The Doom Room: ILF Edition

[deathmonkey]

Lately I've been enjoying amps through less speakers. I had my 412 and 212 set up together and after a while jamming out I ended up liking them split up instead. I tend to hear lower watt amps like my Sunn Sorado sound bigger and thinker when it's pushing my 2x12 only. And my Sound City, though easily loud enough to push more then one cab, sounds great through a single 412. It's funny because six-seven years ago I used to strictly play full stacks and would never consider a single 2x12. Granted, my 212 is insanely loud, but yeah, just weird how I changed that about my rig through time yet I feel I'm louder now than I ever have been.

I started doing that too. I have my verellen go through my 1x12 and my red bear through a 2x15. Sounds way bigger and beefier and better than when i used to go through a 4x12.


there are young kids around here who are just getting into the sunn craze, and every week they have a new cab/ new amp or something. They keep trading and selling. My favorite part is when they do all this and talk about how great their tone is, and how much better their setups are (simply because of the sunn badge) and yet all they do is play noise.

[Ancient Astronaught]

Chasing unicorns. Find your muse and go with it. I don't give a shit if you play a Peavey Bandit or an SLO. I just want to feel it. Folk, doom or blue grass, just play it with conviction.

[D.o.S.]

Because it's always been about super cheap, loud amps being pushed with distortion pedals.

thats it dos
your gettin blown by me
get over here
hold up, kill that light first

Internet breauxjobs all day everyday.

Drooling over gear is sweet, but as long as it works, you're golden.

[moose23]

My damn phone won't play that clip....but the way you described it makes it sound sexy.
You've helped me out in the past man, and I really appreciate it. Besides, you'll probably be like, "duh", because you understand stuff, whereas I got in a little over my head. I might message you tomorrow or put up a super detailed description of where I'm at with pics in the deathbox thread. That way its laid out for everyone to see and we can get a conference of the Mig goin on.

Yeah go for it.

[dub]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua3XVFIwpkE[/youtube]

Solid State Crate Amps on this right? Shit's monolithic.

I love my Matamp but you can used anything for sludge and doom, just gotta be loud (and in the studio you don't even need that). Hell all those Southern sludge bands got a nasty enough tone out of traditional metal amps.

[AngryGoldfish]

The Blackstar amps I've tried are not Doom-worthy on their own. I imagine Matt uses plenty of pedal colouration on either a clean setting or a slightly gritty setting, at which any loud amp on the planet could be a Doom amp. The 200 watt Series One has that big low-end and piano-like sustain of a Diezel Herbert or a Soldano Avenger, but that's it.

Pray tell, what is the criteria for doom worthy?

Come on, we've spoken about the Doom sound for almost a year now, and it's been discussed a hundred times before over the years. Do I really need to detail why modern amps don't often cut the mustard for some players unless they have a pedal? For me, strumming a power chord into a dry clean amp with a Big Muff or something of that ilk is about as close to the Doom sound I hear in my head as you can get. It churns and rumbles, not chanks and clangs. There are different variations on the Doom tone, of course, like when people use Soldanos, or 5150's, or Boss HM-2 pedals into an old Peavey or Dual Rectifier, but that's a sound and feeling that's been captured on record; it has encapsulated something for many people. A Blackstar Series One 200 has not yet defined a genre or era or made me feel anything. I had a Soldano before and it made me feel something. It was dark, menacing, brooding. The Series One 200 made me feel a smidgen of this, but it was fizzy, sizzly, clangy, and chunky in a steel-hitting-steel kind of way. It doesn't rumble with deep fog and dry death. It makes me feel completely different. Metal, to me anyway, is about how it makes you feel. Dillinger and Converge are two of my favourite metal bands because of how they make me feel. YOB I love because of how perfect their writing is, how they pace their music, and of course how guttural their guitar tone is. It's epic, huge, churning, throaty, foggy. It makes me shiver with glee inside. A modern Blackstar is none of these things. It reminds me of a different era; a different genre.

