Chunk on the up and up-strum

[Micah]

Any of you guys out there that chunk not just on the down-ward strum but also on the up-ward strum? Some guys(or chick players) just thump the strings on the downward strum which I find is fairly easily attainable with my SG with Dragon 22 pickups in it, into my Triple Recto. What Im lacking is the chunk on the upward strum(plenty on the upward). I get crunch on the upward instead--any Ideas on knob configuration? I posted a thread earler last week about my tone and I appreciate all of it.......but for some reason Im still lacking this "chunk" on the up(I dont know how else to say it)--I kope that being guitar players you will just understand what I mean!! :?

Heres how Im set up (all settings are clockwise):
Vintage High Gain/Bold/Tube

Amp Master
PEGGED! (up to 11) Sometimes I'll try 1 oclock and set the preamp @
8:30 or 9 @ a reasonable volume

Presence
10:30-11

Master
7-8

Gain2:30-3

Bass
11-11:30

Mid
3:30-4:30

Treble
2-2:30

This is where I find it sounds the clearest to me

Any Ideas? I like the tightness of the mids and the way that notes start to sing with sustain and then feedback. But Im lacking this chunk--Am I to a point where I cant have my cake and eat it too?

 

[jbird]

It has nothing to do with your settings/equipment, and everything to do with physics! Your simply not applying the same muting force with an up-stroke as you are with a downstroke! It's the difference between a push and a pull! Does that make sense?

 

[Micah]

It has nothing to do with your settings/equipment, and everything to do with physics! Your simply not applying the same muting force with an up-stroke as you are with a downstroke! It's the difference between a push and a pull! Does that make sense?

I hear you.... It seems to me that there would be a way to make the strings more sensitive for on the way up--you would think that you would just turn the treble down to get more catch on the bottom side of the string against the mid-range spike without loosing my clarity. Does that make sense?? :?

 

[diamondschwin]

no offense but you keep talking about chunk and mid chunk and stuff in every thread you post practically, and i believe jbird is right, its the physics of it.. you need mid range to have that punch, but besides that i dont know what else an amp can do to make your 'up strummed chunks' any better.. maybe its just me but ive never had an issue, then again i focus alot of right hand techniques, im a very touch sensitive player.

 

[jbird]

Another phenom I think Mesa mentions, more mids can give the feel of stiffer strings, while lower mids will feel looser! I was going to mention this, but I don't think that's where Micah's coming from. I too think it's a matter of physics and technique! Of course, his hands are probably really small, he looks kinda young?

 

[diamondschwin]

Another phenom I think Mesa mentions, more mids can give the feel of stiffer strings, while lower mids will feel looser! I was going to mention this, but I don't think that's where Micah's coming from. I too think it's a matter of physics and technique! Of course, his hands are probably really small, he looks kinda young?

i remember you mentioning the stiffer strings thing, i think its the response of the low end is looser with less mids, giving you more compression and rarefaction on the speakers at slower speeds (lower frequencies=slower speaker motion) there for the whole response of speakers is 'sloppier' because since guitar cabinets are not two way or three way or even hi fi systems the low end sluggishness effects the response all the way up the frequency range.

maybe i never have a problem with chunkiness cuz im 6 foot 7 and built like a tank to begin with :twisted:

 

[Elpelotero]

engulf the string with your palm. if not, eat some spinach so you can become james hetfield and have popeyes forearm.

 

[J.R.B.]

You need to practice muting without playing any notes. Do it over and over until your up and down picking feel and sound exactly the same. Choke up on the tip of the pick and concentrate on the amount of travel your wrist has. This will help keep your muting tight. Also picking/muting the higher strings on the way up will give you a noticeably less agressive "chunk" so keep the picking/muting to the necessary strings.

As previuosly stated it has nothing to do with you amp's tone. Try practicing unplugged because it will concentrate on your technique and not your tone.

 

[MesaENGR412]

+1 on the Hetfield school of downstrokes....I'm a graduate haha. An idea :idea: for some thought, teach yourself Master of Puppets and Battery while using all downstrokes , and Trivium's song "Rain" while using alternate picking and you'll be able to do just about anything. Great warmup songs, and just good to be able to play IMO, they pretty much cover it all in the fast, heavy riffage area. It really helped me to regualte my picking attack, and to fly on the al la downstroking.

But, hey that's just my

-AJH

 

[ytse_jam]

An idea :idea: for some thought, teach yourself Master of Puppets and Battery while using all downstrokes

-AJH

Battery first main riff fast palm mutings are actually played using alternate picking... well,i hope so, if not hetfield should be studied by some scientists...!!!!

I'm pretty sure this happens also in Master of Puppets, in the riff about 10 seconds after the great solo!

 

[Elpelotero]

battery is alternate picking...master is all down (that's a ***** of a song! talk about fatigue!)..


