70s Hard Rock Tone?

andyp

Hi folks. I'm not sure if this is in the right place but here goes...

I've become a pretty big fan of the 70s Hard Rock style tone over the past year or so. It's not something I'd been drawn to much before now, but I am really getting into this now. Recently I started looking more at my amp settings (Marshall DSL 5) and I know it's capable of the sort of sound I'm after, but I'm finding it quite tough to get it close to the 70s style tone that I want. The best example I can find is something like this below from Johan Segeborn (who pretty much accelerated my developing interest in this sort of sound) and he has this kind of tone going on in most of his clips.

What am I looking to do with the amp settings here? More mids? Less mids? More gain? Last night I decided to try removing the mids a little having generally found myself wanting to add more and more mids until now... Removing them seemed to go against what my Rookie ears were telling me to do and it gave me a bit of an epiphany and a sound that I really liked, but too much of that and I didn't like it so much.

I am playing an SG Faded and tend to play with the guitar tone on full and volume somewhere between 8 and 10, the amp EQs are bass and treble at about 1 o'clock and mids now at 10 o'clock. I'm on the "Ultra Gain" channel and have the gain about 9 o'clock as it sounds a bit "messy" to me much higher than that. This is where I got to last night but any advice would be great. I know I won't get exact tones, it's more a guide as to what to try and ballpark advice on what sort amp settings I'm going for here.

I do have a clean channel to use and a tubescremer clone and EHX Soul Food if that helps too.

Thanks.

Andy

Winny_Pooh

I've not played a DSL 5, for my taste a marshall 18 watt does that quite easily. I would look at different drive pedals as the soul food & TS are a bit tame for that sound, something like a Guvnor style pedal into the clean channel is worth a look.

Reverend

Have you tried turning the mid up high but rolling off the presence and treble?

andyp

Thanks guys. I'm not really using the pedals for this just now, it was in case they really were more useful than the gain channel. I find both are "tame" but the gain channel on its own can get pretty wild.

I'll try higher mids too and see what happens. My amp doesn't have a presence control unfortunately.

Cheers for the suggestions.

ChrisCox1994

the classic gain channel with medium gain, more mids that bass and treble, and boosted with the tube screamer should get you damn close if its anything like the DSL15 i used the other day.

andyp

That's certainly a good help! Cheers.

ChrisCox1994

the classic rock tone is all about punch (mids) and clarity (less gain) than you'd think. 

after thinking more, the soul food may even be a better boost to get your classic gain channel into hard rock territory given the greater volume -and resultant gain- boost it'll do to the amp.

mike_l

Gain back

Treble back

Mids and low up a bit

 
The DSL's can get quite gain laden, so keep that tamed. Also the treble can make things too modern* sounding.


*I can't think of a better way to put it.


If you want a pedal which will do this, the DOD Gunslinger can get very close without any problems.

andyp

Great stuff, thanks for this. I'll give it a blast tonight and see how it goes!

Modulus_Amps

Turn up the master to full to overdrive the power section, that's how you get that tone and that is how Johan is getting his tone. forget the ultra gain channel for this sort of thing.

TheBlueWolf

Pedal wise a Boss Super Overdrive may help. Otherwise back off the bass/treble and dial the mid up. Your amps clean channel at high volume should help

Rox

Do it the way the professionals do.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/06/Spinal_Tap_-_Up_to_Eleven.jpg

andyp

Love that! I did get some success with this from the advice offered, unfortunately low-ish volume is the name of the game most of the time so I will need to pick my moments to crank it up properly.

Appreciate all the advice and help. Cheers!