Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)
Electric Guitar Psychoacoustics
Contents
Budda/Reverend Amps, Heavy Mental
Feedback
Fuzz Guitar vs. Fake Spirituality
Trumpets of Heaven: Van Halen Amp
Tone
OT/Bio: Adding a speaker isolation
cab to your home studio
OT/Bio: Book: Gear Secrets ..
Guitar: CD sounds like abs. sht
OT/Bio: Is an equalizer pedal
really useful?
OT/Bio: Effects between amp and
speaker
Standard 2-stage amp rig with power
attenuator:
Guitar Amp Tone & Ego-Death
Experience
Acid Rock amp tone in "Ride My
See-Saw"
>http://www.amptone.com/buddadualstage30.htm
>http://www.reverendmusical.com/reverend/amps_etc/hellhound_40_60.html
>Regarding
your Amp Tone site, I asked if you were like "the chosen one" and
then you blew my mind with that Amanita/Christ trip. Although most of the stuff
at Egodeath.com is too heavy for me to comment on, your Amptone editorial
[http://www.amptone.com/overview.htm] still stands virtually alone in its
articulation of the deeper aspects of amplified electric guitar tone.
>I have
thought on occasion that harmonic feedback has a cosmic significance akin to
Nietzsche's infinite loop (especially with lots of delay [echo] and reverb),
but my knowledge of both is too shallow for it to be anything more than an
amusement. Just wanted to note my admiration and appreciation of your dedicated
and enlightened perspective.
>Hawkwind's
"Warrior on the Edge of Time" album is some sort of
altered-consciousness classic.
>Also
Monster Magnet's take on the "space-rock" genre may be worth checking
out.
Here is
some more Monster Magnet psychoacoustic High Art.
Album:
Brotherhood of Electric: Operational Directives. Artist: Wellwater Conspiracy -- Feb 1999. "A multifaceted sound that lurks
somewhere between the sonic realms of Seattle grunge and psychedelic garage.
Showcasing the talents of ex-Monster Magnet guitarist John McBain and former
Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron, the Wellwater Conspiracy exist as an
adventurous studio project steeped in '60s psychedelia."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000HZTJ
Monster
Magnet? Watch out for the control
vortex with the Minotaur in the middle; it will pull you in and spit out only
bones, ending in a great victorious defeat.
"Oh no, not that thought, don't think That Thought, that right
there is the one not to think -- but it is beautiful as well as terrible!" That is the thought that kills, the
Realization of the metaphysical impotence and inherent nullity of one's
personal control with respect to spacetime.
The
following new Heavy Metal album has a release date of November 14, 2001 -- the
same day as my revelation that frozen-future determinism is the key to a dirt-simple,
rational mystic interpretation of the Christ allegory.
Album: Fed
To Your Head. Artist: Scorched
Earth. "[Neo-acid/psych guitarist]
Bevis Frond under a pseudonym with help from the Alchemysts and the Lucky
Bishops. A "heavy metal" record in the vein of the early 70's
style." November 14, 2001.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005QGA8
Spectators
of my discussion group may regret that I am so absent. However, the group is influencing me by
requesting coverage of Buddhism. I
don't like the burden of explicitly covering religions other than esoteric
Christianity, but recent trends in religion concur that I am obliged to address
a Buddhist and Islamic audience, and a Hindu audience, really as much as a
Christian audience. When I committed to
tackling the project of making rational sense out of the Christ allegory in
1988, it was true at that time that Christianity towered above the other
religions in Western culture. But that
was 14 long years ago. The New Age
isn't new anymore, and Buddhism is no longer exotic to U.S. natives.
Making
sense of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam in terms of rational mystic experiencing
is easy compared to Christianity, especially when one already has cracked the
riddle of Christ as the principle of determinism. Also recall that my core philosophy was based on Zen, not
Christianity. Like in Watts' books The
Supreme Identity and Behold the Spirit, we can use Eastern religions to at last
solve the riddle of the meaning of the dominant Western religion. So first I had to make rational sense of
Watts' portrayal of Eastern enlightenment, especially short-path satori, and
after solving the riddle of Eastern religion, then I moved on to the much
harder and more hidden riddle of the Western religion. Thus, explaining Buddhism in terms of
deterministic self-control cybernetics is elementary in comparison to
explaining Christianity in such terms.
The keys
to a rational theory of religious insight are determinism, entheogens, and the
mythic-only Christ. Attached posting
below.
