Just a little diddy

[Heady Jam Fan]

Here ya'll go!

Finally made a recent - and, IMO, somewhat decent - recording. At least sound wise, I think the quality is pretty good considering it was just me in my bedroom with an interface into Garageband. Opened up a drum track and synced my El Cap to the beat. Has a kinda prog-rock thing going and was definitely inspired by the El Cap as I don't usually go all out with delay, but I do like Floyd and it has a less trippy, more modern kinda Floyd meet Phish flavor, especially the bass. The bass is actually going though my Ross clone into the Mesa, I usually do bass direct in, so it was cool that (imo) it sounds pretty good.

Also, this was a single take once I get all the equipment set, so the lead is just rambling mixolydian, gets a little more melodic when the second lead comes in if you have the patients.

http://soundcloud.com/jweingarden/lil-friday-night-jam-single

PS - I ran the El Cap through the loop on my mixer (rather than amp) so I could run it in stereo and was having some odd things - it wanted to only send the dry on one side, etc, so I set it to effect only and mixed in dry separately, but you can hear the repeats favor one side for whatever reason...

[Heady Jam Fan]

Oh yea, and all through the second lead, you can hear me holding a note that slid into the upper octave harmonic - notes last for dayz!!

The only post processing was a small amount of reverb on the entire song, a small amount of compression, and when the lead starts I double the rhythm, hard pan it and detune the right side 5cents, which gives space for the lead in the center. Oh yea, and when the second lead comes in I panned the first one (holding a harmonic) to the left.

[Happyorange27]

Totally awesome and tasty. I figured you would have good tone but you have amazing tone. My ears got hard.

[Heady Jam Fan]

haha, thanks man, that means so much to me! On TGP I called it a muse bouche, the lead was not mature at all, but give the flavor I have in mind. All I hope is someone with more knowledge than me has an ear for where this could go.

I think of this as more of an etude to the style, I feel like I hit some of the things I have been working toward.

I need to do this again soon, especially when my stings aren't 3 months old.

[raisingfreen]

All I hope is someone with more knowledge than me has an ear for where this could go.

Nice job. Good rhythm, good use of delay. Don't let your subconscious fool you. It has a memory that runs deep.

Ride Captain Heady Ride...!!!

[Heady Jam Fan]

Lol, thanks man - I think I fell asleep with this clip on repeat last night, I don't know if I can listen to it for a few days, but hopefully I will add a few more parts.

[MomaDan]

Nice track. Sustain for days

[Heady Jam Fan]

Thanks man, I can only imagine what the other tenants in my house were thinking when I was holding that note for like a minute, lol.

[Magilla]

Great job dude, very smooth!

[Heady Jam Fan]

Thanks man!

[ShockedAndPersuaded]

First things first Heady. Feckin GREAT tone man! Definitely a little jealous. Dig the playing too dude. Love it. Now for some tech talk.    I have a Mk III blue stripe as well that has been modded to what's known as a III+. Basically it's supposed to be more akin to a IIC+. Although all the IIC+ snobs will disagree with this mod bringing the III anywhere near a IIC+ I feel it helps a few lacking areas of the III. But that's a totally different discussion all together. My questions for you are these. How do you keep the lead channel from "mushing" out when using the T'S-9's with it? I always get this overly compressed nasty shit going on if I set the gain on the TS's. If I set my clean tone to where it sounds full without being tubby or flubby the lead channel sounds too thin. On the GEQ I've tried to crank the 750 slider like Red does but it sounds over eq'd.  Fake. Unnatural. On my amp if I set the lead gain at 3 it's too heavy or too saturated to even need the TS's. I've tried a lower gain tube in V3 but it starts to take away from the fullness. I'm on the Boogie Board as well and I have a thread going there on this topic. I'm Direwolf. Most of those guys are metal players so I don't get much love from them.     Thanks in advance for any help. 

[Heady Jam Fan]

Thanks man! Really means a lot to me!

I have heard about those mods, I have heard that the later model MKIII's are actually closer to MKII's, which is a funny thing, though the Red guy uses a Red Stripe (which is what mine is), but who knows what changes his techs or Mike B. has done to it over the years. I was thinking about sending my amp in for a 'check up' though everything seems to work correctly, although my reverb is very dark (I think some of the tanks were foam insulated and the foam falls apart and dampens the reverb), which I don't mind and I think a couple preamp tubes are a bit microphonic (not too bad though). In my current settings, I don't use the R2 channel - I don't need it for jam/phish tones, but for classic rock it is really nice, so I think if I do send it back, I would want to R2 mods as well.

I actually find the lead channel to be more lively or aggressive with more gain dialed in, while it has more of a dark, fusion thing going on when I set it clean. I like both and the cleaner setting is really nice for clean leads, but the more distorted setting (still only mild drive as my input volume is low) is better for more of a rock tone. I have seen pics of Trey keeping it cleaner and dirtier. I also don't think he always uses it for leads, sometimes he leaves it on the R1 channel, which has a livelier, less compressed, thick thing going on.

As for the tubes, I am using 12AX7's all around and EL34's in the power section because I like the midrange and compression. Trey uses 2 6L6's I believe (I have only seen one or two pics of the back of his amp). I like the articulation of 6L6's, but not enough to just use those (ie, pulling the EL34's and using the 'simul-class' setting), because I find there is too much volume change going from clean to mean using my volume knob along with a TS>Comp. I also can't use the typical simul-class (2 EL34's and 2 6L6's) without worrying about my speaker since i am only using a 50w speaker (Eminence Red Fang). The Simul-class setting is loud, but in my jam-band practice yesterday, I had to crank the MV to 6-7 in the 'class-a' setting, so I might get a 100w speaker like the WGS Blackhawk or a Weber Blue Dog (the EVM12L is great, but too smokey, not enough presence and way more bass than I need, its also relatively quiet compared Celestion Blue/Gold, Emi Red Fang, etc).

Yea, I have gone on the Boogie board a few times (grailtone or whatever) and I didn't find it too helpful. I was talking with a TGPer on the long Trey thread about using an MKIII for Trey's tone. Surprised more people don't use these amps!

Looking at pics of what the Red guy does on the GEQ, it is a subtle inverted V. Here are some pics of my amp/settings:



Input volume 4
Treble 4, pulled
Bass 0
Mid 5 (sometimes 4)
Master 3-7, pulled
Lead drive 5 (my earlier, clean, setting was 2-3)
Lead master varies depending on the master volume - always have to check it after changing your MV
Presence 3 (sometimes lower)
GEQ set to auto (turns on when I switch to the lead channel)