Do high gain amps make you a lazy player?

[Nitro Express]

Screwing around on a high gain amp is fun but I always felt they masked a lot of mistakes and kind of made it easy to be a sloppy player. I had a 5150 once and if you got it into the sweet zone it was fun but out out the sweet zone it sounded like shit. A one trick pony.

I would rather have the loose classic Marshall tone than the high gain buzz saw. It's seems like you have to play better on the guitar to get the good tone as well. In other words, you have to work for it.

For me, nothing stills beats the good old Fender Bassman circuit and the British bastardation of it for tone.

[Coyote]

That's a great question... And you're absolutely right.

[Nitro Express]

Well Eddie Van Halen really did some neat stuff on the 5150 but he never came close to the magic of his old style of playing on a Marshall Super Lead. I think he went more high gain because he had that screech owl Sammy Hagar in the band. Face it, a buzz saw works better with a screech owl.

Eddie even said the 5150 made it easier to play. Yeah, with all the gain and sustain, you can sound like you are doing a lot when you aren't. I think it made him a lazier player.

Go back to a Strat and a Marshall. If you want to make it scream you have to coax the bitch into the scream. You have to work for the orgasm instead of having high gain drugs do it for you.

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Nitro Express
Go back to a Strat and a Marshall. If you want to make it scream you have to coax the bitch into the scream. You have to work for the orgasm instead of having high gain drugs do it for you.

In other words, Don't do (High Gain) Ecstasy!

[Roy Munson]

I don't like a lot of gain. The perfect tone for me is a balance of a Marshall Superlead and an old Hiwatt DR103.

Clean gain...if there is such a thing?

[BrownSound1]

I detest high gain amps because they lack character and definition. I see all of these young kids out there with their Triple Rectumfriers and the like, and it just sounds like a bunch of mud. I'll take an old Marshall, Vox, or Fender any day over any modern high-gain beehive. If you need more distortion than a regular Super Lead puts out, then just use a stompbox...it ain't going to sound any worse.

Oh and to answer the original question...YES. An old amp makes you try to have clean execution in your playing, whereas the high gain fuckers let's you get away with murder. Probably a good thing considering the current crop of "rock" guitarists.

[Nitro Express]

I absolutely love the crunchy tone on the second Van Halen ablum. That solo on DOA is the ultimate guitar tone for me. I've been trying to nail that tone my whole life but it's one of those things you get close but not quite to it.

It's a breathing, loose, overdrive sound you only get with tubes and the right speaker cabinent. I just love the sound of the raw power. Not the buzz of too many gain stages.

[BrownSound1]

It's....organic.

[Hardrock69]

I just prefer the standard Tube Screamer and Marshall 2203 Head through 4 X 12 cabinets.

I get all the crunch, tone, and sustain I need, without it going overboard.

If I turn down the volume on my guitar, it cleans up enough for me.

Turn the volume back up, and I can make notes that sing beautifully.

[Nitro Express]

Originally posted by Hardrock69
I just prefer the standard Tube Screamer and Marshall 2203 Head through 4 X 12 cabinets.

I get all the crunch, tone, and sustain I need, without it going overboard.

If I turn down the volume on my guitar, it cleans up enough for me.

Turn the volume back up, and I can make notes that sing beautifully.

You know, that's how I test amps in stores. If it doesn't clean up to a nice shimmer when I turn down the guitar volume knob, I'm not interested.

The good old green Tube Screamer. That's one of the classic peddles of all time. Now they make reissues of the originals. It will be a sad day when tube amps and good peddles dissapear. Maybe they won't. It's 2006 and we are still using shit from the 60's and 70's.

[sammysucks65]

a jimmy page esque distortion is good. not really crunchy but definatley not clean, that right tone that just screams.

it is fun to get those p.h.'s to just wail with high gain haha

[Hardrock69]

Actually you do not need to crank up the distortion much to get sustain. Just turn up the volume.

[Matt White]

And yet...high gain amps have been the amp of choice for METAL now for a number of years....

Many younger players prefer the sound of a high gain amp to a boutique....

And the price is much nicer.....


All a matter of personal taste...or lack thereof....

I'm quite fond of my JCM 900...it does what I want it to....

Of course...I've got the Dual Reverb model.....

[Nitro Express]

I had fun with my 5150 but it worked the best with the Wolfgang pickups and you had to have the power amp going to get the thing to smooth out. It was loud as shit and yeah I can see where Eddie was digging it after years of playing some real good Marshalls. Something different.

I don't know. High gain to me sounds too 90's if you know what I mean. Yeah, I guess I dig a good Jimmy Page tone myself. I want the sound of raw power and not an over processed buzz saw.

It's like when I went to see the G3 show with Satriani, Vai, and Malmsteen. Satch's tone was so over processed. Vai's tone was better. Malmsteen had the best tone. It was crunchy and organic. Just a good old Marshall with a simple overdrive peddle. He sounded great!

[jhale667]

I've got a Boogie Mk III, which has more gain than I could probably ever use, but I'm always shifting between all three channels and playing with the gain structures...I also back things off with my guitar volume when needed...

Having said that, unless you're jamming in a band context or working on a particular sound, you should ALWAYS practice WITHOUT your amp, so you never become dependant on gain for note articulation. I can NEVER thank my original teacher enough for pounding that into my head as a kid...