Gear fetishization is gear fetishization--part of the reason I got such a kick out of the whole Ampeg amps bit on the last Om record is the fact that Al and Pike are 98.9973% of the reason why modern day musicians know about amps like Matamp... and fifteen years after their band broke up they're using (essentially) Marshalls and Ampegs. You know, the same kinds of amps that any given brick and motar guitar shop will sell for way cheaper than what an old Orange or an old Sunn will go for... because of bands like Sleep, Bongzilla, The Hidden Hand and such. Because it's always been about super cheap, loud amps being pushed with distortion pedals.

Yob's a hilarious example for you to use, by the way, since album-to-album the gear is so different. It all sounds like Yob. Because the badge on your speaker cabinet doesn't add doom to your tone.

I said it's about how something makes you feel, the association, the union you have made between a piece of electronic engineering and something you hear from a piece of vinyl or a digital media file. If you want to call that fetishization then okey dokey. I aim to be proud of my fetishes, but I don't allow them to define me. Hence why I have no problem playing a Blackstar Artisan 100, or even playing a Series One 200 for that matter if I had the right pedal. They're both good amps. One is better for me and one is not as ideal, but they're both still perfectly usable and functional. It's just that my interpretation of the style of music we generally talk about here does not befit certain amps, but they can still be utilized to good affect.

You seem rather... hurt... by the fact that I said a Series One 200 was not "Doom-worthy", as if you need to defend something whilst maintaining distance and emotional disconnection. People have told me my amp is not Doom worthy because it's only 30 watts. If I remember rightly, you are in fact an advocate of loud and clean being the only way to go. Maybe I'm wrong there; my memory might be off. I have friends here who say nothing below 100 watts, yet to me Doom is not just about volume, just like to Matt Pike Doom is not about a $2000 vintage Orange but about anything he digs and is inspiring. A Blackstar Series One 200 does not inspire me to play the music that I feel inside. It's all about feelings, bro, about fetishizing your history, your excitement, as you would say.

[D.o.S.]

Nah, I'm not hurt. I think the phrase "doom worthy" is chuckle-worthy.

Like, I can just imagine some Buzzov*en knock-off coming in off a month-long bender, high as shit, and refusing to steal solid state amps from the other bands in the practice space because "only tubes are doom worthy."

Makes me giggle.

[D-Day]

Chuckle worthy indeed. If it's actually in you it'll come out through any gear. If you're playing patty cake then no amount of the keynote 'genre worthy' gear is going to make your shit righteous. On a related note I got the 135 back. I can't wait to show up to the show Friday night and see all the concern and field all the questions about the SLO. I mean it must be busted if I'd use something so pedestrian as a silver Fender Bassman right?

[AngryGoldfish]

Nah, I'm not hurt. I think the phrase "doom worthy" is chuckle-worthy.

Like, I can just imagine some Buzzov*en knock-off coming in off a month-long bender, high as shit, and refusing to steal solid state amps from the other bands in the practice space because "only tubes are doom worthy."

Makes me giggle.

"Doom-worthy" is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. The conversation we were having before that was not serious or philosophical. We were just dissing and praising, dissing and praising, doing the things we do everyday. Then you asked a question that... sounded like... you needed to defend those that are somehow 'un-Doom-worthy' in the eyes of AngryGoldfish, the 25-year-old who plays a 30-watt Fryette and a Telecaster. You took a philosophical debate technique to a blunt, tongue-in-cheek statement of little bearing to anyone, like taking a handmade 230lb crossbow to a child with a little too much cheek who's acting a little bold. It just smelt confrontational, and I have a lot of stress in my life right now to deal with confrontation.

