low tunings and flubbiness

Alright, i've been wrestling with this problem for a while.

I can tune my guitar a 1/2 step and a full step down and it sounds great, but once i start going lower i lose most of the punch and attack from my 3-ch dual rec. I've recently switched to EMG's but I haven't done the 18V mod yet so not sure if that will make much of a difference or not, but the problem was there in my old pups as well. Also, the lower tunings sound great on my Vox AD100VT, which admittedly isn't in the same league as the Mesa but pretty decent in it's own right for my other needs. The guitar in question is an Epiphone SG G-400, and the cabinet is a Randall straight 412 with V30's and a closed back.

Could the problem be in the cab, or do i need to back off on some of the bass on the amp? A lot of the songs i've been writing lately have been in C and they sound great at home, but i'm having a hard time convincing the band of their awesomeness at practice when they sound so weak coming from my rig :x .

MF,

Unfortunately, there is no problem, per se. You see, the guitar is essentially a midrange instrument. It is not designed to produce frequencies below about 88Hz, and its strongest response is well above that. IOW, tuning down that low is using the instrument in a way for which it was not designed, so there will be inherent problems in doing so. Stiffer strings are part of the solution, but only a part.

It's hard to say whether or not you need to back off on your bass since we don't know what your bass setting is. Are you using any overdrives or clean boosts? If so, how are they set?

Do you up your string gauges for tuning lower? If not then start there. I don't need to touch settings on my amp when tuning low, I just use heavier strings. For the tunings lower than 1 whole step I use a custom set with guages from 11-56 with a plain 3rd string. No problems losing punch what so ever.

Chris McKinley said:

It's hard to say whether or not you need to back off on your bass since we don't know what your bass setting is. Are you using any overdrives or clean boosts? If so, how are they set?

Click to expand...

haha, yeah that would have been key info. I can't remember exactly cause i did some tweaking recently, but i believe it's somewhere in the 2-3 o'clock range on CH-3.

R_ADKINS80 said:

Do you up your string gauges for tuning lower? If not then start there. I don't need to touch settings on my amp when tuning low, I just use heavier strings. For the tunings lower than 1 whole step I use a custom set with guages from 11-56 with a plain 3rd string. No problems losing punch what so ever.

Click to expand...

I normally use EB Power Slinkys (11-48's), but i've got a pack of Not Even Slinky's (12-56) i could try out. I didn't even consider that, in fact i bought them over a year ago so i could play with lower tunings and completely forgot that they've been collecting dust in my closet.

Thanks for the reminder

2 - 3 o'clock on the bass? i tune to drop C and use Skinny Top heavy Bottom slinky's which are 10-52 and generally keep my bass around 12 to 1 o'clock.

What are all your other settings, remember the mesa tone controls all affect each other, when you turn your gain and treble up your mids and bass become less effective, if you turn them down your mids and bass have more control, i would start with setting your gain between 12 and 2 o'clock and then adjusting your treble to taste so that it has the bite you want, then go from there with the mids and bass. let me know if that helps any.

I forgot to mention, when i had my 3 channel i did get better sound from my orange channel set to modern than i did my red channel when tuned to drop C.

The bigger guages should help out a lot. I had the same problem as you and a bigger guage helped out a lot.

But, if you play a lot of solos and don't like the feel of the 12's for soloing. Might I suggest a set of EB Skinny tops Heavy Bottoms! I put a set of these last week and I must say Wow! This is on a Guitar tuned to Drop C by the way!

desertcj said:

2 - 3 o'clock on the bass? i tune to drop C and use Skinny Top heavy Bottom slinky's which are 10-52 and generally keep my bass around 12 to 1 o'clock.

What are all your other settings, remember the mesa tone controls all affect each other, when you turn your gain and treble up your mids and bass become less effective, if you turn them down your mids and bass have more control, i would start with setting your gain between 12 and 2 o'clock and then adjusting your treble to taste so that it has the bite you want, then go from there with the mids and bass. let me know if that helps any.

Click to expand...

i can never remember what my exact settings are, but if i had to make an educated guess i'd say my third channel settings are:

gain - 1-2
presence - 11-1 maybe?
bass - 2-3
treble - 12
mids - 10-11

I tried the Skinny Top Heavy Bottom's but i was probably tuned a 1/2 step down at the time. I'll have to remember to give them a another try in the future.

tunedown said:

Chris McKinley said:

Are you using any overdrives or clean boosts? If so, how are they set?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

not using either. im not using an EQ either.

Try dropping your bass down to 12-1 O'clock range, run your presence at about 10-11 o'clock, and definitely try some heavy gauge strings. Another option is run an OD808 in front of it but then you have the problem of having to kick it off when you switch to a clean channel.

I was just thinking, you had mentioned you were using an epiphone SG, The stock Epi pickups are pretty muddy and that may be contributing to part of the problem.

yeah i'll some new strings on before our next practice and see what kind of difference that makes. It certainly makes a lot of sense and i'm a little embarassed for having overlooked that obvious answer :lol: .

desertcj said:

I was just thinking, you had mentioned you were using an epiphone SG, The stock Epi pickups are pretty muddy and that may be contributing to part of the problem.

Click to expand...

