The Children Of Bodom Gear Thread

[NewHewkas]

but they produce the original ones too and it's the same-as i know- with the same quality. Both are german steel.

 

[T3h_Killjoy]

I'd rather buy a gotoh floyd tbh.

 

[NewHewkas]

You mean red blood rr24?

 

[NewHewkas]

By the way, what do you think is the headstock's back damaged or that's just the lights?

(Picture in the previous post.)

 

[Inceptionist]

You're looking to buy a used v-shape guitar, finding one without a scratch is gunna be very difficult. Don't worry about cosmetic damage, nobody but you will ever even know it's there, unless it's gigantic or something . It won't have any effect on the playability anyway which is what really matters. Just find out if it plays well still (floyd works well, main pieces still in contact, etc...)

 

[mrKRB64]

Trust me- no matter how much you try to take care of a RR- you will eventually let your guard down and chip it. So I wouldn't worry about a few dings as you'd end up making them yourself. I took a fairly large chunk out of the larger wing end just after a week of having it by putting it in the case and trying to close it when I was drunk. The wings are a lot longer then they may seem in pictures and so if your not used to them you forget where they are and hit them on things accidentally.

The RR24 is a very good guitar though- I personally don't like the painted neck and pickup but you can always fix it.

 

[gorhrut]

for anyone with a gp 1000, this could useful for modding or just good info to know. the part values are from my 87 transitional gp. i used the part names fromthe german schematic thats floating around for quick reference. this maps it out for u so even a simpleton like myself can see what everything is. there are some parts i dont understand cuz im no electrical engineering so any help would be great.

of course if u dont want to mod u could always pick up a gpsp from twcc.

 

[gorhrut]

i forgot to mention, caps are all labeled in microfarad unless otherwise noted and resistors are labeled in ohms.
this is a picture i pulled off of the web of an 88 version so some component values are likely to vary. most are the same tho.biggest differences are on c6, c8, c18, and c19. and of course the pcb by the tubes. funny thing is there are even differences between pics of 88 versions ive seen.

 

[Rune]

Hehe just mod away all you want, but I really don't think most of the guys here have no idea what to change to get an improved sound out of this. I and a few select others do. In fact if you were to install all the mods in the gpsp clone, it would be a bloody mess in there , and it could lead to overheating pretty fast. (why TWCC installed a ventilation fan).

 

[gorhrut]

haha, youre probably right as always rune. but its always a nice resource to have tucked away. btw, do u know the value of the larger cap on c6? what does your 88 have? i know some of the 88s still have the same 2.2 cap.

 

[Rune]

My 88 is racked at the moment, so I'd have to check up on that at a later time. But I can confirm that my 87' got a 2.2 cap at C6. Got pictures of all the parts on that one

All those resistors on the right side of the PCB is "voltage regulators" wouldn't change any of them at all, that is if I don't want to ruin my unit.

And those brown/orange round caps all over the board is kind of the only thing we didn't mod on the tonestack of the gpsp They could easily bring a better sound in my opinion, but none of the techs said anything about them. There is an old suggestion on Metaltronix.net that if you removed the two of them that is around the treble pot you'd get enhanced highs and sparkley fenderish clean tones as well as more treble overall. That is something we don't want for Bodom sound. On the other hand I think if you'd replace them by a larger value you could tame the trebleness even more. On the other hand, TWCC did the old C1 mod which tames it a little and some mod somewhere else (the only mod I really don't know what he did because it was his own intervention) to clean up the highs. Basically for the old Bodom sound you want to get rid of the harshness of the highs/treble and add a little low mid + a ton of gain on all stages. For modern Bodom you need more bass in the mix and a tad more distortion than the old.

 

[gorhrut]

wow, thanks rune. you really do know everything!

i know some 88s have a .1 cap on mids and .2 on bass. maybe thats where the added tones come from? and also my tech said a common mod with these is to increase tube plate resistance. gives more crunch/gain. its shown on the upper left of the german schematic.

also im sure the kt88s in the 2/90/2 help w/ low end.

 

[Rune]

Some of it yeah, and by mid and bass cap you're then refering to the closest caps to the pots with leads goint directly into it. Well all of those thing are directly tonestack modding. As far as I know there are just one tonestack mod (or two) of the main PCB of the gpsp. And that is if you don't include the 87/88 mod.
EDIT: the "bass & mid caps" are the 87/88 mod so there you go.

One plate mod is what we did in mod #4 at the gpsp. It adds volume and sustain and could be quite noisy. John Woodworm also did a mod to his original by rising the voltage by lowering one of the resistors. It allowed slightly more gain.

as a matter of fact the bass isn't that much enhanced by the kt88's (gets thighter and cleaner) and Bodom uses the precence a tad on the bright side since 2001, so the bass isn't comming from the power amp. And it really dosen't matter except from volume output. Rocktron velocity and sp-1000 could be almost as high volume, but if you turn them too high you get digital transistor clipping and crappy sound. The peak on those two units are about volume at 2 o clock. Bodom uses theirs at 1ish. And at 11-12ish for tube amps.

