Gain question

[Soultorn]

Hello all. I'm posting this thread for a friend, basically. He asked me and I'm really not in the place to answer his question, so maybe you guys can.
He plays guitar, here is his rig

Randall RH100(or 1000, cant recall) head and cab
Gibson SG standard guitar
Boss metal zone

He plays alot of leads, and he keeps his gain turned all the way up. He's got some riffy, chorded parts as well. He is not happy with his setup and does not want to invest money in an entirely new rig. He complains of his leads sounding "thin", and a wall of gain comes from all his lead notes constantly, which is what I think he is referring to by "thin".
I recommended turning his gain down... this way it won't be so ear piercingly deafening (as is the case with the Boss pedal), but he complains of not having enough crunch with his lower chorded parts in that case.

Can anyone here make any recomendations that would make him happy?
Thanks in advance!

 

[carcharoth]

Ok... well i'm french so it's not easy to explain...
First I got to say you're right : turning the gain all the way up is not a really good thing...
I got a Boss Metal Zone, so there is my setup :
(imagine the buttons are from 0 to 10)
Amp : all balances to 5
Guitar : all turned up to 10
Pedal : High near 3
Low to 10
Mid Freq to 6
Middle to 6
Dist to 5 or 6 but not more (sometimes i put it to 4)
I use my Rhythm pickup even for leads.
-> the highs of the Metal zone are not very nice that's why i reduce them=>lead sound gets better with more mids and lots of low sounds because it makes my lead sound more "round"(sorry I literally translate it) and i can also play trash or deathmetal with this setup.

I hope its going to help you!!

 

[Sunbane]

Does he use the stomp box for leads only or for the rhythms as well? I'm thinking he should be able of getting a good rhythm sound out of the amp alone (depends a bit on what pickups he has in the guitar), so he could use the stomp box as a 'lead pedal' for eq'ing and/or boosting the signal.

 

[carcharoth]

I think it's not possible because the metal zone provides a very fat distosion so even if you turn it full down it will do a very "dirty" sound if added to the amp's distorsion (i already tried it). So you got to turn it off and play only the metal zone and you always got this gain problem.
But maybe i did not really understand.

 

[xenophobe]

Have him try a EQ pedal...

Having the gain maxed out is generally not a good thing.

 

[veil the sky]

in my opinion the boss metal zone just sounds like crap however you use it. much like any boss distortion stomp box to be honest.

i've honestly never used one i like the sound of. stick with amp distortion or try to find a pedal that will optimise the amp distortion by bossting the signal.

i use a zoom gfx8 which doesn't put all that much gain on a signal, but is so much beefier that the sound is tremendously more heavy than a stompbox or most other multi-fx, and i tried an absolute shedload of gear before i bought my current setup!

 

[MiniMurray]

I used a Boss OD-1 as a preamp to my carvin head cuz it needed more gain. What I did was max the gain on the head, then max the pedal volume too. Starting with the pedal gain at minimum, I'd turn it up til I heard the extra "noise" that happens when there is too much distortion. This will boost the signal like Veil was talking about and works great. Perhaps the Metal Zone will have too much gain to do this~ but definately check it out cuz it's a cheap way to get tone. I actually learned about this from Zakk's old setup =)

 

[Soultorn]

Well his amp dist. suck a fat one. But some great advice so far. Rythm pickup is a good idea, as well as an EQ pedal. Anyone here have any good suggestions for dist. pedals that sound good?

 

[Sunbane]

If he's using a Gibson Standard SG without any modifications, he might get a huge jump in gain by dropping in a bridge pickup replacement. The stock pickups in most Gibsons I've played were all much too tame.

 

[Darkenelf]

Originally posted by Soultorn
Well his amp dist. suck a fat one. But some great advice so far. Rythm pickup is a good idea, as well as an EQ pedal. Anyone here have any good suggestions for dist. pedals that sound good?

I think dod and korg pedals sounds good.

having myself:
korg ax300 (multi-effect pedal)
boss metal zone (distortion pedal)
xxl distortion pedal (only use it for doom metal)

 

[Cainite]

Originally posted by xenophobe
Have him try a EQ pedal...

Having the gain maxed out is generally not a good thing.

get a bass eq pedal, the boss ones have a wider range than the guitar ones hehe

 

[Soultorn]

Well... we got the problem solved. The amp distortion didn't sound to bad... except for the fact that it didn't have enought bite to it..... but and eq pedal fixed that problem.
Moral of the story being:
Boss Metal Zone is cream of the crap.

Thanks for all your help!

 

[xenophobe]

Yeah, I knew the EQ would probably do it.

Boss Metal Zone sounds like shit on good amps, but good on shit amps... it's kinda perplexing really.

 

[Soultorn]

haha.. ill never forget the "Metal Monster" distortion pedal I bought that cost me close to $200 dollars. A living example of why they shouldnt put tubes in pedals, lol.
it crapped out in the first week.