IF you're REALLY BRAVE, learn disposable heroes. then you will be popeye. all the other songs...blah...diposable= :shock:

 

[Micah]

Thanks for the help guys-- I was messing around with my amp last night and found something interesting that might be the answer I was looking for. When I adjusted the mid range to about 8:30-9:30 and wasnt to over the top on the bass (about 11:00-11:30) and the trick was to adjust the treble below 9:00. What happens is the mids start to get that resonance that I was looking for which causes the chunk when alternate struming up-wards. This is what I was looking for--The trick @ this point is to find that spot where you can still get enough clarity to hear what your doing and enough of that resonance to feel the notes on the high end. Think about how Van Halens' or Metallica's single notes resonate and scream. While I appreciate the 101 talk on how to play guitar, I know how to play but my ear wasnt hearing what my hand was doing. Heres where I ended up last night. These sound good in my room but the true test will be playing in a live setting with a drummer!!

Modern/bold/tube
Channels 1 and 2 set exactly the same and used for the chnl differences

Output
9:00

Presence
11:30

Master
9:00

Gain
2:30

Bass
11-11:30

Mid
8:30-9:30

Treble
7:00-8:00

Hope this helps others to understand what I meant. Also, when I did this setting with the vintage mode it was actually a little too warm for me--so I tried the Modern channel which seems to boost the lows and highs allowing me to urn the treble down more and retain needed clarity. Im still not sure if its enough clarity in a live setting but I will find out tomorrow night! Also, a thought occurred to me this morning here @ work and Im not able to try it now--If I turned the bass up to 6 and added a little more in the midrange(if needed) to compensate for it, do you think I will get even more resonance in the higher strings and still retain clarity(even if I had to turn the treble up a little to hear well)? :wink:

 

[J.R.B.]

If you like the sound (chunk) of your down strum but not your up, please explain to me how your amp is going to fix that. My Mesa and I'm sure everybody elses amp sounds the same up or down. Are you going to switch your settings back just for down strokes???

Logic says it's your technique but you seem to have another theory....which I'm not getting at all. My theory.....if your muting the 5th and 6th strings, on the down you're hitting the heavier string first and on the up you're hitting the 5th first which is higher in pitch. If you want it to sound the same learn to pick the strings you want to hear.

About the 101.....don't ask questions if your not willing to listen to the experiences and advice of other members. :wink:

 

[MesaENGR412]

An idea :idea: for some thought, teach yourself Master of Puppets and Battery while using all downstrokes

-AJH

Battery first main riff fast palm mutings are actually played using alternate picking... well,i hope so, if not hetfield should be studied by some scientists...!!!!

I'm pretty sure this happens also in Master of Puppets, in the riff about 10 seconds after the great solo!

Yeah, i thought that about that today, good points, especially Battery...that'd be hard as haities to play all downstroking!!!! Thanx for the correction.....i knew where i was going with it, but didn't correctly get it there.....:lol:


Disposable is sweet...but the hardest one i've learned/still working on is "Dyer's Eve".....holy crap man, oh so fast.
-AJH

 

[diamondschwin]

If you like the sound (chunk) of your down strum but not your up, please explain to me how your amp is going to fix that. My Mesa and I'm sure everybody elses amp sounds the same up or down. Are you going to switch your settings back just for down strokes???

Logic says it's your technique but you seem to have another theory....which I'm not getting at all. My theory.....if your muting the 5th and 6th strings, on the down you're hitting the heavier string first and on the up you're hitting the 5th first which is higher in pitch. If you want it to sound the same learn to pick the strings you want to hear.

About the 101.....don't ask questions if your not willing to listen to the experiences and advice of other members. :wink:

+1, no offense, we arent saying you cant play, but the amp is an amplifier, it amplifies what your hands are doing, if it amplifies your pinch harmonics, your down strokes, your lead lines, your legato, your tapping, etc. why is not amplifying specifically your upward palm mutes...

 

[Micah]

If you like the sound (chunk) of your down strum but not your up, please explain to me how your amp is going to fix that. My Mesa and I'm sure everybody elses amp sounds the same up or down. Are you going to switch your settings back just for down strokes???

Logic says it's your technique but you seem to have another theory....which I'm not getting at all. My theory.....if your muting the 5th and 6th strings, on the down you're hitting the heavier string first and on the up you're hitting the 5th first which is higher in pitch. If you want it to sound the same learn to pick the strings you want to hear.

