Masterly understatement. Once a player gets past the basic calisthenics of playing and can spare some brain power for tone, so much of the sound of the electric guitar is determined by the vol control.
People say no delay into distortion, but the man of tone himself, Eric Johnson, does it exactly like that. Echoplex into Tubedriver. It works. I’ve made it work. You have to: a: keep the repeats down to 3-4 and b: feather the output of the delay to find that perfect spot where if it’s too loud, the echoes run into each other and trip up and turn into a mess, but if it’s too low, you don’t hear anything at all. Eric makes it so that you don’t really hear the echoes while he’s playing, you only hear them after he stops a phrase. But if you listen carefully, you can hear a little “ba da da” after certain notes. It’s magic when you find that perfect spot…almost like a ducking delay. If you put the hours in and do it enough, it becomes second nature to get that output volume setting correct.
When I was in the studios all we had was Deluxes, Twins and 30s. There were no effects loops. All we had were Master Volumes and some ODs to keep it all down. No cranking in the studio. The most used and required pedals were Compressors and Limiters.
Sometimes it’s really fun and meaningful to hear you teach the things you’ve learned, in light of being familiar with your very early playing and rigs. It’s interesting to contemplate that journey. Sometimes I wish I’d have kept a journal of all the paradigm and gear shifts I made over 30 years of playing. It would be pretty crazy. That’s the part people don’t see, the hard-fought battle to arrive where you are.
And what a golden era we are in where people like you who had to figure out things in sort of a hard knocks way are gracious enough to share that wisdom with anyone who wants it
I’ve found that less is more. My pedal board is small, this comes more from years of not having money to get all the pedals/effects I want. I learned early that volume nobs can be magic. My favorite rig is a Pappas amp, which doesn’t have an effects loop to start with, but are beautiful amps. I throw a few pedals in front for expression not overall definition. Great videos!
Nice video and nice explanation. I run my delays, mods and reverbs in front of the amp and never had any issues. There’s a mix control in all the modern units nowadays. The catalinbread topanga reverb is designed to be in front of an amp for no effect loop vintage amp. Sounds awesome even with the bit commander engage. Sounds more “wrong” but closest to Jamie Hince from the Kills or even Jack White style. There’s no wrong or write option. Use your ears and fit the sound in your style and taste.
Man that reverb was barking in your first example! With the delay, when you turned down it didn't really affect the last couple of repeats, but it definitely toned down the first couple of repeats. Neat stuff, thanks Justin!
Here's my two pence from someone who's much more of an experimental player. Unless you're trying to do something really specific through the fx loop, it really doesn't matter all that much. I have 3 delay pedals on my board with a freeze & a phaser on my board, that all go in the front of my amp. I have my amp clean & use pedals if I want overdrive/distortion (Behringer EQ & a Boss OS-2). Loud delays are part of my playing, but you can just as easily... turn down the Level knob on your delay/reverb.
The reverb into the fuzz is such a cool sound, I really love the keeley loomer for those sounds (and you can get the regular fuzz into reverb with the push of a button!)
That was good enough with straight volume. You are making me hate reverb with these clips. Sounds soo good. True, everyone used to just be running volume open through amps with volume up. I find I tend to love my guitars on about 6-8 volume with overdrive unless of course its a Newer 90s+ metal tune.
Great video , very true the power of the volume knob or .volume pedal is very important. I used to run my volume knob all the way up on my guitar and was never satisfied with my tone .....rolling that knob openes up a whole new world of tones and responsiveness. I'm not a high gain person either, it always gets lost in the mix .
I love your tone and playing. Personally I go all out with effects in front and in the loop. However I do have a small board ready for live with some dirt, mod, and rev/del the wet fx can go loop or front with a simple cable change (need to have the extra cables in the bag though), depending on what's available/necessary. Cheers 😎
again such a musical approach to a technical issue - and this way makes the guitar sing and shine : dynamic playing. Lesson learned, thank you so much. I will try if that works on my modeller too...