The
definitive psychedelic effect is runaway echo that builds and builds -- used
commonly in my 60s Pop Sike compilations.
I have
genuine recorded white-light feedback guitar sound that I recorded myself, a
perhaps 4-minute piece in the middle of what may be the most important peak
experience. I keep wondering what day
my most important religious experiencing was, somewhere in the midst of the
90s. I have the lab notes somewhere on
my old hard drive, and may have a printout, but what is most remarkable is that
I have a 4-track cassette tape with tripped out electric guitar improvisation
in one direction, and with *two* tracks of spoken voice (brainstorming idea
development about religious insight) in the other... from that highest
visitation of the Holy Spirit.
There are
several episodes from that era, but that was the most perfect, when I had the
tape rolling and I have the moment on tape, the moment of cybercontrol death
and understanding what the fear of God is, understanding why one would, trembling,
be forced to pray, forced to posit and wish for the unknowable: praying that a
compassionate puppetmaster is the one who is pulling the strings that are
certainly moving all my thoughts and actions, perceptibly.
That peak
mountain is merely one of a series of tall mountains, that effectively
communicate across time to each other from their peaks. But that mountain is the most perfectly
significant as far as specifically religious experiencing -- that was the key
kneeling prayer, when I understood rationally and fully clearly why a clear
understanding of self-control cybernetics would cause kneeling in trembling.
There is
great competition among these mountains of peak mystic experiences. An atheist who has debunked the Historical
Jesus reports that he has no understanding whatsoever of what it could possibly
mean to experience oneself as crucified with Jesus and crucified as Jesus, but
when keeping the frozen-future, block-universe model of spacetime in mind, in
the midst of the mystic altered state, when one is consciously frozen into the
spacetime block that strips one of the apparent power to change one's future,
this is much more of a *report* of an intensely, physically felt *experience*
than an abstract *theory*.
This is
why I theorize with such confidence: the Holy Spirit first brings full intense
experience, and theorizing then proceeds to explain and make sense of that
experience. It's not a tall edifice of
theorizing building itself up on its own, alone; theory and experience must
build each other up.
I hope to
upload to mp3.com someday my recordings from the peak trembling prayer
experience, with the white-light guitar feedback in the background. That soundtrack was with a Marshall all-tube
combo amp, miked with an SM-58 mic, at quiet volume but with high preamp gain.
http://www.amptone.com
-- toward any Tone at any volume
http://www.freakemporium.com
- probably the best starting point for 60s psychedelic albums and
compilations. By Freakbeat zine. See their links page.
http://www.cdnow.com
- to buy albums
http://www.allmusic.com
- rock reviews/discography database
http://www.rollingstone.com
took over tunes.com
http://www.amazon.com
-- search Books for "psychedelic" or "entheogen"
http://www.phinnweb.com/retro/garage/index2.html
-- links section lists psych-rock sites
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/sig/htmlsig/pisites.htm
-- list of psychedelic music sites
Styles
covered: Freakbeat, flower power, pop sike, acid rock, progressive psych. Pop music history supports my assertion that
Rush, the 70s progressive philosophy-oriented Rock group, is specifically Acid
Rock. It is unfortunate and clueless
that the category of Acid Rock is defined so narrowly that only about 3 bands
are included (Blue Cheer, Hendrix, Captain Beyond). Smashmouth's popularity shows the potential to discover more of
the richness of freakbeat era -- what it was really all about; I similarly
anticipate a rediscovery of the psychedelic roots of Heavy Rock.
We need to
go back to the late 60s-early 70s transition and take another look to recognize
the era of Acid Rock and recognize the Acid Rock background of groups that are
not at all recognized as such. It
wouldn't surprise me to see the psychedelic mushroom aspect of Led Zeppelin
denied and pushed out of awareness.
Obviously, Psychedelic Rock uses psychedelic drugs, but it's terrible
the way that the existence of the category "Psychedelic Rock" tends
to be used as a safety bin to whisk away the psychedelic drugs from all the
other genres that are based largely on psychedelics. People don't understand the concept of "Acid Rock".
Our
picture of 70s Heavy Rock is completely inaccurate and out of touch with
reality, as we have forgotten that "Heavy" is practically synonymous
with acid-soaked. Classic Rock *is*
LSD-influenced Rock, to a large extent.