About the 101.....don't ask questions if your not willing to listen to the experiences and advice of other members. :wink:

I dont think Im explaining this right.......I want the chunk on the up-strum. I am doing an alternate strum with a palm mute the whole time(even on the upstrum) and its more of a crunch when I strum up instead of a resonant chunk. It seems to me that the position of the treble dial is doing this. When I turn the treble down to between 7:30-8:00 and place the mids @ around 9:00 and the bass about 11:00 with the gain @ 2:30 and the presence about 11:00 this seems to give me more of what Im looking for. If you listen to any Metallica, Van Halen, Tremonti, or really allot of people, they have a resonance to their top end that is not brittle but resonant and sustain-y and chunky. The fulcrom or the defining point in the equalisation is the midrange but its not harsh....yet you can hear it. The Top and Bottom are heavy but tight and not muddy and the harmonics are smooth. I have explored many different options to try to get this but I have a hard time believing that pickups or tubes will change anything but nuances of the already established tone. There has to be a foundation and I know its in this amp because top bands that have this sound play this amp. I guess the most frustrating part about finding the tone in your head is knowing what you want to hear but not knowing how to make it sound that way. Do I have enough mids? Treble? Bass? Too much gain? Not enough/too much presence? :? Im hoping to find someone out there who might be looking for the same thing and expirienced the same frustration in order to maybe.....learn from their expiriences and find what Im looking so that I can play a little more and timker with the knobs a little less. Anyone??

 

[diamondschwin]

well i think i remember you talking about having all EH pre amp tubes. and from my experience they dont have alot of life to them and are very saturated and not chunky sounding. that could be an issue

 

[Elpelotero]

i think what kills in dyer's eve is the solo. the chugging isn't too bad compared to battery, where you have that odd timing feel. disposable is simply tiring, if you can even get the right rhythm. fire is also an honorable mention, the bridge riff in damage is fit for petrucci only, and...ehh i can go on for too long. back to the subject at hand....

practice slow engulfing the string like i mentioned with your palm. speed up and after a week you got it. playing with a floating hand however, i think is much more impressive, as opposed to anchoring.

 

[Micah]

well i think i remember you talking about having all EH pre amp tubes. and from my experience they dont have alot of life to them and are very saturated and not chunky sounding. that could be an issue

Do you suggest Tung-sols like some of the other guys out there? What do you rate the best for my application? Have you had any expirience with Phillips USA 6L6 power tubes? I have them in for poweramp tubes when I got it on ebay. I wonder if this previous owner was going for a certain non-chunky sound or trying to get the chunk out of the amp with this EH and Phillips tube combination?? I know he paid some pennies to get those Phillips tubes! But Im not sure if that is causing my issue or not. Has it been your expirience that this is a significant change? Some guys out there have said that it doesnt make that big of a difference to change tubes but some guys said it does..... :? Diamondschwin you have been extreamly helpfull to mein these threads--I apreciate your input! thanks!

 

[Micah]

Hello everyone--
I wanted to drop a line in here and let everyone know what I was able to figure out based off of a few suggestions and some more knob twisitng. Someone said either on this thread or another that the bass knob will affect all frequencies and all of the strings(even the higher strings)(I hadnt thought of this before being almost a backward thought of what the manual says). Now, in the manual, Mesa says that their knobs are in series from treble-mid-bass, meaning that based on the position of the knob, the treble could lower the potential output of the mid and bass frequencies and the mid to Bass, etc..(thats the truth..I mean they made the amp..they should know!!). With that being said, I would assume(and did assume) that when eq'ing my amp I should irst set the treble to where I want it, and then the mids....bass etc... What I found as a good practice (at least this week :lol: )was to actually start with the bass and set it to where I want it first, then Mid...Treble... (START WITH THE PRESENCE ALL OF THE WAY UP!!)What will happen is I can get the bass as thick as I want and then ballance out the heaviness in the bottom end with the treble and get my cut from the Mids. At this point I get a decent sound but really not the tight chunk that Im looking for. This is where the Presence comes in nice!! I can sit there and chunk while I turn the presence knob untill I get the chest pounding chunky punch that Im looking for. I realized that the tone controls for the most part are there so you can put in just enough of the frequencies to hear yourself and keeping things balanced and level. At this point I think of the presence as more of a contour knob. When turning the presence down the bass frequency presence is heightened and a looser feel is achieved. As I bring the knob up things start to tighten up and the bottom end is reduced, however, there is a spot in the middle where the bottom end is tightened to the right spot to give you that chunk that your looking for. My expiriences setting these knobs also have been that settings that sound great in your bedroom, dont necessarily sound the best though a PA. By the time I had everything dimed in my room on Tuesday and then played live last night, I realized thay the bottom end coming through the PA was so dominant in my mix that I couldnt hardly hear a single note. I realized that the low frequencies in my smaller room couldnt develop fully and because I couldnt hear them as well in there I kept cranking them up. I ended up backing them down live from wide open to (im still fluctuating) between 12 and 1. I have the mids set about 11:30 and the treble is set to between 11 and 1. My presence I have rocked between 11:30 and 2 depending on the other setting finalizations. Interesting information though!! :wink: Thanks for everyones' help and suggestions. I hope this helps someone out there!!