Making a bigger sound

[sonicdeviant]

May 14, 2017 19:36:42 GMT -5 mirth said:

I never really got into kings x ..i have heard them a bit, but nothing ever stuck with me. Any suggestions for what you're talking about Shane?

Definitely agree that Sco seems to hold his own with sax...he has quite the sound. Though most of the guys he plays with are play pretty "nice", even Lovano, despite his huge harmonic vocabulary is somewhat a quiet player compared to Brecker, Trans, etc...the dude i play with has that huge tenor sound, even compared to most tenor players. So not sure if Sco would be as even sounding then or not? (Probably would since he's just an insanely awesome player)

Just check out Gretchen Goes to Nebraska. So good. Lots of mids. And I think Sco has such a great sound through that ProCo Rat next to Lovano. Not sure what he's using for amps but he has a very horn-like sound.

Fall On Me - Kings X

[asb]

King's X - the first four records:

Fender Elite strat (special active electronics) into a Gibson L5 Lab amplifier with various stompboxes. What a sound. But, Ty found it was a very odd almost uncontrollable sound - it didn't always get that sound and after the first four he moved to Mesa Rectifiers for "Dogman" and Egnater amps (for subsequent records which had a special Ty tabor preamp that was supposed to emulate the Elite strat/L5 sound - it didn't do as good a job as I'd hope it would and Ty later moved onto other amps).

Ty also endorsed a boatload of guitars after the Elite Strat: signature models from both Zion and Yamaha (and Yamaha had two different Ty signature models that were totally different guitars), of late he's been playing a Les Paul.  That Elite strat was the sound.  I played one, they were the heaviest solidbody I ever picked up - pushing 15 pounds probably.

The Elite strat had a MBX preamp (a bit odd) and the L5 amp had a 6 band comb filter that no other amp has which was key to the sound.

I've got a VG-99 patch from my friend Scott that NAILS the sound of the first four records - check his demo - it's his guitar over actual King's X backing tracks:
soundcloud.com/smashmashups/kings-x-ty-tabor-vg99-patch?in=smashmashups/sets/vg99-patches

That patch is SO fun to jam with.

[sonicdeviant]

What ASB said. :-D

[asb]

Here's the link to the "guitar only" demo:
soundcloud.com/smashmashups/kings-x-vg99-demo-guitar-only?in=smashmashups/sets/vg99-patches

He had mentioned this about the patch:
"Jesus, what a tough sound to recreate!! The demo runs through bits of the tracks: Prisoner, It's Love and Dogman. I've muted my guitar track to show that 99% of Ty has been removed and you're just hearing the VG99.

Ty used an Elite Strat which had an MBX preamp running into an L5 amp which featured a strange thing called a multi filter which was a 6 band comb filter. No way of replicating that on the VG so, as comb filters are time based, I used two flangers in series with no speed and adjusted the manual control on each to try and get that characteristic "thrust" of Ty's early sound. The patch runs two separate models left and right with a delay between each channel that is dependent on how hard you hit the strings to try and simulate double tracking. Finally there's 4 alternate tunings accessible in the patch plus a solo mode! Phew!!

This patch, along with many other excellent patches, is available to download from vguitarforums.com"

He even did a patch for "The Difference" from "Gretchen":
soundcloud.com/smashmashups/the-difference-kings-x-vg99-patch-demo?in=smashmashups/sets/vg99-patches

[mirth]

Cool. That is a good sound. Definitely similar to what I was thinking . I don't really like the singing in Kings X...but that's a 90s kid for ya I guess.

[mirth]

The patch is close, but loses that double guitar delayed sound that I heard on the track Shane posted.

[asb]

Yeah, it's close but you can't quite get it with any modern gear. You need that multi-filter in the L5 amp.

Much of what gave the King's X stuff its magic was how the bass and guitar interacted together with the drums.

Later King's X records de-emphasized the sunshiny vocal harmonies and went for more gruff single voice things which made them less radio friendly and more grunge friendly I suspect.

[mirth]

In that John Suhr interview I posted, he was talking about having one of those crazy Bradley systems and a millions racks, etc... It was interesting because the consensus was that you cannot get that sound (the LA sound) without that crazy setup, but it really only is for you, since once you mic things it doesn't matter you have some insane 4 speaker stereo thing.

They also discussed how those guys printed their effects on the cd, instead of doing effects post recording, so there is that element of risk in getting a good sound, etc...

[sonicdeviant]

May 16, 2017 16:21:06 GMT -5 asb said:

Later King's X records de-emphasized the sunshiny vocal harmonies and went for more gruff single voice things which made them less radio friendly and more grunge friendly I suspect.

Yeah, that was a big mistake. To me their best records were Gretchen and Faith.

[mirth]

The vocals are why I can't listen to them . I remembered upon listening to your link. Even the more grungy ones were still a bit too 80s rocker for me.

[dasein]

Just read an interview, apparently Ty Tabor now just uses Axe-FX through a poweramp.

[mirth]

I think if you tour, it makes zero sense to have an amp these days....the axefxs, helix, etc...and even amplitude etc...just make more financial sense.

I don't think they make sense for small club gigs though.

[mirth]

I setup a stereo thing today....8 delays....what glorious sound. Then went back to one amp and it sounded so small, haha.

I know it's just for me, because once you get in stage...it really doesn't matter, but still...what a sound.

[mirth]

Here's a live recording of the show the other day. We are hitting the studio this weekend, so hopefully my tinkering gets me somewhere. Saying that, the live recording sounds pretty good.

jaredleesbass.bandcamp.com/album/live-from-pub-bricco-51017

Check out the Wandering for some crazy sounds. Disjointed Cohesion for some sax/guitar bantering and The Journey for some 8 finger tapping solo nonsense.

However, this is the band I'm trying to make a bigger sound on. Unfortunately the location of mic that made this recording was on the other side of the stage from me.

[sonicdeviant]

Good sounding group. Your guitar sounds good; it's going be tough to cut through the way a sax can. Are you using reverb? That may be one thing you can reduce to cut through better.