that BIG pop-punk sound

[Asphalt Cowboy]

Hello,

I'm a die-hard country music fan. I live, breathe, and eat country music. But a couple years ago a friend turned me on to punk bands like Blink 182, Green Day, Bowling For Soup, and All Time Low. And I love the way that they sound SO HUGE. But I don't know how to get that sound, and it's driving me nuts.

I strongly believe in "tone is in your fingers" and for country music that applies 100% because of how technical the chormaticism is and how you have to have the right touch to get twang. But transcribing these punk parts are easy, it's all power chords and incredibly simplistic leads. I have that down, but even with a really high quality and flexible setup I can't seem to get the tone nailed down.

My signal chain is in my signature, any ideas of what I could do to get that big beefy chunk and liquidy electric lead sound?

Thanks

[Asphalt Cowboy]

I know that these bands use mahogany humbucker guitars through Marshall Plexi amps and Mesa Recto amps, but I don't have the money to splurge on a whole new rig. My goal is to get that sound using my tele and either the Dr Z Stang Ray or my Mesa Lone Star Special, and I'd be willing to buy an overdrive or EQ pedal for the job.

[JoshuaCLS]

Well for one, everything is doubled like a bajillion times. (even live, they often have tracks going)

But at the end of the day, what you're hearing is a cranked tube amp. IMO, pedals rarely make things sound HUGE or bigger, they wind up making them smaller.

[scantron81]

Yeah, think 20 mesa tracks of the same power chords. That was the trick when I made that kinda music in high school. My friends used PODS on the rectifier setting through solid state Marshalls with Epiphone SGs and Les Pauls. DI bass, over tightened snare drum head.

[studio1087]

Don't you have a RAT pedal in your M13?

I'm a Tubescreamer/Barber Half Gainer sort of guy but I have a couple higher gain pedals that allow me to get gainy and chunky with lots of bass and thump. You need gain and big bottom. The M13 should get you there....if not buy a RAT. You can chunkify a Tele.

[Teleworshipkid]

Try a big marshall with a big cab making big noise in a big stadium.

Oh, and don't forget the big ego! ;)

[tjalla]

I read somewhere that Billie Joe Armstrong used Marshall Valvestate poweramps as part of his rig, alongside cranked tube rigs. I used to have a VS100 back in my heady high school days, but the hair-trigger response of a SS amp certainly gives an edge

[Twangasaurus]

I thought playing powerchords with full arm movements instead of your wrist was how it was done? Also being incredibly small in stature helps, Green Day is tiny and the only reason you don't notice it is that they are uniformly small.

[Teleworshipkid]

You could invent a new genre: punktry.

[tjalla]

punktry and wastin'

[Cameage]

Right, Billie Joe uses LP Jrs now, but he used to use Strats. I'm pretty sure Green Day just uses cranked Plexis or JCM800s, though I know he used to use a Boss Blues Driver, but I'm not sure if he still does.

Tom Delonge uses either Bullet Strats or ES-333s, and he uses Vox AC30s for dirt and Fender Twins for cleans (I think he uses two of each).

Offspring uses Ibanez guitars (RGs and Talmans with DiMarzio SDs and Tone Zones, respectively), through Mesa Mark IVs and some sort of VHTs at the same time.

I'd say crank the bejesus out of the Lone Star and see what you get. Just turn the gain all the way the hell up. That's what punk is about anyway, being obnoxious (not really, but having that attitude helps get the right sounds). Alternatively, I've gotten that sound with a Boss DS-1...with the level way up and the gain maxed. You're probably seeing a pattern develop here.

[studio1087]

I had one of these for a while. The sound is so huge and chunky that it's like a parody of what you're looking for. Try one.

[GreenGuitarStar]

Agree with Cameage - I play this type of stuff sometimes and even at home-levels, an almost all-the-way-up-the-gain Boss DS-1 through my Transistor Mini 2x10 Marshall stack gives an excellent version of what you're after with plenty of grunt (DS-1's are dirt cheap and last forever). Trick is to almost eliminate any reverb, you want a nice dry sound, bridge pick up (this sort of stuff sounds better via a bridge humbucker on a Les Paul or somesuch), plenty of bass and roll off the treble a touch if it's too tinny (on the pedal and the amp EQ). Oh, and a fair bit of middle.

And JoshuaCLS is right - on record, these guys record every part many times over, doubling/quadrupling rhythm parts, or duplicate the same part with a tiny delay each time, and spread it over the stereo spectrum to create a really big sound. If you have two guys in your band then two highly distorted guitars playing in unison can give a similar effect. I have a mate who played in a metal band, and used a pretty thick distortion albeit through a massive stack on stage, but his engineer duplicated him EIGHT times to get that beefy sound on the recording.

[vanguard]

Originally Posted by GreenGuitarStar

Agree with Cameage - I play this type of stuff sometimes and even at home-levels, an almost all-the-way-up-the-gain Boss DS-1 through my Transistor Mini 2x10 Marshall stack gives an excellent version of what you're after with plenty of grunt (DS-1's are dirt cheap and last forever). Trick is to almost eliminate any reverb, you want a nice dry sound, bridge pick up (this sort of stuff sounds better via a bridge humbucker on a Les Paul or somesuch), plenty of bass and roll off the treble a touch if it's too tinny (on the pedal and the amp EQ). Oh, and a fair bit of middle.