I've got EMG 81/85's in it now. The stock pups were pretty muddy.

Ya, I went back through and read your original post again, i completely forgot you mentioning the EMG's. Let us know how things work after you change your strings and tweak your eq.

could be a couple things: the string guage, go bigger. the pup height? and the emg's ,I put them in my lp and mudded everything up good took em out. Also your bass seems too high Im rinning mine around 11oclock,just a thought.

I've found that, for severe drop tunings like the one mentioned in the OP, use of an overdrive solves a number of problems. One of those problems is that, when you detune a guitar string that much, it vibrates much more slowly, or at a lower frequency. When using only the amp without an overdrive, that slower-vibrating signal receives all of its distortion via overdriven preamp tubes in the amp. Good tube amps are very good at tracking that vibration rate so that what you hear is a flubby, springy sound in your lowest strings that becomes a resonant frequency (meaning it feeds back on itself) in your cabinet's speakers. The more you turn the amp's gain up, the more that frequency resonates in the speakers, creating even more mud.

Where an overdrive can help is that it provides a certain degree of harmonic distortion to the signal before it hits the preamp tubes. That means that the signal the preamp tubes "see" is already more complex and distorted, which means less gain is required from the amp itself to get the signal to the desired level of distortion. Using less gain on the amp means less resonance of the lower frequencies in the speakers, and therefore less mud, but without less distortion. IOW, you get to keep the amp's gain low enough to avoid resonating mud, but the total amount of distortion in the signal is still high since the overdrive provides some of it up front.

Another thing some overdrives can do (usually the Tubescreamer variants) is reduce the amount of bass frequencies your amp "sees" from your guitar, thereby reducing the bass in your signal and thus the muddy resonance in your speakers. This is what is meant when people mention that an overdrive 'tightens up' their bass.

For your application, I would suggest the following procedure:

Put the overdrive in between your guitar and your amp, but start with it 'off'. Set the amp to Channel 3, set to 'Bold', and Rectifier/Diodes to whichever you prefer. Set the gain and bass knobs on your amp no higher than 11:00 to start. On the overdrive, set the level knob between 12:00 and 3:00, set the gain knob between 'off' and 9:00, and switch the overdrive on.

Strike a few chords on your guitar to test. Adjust your amp's mid knob to between 11:00 and 1:00, and the treble knob the same. Set the presence to between 9:00 and 12:00, no higher. Turn your bass knob up to no higher than 1:00. Begin turning up your amp's gain knob (again, with the overdrive already 'on') until the gain is sufficient, but do not go past 2:00. With almost any overdrive, 2:00 gain on the amp will give you all the overdrive you need for low-tuned metal. Any further necessary gain should be added in by turning up the gain knob on the overdrive, not on the amp. Past 2:00 on a Recto and the gain gets muddy, overdrive or no.

I have been using Rectos since the early 90s and never had a problem tuning down VERY low. I respectfully disagree with Chris' suggestion to use a stomp box in front of the amp(no offense bro :? ) and I have found great success in using the Orange channel the lower I tune down.

When you drop tune and use thicker gauge strings (I have used as heavy as .70 gauge on a low B or low A) the string itself does in fact rotate slower and loose a lot of attack and make the low end stuff and muddy. The Red channel on the Rectos makes this worse because they exaggerate the low end frequencies and highs while cutting the mids. Although that "smile curve" or "scoop" sounds good in E or dropped D, it becomes detrimental the lower you tun because of the string gauge.

I use a liberal amount of midrange on the Orange channel to help make the guitar stand out when tuning down like this. I also have used a trick for years with all the different Rectos I have owned and that is to turn the Treble knob VERY low and make up for the Highs on the presence knob. Having the mids up a lot will also add some cut to the signal. Lastly I always keep my lows at 12 o'clock and make myself accept that that is the natural low end for my guitar. I have found that you never seem to get enough bass in your guitar signal so I use the 12 o'clock rule to just say enough is enough. That way there is room for the bass guitar/kick.

Lastly, Mesa knows a ton of guys use Rectos and tune WAY down and I feel the amp does a fine job of reproducing all the frequencies needed and the gain is also tailored for it to my ears. I would think that an amp designed in this way will have all that you need given that you have a good cab and guitar/pick ups. I NEVER EVER use distortion pedals to get "better" sounds when doing things that amp can already do. I only use them when I want a sound out of my amp that it wasn't EQ'ed for like a smooth warm low gain sound etc (which the Roadsters do very well actually). One could argue that the tuning itself is abnormal for guitars, but we still see hoards of players (including myself) doing it using the amps in question and they seem to have success as do I.

Where ther is a will to tune down, there is a way! :mrgreen:

It may be the Cab, or possibly an old battery in your guitar for the EMGs... hope the opinion helps....but remember, its just that, an opinion. We all got em. :lol:

vitor,

Great post. If MF can achieve the tone he's looking for without the flubbiness by only using the amp, that's great. Especially if he isn't wanting to use any other effects. Hopefully he'll try it out and report back.

don't worry guys, i've got practice tomorrow night and we'll see what i can do to fix the problem and i'll let you know how i made out. i keep my amp in the practice space so i only get to play it once or twice a week. lots of good tips in here!