Eminently sensible approach 😀I've pretty much always figured delays and reverb (in particular) should be felt but not heard. Of course you're after a sort of Edge thing using delay as an integral part of the actual part then fine. I'm mainly working in the studio and more often than not clean or light breakup so I tend to use my rack gear to record with (monitor only) and then adjust to mix. I love delays - started out with WEM Copycat & Roland Space Echo back in the '70s and mainly using TCE Alter Ego & Flashback these days but carefully . . . and if a full on 'lead break' is required then don't overdo it, no point getting muddy. Really enjoy your approach - cheers!
Thanks for the tip about the Memory Man. That overload is very sensitive, I’m having a hard time not having it react to the point that I just ignore it. I’m going to try putting it before my various drives like you mentioned.
It definitely helps, but then if you’re running high gain or distortion in those pedals after the DMM, you can have the same issue as a cranked amp where the mix level jumps way up. For me, delay’d tones just need to be cleaner anyway. The DMM always has to be finessed, but its thing is so cool, it’s worth it.
lol 😂 I was going to mention the Tweed Deluxe video when you mentioned it at the end. I have whittled down my pedals quite a bit since that post. You don’t need a lot to be in the pocket of a mix, and have impact. Guitar volume.
Great advice. Impedance matching, gain staging, and setting levels can be tricky, and there are no rules, except for the one where if it doesn't sound good it is bad. Quality of distortion is an interesting concept to me. Some clarity is necessary. Mush is not fun. I know what I play is supposed to sound like, but the listener should hear the best version possible. I'm still working on that. So less is more then. But I do like more. More energy.
Where the reverb also fails at higher gain is the Fender combos like my Vibrochamp new generation, which are tube but reverb is digital. It sounds bad from volume 5 onwards, just like a reverb pedal.
My personal choice is that anything like delay, reverb, chorus, flange, goes in the effect loop because I don't want to distort those. Everything else goes in front of the amp (whah, compressor, distortion, phaser, and even a whammy pedal). Just my choice, certain things I just don't think should be distorted.
Hey Justin. Agree 100% with the too distorted thing. It just squashes the piss out of a guitar's character. My clean guitar record: Steve Miller Book of Dreams. Loud CLEAN. Swingtown sounds so good. When it comes to FX loops, it definitely depends on the amp. The loop for a Bogner Ecstasy is way different from that of a Boogie, even though they both get their tone in the preamp (mostly). The Ecstasy loop sounds crisp and clear, and the Boog is mush. I do like to put a noise gate and low Z volume pedal in the loop, as long as the power amp has a fairly quiet idle. Keep it comin'!
I’m a bit confused. Backing off guitar volume might reduce the unwanted reverb or delay levels, but it also reduces the gain. If you’re someone who wants that high gain sound, I don’t see how that’s a solution.
All of my pedal settings are for going into a clean(ish) amp. This video is about how I can get away with cranking an amp and not needing to tweak anything on my pedalboard. In my line of work, the higher the gain, the drier the tone needs to be. Things start to get really soft and muddled feeling when you add delay and reverb to an already compressed, “blooming” attack.
As a guy that "plays songs in Nashville", I would think that you would record totally dry and let them add effects in the mix. For live, totally agree with the points in this vid. A nice two channel amp (edge of breakup and gainy) and a volume knob is pretty much all I need.
I do get that request sometimes. But in this town, the majority of producers/artists/writers prefer to have me dial everything in as I’m hearing it. I am still always making sure I don’t completely paint the mix engineer into a corner.
Dude - this is a bad ass guitar lesson…… thank you! In practical application in gigs; would I set the amp to have a little hair and work the volume knob all night and not worry about the delays and reverb settings so much……. I have always struggled without an effects loop…… amp gets too hairy and then it felt like my delays were worthless, but this fixes all that
The Strymon timeline has a ducking feature that sort of ducks the repeat behind the attack of the note in a nice way, and the UAD Starlight, my favorite just seems to have a great volume feature that melts into a mix, but most definitely just not using all that gain is the way to go. Compressing something that much is just not a pleasant sound, unless it’s a funk line or something
Man, love your channel. Thanks for the information you share. Question....what do you do as far as buffers with your pedal effects? Would be an interesting video. Thanks again man!! God bless!
