How can one get a "smooth" distortion?

[playsguitars]

I know this is likely a weird question, but I'm looking for a smooth distortion tone much like in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpH4xDtzmWQ (SKIP to 1:34ish)

I've never heard my rec do this, it still "bites" a lot. I think the main issue here is that the amp may be too bright and "spikey?" I've tried running an EQ in between the guitar and amp, but most times it makes it noisy or doesn't give me the cut range I'm looking for.
Most of the time I'm recording a PRS SE custom or Ibanez S with duncans straight into the rec and out to an orange ppc112 cab (v30) with a 57 and a Focusrite Trakmaster Pro feeding pro tools. (same chain this guy apparently uses from the description)

I know this amp is totally different than the one in the video, but I've gotten way crazier tones out of my rec over the years than this
I DO crank the amp to get a sweeter tone, definitely always keep it in tube mode...
What can I try to get this tone more nailed?

 

[elvis]

Putting an EQ in the FX loop (assuming your loop is series, or at least close to 100% wet) is the most effective way to control your tone. Check out typical Mark settings. They often cut Bass in the preamp and boost it in the post-EQ to get a good thump without getting muddy.

 

[playsguitars]

But will adding an eq in the loop smooth out tone? Plus, my Boss EQ is hissy and sounds awful.. :/ Would've gotten the MXR offering, but that one had a funky 18v adaptor and I didn't want to mess around with that when all my other pedals have the typical Boss-style power adapters..

 

[screamingdaisy]

SLO derivative amplifiers use a cold clipping stage in the preamp. It's basically a preamp tube that is biased cold to lower headroom so that it clips harder. This helps the amp to produce more distortion with less compression and is responsible for the characteristic grind/buzzsaw of this style of amp. Amp designers can tune this circuit to create a harder, more aggressive distortion or a smoother, less aggressive distortion.

Long story short, you're going to have a hard time smoothing out a Recto as it's designed to clip hard.

That said, I'd start by boosting the amp with a compressor. It'll up the compression without adding solid state clipping the way an overdrive pedal will.

I'd also look at changing the EQ shape in DAW instead of on the amplifier.

 

[elvis]

EQ in the loop will be similar to EQ in DAW. It should be more powerful than EQ in front of the preamp, and the noise will matter less, since the signal is much bigger after the preamp. Be careful you don't clip the EQ.

So I think either EQ in loop or DAW would work well. Also, multitrack with less gain. You will get a much thicker smoother sound with better dynamics.

 

[playsguitars]

Yea good info on the SLO. Didn't realize that.

I tend to not crank the gain because when you have four guitar tracks and a solo track at the same time, things get fizzed out. I'm no stranger to the studio, I have bands coming in all the time, record my own stuff etc.. But sometimes my Dark Terror really shines because I slap a '57 on the grill and it sounds great.. Been trying to get the Recto to sound good recently but am almost unhappy with it in comparison. Might be looking at getting another more powerful Orange in fact..

 

[screamingdaisy]

I have an Orange 4x12 and I can't stand the way my Recto sounds through it. With that cab I'd always wind up with the mids dimed and the treble turned off in an effort to smooth it out... .which never worked.

I was much happier when I switched back to a Recto 4x12. Mesa's V30s are darker and smoother than the V30s installed in the Orange cabs whilst also shifting the mid spike down in frequency a bit. You can tell the amp and the speakers were made for each other.

That said, despite not being able to stand being in the same room as my Orange cab my SM57 really likes it. My best results were from double tracking with the Recto cab on one track and the Orange cab on the other.

 

[YellowJacket]

Smooth distortion?

Get an Electra Dyne. The Recto has this buzzsaw tone with lots of cut.

Another thing that *I* find works is swapping two v30s in a 4 x 12 for c90s. This smooths out the top end and gives more cream / better lead tone.

 

[Blaklynx]

Plenty on this site to search. To make it easier and save me a heap of time writing, search my username for threads I've been in involved in. Forum member Chris McKinley is another member you can search for.

