Really, can anyone actually nail this tone?

[tigerstrat]

here's most of the sounds I've been recently getting, all in one video...

[mijknahs]

Nice playing Tigerstrat!


Here's my loud bar band from 2 days ago:

[JustinJohn]

Great jammin guys!! (Tom W in pdx and Jim S in LA especially!)

It's so cool that people are still keeping Jerry's vibe alive!!

=)

[oldsmojo]

Agree...great clips and playing in these. Its always fun to listen to difft peoples takes on the same songs! Its also amazing to hear similar rigs sound a bit different. I do know that when i hear a Dead cover band I really want to hear a good clean crisp setup all around. If one guy in the band is playing a stock reissue Fender or something It kinda ruins the whole band if its bad enough. I look forward to getting out and seeing more dead bands in the coming months. If any of you need some tweaks done on site hit me up. I know how crazy this gets with things constantly gnawing at ya. If its not a chord its a faulty pedal or tube etc.
Back on this subject, if you listen to the beginning of 'eyes' you hear Jerry ripping some really fast sharp notes...its almost as if hes trying out a new compressor and digging the attack. in other words..as if he can hear the same tone we are hearing whether it be through his actual setup, a monitor, or his mic'd setup fed back into his speakers or just some of them ( not the one that was mic'd ) The idea that the mac is providing this is and the breakup is just silly to me and the speakers providing the breakup..silly as well. The whole idea of the 2300 and e120's is to keep it clean. After things are mic'd you get compression and latency from that especially if Healy is limiting things along with a Neve module and whatnot. If that were to be fed back into his speakers thats actually not to be ruled out is it? Its one of the first things he always says to me when I ask. "keep in mind you're listening to his sound after I got to it"

[mijknahs]

After things are mic'd you get compression and latency from that especially if Healy is limiting things along with a Neve module and whatnot. If that were to be fed back into his speakers thats actually not to be ruled out is it? Its one of the first things he always says to me when I ask. "keep in mind you're listening to his sound after I got to it"

Get some tapes of Jerry recorded really close to the stage or ON the stage. Then you'll hear closer to what Jerry was hearing pre-mic/soundboard.

[oldsmojo]

I have heard him many times up close and know the tone...Its not something most people are currently getting I know that. You are one of a handful that are getting there.

[mijknahs]

It seems like Jerry's actual stage sound was not as "crispy" as the soundboards but was a lot thicker than his "mixed" sound.

[lunasparks]

After things are mic'd you get compression and latency from that especially if Healy is limiting things along with a Neve module and whatnot. If that were to be fed back into his speakers thats actually not to be ruled out is it? Its one of the first things he always says to me when I ask. "keep in mind you're listening to his sound after I got to it"

Get some tapes of Jerry recorded really close to the stage or ON the stage. Then you'll hear closer to what Jerry was hearing pre-mic/soundboard.

Do you know of particular dates/recordings where he's recorded close or ON stage? I'd love to dig into those shows! Only one I know of like this is 3/7/80 (Boogie tone).

Also, listen to clip below from that 4/20/84 show. He's noodling around before the first song. This mostly sounds like light-to-average pick attack and I don't think it screams stressed JBLs or rig driven into clipping. And yet THIS is the tone for me. Clipping and saturated JBLs has to be just the cherry on top. He's so crystal clear but so crispy and splatty at the same time--"crackling with energy" as the man might say.

https://soundcloud.com/lunasparks/1984-04-20-jerry-noodling

I don't know enough to say whether this tone has its roots in the the board (EQ) or if stage recording might produce something just as tasty. All I know is I can't get this from my toys and I'm still looking to hear it in others' recordings. Very elusive....

[jeffm725]

Joe, Is my Mark2a ready to come home yet?

[playingdead]

There are so many variables once the sound was out of the E-120s that are pretty much impossible to re-create ... you can stick a Sennheiser 421 in front of your cabinet in the same position Healy used to put it, but where did he have the 5-position bass rolloff switch set at? Were the board feeds incorporating the room EQ they used to flatten the house mix? Healy employed different mixing techniques on different consoles, too ... on the Gamble board he used to leave the faders wide open on every channel and establish his mix from the trim pots. All that analog circuitry was shaping the sound. There is inherent compression on analog tape, the gain staging just getting from the board to the tape decks, I think around 1984 was when they started using the early Sony F1 digital recorders with Betamax tapes, so there was some sort of inherent limiting happening on the analog-digital conversions at the F1, as well, you could chase it forever.

Up close audience recordings of the guitar will have their own variables ... how close, off axis or on axis, room acoustics, what kind of mics, how much is rig sound versus PA sound or monitor bleed ... Garcia was really fat back then so he was blocking the sound ...

Were the masters recorded with Dolby (and which variety -- or DBX -- that was basically compression and expansion to minimize tape hiss) and then played back without at some generation (which would open up the trebles) ... and so on and so forth.

[mijknahs]

That's so true. No recording ever captures exactly what it sounded like if you were there. And it sounded different depending on where you were (up on stage vs. out in the audience, etc.).

[tigerstrat]

Garcia was really fat back then so he was blocking the sound ...

OMFG, you're onto something there, Vic! Here's possibly the FINAL ingredient to the sound:

[LAfadeaway]

"Healy employed different mixing techniques on different consoles, too ... on the Gamble board he used to leave the faders wide open on every channel and establish his mix from the trim pots."


I believe they were positioned at zero VU rather than wide open, but I get your drift.

[Ross66]

I think Stu comes pretty close here to that tone. Looks like a Moriarty plugged straight to a Twin.
Audio is not that great but this sounds close to me. I'm sure most of you have seen this but it sounds gorgeous to me other than the clipping of the video camera of course.

http://youtu.be/2zRCkPw-OJA

[playingdead]

Hey, I saw my share of shows in that era ... he was definitely attenuating some sound in front. Looks like he even went to the bridge pickup here



However, the bumper sticker popular on those tours did not lie. He did rock.