I get it if you want to kinda make preamp EQ stacks do different things before they hit the power section of any decent amplifier, gain stage the front of an effects loop to gussy it up (which, ordinarily an EQ pedal can do just as well, graphic or parametric) but I've never otherwise understood gain stages in the effects loop. Preamp gain is already doing a specific thing to the power amp section from the input, and if you wanna tighten the response of that up, a gain stage in front to act as a hard limiter into the preamp always produces awesome results. This is a completely editorial opinion mind you lol
I don't need an FX loop, but the choice whether to use it is nice. Particularly with Tremolo, which to my novice ears sounds more authentic after gain, although the peaks pushing the front of an amp is also a cool sound.
@@JustinOstrander I'd love to be in position where a mic'ed up old fender was practical. Your, and other, youtube channel are a great reference for tones to work towards with the gear I've got.
Hey Justin! I really want to ask a pro like you, what is your opinion on guitar refinishes strictly sound wise? Of course I'd never refinish valuable vintage guitars, but I am wondering if all refinishing affects the tone of the guitar even if it is done well. Best regards!
My ‘55 Tele is a very old body only refin. IMO, that’s the best way to find them: they cost less but the neck is 100% original. Hate new finish on the neck. As far as refin tone is concerned, I just don’t know. There are great refin guitars (my Tele is one), and there are totally untouched original guitars that are just dead and lifeless. Lots of factors to consider, and I haven’t had a guitar pass through my hands before and after a refin
To my ears, it just sounds more muddled when you turn down ANY knob on a modern wired guitar. Without either 50's wiring or a treble bleed curcuit, you lose way to many high frequencies. There's just so many variables that can affect guitar tone, that every rig is gonna behave differently. I'd say the amps gain stages and how they're stacked is gonna have the biggest impact. Pedals aren't needed in many cases to get more than enough saturation and or natural compression. Time based FX should be at the very end of your pedal board. Can they be used otherwise, sure. But good luck getting any usable sounds without lots of trial and error.
Im very lost on your overall standing on a couple things. So you like running Reverb, and delays into the amp, but placement before or after OD/Boosts just depends I guess, and about experimenting, or do you almost always use them in front of the boost? Confused on that a bit, because you mentioned running a reverb in front of a fuzz, and how bad it usually is. Also, what about modulation, you always run in front of the amp also? Anything you ever prefer to run after the Boosts/OD, because from what I've always kind of heard, Modulation, Delay, reverb etc should normally be after the boost/OD. That said, you mentioned some pedals just can't handle the output of the OD/boost, so what about in cases where they can?
I always run my board into the front of every amp. Pedals are in the conventional order (fuzz, od/boost, modulation, delay, verb) UNLESS I have an older pedal that cannot handle high output from boost pedals. Then I move it. For example, my CE-1 is before my boosts on my big pedalboard (there’s a video about that board on my channel). This video is primarily about challenging the widely held notion that verb/delay/modulation into a CRANKED amp is always bad. It does create weird issues (delay mix jumps way up, verb and chorus sound clangy and metallic), but I get around this with the volume knob on my guitar. This works for me because I don’t like lots of effects on higher gain tones anyway. Hope that helps. I am prone to ramble in a kind of scattered way!
ISP Hum Xtractor + G is a good solution and I use it even with low gain because it filters single coil and pedal noise like a champ. It’s massive that little box !! My main amps a Wizard MTL and I’ve never seen anyone demo the clean channel. I basically live on that clean channel, it’s freaking amazing . I do love the lead channel too with moderate saturation and gain.
@@JustinOstrander He is a young guitar player that moved to Nashville just like you. He is playing in a band with a label deal and also playing other gigs to survive. His channel is growing rapidly. It would be cool if you could meet and hang. Maybe do a video together!