In the electric guitar industry, however, together with the popularity
of Smashmouth, the fuzz type of distortion sound has become mainstream and
trendy again, rediscovered. The death
of Grunge and popularity of Smashmouth, and the abovegrounding of 1980s
psych-rock 1-man band Bevis Frond, have led to a resurgence of Acid Rock. Heavy Metal is almost synonymous with Acid
Rock, and some of the best, most influential Metal is LSD-oriented.
(I have
not heard the following albums so cannot vouch for them)
Fed to
Your Head -- by Scorched Earth:
"Bevis Frond under a psuedonym with help from the Alchemysts and
the Lucky Bishops. A "heavy metal" record in the vein of the early
70's style." -- Amazon.com
Amazon: "On their sophomore effort, the Wellwater Conspiracy create a
multifaceted sound that lurks somewhere between the sonic realms of Seattle
grunge and psychedelic garage. Showcasing the talents of ex-Monster Magnet
guitarist John McBain and former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron, the
Wellwater Conspiracy exist as an adventurous studio project steeped in '60s
psychedelia. Besides playing a number of instruments, Cameron is an able singer
who occasionally echoes the style of his old bandmate from Soundgarden, Chris
Cornell. McBain exhibits an expansive guitar vocabulary, creating several
acid-flashback moments amid the band's hard-rock haze. Using vintage electronic
keyboards, fuzz-ridden guitars, tribal drumbeats, and melodic songwriting, the
Wellwater Conspiracy hark back to a cosmic time when rock music was simpler,
more mysterious, and plenty of fun." --Mitch Myers
How can we
have an authentically contemporary form of mystic experiencing? Rock artists and lyricists creating
psychedelics-oriented music. It is
often uncontaminated by dogmas and false notions of religious history,
resulting in direct trip reports in lyric and musically expressive form. I smell more Truth coming from a fuzzed-out
electric guitar with runaway tape-echo feedback freakout than from spiritual
books that supposedly cover mystic experiencing. But such contemporary and direct-from-the-Source artistic reports
still need systematic explanation.
Why
exactly is the fuzzed-out psychedelic freakout today's authentic expression of
Dionysus' religion, and why does that religion penetrate the heart of really
religious religion? Why, conversely,
does pop spirituality lack authentic religion?
"Religion" is Truth, "spirituality" is delusion that
knows nothing of religious experiencing.
In the battle of Spirituality against Religious Experience, I side with
the latter. Everything about the pop
conception of Spirituality smells entirely fake and ignorant to me -- it's
ersatz, a substitute.
Such
Spirituality is indeed the Devil to me.
Spirituality is even more evil than Prohibition, but the two go hand in
hand. Because of Drug Prohibition,
which is completely a sham, fake, ersatz, we have ended up with the
concomitantly ersatz, sham, fake form of religion. Spirituality is fake religion for the fake Prohibition era. Spirituality is the religion of the
Prohibition era.
"Spirituality" and Prohibition are the same thing; I hate them
as a single oppressor.
After
Prohibition, the public will be able to have religious experiencing again
(direct, primary mystic experience) rather than Spirituality, which lacks
religious experiencing. Spirituality is
uninformed by the Holy Spirit, uninformed by *experiencing*. Spirituality lacks experience. The Boomers hated Religion and created
Spirituality but did so largely by rejecting and putting down entheogens at
every opportunity, condemning entheogens to hell with a mountain of faint
praise.
Some
scholars are calling for "Back to non-liberal Religion". I agree that to gain real religion we need
to avoid today's liberal religion and "spirituality". However, the thing we must return to is not
literalist religion, but rather, truly religious experiencing, which goes with
neither Literalist conservative religion *nor* liberalized conservative
religion such as Boomer Spirituality or the paradigm of Historical Jesus
scholarship, but rather, esoteric religion led first of all by the Holy Spirit
of Dionysus residing in entheogens. We
may meditate but first of all we are lost from the presence of religious knowledge,
unless we are led by the Holy Spirit residing in the flesh of entheogenic
molecules, where spiritual and material planes intersect, joining God and Jesus
in Christ-consciousness *in us*.
There is
no way meditation can so lead us.
Entheogenic molecules are our only practical hope for salvation into
religious awareness and knowledge on a significant scale. Buddhism tells us that now is the time when
Buddhism utterly fails to enlighten. If
you believe Buddhism, you believe that Buddhism is spiritually bankrupt as it
claims to be.
