In search of the Holy Grail, Part VIII, Old School Metal

    As many of you know, i started playing guitar late in my twenties (29) and because of "Powerslave" of Iron Maiden.


    I am currently re-recording "Iron Man" for my students and will present this shortly. I am not a fan of fumbling around with hundreds of profiles. As much fun as this can be, too, it cost me a lot of time i need elsewhere. So i am happy with my relatively low number of 188 profiles.


    Nevertheless, maybe it is time for a change of mind again. Because i now know which two or three profiles fit my personal style best {vanWeelden Twinkleland, Laney Lionheart and
    a CarolAnn}     i am open to the idea of having more profiles in my KPA again. Now that i have mastered reamping (finally!) it is just by the turn of the knob that i can record and try almost limitless combinations ...

    Actually i am looking for those old school sounds like that of early Black Sabbath. In fact those modern hi-gain monsters are good (VHT Pitbull is one i like a lot) but do not sound
    appropriate here. I would appreciate any hints of what to download in this case, preferably non-commercial profiles. The Marshalls i have tried this far are surprisingly not perfect.
    Any ideas? Thanxxxx :thumbup:

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    I would suggest going for the modern metal profiles and turning down the gain until you like it. That really gets you very close to such old-school sounds. Dirk Goodings profiles are pretty great for such a project I´d say! If they don´t fit you then maybe the ones from fluff, KOSTEN or maybe some from Ola englund´s new pack.

    I like this approach ,thanks for the hint ( Laney 50 is one of my favoured , for Pablo Gilberto 8) sort of sounds )

    Quote from nakedzen

    Early Sabbath was a Dallas Rangemaster boosted Laney.


    So I'd try a Laney GH100L or GH50L profile and add a treble booster before the amp, and use the neck pickup, dial the bass and mids up and turn down the treble and presence.


    And tune to C#.

    1988 Branko Radulovic Hand Made Strat in Macedonia (SFRJ)

    2006 Steve Vai vwh moded with SS frets and Sustainac 2006 (Japan)

    2008 Fender YJM , moded (USA)

    2010 Tom Andersons Drop Top 2010 (made in California)

    2017 Charvel GG sig Caramelised Ash (USA)

    2022 Gibson ES 335 2011 Custom Shop Cherry of course ( Memphis)

    Okay, folks. That was a lot of information and very helpful. I have recorded now the first two minutes without the intro. Believe it or not, i have never actually played this song. Shame on me.
    I still have problems to imitate Tony Iommi. AFAIK he did not back in 1969 tune down to more than Eb. And i have read that - due to his accident - he played a set of 8ers!!!!
    Anyway, usually i play 10-52 but i have a new guitar which came with 9-46 and i just had to use my humbucker-only EVH bumblebee.


    So now it is recorded and reampable, do you have any suggestions for improving the tone or coming closer to the original one? thanx

    • left stereo is vanWeelden/ right stereo is a rivera profile

    Link to the song

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    I have recorded it again, now i am happy with the playing, please check it out, i am really eager to get as close to the original sound as possible.
    This version was made with a Friedman and a Fender and sounds too modern. I know that some of you are real pros when it comes to mixing.
    Gimme a clue, thanx, Geraldo



    Link to song





    cheers

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    With my vintage Hofner 175 and its original Hofner 511 humbuckers I just download the Laney GH100L Lead from the Rig Exchange, switch to bridge pickup with max. volume, on the Kemper I set Bass +5.0, Middle +2.6, Treble -1 and Presence -2 and I'm pretty much there. I tried with my Les Paul and the Burstbucker Pro PUs but their sound is to shiny, they are missing this vintage snot (german: nicht rotzig genug).

    Thank you very much. This was a precise info! I will try this Profile this evening. thx lightbox

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    And the winner is ... Laney. I followed your instructions and - wow! - i am almost there. Especially the hint to raise the bass was helpful.
    Still this metallic crunch no nowadays producer would tolerate is not there! A stomp? A bad stomp? How?
    But thanks this far to all of you.