I know you are a busy guy but may I ask an unrelated question: You have said I think that you set your princeton volume at 3? Larry has said the same. My PR set at 3 is very anemic....you and Larrys tone is not anemic, what am I missing ?
Yes! I finally got the new monitors from my buddy Bobby Holland. They sound so good. Totally flat down to 25Hz. I can hear everything in a track so well. You’re not hearing them in this video though; you’re hearing a directly recorded feed from my interface
Respectfully Angus is playing through 1 68' 100w plexi plus 3 more modern 100plexi heads on his live stage. Biased incredibly hot. Play tour was 17 heads to rotate them cuz he's constantly blowing tubes. Marshall clean is its own animal. Angus's solos are clean but they still have natural martial crunch!
I’m talking very specifically about the Back In Black rhythm guitar tracks. But you’re right: Angus’s lead tone is cleaner than pretty much every guitar player I ever hear attempting to cover it as well.
Several people ive heard use an effects loop on high gain stuff, i knew a guy that used an alesis unit on a mark 4 fx loop and all the high gain tones peaked the alesis and introduced a messed up digital distortion. You can set it to sound ok on dirty but then u don’t hear it on the clean tones.
Can’t you just turn down the delay level and number of repeats to sit right where you want it? Delay/verb effect level really does need tweaking when amp level changes. Always.
A lot of players have presets that were dialed for running into an amp that is set cleaner, as a pedal platform. I tend to not use fx when playing into a cranked amp, but in the situations where I decide to crank the amp up, I can still use my presets and self-mix at the guitar’s volume knob. In this video, the mix levels of the delay and reverb are quite low; hitting a cranked amp creates compression which brings their levels up and makes them sound harsh. This video is all about how I get around that without needing an effects loop whenever I decide to crank up my amp.
I'm not much of a pedal guy but I have them so I'm not I want your pony. And you know better that delay isn't even dialed into you know yourself you have to tweak it
Most guitar players have zero Idea as to what a good sound is ..a blasting Mesa boogie amp .. driving the speakers ..they are usually bedroom guitar players...mega FX and feed back
There is another GREAT example of this at 7min 51sec of this video: ua-cam.com/video/v4_cR2TBK2Q/v-deo.html
Hey dude good points here you’ve made.
I’m not sure but it seems like the leads in Back In Black are gained up quite a bit.
@@axe2Mummyyep. I’m talking very specifically about the rhythm tracks which are SUPER clean.
Masterly understatement. Once a player gets past the basic calisthenics of playing and can spare some brain power for tone, so much of the sound of the electric guitar is determined by the vol control.
People say no delay into distortion, but the man of tone himself, Eric Johnson, does it exactly like that. Echoplex into Tubedriver. It works. I’ve made it work. You have to: a: keep the repeats down to 3-4 and b: feather the output of the delay to find that perfect spot where if it’s too loud, the echoes run into each other and trip up and turn into a mess, but if it’s too low, you don’t hear anything at all.
Eric makes it so that you don’t really hear the echoes while he’s playing, you only hear them after he stops a phrase. But if you listen carefully, you can hear a little “ba da da” after certain notes. It’s magic when you find that perfect spot…almost like a ducking delay. If you put the hours in and do it enough, it becomes second nature to get that output volume setting correct.
When I was in the studios all we had was Deluxes, Twins and 30s. There were no effects loops. All we had were Master Volumes
and some ODs to keep it all down. No cranking in the studio. The most used and required pedals were Compressors and Limiters.
Sometimes it’s really fun and meaningful to hear you teach the things you’ve learned, in light of being familiar with your very early playing and rigs. It’s interesting to contemplate that journey. Sometimes I wish I’d have kept a journal of all the paradigm and gear shifts I made over 30 years of playing. It would be pretty crazy. That’s the part people don’t see, the hard-fought battle to arrive where you are.
And what a golden era we are in where people like you who had to figure out things in sort of a hard knocks way are gracious enough to share that wisdom with anyone who wants it
Thank you Justin for your advice: Less Gain = Better Tone! Back in black is the benchmark tone for crunch rhythm!
