Weber Blue Dog vs. Eminence Red Fang - Phishy speakers

[Heady Jam Fan]

First off - Ted Weber is an awesome guy! He sent me a 50 watt ceramic Blue Dog to test out and compare to my Eminence Red Fang and it just arrived earlier this week.

I finally got a chance to record this afternoon and I began with the Red Fang and tried to get a variety of sounds for the comparison. Then I plugged into the Blue Dog and went straight into recording the same tunes. The Blue Dog has been used, so it should be fully broken in, but this was also my first go-around with it, so I am really still getting use to it and looking forward to putting a few more hours on it in the next few days.

I used my custom guitar with Joe Barden's into my 1965 Fender Bassman (I set the amp as bright as possible and roll down my tone knob, gives me a ton of upper mids/presence). I used an MXL 2010 mic into Garageband.

The only effects used are listed in my signature except a small amount of software compression post-processing. The wet effects were all recorded effect only in stereo, so if y'all want, I can make another version 100% dry (though I kept the wet levels fairly low).

http://soundcloud.com/jweingarden/red-fang-vs-blue-dog

The clean tracks were recorded with my Retro-Sonic compressor on (which has quite a bit of attack on some tracks, sorry) - it is a pretty new pedal to me, so that is why it is on.

Clean Phish tunes have a TS9 Silver>Comp with my guitar volume rolled back a bit.

Overdriven Rhythm tracks are my amp's distortion, the one track with more picking has a compressor on to help those notes pop out, the other tracks (I believe they are all Hendrix tunes IIRC) are just guitar into amp.

The dirty leads are both TS9 Silvers>Comp>Fromel Shape.

All the tracks were recorded with single coils except the two lead tracks, it was the bridge humbucker. As far as the single coils settings, I switch between neck, neck-middle, middle, and middle-bridge.

The wet effects include stereo spread chorus on every track except Little Wing (which has Flange instead) from my Modfactor, 100% wet and a little reverb from my RV7. The lead tunes have a touch of delay from my Flashback with the Matt Beck echo toneprint.

[Happyorange27]

Sweet!  I liked A the most and it confirms what I predicted. I won't spoil it for everyone.

[Heady Jam Fan]

Lol - yea, I am still undecided. I also posted it on TGP and slowly getting responses. Its a tough comparison!

I figured this was a good forum for it as they are two great speaker options for getting the Trey tone.

[IamWILSON]

First off... YOU GOT SUCH AN AMAZING RADIO VOICE!!!!  You should totally be a radio dj!  

Immediately liked A better.  And I'm not gonna reveal which speaker it is, just so the others can do the blind test.  I wasn't surprised when I heard the results.  I just thought B was too bright sounding.  As far as the leads, they both sounded almost identical and both obviously take o/d great and produce the same tone.  Another thing I didn't like about B was it sounded very wet, when you were using alot of effects and not pushed to serious overdrive, which actually worked pretty well with the Hendrix stuff, but it just sounded too wet for my liking

I didn't listen to the whole thing, but listened to each the same parts of each A/B clip to make sure I hear the difference.  Also, I really dislike hearing space and quick speaking between between the parts so it was easier for me to set it at the beginning of an example and click on the next knowing it will start in the same spot by looking at the soundwave forms.  That way I hear the immediate change in tone.  I recommend this if for others here, if you want to  hear the immediate change in tone on an identical riff.  

[IamWILSON]

Man, when I started my long post, there were no replies yet!  Once again beat out by the happyorange!

[Heady Jam Fan]

First off... YOU GOT SUCH AN AMAZING RADIO VOICE!!!!  You should totally be a radio dj!  

Immediately liked A better.  And I'm not gonna reveal which speaker it is, just so the others can do the blind test.  I wasn't surprised when I heard the results.  I just thought B was too bright sounding.  As far as the leads, they both sounded almost identical and both obviously take o/d great and produce the same tone.  Another thing I didn't like about B was it sounded very wet, when you were using alot of effects and not pushed to serious overdrive, which actually worked pretty well with the Hendrix stuff, but it just sounded too wet for my liking

I didn't listen to the whole thing, but listened to each the same parts of each A/B clip to make sure I hear the difference.  Also, I really dislike hearing space and quick speaking between between the parts so it was easier for me to set it at the beginning of an example and click on the next knowing it will start in the same spot by looking at the soundwave forms.  That way I hear the immediate change in tone.  I recommend this if for others here, if you want to  hear the immediate change in tone on an identical riff.  