[Ancient Astronaught]

Doom isn't about "the gear", it's about THE MUSIC!!!!! No one piece of gear is going to propel your playing to hall of fame levels, its the music you write with it. But gear is like a vehicle, and what works best depends on what your looking to get out of it. I wouldn't use a geo metro to haul a ton of firewood, as I wouldn't use a 20w SS practice amp to play shows. Nor would I commute to work in an F350, much like I wouldn't take my 200w amp to a typical bar gig with a decent PA.

I have alot of gear, including alot that's typical "doom worthy" gear but I don't buy it for the name or prestige I buy it for the tone. I've never played a better sounding amp than a Dunwich, and I've never been happier with a cab than my Emperor's. And yes I'm currently trying to buy an Orange amp to run stereo with one of my Dunwich's. Does that really make me a Doom Hipster or just a gear lover? does any of it really matter at all? I'm just gonna keep rocking out and making good music, as the only thing fetishizing gear does, is make the price go up.

I'm unfortunately starting to see the same trend that made me despise the car scene happen with the music scene. For years random people would come up to me and say "Hey! Your the dude with the Supra!" and my usual response was "Yes I am, do u know my name?. Nobody ever knew, I was the car and the car was me. It wasn't about my driving skills or who I was, it was about my possession. I refuse to let my gear define me, but there's more than enough people who feel very differently.

[pelliott]

fightfightfightfightfightfightfightfight

[crohny]

I agree with the doom worthy gear to an extent. If the amp has the ability to achieve a hefty low end it can be doom worthy no matter it being modern or vintage voiced. There are a number of things within the signal chain that can alter the sound. From pick ups and string gauge, to fuzz and other forms of dirt to eq pedals and so on. All of these when taken into consideration can be utilized to achieve a doom worthy tone with almost any amp, be it a high gain modern beast like a 5150 or a marshall plexi. Not everyone will see eye to eye, but I found out the hard way that I can make almost any amp work for me as long as it has the ability to have a decent low end response. I do agree with Angry to an extent. I do believe some amps really go have some voodoo that a good bit of modern amps aren't capable of achieving but this is only a concern if you want that voodoo. I do not expect a 5150 to ever sound like my marshall with a pharaoh or Black forest infront of it. That would be unrealistic. I could throw those pedals infront of a 5150 but it wouldn't be the same.

[AxAxSxS]

Chuckle worthy indeed. If it's actually in you it'll come out through any gear. If you're playing patty cake then no amount of the keynote 'genre worthy' gear is going to make your shit righteous. On a related note I got the 135 back. I can't wait to show up to the show Friday night and see all the concern and field all the questions about the SLO. I mean it must be busted if I'd use something so pedestrian as a silver Fender Bassman right?

Awesome man! I love how that thing sounds. I thought you were sticking with the SLO regardless but I kinda hope you go with the fender. It really makes the Ape tone shine.

To comment on the amp thing again. I think I could definately get my tone out of a 5150, but....
The amps I use do one thing loud and clean.
A 5150 or boogie or whatever high gain amp is going to have one or more channels that I will just never use. This adds to the overall complexity of the amp.
Most of the affordable modern amp (all?) are going to have large PCB's inside which for me are more difficult to work on that an old school point to point style construction amp.
All my vintage amps were purchased in a broken or semi working but with issues state. For the most part I was able to get them running myself. (I have used a tech on the Sunn and the Sims Watts because Iove those two and wanted them to be perfect.

I think the only amps I would call not "Doom Worthy" would be the modeling type solid state things. I just don't think those sound good at full volume. Scar the martyr sounded like mushy ass when I saw them opening for danzig and I'm pretty sure thats the kind of setup they were using. Zero amps on stage. sounded awful. Of course this would apply to any kind of music that wants to be loud, not just Doom.

[ryan summit]

does any of it really matter at all?

nope

[D.o.S.]

And yes I'm currently trying to buy an Orange amp to run stereo with one of my Dunwich's. Does that really make me a Doom Hipster or just a gear lover?

It has a MV. You are not kvlt.

a handmade 230lb crossbow

I wants it.

But only if it has a partridge transformer.