I agree
with Buddhism, that Buddhism now has no hope of giving us saving Knowledge and
really religious experiencing. At this
point in the cosmic cycle, Buddhism is supposed to practically utterly lack the
Holy Spirit of enlightenment, as it indeed does. In every religion, look to the mystics. Then look closer at the mystics, and you will find a
concentration of entheogen use.
Religious
experiencing, being led by the Holy Spirit, proceeds from entheogens mainly and
directly, and from meditation only incidentally as a weak and indirect
echo. Entheogens are a mainline
injection of the Holy Spirit; meditation is a mere subcutaneous injection. Prohibition has been directly obstructing
direct religious experiencing. Prohibition
is the Devil which provides a fake substitute for direct religious
experiencing, called "spirituality and meditation", which is designed
to *prevent* and shut out the Holy Spirit and thus prop up ego-delusion. Prohibition, spirituality, and ego-delusion
are three in one, the unholy trinity.
Tomorrow,
$3.2 million taxpayer dollars will be used by the U.S. government to buy two
30-second Superbowl television advertisements to whip up support for the
failing, obviously fake "War on Drugs" by asserting ludicrously that
drugs should be stopped by prohibition because they support terrorists. Given that Prohibition is in power (albeit a
rapidly collapsing power that clearly has no persuasive future), must we give
up on really religious experiencing and settle for a substitute which is
exactly as fake as the sham, bogus "War on Drugs"? That spirituality is the official
established religion proferred by the same government/corporate machine that
uses taxpayer money to oppress taxpayers and other countries. Offered the spirituality that is endorsed by
the Prohibition Establishment, we might as well refuse spirituality
altogether.
Better to
have no spirituality than a spirituality that is designed to be fully accepted
by the empowered rulers during the dark ages of Prohibition. Pop spirituality only allows a bit of
entheogenism, and to that extent is led by the Holy Spirit, but only to that
slight extent which is not sufficient to break through to enlightenment and revelation. "Because you are neither hot nor cold,
I spit you out of my mouth."
Spirituality is half-religion, dabbling so as to avoid that which it
claims to seek. The greatest risk is
that the half-developed substitute becomes so popular and dominant that it is
taken for fulness and thus ends up blocking the way, like a guitar-amp
simulator that produces Tone of such sterling mediocrity that the young
guitarist never moves on to the glorious richness of the real thing.
This same
logic drives Bruce Ehrlich to demonize any LSD that is not the purest, most
first-rate; he lies awake at night worrying about the popularity of, say, 90%
pure LSD because its popularity prevents people from having the vastly superior
pure LSD experience. As much as the
Boomers hated "plastic religion", so do I hate "plastic
mysticism" or "plastic spirituality". "Religion" (as supernaturalist Literalism) is indeed
bogus -- the great majority of people including most Christians agree; very few
Usans (Jonathan Ott's correction of "Americans") believe in
supernaturalist Literalism. But I'm
declaring the answer, "spirituality", also bogus.
Religion
is the thesis, Spirituality is the antithesis; the mystic altered state is the
synthesis. There are really three
contenders within Christianity: Supernaturalist Literalism, Historical-Jesus
Liberalism, and Esoteric Mysticism. As
Alan Watts points out in the book Behold the Spirit, there are many theological
studies of God, and Jesus/Christ, but next, clearly, we need coverage of the
Holy Spirit -- the missing ingredient.
That book was written before LSD, and it's remarkable how Watts'
prediction of a Holy-Spirit phase was fulfilled most clearly by the
psychedelics revolution. The Holy
Spirit lives in the entheogen molecule, flesh of Christ."
If one
were to play electric guitar through this rig while in the spirit, one would
feel one in the cosmic Rock with Eddie Van Halen.
Electric
guitar *through power-tube saturation* is the authentic contemporary harp
played in Heaven. It would be unthinkable
to have altered-state electric guitar without power-tube saturation.
It would
be really good if I could post samples at my Distortion Valve artist area.
Posted to
the guitar amp discussion area:
I'm off
doing philosophy and occasionally playing guitar a few minutes a day, but it's
a crime to withhold this Tone from you.
I have died and gone to Van Halen heaven. Completely independent of volume.
Bridge
double-coil pickup
Slow
phaser mixed with bypass to make subtle
Frown
curve EQ
Preamp
distortion
Moderate
smile curve EQ
Power-tube
saturation
Dummy load
Moderate
smile curve EQ
Right
channel: amplifier, guitar speaker
Left
channel: reverb, amplifier, guitar speaker
Optional:
feedback device
This
sounds exactly like Van Halen I because this is the signal processing chain
used on that album.