Nice review - funny how both of you started with almost identical replies!

It is possible there is slightly more wet effect on B as the knobs on my interface are very sensitive, but I tried to make them even. I think a few of the B tracks sound a little louder, which could be a difference in speaker efficiency.

I can make a version with no wet effects as they are on separate tracks in Garageband - if you think it would be helpful, I can put a 100% dry version up in about 10 minutes time.

Funny - I thought A sounded brighter! Both certainly have some complexity in the upper mids, I found A to be more clear and bell like if that makes sense, B was a little more edgy or something, which is also interesting and I often like that with an overdriven amp, but A might be better in that respect for spanky Trey-Rhythm, something like Run Like An Antelope.

I also have been doing what you are doing, clicking back and forth between A&B of each example. I tried to keep the pause between examples short (cropping the end of each example, which I accidently cut off some delay trails on the lead examples), but I also wanted it to be easy for listeners to follow and make sure they knew which speaker they were listening too.

Also - I almost forgot - I would love to do the radio thing! I have been told that a couple times before, sometimes I goof around with my girlfriend using the movie-guy voice when we are in the bedroom- "Cumming soon!" Lol. The funny part is, people really don't seem to like when I sing, maybe I need to do a jam band version of the spoken word hip-hop thing.?.

[IamWILSON]

Yeah, definitely do a complete dry recording for each!  That will tell you how the speaker really is reacting to amp and guitar.  But it is cool to hear the difference of how the speakers react to various effects, if only we could compare wet, with dry, and only one effect at a time, to really know how it is affected each time. 

Also, I was just listening w/ tiny MacBook Pro speakers, when I have time later, I might give a little more listening w/ headphones on!

[Heady Jam Fan]

I will put up a completely dry version in a couple minutes then!

You are right though, it does seem there is a higher ratio of wet on the B speaker. I was going to go through and manually even out all the levels etc, but I was way too lazy.

[Heady Jam Fan]

http://soundcloud.com/jweingarden/red-fang-vs-blue-dog-dry

100% dry version, argh, it's hard to listen to yourself play 100% dry sometimes, now I can really hear how rough around the edges I am ... oh well, this is how it sounded to me when I was recording.

[Happyorange27]

Man, when I started my long post, there were no replies yet!  Once again beat out by the happyorange!

Ha!

[IamWILSON]

Okay, so just listened to the dry recording along with headphones and had a different experience.  Not sure which I like better now.  I think B sounds better on Hendrix stuff and Knoffler stuff.  I like A better on most the rest, basically 50/50 split.  Both tones are good.  What I don't like?  After hearing that silver ts-9 so much, it really reminds me of the one thing I dislike about Trey's tone since he started using the AM silver.

[Heady Jam Fan]

Lol, your gonna get shunned from the forum! I really like the Silvers, but for stuff like the rendition of Dirt I played, I have trouble deciding which pickup settings I like. Sometimes I find the in-between settings not articulate enough, I think on this recording the neck pup isn't quite bright enough, but bridge is sometimes too thin. Occasionally I use the neck and bridge together, which makes for a decent blend. I am hoping to buy an Equator if I can sell my Les Paul, and maybe figure out which pup he uses for some of those tunes.

[IamWILSON]

Whatever is that little extra something that is more apparent in the silver ts-9 (don't totally know how to describe it, maybe that rounder kinda quality?) just sounds too digital or non-organic compared to that same kinda tone he achieved back in the 90's.  I

[Happyorange27]

Whatever is that little extra something that is more apparent in the silver ts-9 (don't totally know how to describe it, maybe that rounder kinda quality?) just sounds too digital or non-organic compared to that same kinda tone he achieved back in the 90's.  I

Wilson I think we share a brain. I'm agreeing with you all the way. I can only tolerate mine through my tube amp at reasonable gain levels. Play that pedal through anything solid state or a PA and you can toss it out the window. Daddy needs to try some new screamers. 

[Heady Jam Fan]

Lol, I have always been a fan of the silvers personally. I have considered trying a few other TS's, mostly OD9 Silver. I am interested in the VOP9 as well, but I think the voicing might not be right for Phish. It is interesting to hear you guys don't like it as much, I would be interested in hearing more about what you don't like with the Silvers and which TS you prefer.