The Doom Room: ILF Edition

[samzadgan]

excuse the spam…

just got the final video for our App done…really stoked with the final product!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=57 ... =2&theater

The iOS version will soft launch for friends and family in about 2 weeks…official launch for iOS and Android will be in March/April.

[conky]

...I've wanted to get a new delay for a couple years, but there's so much out there and I can never choose between the well reviewed analog or analog voiced digital delays that get hyped...

My thoughts exactly...

Have a particular sound you're looking for? Tap tempo? For saturated soundscape, I found the EQD Dispatch Master to be excellent, I've really been loving my Dirgedweller, or the TC Flashback is good and cheap. Lots of options in the Flashback too.

Well I just found this actually, which has steered me strongly in favor of the El Cap - see around 9:10 and 10:30.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvnEcRWwlXY[/youtube]

I saw that video too and then I did a few tour dates with a band that we did a split with and their guitarist had one. He made it sound so good that i had to have one. Once I got it though I was left a little unimpressed. I went back to my DE7 and sold the El Cap. It's not a bad delay though, but for ambient drone stuff I'd go for a Carbon Copy, DE7 or a Montavillian echo if I was looking for something cheaper than an El Cap. The videos for the Dispatch Master look cool too and the reverb that it built in is pretty sweet. That said, I don't think you'd have a problem flipping and El Cap if you got one and ended up not liking it. It is a pretty sweet delay, but I just ended up going back to my old DE7 and Timefactor for my delay needs. Thats another thing to consider too, since the Timefactor is going for a little cheaper than an El Cap now. The ducked delay setting on there does well for ambient droning delays.

[D.o.S.]

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.

[whiskey_face]

AA if youre on the fence about buying another amp just think (holy edit batman)

what would whiskey face do?

WWWFD

or

WTFWWFD

he would buy the orange, and any other 100 watter around him that wasn't a blue voodoo or a marshall jcm 2k

that's WTFWWFD

[ryan summit]

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

[Kacey Y]

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 tend to agree, a lot of great musicians whose tone people idolize change up their gear frequently. They have a tone in their head they want, they find different ways to get there. Some of what they're chasing is something we're never going to hear, like getting a certain response out of one amp easier than another of having some feature that more precisely suits the way they use an amp in different circumstances. Most of the time with typical gear fetishization and GAS people seem to be chasing an ideal that they'll be MORE of something, if they just find a missing piece. The idea of being more cool or more quintessentially a particular genre for a specific piece of gear seems like the worst version of that to me. That seems like a fool's errand. Better to have a tone in your head and chase that, it's more attainable. There are a lot of different ways to get similar tones. Some might take 30 seconds of knob turning, some might take 30 minutes. They both can get in the same ballpark, just depends on how you want to spend your money. Nothing wrong with choosing the expensive or cheap one, whatever suits your needs better. Cheaper doesn't always mean worse, a good deal doesn't always mean the best buy.

Don't get me wrong, I drool over cool gear just as much as the next guy. I'm more impressed by something that sounds amazing though, regardless of the brand name. In my book if it does loud it can probably do doom, with some effort.

[Krosis]

I think one of the great things about doom is that there are many types of doom and ways to get there. You see a lot of SGs and LPs but you also see Teles and semi-hollows.

You don't have to have a certain rig, but on the other hand, a certain guitar + certain tube amp head = insta-doom. If you want to get a more specific sound, then you can switch things out, add effects, etc. The gear for the genre can either be really simple or really complex. I think that is part of a lot of our fascination with the genre. Why else are we on this board, posting pictures of our rigs, discussing different fuzz pedals, etc? Heck, I should be practicing right now but instead I'm here

[Harry_Manback]

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.

[AxAxSxS]

I think the speakers and cabs have a bigger impact than the amps do. Sure, A Dunwich is going to sound Miles better than a marshall valvestate, But once you get into vintage tube design as opposed to modeling amps or modern High gain fizzy sounding amps, you can get pretty much what you want.
Decent and or different cabs (folded horns bro) make a much bigger difference IMO.

[chillerthanmost]

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.

[AxAxSxS]

I think you can definitely have to much speaker for the amp. I had a 2x15 that I added to the GK 4x12 fh/2x10, and it sounded .... less. Both cabs sounded great alone but it wasn't getting pushed hard enough with it all together. Same with running 2 4x12's with one head.
I'm pretty set on one cab per amp. I'm sure there is a way of figuring out what would be ideal using math, I'm way to lazy for that though. I'll just keep slaughtering a chicken to the gods of tone before shows and sticking with one amp per cab ratio.

[moose23]

high on fire's matt pike uses blackstar 200 amps for live. don't think he does for recordings, it's not doom sludge but it's some tone.

Sleep sounded heavy as all fuck the two times I watched them play through Blackstar and Ampeg rigs.

[Iommic Pope]

Finally got to play my amp this arvo...for about 5 minutes before it died.
Buzzing like a motherfucker, too.
I think I know where I went wrong, just not sure how to get it right after I undo it.
Amp dudes (Nick, moose, any of your duders apt with ampage), I may need to PM you. Let me know if that's ok/not cool.
I just wanna get my shit back up and running so I can play again. I'm getting really frustrated.
Need to join the hunt for a band again, also.
Functional gear is critical to my situation!

I wouldn't knock a Blackstar back at those prices. Now that we're all done cork sniffing, and we wanna get punk rock again (says this guy).
Right now, I'm just feeling the need for shit THAT FUCKING WORKS!

[moose23]

Finally got to play my amp this arvo...for about 5 minutes before it died.
Buzzing like a motherfucker, too.
I think I know where I went wrong, just not sure how to get it right after I undo it.
Amp dudes (Nick, moose, any of your duders apt with ampage), I may need to PM you. Let me know if that's ok/not cool.
I just wanna get my shit back up and running so I can play again. I'm getting really frustrated.
Need to join the hunt for a band again, also.
Functional gear is critical to my situation!

I wouldn't know a Blackstar back at those prices. Now that we're all done cork sniffing, and we wanna get punk rock again (says this guy).
Right now, I'm just feeling the need for shit THAT FUCKING WORKS!

I know electronics but I'm not really an amp guy but my punk rock roots agree with shit that works. Speaking of punk rock here's a tune from my punk rock band, 77 Fender Jazz straight into my old Peavey (now the guitarist's) Mark VI and Warwick 6x10. There's some Mig100 and Laney GH100 action in there too.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmk0gg0apU8[/youtube]

[Iommic Pope]

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.