    Here is the third and almost final version. Iron Man Mk III with two laney profiles from the RE

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    Thanx nakedzen. yes, i tried and failed. i know less than zero about treble boosters. is it correct that the KPA has only one treblebooster?
    what are the recommended settings? because ot-of-the-box-settings sound strange.
    this should be the last part of the whole thing, this metallic crunch on top of the laneys. thx

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    Hi Geraldo,


    try to add the following effects to the basic Laney GH 100L Lead profile from Thomas Kruck (haven't tried the latest GH 100L profiles posted yesterday):
    Stomp A: Graphic Equalizer with all frequencies set to -12dB apart from 640Hz which should be +12dB.
    Stomp B: Graphic Equalizer with all frequencies set to -12dB apart from 640Hz which should be +12dB.
    Stomp C: Gate 4:1 to fight the noise
    Reverb: Small Room, Mix 70%, Time 1.2ms


    This is one way to get closer, but all values have been set using my guitars. Yours might need different values.
    For learning purposes just use one Graphic EQ first and while playing notes you just turn the individual values up/down max, so you clearly hear the frequencies affected. There are many types of EQs, but my experience is that the Graphic EQ is best for those starting to closely listen and understand EQing. :)


    If you listen to the Iron Man you can easily hear that the frequency range of the guitar is pretty limited, not as heavy as telephone but you will notice that it goes the same direction. That's why I push the "telephone" frequency range and pull the other frequencies. As I mentioned before, the above settings work pretty well for me, but you might have to find your own.


    Also, if you listen to the original guitar once more, you also notice that it sounds like in a pretty small room. It's not completely dry. That's why I added a Small Room reverb, adjust to your taste.


    Hope that helps,
    Martin

    With a little help of my friends :thumbup: i got it. Concerning the fact that i have a HB only guitar from 2006 - am using a profiled laney from 2013 - using a backing track from some musician from the us who cut the backing track into pieces - and that i have different hands and ears - concerning all of this: it is incredible how close to the original i have come! :thumbup: thx again, folks
    Here is the fourth and FINAL mix.
    When i switch between the "original" (which somehow deleted the original guitar and thus changed the frequencies a bit) and my version, i sometimes doubt which is which.
    Anyway, this is up to you to decide. I quit now. I find the EQ in the KPA extremely difficult to understand and handle without a proper manual with examples ... ?(
    So i changed my approach and used the 4-band-eq of cubase. i pushed a region around 140Hz quite a bit, reduced 570Hz minus 6db, pushed 3500Hz
    with 11 db and 10K Hz plus 3 db (!!!). And the new profile of sirius helped a lot. this fresh profile of a laney 100 suites this style better. thumbs up to ru:sirius again!



    Enjoy!

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    Edited once, last by Geraldo7 ().

    Awww noo! You faded out in the solo! How could you! :thumbup:


    To be honest, it's not quite Iommi's tone. Very close, what it's missing seems to be some "polish" which I think comes from advanced recording techniques, rather than what you would be able to coax from the Kemper alone.


    Nevertheless, fits well with the song and the timing and playing was spot on. I'm sure it would sound great live.


    I think you face the same issues that I do with respect to recording. I can't figure out how to EQ and which frequencies to cut boost too.


    Some of us are just so focused on playing that damn guitar, we don't pick up the studio tricks used by some of our peers to make their recordings sound better in the mix. I'm clueless when everything I record sounds so gritty, as if it was recorded on a tape deck ?(


    Perhaps you should focus some additional attention on this area for a while. Your playing is good. Also, it shouldn't distract you from playing guitar, because you can study while at work ;)

    lightbox: i already have apologized in a PM, Martin. I am sorry for this, but i just cannot handle this strange EQ in the KPA properly. maybe i will try this with the EQ of cubase ...


    nightlight: thank you for listening that closely! i understand what you mean and you are touching a sore point there by saying that


    "I think you face the same issues that I do with respect to recording. I can't figure out how to EQ and which frequencies to cut boost too."


    sad, but true. but hey, but mixing is a profession and an art, which needs decades to learn properly, if you are not a natural genius. that being said, i – nevertheless –
    am happy with the sound now. toni used a set of 8ers and the guitar was a bit out of tune. i do not want to copy that! the second record of black sabbath was recorded
    in June 1970. I do not think that production techniques were very developed back then. while you are absolutely right in saying that mixing and mastering is essential: I
    think in htat case it is really only a matter of boosting and reducing     the correct frequencies. which we do not know a lot of. as you said, i will keep on learning by doing while
    on the way. still i concentrate on playing, teaching and recording and wife and family. there is not much time left for learning this. if i were to record seriously again, i would
    leave the mixing and mastering always to a pro. those guys are worth every penny.


    here is a link to an older thread of mine . the song there was a collaboration. the keyboarder had no access to the original waves. what he did was only adding a break here
    and there, two midi-guitar fills of two bars and the arpeggios of the keys. the result was my best work to date. enjoy it, if you want. sometimes it just needs a second pair of ears!




    cheers

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    okay, Martin. i have understood the graphic EQ! what was confusing me were the 12db. but that seems to be a standard value when you try to push or pull frequencies.
    okay, guys - here are three mixes. now everybody cann decide which way to mix the third take which hasn't been changed, but reamped instead.




    goodness, let's call it a day, until further notice. or do you want to reamp it?! :sleeping:

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.