Tone help - Compressor/Chorus/Clean sound

[themetallikid]

Ok, so I've always struggled to get a good clean/chorus sound to cut through for Summer of 69.  I've used some 'gritty' presets that have a touch of breakup and don't sound quite right cause they aren't clean, and a few clean presets that just don't seem to hit the mark with the attack/sustain aspect.  

 

So during the prechorus I play a picking pattern around the Bm - A - D - G, and during the post chorus' I play the keyboard part where the D/A's have the picking pattern (keyboards).  We do the song maybe a touch dirtier than the original, but I still need something to cut through with these parts.  The gritty presets don't seem to have the clarity and the clean parts don't cut through.  

 

So I hear a tone like on Scorpions - No One Like You that clean picking part during the chorus and think something like that...maybe a touch more pick/note attack would work well.  I've tried a few chorus settings, but I can't seem to get a good balance/mix of the effect.  Maybe a parallel routing is preferred for this sound to blend dry/wet, instead of just the mix %?  

 

Compressor, I've been getting better at this effect, but still can't get something that gives me the sustain as well as the attack.  

[codamedia]

On 12/31/2019 at 2:17 PM, themetallikid said:

Ok, so I've always struggled to get a good clean/chorus sound to cut through for Summer of 69.  I've used some 'gritty' presets that have a touch of breakup and don't sound quite right cause they aren't clean, and a few clean presets that just don't seem to hit the mark with the attack/sustain aspect.

 

Bryan Adams "Summer of '69"? 

That's not clean! Just sayin'.... 

 

Bryan plays a VOX AC30... and it is breaking up, not heavily, but it is breaking up! 

Keith Scott is the lead player.... hard to say what he plays for amps on that song in the studio... live he played Marshalls and/or Hiwatts at that time but was not clean.

 

As for that arpeggio part with the keyboards... it's the same tone as the intro guitar chugs.

An AC30 turned up to get some edge. Attack it with a single coil guitar in the bridge position. Add some LA Studio Comp near the end of the chain. Sweeten to taste with reverb and a touch of delay. Even the keyboard tone in that part is not clean... it's a tone based on a sawtooth wave which has a natural "soft crunch" to it. 

 

IMO... Stay away from chorus.. it will muddy up the tone. If you really want to add something there make it really subtle. Try the "mod > legacy > dimension", set all SW switches to off, then blend it in accordingly. It provides more of a "studio quality" chorus than any of the stomp effects do.  

[codamedia]

On 12/31/2019 at 2:17 PM, themetallikid said:

Compressor, I've been getting better at this effect, but still can't get something that gives me the sustain as well as the attack.  

 

The LA Studio near the end of your chain is the trick. It smooths out the tones while leaving the attack in place. Once those peaks are smoothed out you can play a little more aggressive, and the sustain comes more naturally. 

 

When a "studio style" comp is placed toward the end of the chain, the effects and amps are open to the dynamics of your playing. You still get a refined tone, but very interactive and dynamic. Another option to the LA Studio is the 3 Band Comp... 

 

FWIW... I run the LA studio comp "always on" near the end... then only add a stomp comp near the beginning when I need that "pop / squish" effect. Some funk, some 80's pop, some 90's country, etc... 

[themetallikid]

1 hour ago, codamedia said:

 

Bryan Adams "Summer of '69"? 

That's not clean! Just sayin'.... 

 

Bryan plays a VOX AC30... and it is breaking up, not heavily, but it is breaking up! 

Keith Scott is the lead player.... hard to say what he plays for amps on that song in the studio... live he played Marshalls and/or Hiwatts at that time but was not clean.

 

As for that arpeggio part with the keyboards... it's the same tone as the intro guitar chugs.

An AC30 turned up to get some edge. Attack it with a single coil guitar in the bridge position. Add some LA Studio Comp near the end of the chain. Sweeten to taste with reverb and a touch of delay. Even the keyboard tone in that part is not clean... it's a tone based on a sawtooth wave which has a natural "soft crunch" to it. 