And JoshuaCLS is right - on record, these guys record every part many times over, doubling/quadrupling rhythm parts, or duplicate the same part with a tiny delay each time, and spread it over the stereo spectrum to create a really big sound. If you have two guys in your band then two highly distorted guitars playing in unison can give a similar effect. I have a mate who played in a metal band, and used a pretty thick distortion albeit through a massive stack on stage, but his engineer duplicated him EIGHT times to get that beefy sound on the recording.

this is exactly right. if the DS-1 is too scooped for your liking, try an old HM-2. they are like the DS-1's better cousin: big mids, huge lows, tons of gain.

[Troubleandahalf]

Originally Posted by studio1087

Don't you have a RAT pedal in your M13?

I'm a Tubescreamer/Barber Half Gainer sort of guy but I have a couple higher gain pedals that allow me to get gainy and chunky with lots of bass and thump. You need gain and big bottom. The M13 should get you there....if not buy a RAT. You can chunkify a Tele.

Yes! A Rat Box! That was so fun as a young-ass punk kid trying to play along with Ratt, and you wanted to be the guy who could play the Crazy Train solo. Maybe I'll get another one, but I too swim in the country end of the pool at this time of my life...

[Asphalt Cowboy]

This is great stuff, thank you everybody! The bridge pickup in my Tele definitely causes a different rection from the rest of my gear than a humbucker would. I've been toying with the idea of getting a good EQ pedal to put in front of all my other things to try to turn the signal at that point into something more like what a humbucker would sound like, then have the "humbuckerized" signal fed to the RAT/DS-1/other dirt boxes and the amp.

And I'd like to hear more about this doubling/quadrupling/octupling the signal of the rhythm guitar. Is the live guitarist playing along to pre-recorded tracks or is his live signal being split a bunch of times and panned all over the place through the many speakers in the PA? All of the above? None of the above? It seems like a great tool to use. I'm very inexperienced with recording, I've only recorded twice and it was with guys that knew even less about a full band mix than me, and I don't think the recording engineer wasn't top notch himself. So doubling tracks and other recording techniques like this are new to me.

[dog fart]

How about a smashing pumpkins style op-amp muff? Back when I was a snot nosed punk I had a Peavey Bandit cranked to 10 with the thick knob engaged and all the distortion I could ring out of it. Reverb? that's for pink floyd

Seriously that's how we rolled. It was great time we'd drink, fight, get our butts kicked by the local red necks. OK getting our butts kicked kinda sucked, but hey we were punks

[JoshuaCLS]

Originally Posted by Asphalt Cowboy

This is great stuff, thank you everybody! The bridge pickup in my Tele definitely causes a different rection from the rest of my gear than a humbucker would. I've been toying with the idea of getting a good EQ pedal to put in front of all my other things to try to turn the signal at that point into something more like what a humbucker would sound like, then have the "humbuckerized" signal fed to the RAT/DS-1/other dirt boxes and the amp.

And I'd like to hear more about this doubling/quadrupling/octupling the signal of the rhythm guitar. Is the live guitarist playing along to pre-recorded tracks or is his live signal being split a bunch of times and panned all over the place through the many speakers in the PA? All of the above? None of the above? It seems like a great tool to use. I'm very inexperienced with recording, I've only recorded twice and it was with guys that knew even less about a full band mix than me, and I don't think the recording engineer wasn't top notch himself. So doubling tracks and other recording techniques like this are new to me.

as far as doubling live goes...
a lot of bands in the genre are playing to pre recorded tracks that are being pumped through the house. They have guitar tracks, synth pads, drum programing and stuff, all lined up to a click.

You can also use multiple amps, to achieve a sort of similar sound, but it won't sound quite as huge, especially since a majority of house PAs that most of us would be playing at are in mono.

again though, the best way to get what you want is to crank a high gain tube amp. Sure some pedals will get you dirt... but the amp is where the "huge" sound happens at.

[JoshuaCLS]

One other option, the seymour duncan pickup booster. It will help push the front end of your amp a little bit, not adding it's own dirt... but helping your amp do more of the work. There are also resonant switches on it, that are supposed to help single coils resonate in more of a humbucker frequency range.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xIXw9JIqjk

Might be worth checking out.

[PraiseCaster]

One of the fave pedals of punk rockers was the Big Muff-Pi.

Dirty, flatulent, raucous and grungy!

Get your tube amp cranked up to near melt down, let a lot of open strings ring out, and play VERY AGGRESSIVE!

Not all punkers played mahogany bodied humbucker guitars. Believe it or not, there where lots that played single coil strats, Tele's and P90 style guitars. Some played Mosrites, or just pawnshop junkers.

Yeah, you do need an amp that can take you into melt-down mode, or maybe the help of a good grungyesque pedal like the Big Muff-Pi (and for the record, I hate that pedal), but the rest, is in the fingers and your attitude.