Practical
ways to get authentic, authoritative cranked-amp tone with minimal noise
leakage
The ideal
approach is to create a permanent setup of a double-layered guitar speaker
isolation cabinet in another room, or a super-insulated closet in another
room. The most ideal would be a small
massive concrete or brick room with inner insulation on the surfaces. Purchase one or two guitar speakers
dedicated to this isolation booth and one or two guitar-cab mics dedicated to
this isolation booth. The ideal is a
booth large enough to roll in a 4x12 cab and mic setups, with breathing room
for the speakers. Run permanent cables
between your control room/performance space and the remote isolation booth: one
speaker cable and two mic cables.
When using
a remote multimiked speaker isolation cab, which is the only way to get
authoritative cranked-amp Rock guitar tone quietly, you end up with three
cables running off into the distance, from the control room/performance
area. These form an abstract transducer
processing module, converting a high-power signal as the input signal, to a
complexly smoothed and complexly distorted multimiked output signal which you
can then blend and equalize at the mixer.
Be sure to
put an equalizer on either side of this speaker-mic transducer processing
module: one equalizer (such as a guitar amp's bass, mid, and treble controls)
before the power amplifier that's driving the guitar speaker, and one equalizer
(such as the mixer's bass, mid, and treble controls) after the mics -- just as
you should bracket *any* major distortion stage with equalizers, one before and
one after.
The
worst-case, minimal approach is buying a big box and dropping it over a combo
amp in the same room -- that's barely good enough to bother with.
It is a
practical idea to keep a good power attenuator such as the THD Hot Plate in
between whatever amplifier you use to drive the guitar speaker, and the guitar
speaker. This can be used to
incrementally reduce the volume late at night (alas, reducing the amount of
highly desirable, even though subtle, speaker distortion). A power attenuator also enables using a
100-watt amp to drive a 25-watt guitar speaker without blowing up the speaker
too soon.
You should
purchase extra guitar speakers, because speakers are like tubes and guitar
strings: they regularly break when pushed into their interesting, nonlinear
range.
You can
also use a muffled guitar speaker without a cab or mics, or in a face-down cab,
just to load the amp -- but the Weber MASS may be a less expensive and more
ergonomic solution; it's a power attenuator using an actual guitar speaker,
without surface, as the dummy load component.
It has tone controls on the line-level Out jack.
For a
further tonal compromise, using no actual guitar speakers, but still obtaining
power-tube saturation, use a dummy load then a guitar speaker cab
simulator. Power attenuators always
have a dummy load component, and typically *don't* have a built-in guitar
speaker cab simulator.
Gear
Secrets of the Guitar Legends: How to Sound Like Your Favorite Players
Pete
Prown, Lisa Sharken
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/087930751X
June 2003
So far, I
rate the book tentatively as mediocre (very uninsightful about Eddie Van
Halen's setup), and the accompanying CD as zero stars. Please help me find language harsh enough,
if possible, to describe this CD. After
gathering articles about genuine star guitar rigs, one editor bothered pouring
his time and energy into making a so-called sample CD -- using a POD-type
device!
I just
can't *stand* the sound of *any* tracks on that CD: fake, fake, incomplete,
half-baked Tone at best. This is the
worst amp tone sample CD I've ever heard.
Lose-your-lunch awful. It's
positively *evil* and harmful, misleading and misguiding young guitarists to
make them think that this wretched non-range of non-Tone is even worth putting
down on tape. It's mediocre *at best*;
well suited for -- nothing. I wouldn't
let my dog listen to it.
Why would
anyone ever choose to listen to this wretched fake sound when they could easily
put on a genuine, rich sounding record instead? If some kid wants to record such a fake sound, that's their
business, but it is downright immoral to use the opposite of Tone, to create a
CD that is marketed as showcasing the authentic, *real* amp sounds, including
actual power tubes and bona fide speaker distortion, which are explained to
some extent within the book.
The *only*
thing the CD demonstrates is negative: why your tone is doomed to sound like a
total uninspired amateur and poseur if you use a POD-type processor rather than
actual power tubes and hard-pushed guitar speaker. No content of the book can make up for this sin and crime against
the guitar gods. The CD proves that
simulators and emulators are the equipment of the mortals; actual cranked amps
are essential to the qualifications of the guitar gods.
