Am i the only one who sets his 6505 like this? Am i crazy?
- Thread starter TBDMbro604
- Start date
Mago
Austrian Blech Machine
^ He must mean when he plays through a 6505 w/o EMGs then it's way too loose. That's the only way that statement makes any sense
I give up. I mean, this is the same guy who said a Diezel VH4 was a fizzy, muddy mess, and that it's the worst amp he's ever plugged in to, because he tried it when he was 14 and apparently had infinite wisdom of setting up amps then
Tightness comes down to the hands that play, if you cant get it tight on a 5150 without an OD its your technique.
I like both with and without, and its nice to have the option, even blending when recording.
But never blame the gear at this level. The 5150 is tighter than most amps and dont need an OD in front but it takes one very well and its a different sound.
Tone is in the hands.
I like both with and without, and its nice to have the option, even blending when recording.
But never blame the gear at this level. The 5150 is tighter than most amps and dont need an OD in front but it takes one very well and its a different sound.
Tone is in the hands.
Skinny Viking
¯\(°_o)/¯ How do Lydian?
there's NO way that statement makes sense
How you said it is also how I read it ... fact is, I can get a tight, responsive attack and sound from a 6505 with my jackson which has passive SD pups ... its all in knowing how to set it and a bit of what you're trying to achieve
TheWinterSnow
Den Mørke Natt
Personally I think just about every amp that isn't being played with an 81 is too muddy. An 81 on the Red Channel is pushing it, but is good for looser rock tones, but 99.9% of the time for me its 81 > SD-1 > 5150 Red, everything else is just too loose.
i just cannot get along with the red channel. it seems too harsh and fizzy and not enough oomph
and do you like your sd-1? i've been told it adds a lot of grittiness and the 6505 has a lot of that already so it might not be the best idea
Sweetnothing
¯\(º_o)/¯
I use one with my 6505, and yes, it's gritty, but not in a bad way. I also feel that it filters more low end but it's just a feel thing so I could be wrong.
TaylorG
Teh Groove Metuhl
I'm confused by the 6505 'loose' comments.
A Recto is loose. An old Bogner Uberschall was loose. An Orange Rockerverb is loose.
I can't think of how to make a 6505 loose unless you had the resonance and low end cranked, a shitty cab and sloppy playing..
It's not VHT tight, but loose?
Anyone explain that to me?
A Recto is loose. An old Bogner Uberschall was loose. An Orange Rockerverb is loose.
I can't think of how to make a 6505 loose unless you had the resonance and low end cranked, a shitty cab and sloppy playing..
It's not VHT tight, but loose?
Anyone explain that to me?
Sweetnothing
¯\(º_o)/¯
+1
Unless you're playing with dead, high strings and crazy sloppy right hand, I don't get it.
JakeAC5253
Frozen Sun Audio
- Nov 19, 2010
- 936
- 1
- 18
Well we must distinguish between loose and bassy. I personally never mentioned the word loose and I'm not defending my contributions or anyone elses', but I do think it's important to clarify. I think the 5150 is one of the tightest amps out there and if you can't get it to sound tight then there is something wrong with the amp/guitar or how you dial it. It's a great modern staple just like the SM57 in that regard, any flaws in sound are on you.
Two things:
A. The OP presented the fact that he is using the Rhythm channel on high gain rhythm tones, and this changes it quite a bit in my eyes. The Rhythm channel is much bassier/darker than the Lead channel and does borderline on being loose.
B. The 5150 is bassy, although that is not the same as being loose, it can still be an issue in and of itself. The best way to deal with bassiness is to cut the bass before the amp using an overdrive pedal because if you use the amps knobs to dial down the bassiness, you get a honky weird sound and an overpresence of mids.
While a good player will be more than capable of making the 5150 Lead channel respond in a tight way, using an OD will clean up unnecessary lows and make space for the bass guitar to be heard in a live context. My own shootout posted earlier in this thread displays just that. The F tone was 5150 Lead channel into a Mesa OS cabinet using an EMG 81 and no OD. The resulting tone was a bit bassy and a little darker and wasn't quite seated in the mix quite as nicely as the other OD tones, but it was certainly not loose and was still within the realm of being usable.
yea i have both the ts7 and sd-1, and the sd-1 pretty much blows on guitar. it is worth having around to dirty up some bass, though...
TaylorG
Teh Groove Metuhl
Loose means sag. I've owned three 5150's of different variations and none of them had enough sag to be considered 'loose'. Amps can be bassy and tight, for example a Diezel VH4, or an ENGL SE, or to a lesser extent a VHT Pitbull; with or without a boost.
The point being, if a 5150 has enough sag to be considered 'loose', I'd say it's not the amp.
TheWinterSnow
Den Mørke Natt
I personally beg to differ, been using the SD-1 for the entirely of my guitar playing 13 years now, the same SD-1, its beat up to shit but is still running like a champ. I can say I prefer it over the other OD variants. As always YMMV.
I only really bring it up because the Ibanez persuasion fanboys tend to slander the SD-1 even though its not any less quality in sound than the TS-7, TS-9 or 808, its just different.
As for the terminology loose, I have always looked at it, that when talking about OD pedals and not using them or using them and the amp being tight/loose and needing/not needing them, that loose and tight means how much of the lower fundamental frequencies is the preamp distorting. More low being clipped equals looser preamp. That means instead of getting a nice saturated, metallic percussive sound, it sounds like your strings are made out of rubber bands. Palm mutes don't stay saturated, there isn't enough of that fizz in the palm mutes to make it sound that the amp is being pushed over the edge even though the gain is relatively low and as a result has a cleaner articulate overall tone. Loose meaning, the extra low end flubbage that you hear when you go back and forth between turning the OD off and on. Of course some could say that an OD pedal would be too shrill and harsh, YMMV. Keep in mind that that just about every tight articulate metal band uses an OD in the studio, and if they don't in the palm mutes you notice that the distortion is kind of "sludgy" like every note is being smeared into the next one without a lot of clear intelligence of the articulation the player used when recording.
To the OP and anyone else, I say try out what I do every now and then. Sometimes when jamming I will turn my OD off and play like that for some time, and I will even go into the green channel and do the same thing. And I mean jam for a good 15-20 minutes with that setting. I will even mess with the settings on my amp like eq and gain to get less than metal sounds, more hardrock sounds, and get a feel how those setting change my playing depending on what genre I am in at that moment. It lets you get familiar with your amp, your guitar, your playing and a more personal level and can change the way you look at tone, even many years later when you keep doing the same thing, you might notice things you didn't the last time around you were fiddling around with sounds. Also record those sounds and listen to what they sound like in a mix. To many guitarist get focused on what their amps sounds like in the room, you have to learn to dial tones in by the context of which they will be used in. What you may like when jamming may completely sound horrid in context of live or recorded in the mix, hell you may find your sound harsh, obnoxious or getting buried in the mix any mix, like band rehearsals, live, and even the finished product of studio time. That can make expensive mistakes if you don't know how to objectively look at your tone for what you want to do because of subjective opinions that haven't been revised or honed in to the job at hand.
Similar threads
