Stacking OD's, trying to get Jesus Culture type tone?

[bbrunskill]

And also, when stacking drives, I like to think of one pedal as an amplike sound and one as a boost, I.E:

In my rig I use an old T-rex Alberta as a moderate overdrive, a kind of vox-y sound. Then in front of it I have a Barber LTD, which adds a little compression and tightness to the sound. I would get similar results tone wise from running a slightly dirty vox amp with the Barber infront of it.

With my current rig I can get really nice warm tone at a very low volume, which is perfect for church.

[willie]

here is a cheezy clip of 2 of my patches for Your Love Never Fails

no speakers mics or DAW or cool studio stuff
.... just two tracks in the loop machine in GR3

please forgive the white noise and sloppy playing

jesusculture.mp3

[Gaetano Paul]

WoW Willie,
The main rhythym part is right on, so is the melodic lead type part. Awesome! Good job!
I just got the VoX Big Ben OD pedal, This thing is killer and I am super excited to plug it in @Church this weekend. It is kind of hard to get an accuurate sound out of my home set up, which is either Garage band (latency city) or Line^ Spyder III 15, which is terrible for real OD type sounds.
The pedal sounds alot like the Fender deville I owned as a teenager.

Thanks for the help Willie

[willie]

G Paul
How did the Big Ben pedal do? I am going to fire up my modded tiny computer rig again next Sunday, after a bronchitis induced break from Worship.

here are some things I have seen regarding guitar tones:

I hear you about the line6 spyders. My teenager has one, as do one of the guys on our Worship Team. The guy that fills in for me if I'm out also has one.

They have a very thin brittle digital sound that is only multiplied with their chorus is on, and they get lost in the mix badly.

All of them seem to make a common mistake in EQing their amps (that I did too when I was younger).... they scoop all the mids out and crank the bass to 11 and push the highs up. My kids friends call it djent djent ....which is obviously a new word for I can palm mute and noodle but I have no tone bwahahaha. This was cool in the bedroom for riffing but will not work for worship. .... and makes the sound engineer want to throw his headphones.

what happens is ...the guitar loses any focus or voice that lives in the midrange frequency, and instead they have to crank up the stage volume to hear anything at all. The guitar sound smears all the other instrumentation and listener fatigue sets in before the set is halfway done.

I have found that by carefully tuning the midrange to a unique range (not un-like a voice) I get lower stage volume and the tone sits nicely in the mix warm and round with plenty of definition. By turning down the low end, the bass and drums lock together to occupy the the low end, and the bottom end breathes with tight bass even at lower SPLs

I have heard some guys get a great tone from line6 stuff. I have a friend with the bogner tube powered stuff and it sounds great.... but like everything they require tweaking a little.

I think the secret is to really listen to our sound with fresh ears, and compare it to the many awesome Worship guitar sounds that are out there.

.... remembering that the tone starts in our hands and our hearts, and the equipment should only enhance and amplify that.

[Gaetano Paul]

Hey guys!
The Big Ben was awesome. Really cool, sat well through the Peavey Classic 30. It is really transparent as far a preserveing the true tone coming though, also the gain knob really works, unlike some other pedals! LOL...... At 0 it is pretty much the exact tone and sound as with out it on, with unity gain found and the tone knob dialed in. The tone knob does not seem to do to much, but that is cool with me because I cant understand why we want to mess with them anyways. Arent we wanting the tone of guitar to come through? Dialing the gain up is cool as well, 4 is a nice light gain like a TIMMY AND SUCH, MAYBE A NICE OVERDRIVEN BLUES JUNIOR. RIGHT ON UP TO A 10, MAXED OUT ON THE GAIN FDRIVE IS ALMOST IDENTICAL TO MY OLD FENDER hot rod DELUXE MAXED OUt ( sorry just realised the caps lock was on) totally overdriven. Maybe even a good bit heavier. Very versitile pedal. WoW!

Still trying to figure this whole stacking the OD's thing????????? Dont get it?
Not sure if I should use the Big Ben as a High gain, or a low to medium. I was using it with a Wasabi Od and they did not stack well. The Wasabi is clearly not true bypass and has not stacked well with any pedal I have ever tried to match it with. I am thinking about getting the Dano cool cat Od to stack with it, those stack so sweet. Probably the Timmy clone.
Thanks for asking.
Yeah and man does this Spyder sound bas!!! lol, it sounds as if I can never get all the effects off =( Oh well its just for home and lessons..........

Thanks for asking brother.

[willie]

Hello again
Its been a while haha

I have a new take on getting the Jesus Culture tone
in disclosure I own Archangel Electronics (.com) and use our ap-1e preamp extensively

I start with a bone dry guitar straight into a hi-z input on a 24/96 edirol
and record the wav output..... and here it is all naked
http://archangeldirect.com/dry.mp3

I reamped that wav file out of a cheap lexicon omega usb interface turned way down (like 8:00)
into my Archangel AP-1i and into a parallel compressor and split into the front of my guitar amps just like my guitar.
here is the reamp with the dry wav file played through a blackstar HTsage60 and a Johnson Millennium
the original wav was then run through guitar rig3 on a vox ac30 and a compressor
http://archangeldirect.com/reamped.mp3

i dont normally record this way, but someone asked me about re-amping

so heres the original track
http://archangeldirect.com/jcylnf.mp3

and heres the full mix
I played and recorded every track and part and programmed the drums.
http://archangeldirect.com/ylnf.mp3

the drums are my dr-5 drum machine into Kontakt running Best Service Artist samples (Simon Phillips)

the bass is a cheap Stagg 5 string run through the AP-1e and direct in the 254/96

The Keys are a wurli sample into a chorus in Kontakt
The pads are a jupiterish basic one in atmosphere.

I record with Reaper DAW software and mostly their included plugs
except for altiverb and lexicon reverbs

The reamped track is mixed loud
but the lead track has a more authentic tone since it was recorded live instead of reamped.
The lead track is both amps boosted with an ap-1e into the front end through 60' of cable
....btw, the blackstar is miked with a e609 and the Johnson with an AKG large diaphram condenser.

there is a very low 3rd guitar part in the intro
I will share later

Hope you enjoy
willie

[IanMcIntosh]

I know this is mostly an old post... but just a quick FYI the entire Jesus Culture band (myself included) have email addresses posted on our website that we check. (At least I know Jeffrey, Brandon and myself do.) I know he would be happy to answer any questions. Our emails are [firstname] at jesusculture.com

Ian

[willie]

How very cool it is too see you hanging out Ian.
you made my morning.

[mozartgil]

It's not a tip from the JC tone but one tip I got from Timon Klein (yes, the Hillsong United guitarist) is to put compressor between the OD's and modulations (delays, reverbs...). Of course it depends of the settings you set at compressor but it sounds great!

That's it.

[Precise Praise]

I have a list of Jeffrey Kunde's and Chris Quilala's gear on my site www.precisepraise.com Just look to the menus on the right for all the links. I have many resources for the worship guitarist, one of which is a link to Jeffrey's blog about his gear. In it he says he does not stack overdrives.

A quick note about tone. As much as I enjoy knowing what other guitarists are using and attempting to emulate their tone, I find much of my tone coming from my technique when playing. How I play a string, how hard I press, what strings I'm muting, and many other small variables seem to have the greatest impact on tone. Since I've only been playing electric for a short time (a few years) my tone still has a long way to go to meet the standard I'm striving for, but I can tell a difference in my tone from one year to the next. It isn't so much the type of gear you have, as it is the practice you put into making your gear become a part of you. God bless and happy tone hunting