Here's a few:
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=49265
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=58228&start=15
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=52293

A little about EQing
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=53756
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19660&start=45
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=49301&start=15
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=52136

Get rid of the Boss EQ. Buy an MXR 10 band (so it's 18V, does it really matter?) or a Danelectro Fish n' Chips. Buy 2 EQ's (I explain in my posts if you search). You've got good gear and a cheap, noisy pedal. It's like guys who have $7~10K worth of gear and run $2 cables to tie it altogether. Doesn't make sense, does it?

 

[playsguitars]

I dont use the pedal at all actually. The reason being, is it sucks the tone right out of my guitars. So that's a null point. 18v, yea, not a HUGE deal, but i mean it is kind of a wall wart-inconvenience. Also, I'm sorry about not searching, I've not been active in a long time and I just wanted some opinions, I always forget to search :|

I agree that this particular amp probably isn't suited to grab the exact tone I desire, just wondering if anyone had any clever tricks up their sleeves for getting interesting results. I kind of bought it when I was younger, thinking that it would be the best amp for what I was doing. Which, it turned out to be at the time. I was always disappointed in how difficult it seemed to be when dialing in a tone. Now that I'm older I kind of feel like a real nice combo amp, sometihng more versitile is up my alley. I can spend some time and get a lot of cool tones out the rec, but it still is so nice to turn an amp on with three knobs, find a tone in 5 minutes, and rock out. (dark terror ftw here)

On the terror, I swapped out V1 pre tube from a JJ to a Sylvania i forget which one but it was about 70% of the gain of the ECC83 that previously occupied that slot. It really helped clean the amp up a little since the terror gain tends to go from 0-120mph in a heartbeat. Now, I can get all manner of neat tones from blues to lightly compressed classic rock sounds to flat out death metal. AND it records fantastically well through the PPC112.. end rant though..

Thanks for all the links, I'll look into all of the EQ stuff. Wish there were more in depth tutorials on the boogie's specific tone stack..I know, I'll use the search! lol

 

[ryjan]

Mark IV
If you absolutely positively gotta have the smoothest, creamiest distortion in the world, accept no substitutes.

 

[Blaklynx]

First, there's no need to be sorry about anything. Ask and people will help anyway. The GE7 does suck tone and is noisy, that's why I've never bought one.

Maybe you know, maybe you don't.... the recto tone stack (bass-mid-treb) are 'inter-active' with each other. The treb has the biggest influence on your tone, it also adds some gain as you turn it up. Now, when the treb is used, the bass and mids are actually affected. Turn the treb up and the bass is lowered and to some extent the mids. Turn the treb down, the bass is increased and to some extent the mids. This is the design of the amp - it actually changes the EQ. Wierd, but that's how it works. Some other amps may behave this way but Marshalls, Peavey, Carvin do not; on these amps if bass is at 5, the bass volume and freq remains at 5.

With a shift in EQ, it can really throw some users out, especially if coming from another brand. Once your learn and understand how your amp really works and how EQing affects the amp (by amp controls and by EQ's in the loop and out front), you'll really step into a new world. I had a lot of trouble dialing in my amp, weeks turned to months. One EQ pedal and heaps of reading later, plus OD pedals, got my amp kinda singing. Many more months later and heaps of experimenting, reading, testing, trying, also another 2 EQ's (yes, I have 3) and more OD pedals, got my amp into a territory where it hasn't been. I also run Winged C EL34's. Not as bold as 6L6's but smoother, slightly higher mid range and easier to deal with for finding my sound. They also sound really good; most will agree with that.

Also, the gain level of the amp and any pedals used pushing the front end; once you understand the interaction between the two (amp gain vs pedal settings) (and really understand how to EQ), you can dial in just about any tone you want..... smooth, dark, bright, in your face raw... whatever. I can get a singing sustain (smooth tone) from my amp. I can get a nice progressive feedback and hold it for as long as I want, I can smooth it out for jazz type playing. How? I have OD pedals coming out of my earholes but the biggest influence is EQing. I use two (sometimes 3); out front after the OD pedals and in the loop; they do totally different things. You need to forget setting up the amp in 'standard' type EQ settings when you've got two EQ's running.

