Randall+Pantera?!?

[Chris Lucas]

Ok so I play drums, and record/mix all the songs for my band. Ive always had a problem with guitars because my Rythm player has a 5150II with an older carvin cab with (i think) G12's. It sounds nice, but my Lead player has a damned RANDALL WARHEAD that he got years ago as a first good amp because it said WARHEAD on it and it was LOUD and we were (more importantly) RETARTED. Plus dime supposedly used it.

Ive never heard of anyone so far using a warhead to track on any mainstream albums. The WARHEAD is hard to track and isnt chunky enough and is noisy and pushes through the mix in all the wrong ways. But he's conviced it sounds good, because Dime used it to record, but i fail to believe that...

What amp did dimebag REALLY use to record, and also what could i do to make his crap box sound as good as possible. What do you guys also think about the Carvin V3? Me and my bass + rhythm tried one out and they are amazing clean and chunktastic.

Check out our most recent recording for an example....
Listen to "Mind Funk" for the best idea of the guitar sound..
The Randall is on the left the 5150 is on the right...I tried to make them work but its hard...1st solo is randall, second solo is 5150

www.myspace.com/copperhead

Thanks a BUNCH in advance

 

[Sly]

Can't listen because I'm at work, but I'm interested in listening how the Warhead sounds in the recording.

I think this amp is special : you have to search a lot to get a satisfying tone out of it. I find the EQ sections to be cool since they give some real possiblities in shaping the tone.
If you don't work with the EQ a lot, you get a boring flat sound with no dynamics.
This amp is cool and has it own sound (thrash metal is what it is about !!) but can be very muddy in the low meds and way to agressive in the highs if you don't take care to the EQ.

I recently recorded a band with that amp (Warhead cab, Fredman technique), and here is the mix (with some overcompression on the masterbus, that I'll remove before to send it to the mastering guy of course) :
http://sylvain.raulin.free.fr/Kwato.mp3

 

[JeffTD]

Dimebag MAYBE used it on the new Damageplan.


Vogg used it on the new Decapitated, layered with a 2ch Triple Recto.

I'm curious as to how other people like the V3, as well. The Legacy is a great sounding lead for what it does, so I hope the V3 kicks ass, as well.

 

[smy1]

I can't listen to the clip right now, but why don't you just record everything with the 5150 if you hate the other thing?

 

[cobhc]

Because the other guitarist is in love with the Randall, at least that's what I got from the original post.

 

[cobhc]

And you could try letting the randall handle the lows and the highs, and the 5150 handle the mids, sort of how people seem to use a Recto/5150 combination.

 

[cobhc]

Ok so I play drums, and record/mix all the songs for my band (except for one time we went to a studio in hollywood, where we didnt end up likeing the end result). Ive always had a problem with guitars because my Rythm player has a 5150II with an older carvin cab with (i think) G12's. It sounds nice, but my Lead player has a damned RANDALL WARHEAD that he got years ago as a first good amp because it said WARHEAD on it and it was LOUD and we were (more importantly) RETARTED. Plus dime supposedly used it.

Ive never heard of anyone so far using a warhead to track on any mainstream albums. The WARHEAD is hard to track and isnt chunky enough and is noisy and pushes through the mix in all the wrong ways. But he's conviced it sounds good, because Dime used it to record, but i fail to believe that...

What amp did dimebag REALLY use to record, and also what could i do to make his crap box sound as good as possible. What do you guys also think about the Carvin V3? Me and my bass + rhythm tried one out and they are amazing clean and chunktastic.

Check out our most recent recording for an example....
Listen to "Mind Funk" for the best idea of the guitar sound..
The Randall is on the left the 5150 is on the right...I tried to make them work but its hard...1st solo is randall, second solo is 5150

www.myspace.com/copperhead

Thanks a BUNCH in advance

Man, remove that comp on the master, and upload another version for us. I can't really make an accurate verdict on the guitar tone when the drums and bass kick in, and the whole mix just farts out lol. Oh, and fucking nice breakdown, liking the bass and drum sound.

 

[broken81]

I had a Randall not a warhead but solid state, anyways i tried up and down to record it and get a good tone. I used to think the same thing aw man dime used it and he got a good tone I got a tube head shortly after and that Randall went up for sale so quick!!! I could put a Mic anywhere on the speaker with the tube amp and it would sound better than that Randall. There is people who can pull a usable sound out of solid state for sure but even dime finally went to tube amps and like i said i could not pull a tone i like for the life of me and i tried for like a month recording!!!!

Just my opinion and i would tell guitarist to put his Randall ego aside and use the 5150 also to track. Your life would be 10x easier mixing

 

[Radd]

Trying to hear through the crappy myspace player's quality, the warhead sounds really good to me. It overpowers the 5150 though. I wouldn't change the warhead's tone much, if at all, but work on the 5150's tone. I think it needs more mids and to be tighter and up in the mix a bit more to level out with the warhead. (a mesa cab with V30's would probably help alot )
If it still sounds to off after that, you might want to take 2 tracks of each amp (4 total) and instead of separating them L & R, combine them so both amps are in both channels with 2 of them panned differently from the other 2.

I like the song and singer but unlike cobhc, I think it would be much better without the funky breakdown. That part seems like it should be a separate song in itself. Just my personal opinion.

Cool band.

I've heard he used RG100 ES w/Bill lawrence pickups in the beginning, Century 200 somewheres along the line and a warhead later.

 

[metalkingdom]

Trying to sound like Dimebag is a lesson in futility. He coulda played thru a Gorilla and it woulda killed.

Step up and PRODUCE. If you're not diggin' the Randall let it be known - but do it in a tactful way.

 

[ArtGarceau]

I've heard stories of Dimebag being extremely picky when it came to tone and performance. He would spend hours on parts which would drive everyone in the studio nuts because each time it would be perfect.

I've also heard that he was the only guitar player that would record a perfect take and then say "Let me do that once more" and actually play it better than the first one.

I don't know how many times a guitar player has said that to me and then played a suck balls take.

 

[Kazrog]

I remember reading an interview with Dime where he said that they would record 3 tracks of rhythm guitar with the Warhead, one with the bass frequencies all the way up, one with the mids, and one with the highs, and then dial those tracks in accordingly.

Hope that helps. In Dime's case, the tone was in the hands though. Lay down the law and make them record with the 5150 if you can't make the Warhead sound decent.

 

[Chris Lucas]

Trying to sound like Dimebag is a lesson in futility. He coulda played thru a Gorilla and it woulda killed.

Step up and PRODUCE. If you're not diggin' the Randall let it be known - but do it in a tactful way.

I might be misreading this post, but i didn't mean to bash Dime in any way...
He's one of the best guitar players, ever...

Just bashing the Warhead a little lol...

Oh also let it be known that this was all done in my garage with a Digi 002, A Pre Sonus Digi Max 96khz and me (a 17 year old) mixing hahahaha.

 

[TheSweetener]

What's the difference between the X2 and the Warhead? Anyone knows?

I just played the X2 once and thought it was useless. Even the cheapo RH200 sounded much better.

 

[Where She Wept]

I know Dime used the Randall Century series at least up to Far Beyond Driven. I've heard alot of good recordings with them. J used them on White Zombie's Astro Creep 2000. Kirk Windstein from Crowbar, and John Perez form Solitude Aeturnus all have done some killer recordings with the Century series.