Grateful Dead Music Forum

I play through the line 6 guitar port on my PC there are a bunch of built in tome settings that emulate certain players sounds. One thing I notice that with almost every setup includes a noise gate. Do most of you guys have one in your rig? I was reading info on them and they seem to get high marks from people using a lot of pedals and older amps, but I wondered if you used a sustainer or screamer pedal and had a noise gate in-line would this be a detriment to the performance of the sustainer?

IMO:
L6 uses noise gates as a compensator.
People use them as a compensator for gear issues.
If you have the right gear they are not needed.

Ironically if you add up the cost of people buying stuff to compensate for what their rig lacks and compare that to what their ideal rig would be the cost is strangely not too far off...

I steer absolutely clear of both Compressors and Noise Gates. Both are major tone-suckers imo, because to me dynamics is a major component of "tone"... I know, I know, not "if used correctly", but I'd just much rather not have a device decide for me whether I wanted to play loud or soft, or if a note should be allowed to die away to near-nothingness before the gate closes. You are taking the power out of your fingers where it belongs and giving it to your gear. My 1/2 a Euro...

I think the main thing we need to remember is that there is no "perfect" tone. It is very subjective. Personally, Garcia's tone ( in all incarnations) are as close as it gets. I also like Trey's tone. That was all compress/sustain/tube screamer, etc. For some songs they just work. As far as a noise gate goes, Ive never used one. But owning vintage gear is super pricey to maintain, so maybe it would be cheaper to get one, then to have all my equipment serviced all the time!!

tigerstrat wrote:I steer absolutely clear of both Compressors and Noise Gates. Both are major tone-suckers imo, because to me dynamics is a major component of "tone"...

+ 1,000 and an amen taboot.

High Peaks wrote:But owning vintage gear is super pricey to maintain, so maybe it would be cheaper to get one, then to have all my equipment serviced all the time!!

Really?! My drive to and from work any given month is more than what I spend annually on 3 vintage amps.

Really?! My drive to and from work any given month is more than what I spend annually on 3 vintage amps

Thats not a fair statement. If Halliburton and Carlyle corp. had any interest in vacuum tube technology, and luthierism than they would be as expensive as gas!!!
Biut lets examine this. # vintage amps. Im a Fender buff so lets go this route.

1967 Fender deluxe amp- avg $750-$850
1965 Fender Blackface Twin $900-$1500
1955 Fendr Tweed $1200-$5000

Even at the low end your looking at $2850 for all three. Now if you spend more than that a month in gas,, U need to find another job. When i say vintage gear, i mean vintage gear. Not the shit most people pass off as vintage gear.Im talking all original, classic pieces. We must be talking about different pieces. Because for me its only Vintage Fender.
This isn't taking into account JBL D120- E120's, UGB's, Vintage Dimarzio Dual sounds- not the shitty current super II's they make.

I will agree that if you are a Bobby player the components are a lot cheaper. So maybe you misunderstood what i was getting at.

High Peaks wrote:Really?! My drive to and from work any given month is more than what I spend annually on 3 vintage amps

Thats not a fair statement. If Halliburton and Carlyle corp. had any interest in vacuum tube technology, and luthierism than they would be as expensive as gas!!!
Biut lets examine this. # vintage amps. Im a Fender buff so lets go this route.

1967 Fender deluxe amp- avg $750-$850
1965 Fender Blackface Twin $900-$1500
1955 Fendr Tweed $1200-$5000

Even at the low end your looking at $2850 for all three. Now if you spend more than that a month in gas,, U need to find another job. When i say vintage gear, i mean vintage gear. Not the shit most people pass off as vintage gear.Im talking all original, classic pieces. We must be talking about different pieces. Because for me its only Vintage Fender.
This isn't taking into account JBL D120- E120's, UGB's, Vintage Dimarzio Dual sounds- not the shitty current super II's they make.

I will agree that if you are a Bobby player the components are a lot cheaper. So maybe you misunderstood what i was getting at.

What does being a Bobby player have to do with anything? Wasn't he playing the same high quality gear as Jerry was until about 79 when he started using IVP etc???

I know vintage gear. Here is my current stable:
1964 Fender VibroVerb
1968 Fender Dual Showman Reverb
1974 Fender Bandmaster Reberb

Nothing shy of pure vintage there.

We could go on talking about UGBs which I am not sure I believe in for my needs. Running directly into GCX which converts to low impedance and guitar volume on 10 has nearly the same end result. Running pedals all thru a GCX for a clean signal path definitely works nicely too.

Let's revisit your quote and then re-read my reply:

High Peaks wrote: But owning vintage gear is super pricey to maintain, so maybe it would be cheaper to get one, then to have all my equipment serviced all the time!!

My gas comparison was to your key word "maintain". You didn't say "purchase", Your statement was that it is expensive to maintain. I say it is not and stand by that I spend more in gas than maintaining vintage amps.

Sorry about the rant, I realized afterwards we were talking about maintenance costs, not purchasing.My bad!!!!

High Peaks wrote:Sorry about the rant, I realized afterwards we were talking about maintenance costs, not purchasing.My bad!!!!

No worries, dude! Sorry if I sounded snotty. Didn't mean to.

My only issue was with your Bobby not needing good gear comment!

I've done the Bobby role in quite a few bands. My favorite Bobby era is the 70s and to do that requires good Fender gear. It's not easy to sit under Jerry and compete with keys and still sound good!