What am I missing?

[64Strat]

Originally Posted by Professorbx

How does the PA sound? I've heard they have a pretty interesting clean tone, but I don't know anyone who owns one and can comment...

The first thing you notice when it's dimed is that it is absolutely silent on self noise. I've been around 3 early 100w PA's and they all do the same thing. Dead quiet when wide open. This one has 6550's in it and it is massively loud and stays fairly clean for a very long time, that is, until you nudge it over to.... the evil dark side. Stick a good pedal in front of it, like a H&K Tube Factor and fasten your seatbelt. Interesting character and different from the usual Marshall 100w'ers. I have another amp that does this well, the '71 100w Laney Klipp played in the normal channel. Great for a starting point in imitating Gilmour's Hiwatt tone with the right signal adders.

I tend to use the 50w small box or 50w combo more frequently, these amps are sweeter and darker in character. The small box is pretty easy to dial in a EVH or EJ type tone with other support amps in the chain. The '68 Trem in the first series BB cab has very special clean tone that would make most Fender amps jealous. Then dial it up to 6.5 or 7 and it sounds fantastic with some real edge on it.

The stickered '72 Superbass is just the classic snarly big rock amp that sounds great doing live Page or early Sykes type tone. It's downside is that the volume control goes from 1 to 11 in about one tenth of a knob rotation. So, I may be slightly exaggerating but it does go wide open quickly. Great for some raunchy rock 'n roll guitar parts.

I haven't heard the latest amp sims but I know when I heard them 5 to 8 yrs ago, they didn't sound like what I had going on with the real stuff. The swirly saturated harmonic character and the power chord "flareging", for example. They simulate the distortion okay but they miss on the details in the complex nature of the sound. Maybe they've gotten better. I dunno.

[64Strat]

If you want to hear the modd'ed RME FF800, Rode NT2000, NT5 & AT4033 mics.... I recorded an appropriate cover as tribute to my fallen son who's 5 yr passing anniversary is coming up next week. I'd say the tune is about 90% done. Bass and lead vocal were done in one take, I did all the instruments and backing vocal, a friend did the lead vocal and wasn't pleased with his performance but it is, what it is You old hands at this, let me know what you hear, good or bad. I'm learning the recording process, looking for feedback.

Click here!

[Old Cane]

I think the recording and mix is very good. I agree with your friends assessment of his vocal performance but what's there sounds good.

Sorry to hear about your loss.

[64Strat]

thanks! the loss is something that is hard to deal with.

I decided to try vocal editing today... I also played a bit with a small amount of panning the various tracks to add some space.

I burned a cd and played it on my high end stereo and quality wise, it sounded pretty good to me, not killer but yet pretty good.

I'm toying with adding scat vocal to the 2nd & 3rd acoustic solos and possibly adding some steel guitar fills in.

Here is today's editing result......

Updated Wav File - Click Here!