This
sample CD could be the greatest boon to amp tone, by scaring people away from
POD-type processors, putting some fear of the devil into them, jolting some
good sense into them to run out and get instead an actual miked-amp setup, such
as a tube power amp and a guitar speaker, possibly multimiked in an isolation
booth.
Books
about Getting Guitar Sounds
http://www.amptone.com/booksgettingguitarsounds.htm
>>>>I
have a bunch of pedals....chorus, flanger, delay, reverb, wah, volume,
distortion, compression, octaver...and they all sound good. I also have A/B switch and PSM-5 which allow
me to use all of those pedals if I wanted to.
It took me 3 years of shopping around, buying pedals here and there and
reselling those that were not satisfactory.
From what I have read, an equalizer pedal is a must. Is that true?
>>>A
multi-band EQ is the only way to really nail that "tone in your
head." I went through just about all of the pedals you mentioned (except
the octaver), and after I finally got an EQ I dumped everything else (well, I
still play around with distortion pedals). The one warning is that it takes a
lot of tinkering with an EQ before you figure out how to use it for your setup.
Also, the effects of the EQ are extremely different pre- and post-distortion.
>>For
years I played with only an Echoplex, and an Electro-Harmonics 10 Band Graphic
EQ through a BF Deluxe Reverb. It was the EQ that I used to boost the Mids to
slightly Overdrive the signal. I didn`t use any other effects.
An
equalizer is an absolute essential part of a guitar amp rig. Literally buy an EQ before buying a
distortion pedal. I absolutely
recommend as strongly as possible that every electric guitarist run out and
buy, after a tube amp, two equalizers and a good power attenuator, and only
after that, buy an od and dist pedal.
This is
the new standard I am defining for what the term "guitar amp" means:
eq pedal
amp's
preamp distortion or an od/dist pedal
eq pedal 2
amp's tone
stack
tube power
amp
good power
attenuator
guitar
speaker
Every
guitarist in the world should immediately drop everything, sell everything they
have, and run to spend the money on two equalizer pedals and a good power
attenuator. Keep your od and dist
pedals, though, because each one has unique voicing inside its gain
stages. This is the shortest possible
path to Tone Heaven. Try it, and you
will quickly prove to yourself that what I say is the truth, and is no lie.
Beyond
that, the next level of trick that ought to be no trick, but universally known
upon first touching an electric guitar, is the importance of pushing a guitar
speaker hard, into distortion. The
standard way to do this in the pro recording studio is by using a remote
isolation booth with multimiking.
You can
easily do the same thing in a home studio environment by building or buying an
isolation booth or isolation cabinet, using this in conjunction with
multimiking. Put the fake-o sounding
simulators and emulators in their place -- the crib or the garbage can -- and
enter the land of the guitar gods.
>>I
have heard people talking about putting time-based effects (delay, tremolo,
etc.) in between the amp itself and the speaker cabinet. Has
>
anyone ever heard of doing this?
Yes. Use a standard 3-stage dummy-load amp rig,
shown below.
>>The
THD Hotplate (which is placed between the amp and speaker) has a Line OUT, but
I believe it has to go to another power amp to be used.
Correct. Use any power attenuator as a dummy load;
use the dummy load component that's in any power attenuator, and leave the
load-splitting circuit unused.
>>I'm
trying to exhaust every avenue of my sound, looking for something that is my
own.
Eddie Van
Halen made the 3-stage amp rig his own sound, and also split the signal after
the dummy load, to form one dry guitar speaker cab and one for late fx such as
reverb.
Trent
Reznor made the fake-o degraded simulator processor sound his own, playing on
its signature artificial and cold character.
Start by
not innovating, but use either of the two standard professional studio rig
chains: 2-stage amp rig with power attenuator, or 3-stage amp rig with dummy
load:
eq and
other fx (stage 1)
preamp
distortion (pedal or amp's built-in)
eq and
other fx (stage 2)
tube power
amp
power
attenuator (as loud as permitted)
guitar
speaker, pushed hard, possibly in an isolation booth or iso cab
multiple
mics
mixer
eq and
other fx (stage 3)
monitor
speakers or headphones
Standard
3-stage amp rig with dummy load:
eq and
other fx (stage 1)
preamp
distortion (pedal or amp's built-in)
eq and
other fx (stage 2)
tube power
amp
dummy load
(can use any power atten's dummy load)
eq and
other fx (stage 3)
power amp
(solid-state is fine here)
guitar
speaker, pushed hard, possibly in an isolation booth or iso cab
multiple
mics
mixer
eq and
other fx (stage 4)
monitor
speakers or headphones
>>Is
there any way to simulate an effects loop for an amp which does not have one?