So good to hear this viewpoint, as is it matches my taste and equipment.
I’ve found that less is more. My pedal board is small, this comes more from years of not having money to get all the pedals/effects I want. I learned early that volume nobs can be magic. My favorite rig is a Pappas amp, which doesn’t have an effects loop to start with, but are beautiful amps. I throw a few pedals in front for expression not overall definition. Great videos!
Nice video and nice explanation. I run my delays, mods and reverbs in front of the amp and never had any issues. There’s a mix control in all the modern units nowadays. The catalinbread topanga reverb is designed to be in front of an amp for no effect loop vintage amp. Sounds awesome even with the bit commander engage. Sounds more “wrong” but closest to Jamie Hince from the Kills or even Jack White style. There’s no wrong or write option. Use your ears and fit the sound in your style and taste.
Man that reverb was barking in your first example! With the delay, when you turned down it didn't really affect the last couple of repeats, but it definitely toned down the first couple of repeats. Neat stuff, thanks Justin!
So true. What l hear is the whole band, and that's what makes bit sound big. Not a bunch of unnecessary gain.
Here's my two pence from someone who's much more of an experimental player. Unless you're trying to do something really specific through the fx loop, it really doesn't matter all that much. I have 3 delay pedals on my board with a freeze & a phaser on my board, that all go in the front of my amp. I have my amp clean & use pedals if I want overdrive/distortion (Behringer EQ & a Boss OS-2). Loud delays are part of my playing, but you can just as easily... turn down the Level knob on your delay/reverb.
The reverb into the fuzz is such a cool sound, I really love the keeley loomer for those sounds (and you can get the regular fuzz into reverb with the push of a button!)
Right on Justin, your generation is much more “Goals focused” than my generation was, good on you !
That was good enough with straight volume. You are making me hate reverb with these clips. Sounds soo good.
True, everyone used to just be running volume open through amps with volume up.
I find I tend to love my guitars on about 6-8 volume with overdrive unless of course its a Newer 90s+ metal tune.
Great video , very true the power of the volume knob or .volume pedal is very important. I used to run my volume knob all the way up on my guitar and was never satisfied with my tone .....rolling that knob openes up a whole new world of tones and responsiveness. I'm not a high gain person either, it always gets lost in the mix .
Neil Young is definitely a great example of effects before amp working really well. So much character.
I love your tone and playing.
Personally I go all out with effects in front and in the loop. However I do have a small board ready for live with some dirt, mod, and rev/del the wet fx can go loop or front with a simple cable change (need to have the extra cables in the bag though), depending on what's available/necessary. Cheers 😎
Thanks Justin. Great tips as always!
again such a musical approach to a technical issue - and this way makes the guitar sing and shine : dynamic playing.
Lesson learned, thank you so much. I will try if that works on my modeller too...
Eminently sensible approach 😀I've pretty much always figured delays and reverb (in particular) should be felt but not heard. Of course you're after a sort of Edge thing using delay as an integral part of the actual part then fine. I'm mainly working in the studio and more often than not clean or light breakup so I tend to use my rack gear to record with (monitor only) and then adjust to mix. I love delays - started out with WEM Copycat & Roland Space Echo back in the '70s and mainly using TCE Alter Ego & Flashback these days but carefully . . . and if a full on 'lead break' is required then don't overdo it, no point getting muddy. Really enjoy your approach - cheers!
Thanks for the tip about the Memory Man. That overload is very sensitive, I’m having a hard time not having it react to the point that I just ignore it. I’m going to try putting it before my various drives like you mentioned.
It definitely helps, but then if you’re running high gain or distortion in those pedals after the DMM, you can have the same issue as a cranked amp where the mix level jumps way up. For me, delay’d tones just need to be cleaner anyway.
The DMM always has to be finessed, but its thing is so cool, it’s worth it.
Thanks!
I so enjoy listening to you and your insights. I’ll never be that good a player but it’s great to see humility and forthrightness. 🙂
lol 😂 I was going to mention the Tweed Deluxe video when you mentioned it at the end. I have whittled down my pedals quite a bit since that post. You don’t need a lot to be in the pocket of a mix, and have impact.
