks Glenn
5:12 fuck yeah get Dweezil on the show! Having a Bad Day was released on my 13th birthday, and "Let's Talk About It" was a fucking jam. Tbh, I was a fan of Dweezil before I was Frank. In my defense, rare is the 13 year old that can dig Frank Zappa, so Dweezil was kinda my gateway drug lol. But yeah, would love to see a sit down with him 🤘
That first guy really said that Glenn, the guy that says you to buy Valveking instead of Soldano, not change expensive Amp, use Harley Benton Guitar and Cabs are....pushing us to buy expensive gear???? WTF!
This channel is the paradise of cheap gear for home studio.
Love the content As a audio and video production student I have used your videos as framework for my own recordings
Such as vocal layering
(for drums and vocals)
Reverb
Eq
Im not top tier but at least your helping me learn my craft❤❤❤
The Tonex pedal is by far the single best purchase I've made. Recommending it and your videos to everyone who asks.
Why ToneX.. now you have it what so you thing, does it have any feel. That's the test ?
@@guthhalf5484 Price point is fantastic. You essentially have every amp and cab sim at your fingertips. Our favorite part tho: No more lugging around heavy amps to shows.
glad you acknowledge cheap gears don't mean cheap.
Can you do an episode using cheap Chinese amp sim pedals?
- Mooer GE150
- Sonicake Matribox
- Valeton GP100
- Nux MG300
All about $150 ish.
Something that's nice about buying new speakers is its really easy to try before you buy with impulse responses, hell Celestion sell impulse responses of most of their speakers for like 20 bucks, and even have versions of them in different cab sizes, one of the few other things Jim Lill found actually has an affect on the tone.
edit: just got to the bit where you also mentioned Jim Lill with the cab shame/size :D
Shape ;)
I feel there should be a review of the Celestion G12-65. It hardly ever gets mentioned for rock and metal but it was a rather important part of Hetfield's signal path for Ride the Lightning. BTW - the official Celestion IR sounds excellent. The "Thin" file options double tracked sound absolutely massive (proper double tracking to get the little differences. Not that lazy cut and paste crap that doesn't work like playing again).
The 100 is a good speaker as well. I had a RG 80 112SC that had the 100 in it. Great speaker.
Glenn & Jim Lil in a collab video would be hella hecking metal
Thank you for being honest.
Dude thanks. This channel is super helpful.
Hey Glenn, tried triple tracking with one down the middle at lower volume. Thanks for the tip.
I love the round table. You guys got me to invest in corning 703.
Question about pickups though, if you already have a good amp and good speaker cabinet and are only chasing slight tone changes is it worth it to change pickups or are you better off running into an eq pedal before the amp?
A- Oh yeah, you can definitely hear that quilted maple neck with rosewood fretboard. Anyway, my signal chain is Gibson Custom Shop 1963 SG Custom plug with Vovox sonorus protect A350 into Keeley Compressor Plus, Wampler Ego Compressor Pedal, MXR Timmy, Electro-Harmonix Nano Big Muff, Boss EQ-200, Walrus Audio Lillian, into EVH 5150III Iconic with Walrus Audio Iron Horse, MXR M109S Six Band EQ Pedal, Strymon BigSky and TC Electronic Flashback 2 in FX-loop, into Mesa Rectifier 4x12 Cab.
B- What's the speaker in your cab?
A- Who cares??
I love this show! These poor people looking for validation haven’t realised that the best kit for a home recording is usually the kit you have -look after it and learn to use it! As far as the armchair experts go… funny story - I had an online discussion with someone claiming to be a recording expert… who claimed that the recording heads actually moved the particles around - inside the tape…? He couldn’t understand the physics behind how you improve a brand new tape’s frequency response by erasing it a few times to orient the magnetic field of the tape to give a more uniform response… and minimise dropouts!
It's funny that Jim Marshall had no idea what he was doing in creating his cabs. He was just trying to put 4 12" speakers in a box that was small enough but still fit. Those cabs are still some of the greatest cabs ever built.
Maybe it’s just me but my 1x12 Peavy cab has a Celestion Greenback and I can hear a slight difference between guitars with different pickups and also when I change them in a guitar. Slight difference but yeah I believe a good speaker is most important
Here's an experiment: if anyone is unsure as to how important the speaker is for electric guitar tone, I humbly suggest unplugging the speaker cabinet and listening for a change...just for a baseline reference...seriously, though, as a guy who mostly plays acoustic instruments, your description of cabinet geometry and construction is an awful lot like the way we discuss body-size, bracing, tone-woods, and the like in the acoustic guitar world...hmm...almost as if the big box generating the sound somehow influences the tone...
Hi Glenn, I was wondering does the magnet of either the pick up or speaker make any difference? Alnico vs Ceramic for example.
Hey, I loved your video on pickups. I'm currently in the process of swapping all of my name brand pickups with $20 ones.
Have you thought of doing a video on comparing cheap pots with upgraded pots (electronics) ?
Thanks again, keep fighting the good fight!
Yes, please have Dweezil on the show! I don't necessarily love all of his music, but his knowledge of gear and history is phenomenal.
I find with pickups the difference is there, emg vs emg x (the x series has a different preamp with more headroom so they tend to sound more clear especially chords), emg vs seymour Duncan distortions (the duncans have less low end and more output making then seem more present), stock ibanez pickups tend to be muddy in extended range instruments, etc. This can mostly be corrected with eq, compression, or even pickup height adjustments. Nothing as extreme as a speaker swap(i agree btw 90% of the sound is the speaker), but they're all small pieces of a bigger picture and sometimes the missing piece is the small piece.
Lol, I watch your videos and laugh dude. Most of my guitar purchases are because they look cool and bragging rights. My favorite guitar though is my last guitar... bought a used beat up black evh 5150 with an ebony fretboard. Stuck some red and old beat up looking steal trem pieces on it with a beat up steel (I think they call it aged silver), then stuck a piece of red duck tape on it. Stuck some retro chrome fender knobs on it.
And the big thing, was swapped out the really good EVH pickups with some Seymour Duncan Nazguls... why? Cause I thought they would look cool (they happen to sound great lol).
Why is it my favorite? I've thought about it, I think it comes down to it has a kill switch and looks metal af.
3d printed some red back covers.... it's siiiiiiick!!!!
Has nothing to do with the way it sounds lol.
i have 2 2x12 combos wired together. i want 4 different used speakers for options! as long as all same wattage n ohms it should work?🤔🍻
Any time I have guitars that sound different through the same amp, it's still always variations on a theme, and tbh it probably has more to do with the output and active vs passive. Whenever I do have a passive guitar with pickup issues, I generally have two go-to combinations. Seymour Duncan, and Guitar Fetish/GFS. I'm epsecially fond of Guitar Fetish pickups with Seymour Duncan Active Blackouts prempas. Anything under 10 or 11k output or so will always work well with an active preamp if you want more output and less background noise on already solid pickups. As Glenn always says, get whatever works that you can afford. GFS pickups run for $25-40 apiece, and the Blackouts preamp costs $80.
Speaking of pickup output. Is there good way to make guitar output level consistent, except for changing every guitar pickup to the same model or manually adjusting to a level meter? Using a compressor/limiter?
I have chasing guitar tone my entire life. Own a PRS, yes the $4000 dollar model, Mesa Boogie heads and never thought about replacing the fucking speakers. Got a hold of the new cheap marshal cab, $334.69 and will be replacing the speakers next week with the speakers that Glenn is calling out. I will keep you posted if I find Valhalla.