Did I find my sound? - ...someone pinch me

[Mark DY]

I don't know if I'm just babbling here, but I have to tell someone and my wife (believe me) doesn't care (that's nice honey). My experience has been starting as a kid with a crappy DOD distortion pedal, then adding pedals (which adds noise), then later in life, rack mount units (which is less noisy, but sounds too "solid state"), then to Zoom, Boss, Korg all-in-one "FX" units. I've never been happy with the tone and sound until now - I seemed to have tripped over the perfect combination of amp, effects and guitar... and I can't stop playing. I mean, it's all I think about anymore, but this setup is incredible! Here it is:

Marshall 50 Watt 2205 (channel switcher w/verb)
Bogner 4x12 cab with 30 watt vintage celestions
Furman SPB-8 Pedal board
Morley Bad Horsey Wah / DOD delay / DOD chorus / DOD EQ
(all pedals - like I've come full circle!)
My trusty JEM 777DY

Notice something missing? No distortion pedal - I'm finally letting the amp do it's job, and it is tremendous, even at bedroom volume! One thing I also noticed - I have the 3 DOD pedals running through the FX loop in the amp and use the EQ pedal for my lead boost, as when run through the loop, it boosts the volume and tone huge without changing the beefy sound I get. The Horsey goes from guitar to amp, it doesn't like the loop. I've had this rig going for 2 months now, and I was afraid to jinx it by saying anything, but it is soooo consistent. Every time I plug in, it gets better - I haven't had a case of the "where'd my sound go?" in quite a while (excuse me while I get a tissue to wipe away the tears)... Okay, I'm back. You could hit me with a brick while I'm playing and I wouldn't notice. Once I get my George L cable shipment in, my wife will kill me, no, I mean, I can finalize the setup to eliminate all the noise I can. The amp hasn't had new tubes in quite a while (I got it used and it still has the 6550's in it), and I just can't bring myself to take it in and have it re-tubed, I'm afraid!!!!! *What's my point you say, well, I have none. Other than it took me over 20 years to figure out that less is more.

Sorry about this post - anyone else found this out?

Mark

[one less than none]

congratulations !!!!!!

a breakthrought always feels good ! (and i know what you mean about the wife thing - hahahahah)

I discovered that i like two amps at a time for crunch (Dual Recto and JmP-1 into El34)

[bob oakman]

You are a lucky man. I have come close to my “Shangri-La” of tone but never quite made it there. I can live with what I have, but am locked in a never ending search for something more.

[one less than none]

Quote: from bob oakman on 10:35 am on Oct. 4, 2001
You are a lucky man. I have come close to my “Shangri-La” of tone but never quite made it there. I can live with what I have, but am locked in a never ending search for something more.

i dont think any (or certainly many) of us every find the sound in our heads, but we luck we get closer all the time

[goldboy]

It happened to me recently too (a yr. ago actually!)....

I've come 'full circle' like you said...about 4-6 years ago, I had a stupid-rack..like EVERYTHING that you would consider top end (eventide, t.c. electronic, furman, et al.) and I couldn't dial in the tone that suited me...and then..i bought an extension cab for my DC-2 Boogie....and BAMMM!

you're so right...the littlest things made the tone I wanted come out...and I reverted back to the glory of pedals..albeit..they are all analog..I even found a way to minimize noise and keep my tone alive...I went months without talking to anyone..can't talk must play. *Its such a revelation that you gear whore yourself to death searching for that elusive tone that you want to hear..and then one day, a small change and bammm..you're there.

I agree with Bob though..the search never 'really' ends..you just get better at it!

[Mark DY]

Gear whore! *That's outstanding! That's exactly it, too. And while I'm still in elation-land over the current tone, it's not 100%, but it's 100% better than before! I brought my gear home from practice the other night, just so I could be close enough to sniff my rig. I will pet it, and love it, nurture it to new levels, and show my utmost devotion, and, oh, sorry.

I'm working daily to eliminate any hiss, hum or noise - hoping the George L's do the trick. Got rid of alot of it today by getting an unshielded speaker cable.

Gotta go... can't post, must play *:lame:

Mark

[7 Dying Trees]

Ho hum... Everyone has that holy grail of tone that they look for, and some days I am really happy, some days I am not, so I am extremely jealous! The only problem there is, is your tastes fluctuating faster than your wallet can keep up, which is probably why I'll have a hard time achieving nirvana!

[Mark DY]

I guess that's more to my point than anything. I've been waiting for that time I plug in and it's not there, and it's been consistently there. I've even dared it to sound crappy! It just gets better. It's very brown, and that's what I've aways wanted to acheive, but couldn't until have almost nothing but amp - and I think that's why this has occurred. Also that I think my playing has matured enough that I don't need a ton of pedal driven sustain, that will wipe out tone, but can still play whatever I want. Again, I think less is more. *

[7 Dying Trees]

Less is definetly more as far as I am concerned as well. I currently don't run any eq on my sound, and it's just preamp into amp head FX return. It took me a while to sever myself from the need to add effects to it, but now once I have done it I am happy I did. It's been sounding good lately, but has it's bad days, so you are a lucky man!

Tempting fate might not be the best thing to do! It might take you up on your challenge!