Hello folks,
I've done some quick tests yesterday even if as always we didn't have enough time to mess up with gear..
We tried several high end pres on guitars : Purple Audio Biz, A-Designs RED, Great River ME500-NV.
We used a Mesa Dual Rectifier and my Peavey 5150. I brought in my Maxon OD-808 but we didn't have the time to use it unfortunately.
The best sounding pre on the guitars was hands down the Purple Biz. The Great River was cool but too smooth and dark for that kind of modern high gain sound (though we did not try the "impedance" switch, maybe this is the reason why it does not sound so good). The RED pre is a great pre for drums, bass etc but really didn't sound as good as the Purple on guitars.
The Biz have that crispy presence, roaring mids and big tight lows, it's really incredible !!
Here are the raw samples (SM57 tracked twice, one on each side, into the Purple Biz) :
Mesa
http://sylvain.raulin.free.fr/Greggratte/Mesa 57 Purple.wav
5150
http://sylvain.raulin.free.fr/Greggratte/Peavey 57 Purple.wav
The guitar was a Gibson Les Paul Studio from 1993, and the cab a Mesa standard 4x12'.
I think the Peavey sounds really cool, because we had some time to mess up with the knobs. The Mesa sounds a bit muddy because we had to go quick. I think the Mesa would benefit a lot from a Tubescreamer to tighten the low end.
Anyway the settings on the Peavey were :
Preamp gain : 4
Lows : 8
Mids : 1,5
Highs : 5
Poweramp gain : 4
Resonance : 7
Presence : 9,5
I've done some quick tests yesterday even if as always we didn't have enough time to mess up with gear..
We tried several high end pres on guitars : Purple Audio Biz, A-Designs RED, Great River ME500-NV.
We used a Mesa Dual Rectifier and my Peavey 5150. I brought in my Maxon OD-808 but we didn't have the time to use it unfortunately.
The best sounding pre on the guitars was hands down the Purple Biz. The Great River was cool but too smooth and dark for that kind of modern high gain sound (though we did not try the "impedance" switch, maybe this is the reason why it does not sound so good). The RED pre is a great pre for drums, bass etc but really didn't sound as good as the Purple on guitars.
The Biz have that crispy presence, roaring mids and big tight lows, it's really incredible !!
Here are the raw samples (SM57 tracked twice, one on each side, into the Purple Biz) :
Mesa
http://sylvain.raulin.free.fr/Greggratte/Mesa 57 Purple.wav
5150
http://sylvain.raulin.free.fr/Greggratte/Peavey 57 Purple.wav
The guitar was a Gibson Les Paul Studio from 1993, and the cab a Mesa standard 4x12'.
I think the Peavey sounds really cool, because we had some time to mess up with the knobs. The Mesa sounds a bit muddy because we had to go quick. I think the Mesa would benefit a lot from a Tubescreamer to tighten the low end.
Anyway the settings on the Peavey were :
Preamp gain : 4
Lows : 8
Mids : 1,5
Highs : 5
Poweramp gain : 4
Resonance : 7
Presence : 9,5