OH and I just studied the schematic gain, C6 is what gives output #1 less bass than output #2. Some people would like the same sound out of both outputs so it's probably a preferance mod done to demanding buyers/users.

 

[gorhrut]

ya. the mid and bass caps i was referring to are c18 and c19. in the87s they are .047 and .1. in 88s(supposedly voiced after marshall) they are .1 and .2. the stock marshall values are .022 and .022. this was a pretty innovative tone stack for lee jackson,gave a really different sound. they discuss it a bit in the premiere guitar interview with lee. and ya these are just tone stack mods.

and as an added note, i did the c1 mod on mine. world of difference. highs are much more crisp and not all wanky.

 

[Rune]

Yeah C1 modification is very crutial to cleaning up the harshness, but it doesn't do much when it comes to gain and distortion, for that you'll need some more mods. Lee Jackson installed one more mod to Bodom's unit back in 89, when all of them belonged to Stone. This mod is the latest mod that TWCC added to the GPSP clone and is very crucial to distortion. He must also have done something to the mids, we don't know exactly, but Alexi's finnish amp tech guided us with some mods that could do that and the mod he did in 2003 to Alexi and Roopes unit. It is fairly simple mods, but some of them go into the parts of the Lee Jackson that Lee Jackson himself don't recommend changing and also could be dangerous if there is still some voltage not completely drained.

C19 and C18 is the 87/88 mod on GPSP and therefore are switchable between those values, but you could play around with Mesa and ENGL values to give it a completely different sound.

Modding amps really isn't that hard. There are a lot of people out there with guidelines and different mod schematics for common mods.

 

[Rune]

Did some mic research tonight (can't get any really good tone out of my sm57 worth recording with my gpsp clone) and came across this discovery from all the old Bodom amp pics Ive got. Bodom used Sennheiser e609 mics from 1998-2004 it seems. That explains a lot. No wonder how they sounded better both in studio and live. Those mics are low, low mid and round top based, a lot smoother than sm57 and the complete opposite of i5 audix. So Bodom's "chrunch marshall" sound is intended for and they won't sound like the old days unless they change that again no matter what amp they use. Could always EQ all harshness away, but still won't be the same and they obviously don't like the "round/smooth" tone anymore.

edit: on the really early shows from 98 they used mics similar to sm58 vocal mic. Probably for small club gigs where they didn't have any better.

edit 2: the e609 must be the black edition, the silver one has more chrunch than the black.

 

[Norbix]

You're right, it's unfortunately an X series guitar http://www.jacksonguitars.com/features/coming-soon/

Basswood body and rosewood fingerboard is very disappointing. Oh well, at least it's something with decent specs on an RR for less than $1000.

 

[T3h_Killjoy]

What's wrong with basswood and rosewood? In a neck-thru guitar, neck wood influences the tone the most out of all woods. Also, rosewoods fretboard can be stained and voila, pitch-black like stained ebony Nothing wrong with X-series Jacksons, I'm just worried about overall quallity of the guitar.

 

[Norbix]

Every low end guitar I've played with basswood didn't sound good. I think there are different kinds of it, because there are some high end ibanez guitars that sound good with it. How is the weight of basswood? The alder rhoads has it perfect. Light, balanced, and feels durable all at the same time.

Rosewood for me is purely an aesthetic thing. A yellow/pink bevel rhoads can only have ebony... at least for me. I don't know anything about staining.

For some reason I feel like Jackson doesn't want to sell any real quality rhoads with 24 frets and cool specs because then they get them as custom shop orders.

 

[T3h_Killjoy]

Every low end guitar I've played with basswood didn't sound good. I think there are different kinds of it, because there are some high end ibanez guitars that sound good with it. How is the weight of basswood? The alder rhoads has it perfect. Light, balanced, and feels durable all at the same time.

Rosewood for me is purely an aesthetic thing. A yellow/pink bevel rhoads can only have ebony... at least for me. I don't know anything about staining.

For some reason I feel like Jackson doesn't want to sell any real quality rhoads with 24 frets and cool specs because then they get them as custom shop orders.

None two pieces of wood are the same. Ofcourse, on the cheaper guitars companies use cheaper wood, but with electric guitars one of the biggest factors to affect the sound is the pickup (and Ibanez is well known for uber crapy stockers). Like rg350 actually are pretty legit guitars if you change the pickups and change some parts of the floyd and set it up correctly.
Only problem I have with basswood is that it's quite easy to dent, so making pointy guitars out of basswood is kinda bad idea.
I still want Jackson to bring back RR24 - do it, bitches - just do it! Oh, please fabricate it in Mexico not in Indonesia.