Guitar volume.
Great advice. Impedance matching, gain staging, and setting levels can be tricky, and there are no rules, except for the one where if it doesn't sound good it is bad. Quality of distortion is an interesting concept to me. Some clarity is necessary. Mush is not fun. I know what I play is supposed to sound like, but the listener should hear the best version possible. I'm still working on that. So less is more then. But I do like more. More energy.
Where the reverb also fails at higher gain is the Fender combos like my Vibrochamp new generation, which are tube but reverb is digital. It sounds bad from volume 5 onwards, just like a reverb pedal.
My personal choice is that anything like delay, reverb, chorus, flange, goes in the effect loop because I don't want to distort those. Everything else goes in front of the amp (whah, compressor, distortion, phaser, and even a whammy pedal). Just my choice, certain things I just don't think should be distorted.
I find that sometimes a high cut on the delay / reverb in front of an amp helps (obviously easier to do on a modeler than analog).
Man I just want a Sarge amp, sounds so good! Thanks for the lessons man, always great!👍🏾
Use it, Volume is your best friend. Dave
I can’t do that Daaaavvve.
Hey Justin. Agree 100% with the too distorted thing. It just squashes the piss out of a guitar's character.
My clean guitar record: Steve Miller Book of Dreams. Loud CLEAN. Swingtown sounds so good.
When it comes to FX loops, it definitely depends on the amp. The loop for a Bogner Ecstasy is way different from that of a Boogie, even though they both get their tone in the preamp (mostly). The Ecstasy loop sounds crisp and clear, and the Boog is mush.
I do like to put a noise gate and low Z volume pedal in the loop, as long as the power amp has a fairly quiet idle. Keep it comin'!
I’m a bit confused. Backing off guitar volume might reduce the unwanted reverb or delay levels, but it also reduces the gain. If you’re someone who wants that high gain sound, I don’t see how that’s a solution.
All of my pedal settings are for going into a clean(ish) amp. This video is about how I can get away with cranking an amp and not needing to tweak anything on my pedalboard.
In my line of work, the higher the gain, the drier the tone needs to be. Things start to get really soft and muddled feeling when you add delay and reverb to an already compressed, “blooming” attack.
Excellent stuff as always! Thank you!!!
Haha, i have misread that t-shirt text in some previous video too. I was thinking "Overdue sessions" can not be great slogan for a studio musician 😂
That B looks like an E - no lie. Overdue and under pressure.
As a guy that "plays songs in Nashville", I would think that you would record totally dry and let them add effects in the mix. For live, totally agree with the points in this vid. A nice two channel amp (edge of breakup and gainy) and a volume knob is pretty much all I need.
I do get that request sometimes. But in this town, the majority of producers/artists/writers prefer to have me dial everything in as I’m hearing it. I am still always making sure I don’t completely paint the mix engineer into a corner.
Dude - this is a bad ass guitar lesson…… thank you! In practical application in gigs; would I set the amp to have a little hair and work the volume knob all night and not worry about the delays and reverb settings so much……. I have always struggled without an effects loop…… amp gets too hairy and then it felt like my delays were worthless, but this fixes all that
Hey Justin , cool vid Greetings from Bavaria, Germany (Elektro Harmonx LPB2 - thats my Booster!)
The Strymon timeline has a ducking feature that sort of ducks the repeat behind the attack of the note in a nice way, and the UAD Starlight, my favorite just seems to have a great volume feature that melts into a mix, but most definitely just not using all that gain is the way to go. Compressing something that much is just not a pleasant sound, unless it’s a funk line or something
Man, love your channel. Thanks for the information you share. Question....what do you do as far as buffers with your pedal effects? Would be an interesting video. Thanks again man!! God bless!