 

IMO... Stay away from chorus.. it will muddy up the tone. If you really want to add something there make it really subtle. Try the "mod > legacy > dimension", set all SW switches to off, then blend it in accordingly. It provides more of a "studio quality" chorus than any of the stomp effects do.  

I love the Dimension, its my go to chorus sound.  I usually turn SW1 on, turn the default SW4 off and set mix to 30% as a start, but maybe I am over doing it and its messing with the tone.  I have a 'gritty' core tone that I"ve been trying to use.  its more a clean/breakup sorta tone and at the core it sounds like its in the ballpark but when I try to polish it...I seem to drift further away rather than closer.  Probably my lacking compressor skills more than not.  

 

1 hour ago, codamedia said:

 

The LA Studio near the end of your chain is the trick. It smooths out the tones while leaving the attack in place. Once those peaks are smoothed out you can play a little more aggressive, and the sustain comes more naturally. 

 

When a "studio style" comp is placed toward the end of the chain, the effects and amps are open to the dynamics of your playing. You still get a refined tone, but very interactive and dynamic. Another option to the LA Studio is the 3 Band Comp... 

 

FWIW... I run the LA studio comp "always on" near the end... then only add a stomp comp near the beginning when I need that "pop / squish" effect. Some funk, some 80's pop, some 90's country, etc... 

Yeah I followed Sadites method with the LA Comp for awhile at my presets cause I liked how he stated that it glued it all together.  However at some point I sorta liked the 'raw' sound like a true 'live' rig...and removed it from my presets.  I'll try the LA Comp at the end of that preset to help smooth/retain what i'm looking for....your description makes sense with trying to achieve what I'm hearing.

 

I have a few presets where I have added the Kinky/Deluxe/Red comps before any drives to help give me that attack/snap on the input...I just need to spend some better time with the level parameter cause a few of them its driving the amp too hard and losing that gritty/breakup tone for picking.  Also with the Red comp, I noticed I like it better with mix to about 75%

[codamedia]

36 minutes ago, themetallikid said:

I have a few presets where I have added the Kinky/Deluxe/Red comps before any drives to help give me that attack/snap on the input..

 

FWIW... When I use a Stomp Comp I always put it after my drives. I don't like to put a comp between my guitar and my overdrives.. that's the most dynamic/soulful point of interaction. Placing it after the drives smooths the tone, but leaves the interaction in place - huge tonal palette. Placing it before the drives make the interaction less dynamic, almost "monotone" for lack of a better term :) 

 

That's just my approach, it's not meant to be a "right vs wrong" way of doing it :)  

 

[gunpointmetal]

1 minute ago, codamedia said:

 

FWIW... When I use a Stomp Comp I always put it after my drives. I don't like to put a comp between my guitar and my overdrives.. that's the most dynamic/soulful point of interaction. Placing it after the drives smooths the tone, but leaves the interaction in place - huge tonal palette. Placing it before the drives make the interaction less dynamic, almost "monotone" for lack of a better term :) 

 

That's just my approach, it's not meant to be a "right vs wrong" way of doing it :)  

Are you playing at band volumes with that chain? I too like a good comp after my drives sometimes when I'm recording, but every time I've tried to do it live it's either feedback city or I have to adjust the comp so low its pointless in the signal chain. 

[codamedia]

8 minutes ago, gunpointmetal said:

Are you playing at band volumes with that chain? I too like a good comp after my drives sometimes when I'm recording, but every time I've tried to do it live it's either feedback city or I have to adjust the comp so low its pointless in the signal chain. 

 

I only play at gig volume :) Not exactly true, but yes - the tones I am talking about are at gig volume. 

 

Don't underestimate the power of a "subtle" compression... you do not have to hear a compressor for it to be doing it's thing. When it's subtle you don't really hear it, you feel it... and that is what I am after. The feel will include a little "smoothing" and "sustain" without actually hearing any compression.