Turn off
the amp's built-in preamp distortion, and use a distortion pedal instead:
[effects
group 1]
distortion
pedal
[effects
group 2; equivalent to fx in amp's fx loop]
amp's
input jack
amp's
built-in preamp distortion not used
amp's tone
stack
tube power
amp
guitar
speaker
This
posting contains all the most important basics that the guitar gods know, but
that every beginning guitarist should be immediately taught on the first day,
with their first A-shaped power chord.
Study it as the gospel of Tone victory and entry into the kingdom of Tone
heaven. Guitar-god Tone is also in the
crazy fingers which are inspired by pot and acid.
Amp Tone
and the Experience of Ego Death
Even as
this site gains in popularity past 1 page-view per minute (4 hits per minute
when the pictures were present), I must limit the time I spend responding to
email, as I switch my attention to developing the Egodeath.com site to fill in
the forbidden understanding of religious experiencing and high philosophy. I'll
use the same web development techniques and strategy of looking for the gaps
and combinations of ideas about which there is great interest yet little
information provided.
My serious
interest in amp Tone and ego death philosophy both began in the middle of
college, in the midst of electrical engineering studies. The traditions of
electric guitar Tone and the ego death experience go back to the birth of
mainstream Rock in the mid-60s. My exploration of ego death and self-control
cybernetics, searching for the holy grail of a rational explanation for
religious experiencing and our imperfect self-determination, has always taken
place against the backdrop of the quest for the holy grail of quiet and
flexible cranked-amp Tone for everyone.
Comparable
to Amptone.com being a central hub for practical techniques and products for
amp Tone, Egodeath.com will be the central hub covering the intersection of
Christian mystic experiencing, philosophy of ego death, and drug-policy reform.
I encourage guitar-gear seekers of the holy grail to also explore a high
interest of the world of the 60s guitarists: the highest experience of all, the
experience of ego death and rebirth.
The
ultimate amp Tone is the heavenly trumpeting sound of doom for the egoic
cybernetic steersman and the triumphant recovery of the sense of personal
agency. The subtle bending of the sound of the cranked amp is no unfamiliar
backdrop to the high perspective on personal agency; where you find ego death
in this age, you will often find an awesome cranked tube amp Tone providing the
soundtrack to this truest and most genuine and authentic, and historically
established religious experience. This ultimate amp Tone heard in the ultimate
state of perception is the highest Tone, the Tone of mystic death and rebirth.
The plant-induced
mystic altered state is not "like" authentic religious experiencing,
it is the authentic sacrament and vehicle for religious experiencing - see
Council for Spiritual Practices and Alchemind.org. The main thing blocking
interest and involvement with real religious experiencing and high philoosphy
is today's U.S. drug policies - like the ancient Jewish priests, like the
Catholic church, these authoritarian power-driven prohibitionist policies block
the doorway to Heaven.
I am
concerned to share and spread the same religion as Led Zeppelin, Rush, Queen,
the Beatles, and Hendrix -- all influential in their amp Tone and all
interested in high philosophy. If there is one religion shared by the leading
amp Tone explorers, it is the religion of entheogenic ego death. As in the
culture of these influential amp Tone pioneers, I am connecting music and
revolution, revolution which is political and spiritual, to bring actual
freedom to the land of the free, especially freedom of religion, which above
all means the freedom of religious experiencing: the freedom to take the
sacrament that you find effective for religious fulfillment.
In
December 2000, I created Reformnav.org. Drug-policy reform is no longer an
underground movement; this topic is becoming the most popular activist cause.
Many now are working to end the evil prohibition industry, the industry of
persecution for profit. I need to freeze Amptone.com and prepare and simplify
the practical philosophical system at Egodeath.com for the coming unravelling of
the phony Drug War. Amp Tone mattered to the original Rock guitarists, but
remember that it was used in the service of mental and spiritual freedom.
From this
point of view, amp Tone in the foundation of Rock was the medium, and spiritual
and political freedom was the message. So these two sites, Amptone.com and
Egodeath.com, work together to advance the work started during the birth of
heavy Rock. I bring key, practical amp Tone information for free for everyone,
and I bring key, practical ego death information for free for everyone. I
especially encourage continuing the tradition of combining these realms, using
amp Tone to convey and bring about the ego death and rebirth experience, so
that the best Tone is the highest Tone, the Tone of Enlightenment and
Revelation.