Mr Eddie Van Halen did it quite well in the early days
I get it if you want to kinda make preamp EQ stacks do different things before they hit the power section of any decent amplifier, gain stage the front of an effects loop to gussy it up (which, ordinarily an EQ pedal can do just as well, graphic or parametric) but I've never otherwise understood gain stages in the effects loop. Preamp gain is already doing a specific thing to the power amp section from the input, and if you wanna tighten the response of that up, a gain stage in front to act as a hard limiter into the preamp always produces awesome results.
This is a completely editorial opinion mind you lol
I don't need an FX loop, but the choice whether to use it is nice. Particularly with Tremolo, which to my novice ears sounds more authentic after gain, although the peaks pushing the front of an amp is also a cool sound.
Agreed. Part of why I love old Fender combos.
@@JustinOstrander I'd love to be in position where a mic'ed up old fender was practical. Your, and other, youtube channel are a great reference for tones to work towards with the gear I've got.
@@StevenHadfieldWhere is a miced up Fender combo amp not appropriate?
What do you have against Shoegaze man? 😉
2 out of 1 million - So there’s a chance. Whooo
That there is a nice Custom.
Hey Justin! I really want to ask a pro like you, what is your opinion on guitar refinishes strictly sound wise? Of course I'd never refinish valuable vintage guitars, but I am wondering if all refinishing affects the tone of the guitar even if it is done well.
Best regards!
My ‘55 Tele is a very old body only refin. IMO, that’s the best way to find them: they cost less but the neck is 100% original. Hate new finish on the neck.
As far as refin tone is concerned, I just don’t know. There are great refin guitars (my Tele is one), and there are totally untouched original guitars that are just dead and lifeless. Lots of factors to consider, and I haven’t had a guitar pass through my hands before and after a refin
To my ears, it just sounds more muddled when you turn down ANY knob on a modern wired guitar. Without either 50's wiring or a treble bleed curcuit, you lose way to many high frequencies. There's just so many variables that can affect guitar tone, that every rig is gonna behave differently. I'd say the amps gain stages and how they're stacked is gonna have the biggest impact. Pedals aren't needed in many cases to get more than enough saturation and or natural compression. Time based FX should be at the very end of your pedal board. Can they be used otherwise, sure. But good luck getting any usable sounds without lots of trial and error.
What a fantastic video have a wonderful day Justin ❤❤❤❤❤😊😊😊😊
Yep!
Mutt Lange (AC/DC) was big on clean guitars. He used Rockmans for Def Leppard and no amps!
Legendary big ears
Thanks for sharing
Cool guitar.
Some amp FX loops suck. Some don't even have a loop. Use what you have and try to make it sound good.
Huzzah! 🎯
I Don’t use a bunch of effects on high gain tones….. shoegaze says, hold my beer 😂
Oooh did you get a new camera? Looks nice.
Same one I’ve had for the last year or so. Most of my older vids were shot on my iPad though.
But have you ever put a metalzone through the effects loop?
Im very lost on your overall standing on a couple things. So you like running Reverb, and delays into the amp, but placement before or after OD/Boosts just depends I guess, and about experimenting, or do you almost always use them in front of the boost? Confused on that a bit, because you mentioned running a reverb in front of a fuzz, and how bad it usually is. Also, what about modulation, you always run in front of the amp also? Anything you ever prefer to run after the Boosts/OD, because from what I've always kind of heard, Modulation, Delay, reverb etc should normally be after the boost/OD. That said, you mentioned some pedals just can't handle the output of the OD/boost, so what about in cases where they can?
I always run my board into the front of every amp. Pedals are in the conventional order (fuzz, od/boost, modulation, delay, verb) UNLESS I have an older pedal that cannot handle high output from boost pedals. Then I move it. For example, my CE-1 is before my boosts on my big pedalboard (there’s a video about that board on my channel).
This video is primarily about challenging the widely held notion that verb/delay/modulation into a CRANKED amp is always bad. It does create weird issues (delay mix jumps way up, verb and chorus sound clangy and metallic), but I get around this with the volume knob on my guitar. This works for me because I don’t like lots of effects on higher gain tones anyway.
Hope that helps. I am prone to ramble in a kind of scattered way!
