Best examples of high gain single coil sounds?

LastMantra

Don't know why I got the lols for John fru. He uses massive amounts of gain at times for solos to get huge synth-like sustain. 

Flanging_Fred

John Baizley & Gina Gleason of Baroness have used strats at times with some pretty gainy tones.  

artiebear

ICBM said:

Cols said:

Just realised a glaring omission - Tony Iommi.  All of the early Black Sabbath albums were a P90-equipped Gibson SG.

Maybe not ultra-high gain by modern standards, but still absolutely bonecrushing.

Not high gain at all. A treble booster into a non-MV amp cranked up is not even medium gain by modern standards.

The heaviness and 'crushingness' of Sabbath mostly comes from his phrasing and the bass tracking the guitar, as artiebear said (even if he meant multiple guitar parts).

Even without the multi tracking element, that is the heart of it. Everything tight within the riff. A bass  part with a bit of growl, tight with a solid guitar part and a tight drummer and suddenly it hits like a sledgehammer. If the guitar gain is too high (ie mushy ) it ends up with a drummer, a bass player and a fizzy noise that sound like it's two streets away. There is nothing more heavy than being sat in the middle of a symphony orchestra when the kitchen sink gets thrown in, not a stomp pedal in sight 

Babones

Ramones, Dinosaur Jr.

Epsilon

Wow, I didn't realise that most people's definition of "high gain" is benchmarked to the late 70s!

JustMe

David Gilmour  ??
You can't get much more gain than a Big Muff

cbilly22

Flanging_Fred said:

John Baizley & Gina Gleason of Baroness have used strats at times with some pretty gainy tones.  

I was going to suggest those guys. There is a Rig Rundown on YouTube where they discuss the switch to Fenders.

artiebear

Epsilon said:

Wow, I didn't realise that most people's definition of "high gain" is benchmarked to the late 70s!

It isn't, but then again, how do we define gain before it turns into a square wave non dynamic, buzz saw ? The OP was talking about single coli high gain tones. A lot of the best ones were created way back when.
There is only so far we can go while still attempting something, broadly termed ,musical. I could cascade preamps thirty years ago just as now. Different music, different styles, same gain stage process, which in itself is just buzz without the power amp stage. The biggest fallacy created by amp and pedal manufacturers is that gain means distortion. Great in the bedroom, useless on a decent stage. 
Are people mistaking "gain" for power, punch and voicing ? All available for a long long time and used / controlled to make different flavours of, in this case rock music for as long as the ability to overdrive a gain stage has existed.. 

TINMAN82

Walter Trout

scrumhalf

Robin Trower? 

artiebear

scrumhalf said:

Robin Trower? 

I once got to try RT's rig at soundcheck  ( probs very early 80's ). It was bowel movement inducing and totally uncontrollable for me, but not for him  )

Bezzer

Still reading this with interest. And I think there’s an obsession here with “distortion” which is not how I define high gain ... I may be wrong ...

I think of high gain sounds as highly saturated, rather than highly distorted. I realise there is a similar thing going on but for me it’s about adding to the sound not clipping it. 

I think of most of what I do as high gain, really high gain, but the sound is still tight and defined. I think this is the point of modern high gain amps, you get the sound more from the pre amp, you don’t need to dime the fuckers to get the sound you want.

Thinking to the 70s examples given, these are all on amps pushed to the very limit and distorting because of it. This leads to a bassy and somewhat undefined low end ... flubby sound.

If you take a modern high gain amp like a Boogie or 5150, while you may prefer the sound cranked to unbearable, you don’t need to do that to get a high gain sound.

I may be talking from my lowest sphincter, but this is how I see it. Gain != distortion ... although it is an element of it.

Does any of this make sense or should I just go to bed? :-) 

TTBZ

@Bezzer I get what you're saying. I don't really class the fuzzy Big Muff style tones as proper high gain because they're muddy and soft/"vintage" sounding, same goes for all the other classic rock tones suggested here. When I think high gain I think of tight saturated modern sounds like Periphery which tend to be the result of a boosted amp with preamp gain stages and a clean/tight power amp. And again these sort of sounds do work well with Tele and P90 pickups imo.

Dopesick

Karl Sanders from Nile used a Fender Strat on their early records. 

fretmeister

Cols said:

ICBM said:

Cols said:

Just realised a glaring omission - Tony Iommi.  All of the early Black Sabbath albums were a P90-equipped Gibson SG.

Maybe not ultra-high gain by modern standards, but still absolutely bonecrushing.

Not high gain at all. A treble booster into a non-MV amp cranked up is not even medium gain by modern standards.

The heaviness and 'crushingness' of Sabbath mostly comes from his phrasing and the bass tracking the guitar, as artiebear said (even if he meant multiple guitar parts).

Like I said; not by modern standards.  It all depends what fretmeister’s objective was in seeking high-gain single coil tones.  It could be that a dollop of Sabbathy goodness is just the ticket.

Filth. Tight, twangy, articulate filth.

I'd like to take anyone who suggested EJ or Blackmore etc to a Cannibal Corpse gig just so they get an idea what high gain is.
 

Woodenhead

El Hefe from Nofx uses a tele with single coil EMGs, most of his riffs/leads are high gain.

Cols

fretmeister said:

Cols said:

ICBM said:

Cols said:

Just realised a glaring omission - Tony Iommi.  All of the early Black Sabbath albums were a P90-equipped Gibson SG.

Maybe not ultra-high gain by modern standards, but still absolutely bonecrushing.

Not high gain at all. A treble booster into a non-MV amp cranked up is not even medium gain by modern standards.

The heaviness and 'crushingness' of Sabbath mostly comes from his phrasing and the bass tracking the guitar, as artiebear said (even if he meant multiple guitar parts).

Like I said; not by modern standards.  It all depends what fretmeister’s objective was in seeking high-gain single coil tones.  It could be that a dollop of Sabbathy goodness is just the ticket.

Filth. Tight, twangy, articulate filth.

I'd like to take anyone who suggested EJ or Blackmore etc to a Cannibal Corpse gig just so they get an idea what high gain is.
 

Ah - not Sabbath then.  They’re definitely not twangy.

fretmeister

Cols said:

fretmeister said:

Cols said:

ICBM said:

Cols said:

Just realised a glaring omission - Tony Iommi.  All of the early Black Sabbath albums were a P90-equipped Gibson SG.

Maybe not ultra-high gain by modern standards, but still absolutely bonecrushing.

Not high gain at all. A treble booster into a non-MV amp cranked up is not even medium gain by modern standards.

The heaviness and 'crushingness' of Sabbath mostly comes from his phrasing and the bass tracking the guitar, as artiebear said (even if he meant multiple guitar parts).

Like I said; not by modern standards.  It all depends what fretmeister’s objective was in seeking high-gain single coil tones.  It could be that a dollop of Sabbathy goodness is just the ticket.

Filth. Tight, twangy, articulate filth.

I'd like to take anyone who suggested EJ or Blackmore etc to a Cannibal Corpse gig just so they get an idea what high gain is.
 

Ah - not Sabbath then.  They’re definitely not twangy.

Awesome - but not twangy.

Lebarque

I remember Dan here and Rabea discussing and testing single coils with high gain on TPS. Check out from 8.45 on this: 

LastMantra

I was going by what happens when you turn the "gain" control up. Whether that's amp or pedal.