I will see
if there is any amp tone material in this book. Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock and
Psychedelics in the 1960s. By Nick Bromell, Nicholas Knowles Bromell.
Hardcover. $22.50 list. 225 pages. December 2000. Note that it would be a
mistake to assume that psychedelics can be avoided and denied by safely
relegated them to the 60s. They have always been alive and well in Rock, and
entheogens have overlapped with music throughout history.
This is a
major sense in which amp Tone is a religion -- in this case, a literal
religious experience, when the complexity of multiple distortion factors is
heard as the timeless trumpet of doom and revelation during the phenomena
surrounding the ego death experience."
Newsgroup:
alt.guitar.amps, alt.music.4-track
The song
Ride My See-Saw by the Moody Blues is one example of the definitive acid-rock
amp tone. Here is how to get this sound
using typical equipment, at any volume level.
The goal
is to:
o Avoid preamp distortion
o Hit the power tubes hard, but keep the
power-tube saturation just at moderate clipping
o Backoff midbass and upper bass to avoid
swamping the saturation with crusty bass.
_____________________
Single-coil
neck pickup
Compressor
pedal -- strong attack, moderate sustain.
EQ pedal
-- boost low bass moderately, cut the mid/upper bass. Boost the mid-mids through treble bands. Depends on guitar's own EQ curve.
Fender
Blues Jr. tube combo 1x12 guitar amp -- Crank all controls and engage the
midboost. Then back off preamp gain to
12 o'clock, and back off the treble to 2 o'clock.
THD Hot
Plate - realize that on the low, variable setting, between 0 and noon, treble
backs off as you increase the variable level control -- so there is interaction
between the Treble boost switch, the variable volume control, and the
proportion of treble.
Combo
amp's built-in 1x12 speaker
_____________________
The guitar
on this track sounds like it is double-tracked or uses a 12-string. I am becoming interested in 12-string electric
guitars in this single-coil neck, power-tube saturation configuration. I read that Rickenbackers have bass-cut
control. Brian May and others commonly
used a bass-cut effect before the guitar amp's input. Bass cut before preamp distortion or power-tube-only saturation
is an open secret of the guitar gods.
To record
this sound, I would use two condenser close-mics and blend them at the mixer.
This
acid-rock amp tone is fat and warbly with no fizz, and deep dynamic
richness. It is worlds apart from the
1980s double-coil bridge pickup aesthetic.
This sound is particularly interesting for psychoacoustics, because it
is distorted in a warped, warbly way, without breaking into fizziness. This sound is associated with the perceptual
distortion of the mystic altered state and with the fearsome onset of
deterministic ego-death.
I'm going
to demo the Vox Valvetronix amp soon -- the first guitar amp designed the way
I've been recommending, combining amp modelling with a tube power amp driving a
dummy load, with post-processing and a solid-state final amp. However, I would have used an actual power
tube, an EL84, rather than a 12AX7, in the tube power amp. To demo this amp, I will bring a couple EQ
pedals and some cables. High on my
gearlust list is the new BOSS 10-band EQ pedal.
Artist:
The Moody Blues
Album: In
Search Of The Lost Chord, 1968
Ride My
See-Saw
(John
Lodge)
Ride, ride
my see-saw,
Take
this place
On this
trip
Just for
me.
Ride, take
a free ride,
Take my
place
Have my
seat
It's for
free.
I worked
like a slave for years,
Sweat so
hard just to end my fears.
Not to
end my life a poor man,
But by
now, I know I should have run.
Run, run
my last race,
Take my
place
Have
this number
Of mine.
Run, run
like a fire,
Don't
you run in
In the
lanes
Run for
time.
Left
school with a first class pass,
Started
work but as second class.
School
taught one and one is two.
But
right now, that answer just ain't true.
Ah ah ah
ah, ah ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
Ah ah ah
ah, ah ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
My world
is spinning around,
Everything
is lost that I found.
People
run, come ride with me,
Let's
find another place that's free.
Ride, ride
my see-saw,
Take
this place
On this
trip
Just for
me.
Ride, take
a free ride,
Take my
place
Have my
seat
It's for
free.
Ride, my
see-saw.
Ride,
ride, ride, my see-saw.
Ride, my
see-saw...
Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)