What about parallel loops? I found this is the trick to not muddle the high gain stuff. Almost a wet dry set up
I have some friends who are begging me to build a w/d/w rig. I’m curious…
So many guitar players nowadays complaining about hiss and hum while having their gain dialled up WAAAAYYYYY too high... Turn it down!
ISP Hum Xtractor + G is a good solution and I use it even with low gain because it filters single coil and pedal noise like a champ.
It’s massive that little box !!
My main amps a Wizard MTL and I’ve never seen anyone demo the clean channel. I basically live on that clean channel, it’s freaking amazing .
I do love the lead channel too with moderate saturation and gain.
Justin: Have you met Tim Aven and have you checked out his YT channel?
Not familiar. Will check it out!
@@JustinOstrander He is a young guitar player that moved to Nashville just like you. He is playing in a band with a label deal and also playing other gigs to survive. His channel is growing rapidly. It would be cool if you could meet and hang. Maybe do a video together!
He plays for LANCO.
I know you are a busy guy but may I ask an unrelated question: You have said I think that you set your princeton volume at 3? Larry has said the same. My PR set at 3 is very anemic....you and Larrys tone is not anemic, what am I missing ?
Hmmm. I’m sticking to between 4 and 5 these days.
@@JustinOstrander Maybe you guys use some form of boost to get some good saturation ?
Mine doesn’t get saturated unless I crank it. At 4-5, it is on the edge of breakup, and I use pedals for more gain.
You got new speakers? They look real nice, same brand it looks like, a bit more bottom end to them maybe?
Yes! I finally got the new monitors from my buddy Bobby Holland. They sound so good. Totally flat down to 25Hz. I can hear everything in a track so well.
You’re not hearing them in this video though; you’re hearing a directly recorded feed from my interface
@@JustinOstrander Wow that's incredible specs considering they're not that big. Congrats on the upgrade, have fun with them.
Respectfully Angus is playing through 1 68' 100w plexi plus 3 more modern 100plexi heads on his live stage. Biased incredibly hot. Play tour was 17 heads to rotate them cuz he's constantly blowing tubes. Marshall clean is its own animal. Angus's solos are clean but they still have natural martial crunch!
I’m talking very specifically about the Back In Black rhythm guitar tracks. But you’re right: Angus’s lead tone is cleaner than pretty much every guitar player I ever hear attempting to cover it as well.
Yeah, he is right they are “cleaner” than you might guess, but you are right they are definitely not “clean”
I can never get the right sound out of pedals in the loop. Everything sounds better in front and dialed back.
I just want to know what the “for rent” box is…
Analog Outfitters Sarge. It’s the cranked amp you’re hearing in this video.
You’re hearing it in most of my videos, actually.
Pete Townshend sounds heavy with low gain sound.
Several people ive heard use an effects loop on high gain stuff, i knew a guy that used an alesis unit on a mark 4 fx loop and all the high gain tones peaked the alesis and introduced a messed up digital distortion. You can set it to sound ok on dirty but then u don’t hear it on the clean tones.
Can’t you just turn down the delay level and number of repeats to sit right where you want it? Delay/verb effect level really does need tweaking when amp level changes. Always.
A lot of players have presets that were dialed for running into an amp that is set cleaner, as a pedal platform. I tend to not use fx when playing into a cranked amp, but in the situations where I decide to crank the amp up, I can still use my presets and self-mix at the guitar’s volume knob. In this video, the mix levels of the delay and reverb are quite low; hitting a cranked amp creates compression which brings their levels up and makes them sound harsh. This video is all about how I get around that without needing an effects loop whenever I decide to crank up my amp.
I'm not much of a pedal guy but I have them so I'm not I want your pony.
And you know better that delay isn't even dialed into you know yourself you have to tweak it
To many cables.
Long story short, use your ears and adjust your playing.
Most guitar players have zero Idea as to what a good sound is ..a blasting Mesa boogie amp .. driving the speakers ..they are usually bedroom guitar players...mega FX and feed back