If you really like the recto tone and really want something different, here's another way to have both but you'll need to buy an actual preamp (not a OD/Dist pedal) such as a Rocktron Piranha, H&K Tubeman or Carvin Quad-X or Mesa Quad etc: http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=46915 The parallel effect looper I have in the diagram can be replaced with other units, such as midi controlled units like this: http://www.rocktron.com/products/controllers/patchmateloop8/ These units can do a heap more if you're clever.

Here's a couple more threads on EQ's:
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19660
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=46244

Another thing to try:
treb = zero
Mids = max
Bass to taste
Presence to taste
Gain to taste.

I've heard rectos set this way and the rock (classic type) tone is unbelievably good. Of course, alot depends on your equipment as no two persons gear is going to be the same. The whole point is to experiment, even if settings are wild. There's no rules. Don't forget, your guitar has a tone control....

 

[thunda1216]

have you tried rolling off the tone control on your guitar a bit?

 

[Monsta-Tone]

Get rid of the Boss EQ. Buy an MXR 10 band (so it's 18V, does it really matter?) or a Danelectro Fish n' Chips. Buy 2 EQ's (I explain in my posts if you search). You've got good gear and a cheap, noisy pedal. It's like guys who have $7~10K worth of gear and run $2 cables to tie it altogether. Doesn't make sense, does it?

I have a GE-7 with the Fromel Sniper Mod. It flat out rocks and has WAY less noise. $15 and about 20 minutes of your time will totally transform this pedal!

 

[glassjaw7]

I'd start by trying Screamingdaisy's suggestion with the compressor. You may like it, but it changes the tone and feel of the amp. I personally didn't like it and after years of craving a smooth lead tone, I made the switch to a Mark.

There are two ways to get smooth lead tone from a recto:

1. mod the loop to serial and use a warm delay, such as the MXR carbon copy. It will add richness and warmth, but only sounds good if the loop is serial. (reborns and Roadsters have better loops for this)

2. Use a great overdrive or distortion pedal into the clean ch for your leads. A Wampler SLO or Pinnacle for example sound amazing for this purpose. You can also stack a couple lower gain pedals and get amazing lead tones. I use an Xotic BB+ and/or Lovepedal Eternity and can get insanely good tones from them.

Other than this, the recto will sound grindy and sharp, because that's just how it was designed. You could always slave out to some effects (nice verb and delay/EQ) and then to a power amp if you really want to experiment. Devin Townsend gets nice and smooth recto tones this way, but it's a lot of $ and dicking around.

 

[screamingdaisy]

I use an Xotic BB+ and/or Lovepedal Eternity and can get insanely good tones from them.

BB into the clean channel is the Andy Timmon's thing, isn't it?

That dude's pretty smooth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzzH9Vt1eOo

 

[glassjaw7]

I use an Xotic BB+ and/or Lovepedal Eternity and can get insanely good tones from them.

BB into the clean channel is the Andy Timmon's thing, isn't it?

That dude's pretty smooth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzzH9Vt1eOo

Yessir. :wink: I think Andy gets his trademark tone by boosting his amp's dirty channel with the BB. With the recto I would use the plus and max out one side or stack both circuits into the clean ch. On the Mark's rhythm ch, I use it more like Andy.

BTW, the left side (blue ch) of that pedal is insane as a metal boost! My fav over anything I've tried!

 

[Anonymous]

I know this amp is totally different than the one in the video, but I've gotten way crazier tones out of my rec over the years than this
I DO crank the amp to get a sweeter tone, definitely always keep it in tube mode...
What can I try to get this tone more nailed?

Here's how I would get it:

1) Diodes, not Rectifier tubes. You don't necessarily want to brown out the power section for this sound.

2) Potentially boost the front. Unless you have EMGs or articulate pickups.

3) Bass OFF or very low.

4) Presence between 9 and 10:30, mids and treble between noon and 2:00

5) Crank the amp just to the point where volume stops increasing and harsh upper frequencies go away. Before this point, you'll have WAY too much treble. After, and you'll have too much output tube saturation. There's a sweet spot, and if you listen with good earplugs or isolated with a mic on the cab, you'll hear it!