Sara! Need tone tips!

[Lord of Delusions]

Well, I cracked the spine on the new Maiden tab book, limbered the 'ol digits, played a song or two, and just can't quite dial in the legendary Maiden guitar tone. If I may pry a bit, what effects do you use, and how is your amp set? I figure its prolly not much more than a distortion pedal and maybe some chorus that are utilized. I realize that I don't have a fantabulous rig like yours, and there is a good chance that its a big part of the sound, but whatever pearls of wisdom you can throw my way would be much appreciated!

btw: I am running a Ibanez RG270, Digitech RP200 effects pedal, and a Fender Princeton 65w amp...

btw pt.2: When the hell are you guys coming back to Az??? I still get all amped up when I think waayyy back to when you first played the Tempe Music Fest ( I was the schmuck in the Maidens shirt that tried to hit you up for a free pic at the meet and greet )

 

[MiniMurray]

live i have my mesa rec on vintage and spongey- to utilize the natural tube sound. the gain is rolled up until it buzzes then backed off- usually ends up between 6 and 7. reverb and a volume boost is all i really use, with delay and phaser for a couple leads. i can get the same tone with my pod into my computer with a modern high gain/4x12 setting.

you use the fender clean right? and get the dirt from the digi? not sure about the distortion available on those, but digitech makes good stuff so it's probably got a decent modern high gain patch.
after that it's all in the eq and the ear. cuz every guitar/amp is different, i start with the knobs rolled down to zero then chunk the low e and turn it up the bass, then treble, till it peaks then roll back. the mid is tricky. lower settings sound thicker but don't cut thru and rolling it up gets too nasally sounding. maybe disable the eq on the digitech and try the amp one first cuz it's probably not bipassable and digital sounds kinda square. then add sum reverb and maybe a bit of compression for a more processed tone.

hahaha @ fantabulous!! i tried the rack but prefer knobs to menus. the less between your guitar/amp the better!

 

[Lord of Delusions]

Yeah, I am running the Fender on clean. The digitech is not a bad unit for the price, and pretty flexible for all the different sounds I want to pull from it. Sometimes the effects may tend to have a bit of digital harshness if you really pile them on, but otherwise they are pretty good. For my Maiden tone I had it on "stack", but I will try the rectifier and see what happens. On the clean side of the amp I have bass and treble only, so I start with those set around 4 or 5. It looks like I may have the distortion on the pedal set too high, around 8 or 9, so that will have to come down. The bass is around 7, mid at 4, and treble at 9. I had a little bit of chorus dialed in, so I may ditch that and try the delay. I don't have any compression running, and the reverb comes from the amp itself, which are good 'ole springs, and sound very nice to begin with.
This pedal has cabinet simulators, but I am guessing that they really only sound good if you go directly to a board or to recording equipment, cause they sound like crap running through an amp. Someday I will be able to own a half or full stack, but that won't happen till I no longer have neighbors directly on the other side of my living room wall! Again, I think that is a pretty important factor in the sound (especially for rock and metal) because of the power and volume levels that the music has. Its hard to copy that with one 12" speaker at low levels. I have played freinds stacks (Marshall, MB trip rec, Coustic), with minimal or no effects other than the natural distortion built in the head, and they sound 10 times better than what I have now. On the rare occasion that I do leave the apartment to play, I sound like shit cause everything is set to sound good at low levels.

Alrighty, I'm off to reprogram my pedal and give it a run. Thank you very much for the info!

 

[RoboCaster]

Two words: Digital effects tend to suck in that they are muddy, get the Boss Super Distortion or the Keeley Moded Boss SD1 and use it with a touch of reverb. Gives you that clean distortion or clean notes with some color, but don’t try to sound good with distortion, round off the notes with your fingering instead, then you will achieve the tone. I use 10 Gauge with the heavy bottoms and a 1.5 mm Gator grip with Red Dually pickups and sounds pretty good to me. The thicker the pick the easier to play and the better tone, with more distinct notes. That’s my 2 cents. Good luck.

 

[Lovethymaiden]

whoa, i just have an RP50 and a Ibanez 10 watt that came with my guitar...wow, i feel so usless, oh well, im a dead head, and my pride and joy is my Montana acoustic, so MWAHAHA yea, digital effects suck, my RP50 has the shittiest distortion ever

 

[RoboCaster]

Yea welcome to the world of seeking good tone, it seems to be difficult without some good help, but strive for good clean distortion; generally you can get that from a good analog stomp box. But just always apply this principal – ‘reduce noise’; whether, from you distortion or from your fingering. When you concentrate on dexterity and clean distortion you will be when you want. Yea the crunch channel with a bit of distortion from you pedal dialed into a good zone, the clean channel will rip your ears off.

 

[Lord of Delusions]

Unfortunatly at the moment I must do with what I have. True the digital effects are not as nice and clean as the analog, but as much as I like to screw around it would cost me a fortune to do so without digital magic. One of my favorite distortion stomp boxes that I wish I still had was a DOD Death Metal Bass. Wanna crush some skulls? This is the pedal. I have never had a sound like that since, especially when I played it through my buddy's bass amp. One person who I think has absolutly killer tone, is Dave Mustaine. There are some songs where it seems like he isn't just playing notes, he's restraining them untill he is ready and they come flying out. That may sound a little strange, but I am not sure how to really explain it...Its like milliseconds before the note, you can hear it building up.

 

[RoboCaster]

Yea I know what you mean. He’s a great guitar player, I had many favorite players over the years such as: Alex Lifeson, Billy Gibbons, Jimmy Page, James Young and Tommy, but now Dave Murry and Adrian Smith are at the top of my list, due to the fact that the other guys are good and all, but Maiden’s songs have more note picking and content and great rhythm underneath as well; just more content that keeps me more occupied and involved in playing, and the rhythm overlays the soloing nicely.