 

It should be worth noting... this works with the gain levels I use, which are not that high. If higher gain drives are used I suspect it could become very noisy and a bit of a mess. At that point, the only comp I would ever use is the Studio Comp at the end of the chain, never a stomp comp. 

[gunpointmetal]

15 minutes ago, codamedia said:

 

I only play at gig volume :) Not exactly true, but yes - the tones I am talking about are at gig volume. 

 

Don't underestimate the power of a "subtle" compression... you do not have to hear a compressor for it to be doing it's thing. When it's subtle you don't really hear it, you feel it... and that is what I am after. The feel will include a little "smoothing" and "sustain" without actually hearing any compression.

 

It should be worth noting... this works with the gain levels I use, which are not that high. If higher gain drives are used I suspect it could become very noisy and a bit of a mess. At that point, the only comp I would ever use is the Studio Comp at the end of the chain, never a stomp comp. 

I guess it's just the byproduct of the music I'm playing. Most stuff is too fast to make subtle sustain compression noticeable, and my gain tones are usually of the metallic variety, where compression is almost unnecessary anyways. 

[themetallikid]

52 minutes ago, codamedia said:

 

FWIW... When I use a Stomp Comp I always put it after my drives. I don't like to put a comp between my guitar and my overdrives.. that's the most dynamic/soulful point of interaction. Placing it after the drives smooths the tone, but leaves the interaction in place - huge tonal palette. Placing it before the drives make the interaction less dynamic, almost "monotone" for lack of a better term :) 

 

That's just my approach, it's not meant to be a "right vs wrong" way of doing it :)  

 

Yeah I know there never is a wrong/right approach to this stuff.  I was never a pedalboard guy so I have no 'real world' experience with analog signal chains.  What you describe here makes sense and I'll play around with movements.  I always put it first cause I figured you'd want the compressor to do its thing with the cleanest/direct input signal, but when I think of your approach/explanation I get how country guys get that little bit or dirt on the snaps they get.  That very well could just be the missing piece for me to dial in some of the things that are lacking something.  Thank you for that!

 

46 minutes ago, codamedia said:

 

I only play at gig volume :) Not exactly true, but yes - the tones I am talking about are at gig volume. 

 

Don't underestimate the power of a "subtle" compression... you do not have to hear a compressor for it to be doing it's thing. When it's subtle you don't really hear it, you feel it... and that is what I am after. The feel will include a little "smoothing" and "sustain" without actually hearing any compression.

 

It should be worth noting... this works with the gain levels I use, which are not that high. If higher gain drives are used I suspect it could become very noisy and a bit of a mess. At that point, the only comp I would ever use is the Studio Comp at the end of the chain, never a stomp comp. 

I agree with this approach, I really only have used comps for the sustain aspect and (recently) to get the country-ish snappy attack on the notes.  I've never liked a 'squished' sound.  

 

32 minutes ago, gunpointmetal said:

I guess it's just the byproduct of the music I'm playing. Most stuff is too fast to make subtle sustain compression noticeable, and my gain tones are usually of the metallic variety, where compression is almost unnecessary anyways. 

Same here, I'm usually more of a medium/higher gain player.  Only really use compression on clean/gritty/breakup type sounds.  My Boss GT units always had a nice compression preset that was labeled 'Sustain'.  I would add that to my cleans and sometimes my leads and didn't need to tweak much to get it to do what it should.  Just turn up the sustain parameter a few notches and you could hold a note forever.  

 

 

On a compressor note, there was a guy that did something on his AXE FX Ultra when I had mine where he used a compressor with some sort of extreme settings and it worked really well as a 'clean boost' for leads.  Better than the actual clean boost drive pedal.  Not sure on the attack/release/ratio type settings, but I just remember the output was +20db or something you could adjust to taste based upon how much you wanted.