Real Screamo gear

[D.o.S.]

not trolling but can someone explain screamo and skramz to me?

please don't tell me screamo is just emo from the early 2000s where itstead of 'WHAA boo HOOO" bitching with an acoustic, now youre screaming about that dumb bitch that broke your heart?

and whats skramz? fuck I cant keep up.

Skramz and screamo are different terms for the same thing because of said early 2000's bands. It's basically really fast, heartfelt, and often weird hardcore. Or at least that's how I think of it. All of the bands mentioned in this thread are a good start, and if you're into stuff like atmospheric black metal, post rock, and post hardcore you'd probably be into it.

Except for the idea that you would like bad music if you like good music, this post is legit,

[KaosCill8r]

Orchid tone is all about P90s and the old valvestate marshalls.

I rock an old Valvestate Marshall. Not for Screamo. I play chaotic noise rock and it is awesome for that. To be honest I really don't know what Screamo is The Valvestate amps don't really get a lot of love, which surprises me because they are solid, reliable and really loud amps. I have been giving mine a hard time for over 15 years and it's still going strong.

Used to have a 65 watt combo. My first amp, bought brand new before I had an internet to teach me the difference between a tube amp and a shitty fizzy sounding ss amp with a single preamp tube to fool silly noobs like myself

Lesson learned: Not everything with a Marshall logo on it will make you sound like Hendrix

Anyway, it didnt take long till it crapped the bed. It ended up spending more time in the shop than in my room. My buddy had the 80Watt version, which sounded equally horrible, shrill, cold, unmusical...Both the clean and the drive channel still haunt my nightmares. It didn't break as much as mine, but I remember at least two times when he had to take it to a tech cause it went silent for no apparent reason.

Don't mean to shit on your gear preferences, good for you if you like your amp. But I'm sure you figured this out by now...I'm pretty much traumatised by my valvestate experiences

I respect your opinion dude. I have always had weird taste in gear. but I just have a way of making things work for me.
I have the 100w mine isn't shrill at all. Maybe I got a freak but I only use the od 1 channel with the gain almost clean but just on the edge of breakup if I dig in a bit harder with my pick attack. Master volume about half way. I actually run the eq with more treble than mids or bass. If I turn the mids or bass up it just gets way too sludgy and has little definition. I get my od and fuzz with my pedals. The valve in the preamp is just being used as a clipping diode which is why I just like the gain up just enough to tickle the valve with a fuzz or od pedal. It is an amp you have to set just right or it will sound crap. So I get what you are saying. My other amp is an all tube Hotrod Deluxe which I like, but I just like the Valvestate more because of how it takes pedals.

[WORMDIRT]

Orchid tone is all about P90s and the old valvestate marshalls.

I rock an old Valvestate Marshall. Not for Screamo. I play chaotic noise rock and it is awesome for that. To be honest I really don't know what Screamo is The Valvestate amps don't really get a lot of love, which surprises me because they are solid, reliable and really loud amps. I have been giving mine a hard time for over 15 years and it's still going strong.

Used to have a 65 watt combo. My first amp, bought brand new before I had an internet to teach me the difference between a tube amp and a shitty fizzy sounding ss amp with a single preamp tube to fool silly noobs like myself

Lesson learned: Not everything with a Marshall logo on it will make you sound like Hendrix

Anyway, it didnt take long till it crapped the bed. It ended up spending more time in the shop than in my room. My buddy had the 80Watt version, which sounded equally horrible, shrill, cold, unmusical...Both the clean and the drive channel still haunt my nightmares. It didn't break as much as mine, but I remember at least two times when he had to take it to a tech cause it went silent for no apparent reason.

Don't mean to shit on your gear preferences, good for you if you like your amp. But I'm sure you figured this out by now...I'm pretty much traumatised by my valvestate experiences

I respect your opinion dude. I have always had weird taste in gear. but I just have a way of making things work for me.
I have the 100w mine isn't shrill at all. Maybe I got a freak but I only use the od 1 channel with the gain almost clean but just on the edge of breakup if I dig in a bit harder with my pick attack. Master volume about half way. I actually run the eq with more treble than mids or bass. If I turn the mids or bass up it just gets way too sludgy and has little definition. I get my od and fuzz with my pedals. The valve in the preamp is just being used as a clipping diode which is why I just like the gain up just enough to tickle the valve with a fuzz or od pedal. It is an amp you have to set just right or it will sound crap. So I get what you are saying. My other amp is an all tube Hotrod Deluxe which I like, but I just like the Valvestate more because of how it takes pedals.

My first head was a avt50. I thought it sounded great, needed to be 300% louder though

[frigid midget]

Orchid tone is all about P90s and the old valvestate marshalls.

I rock an old Valvestate Marshall. Not for Screamo. I play chaotic noise rock and it is awesome for that. To be honest I really don't know what Screamo is The Valvestate amps don't really get a lot of love, which surprises me because they are solid, reliable and really loud amps. I have been giving mine a hard time for over 15 years and it's still going strong.

Used to have a 65 watt combo. My first amp, bought brand new before I had an internet to teach me the difference between a tube amp and a shitty fizzy sounding ss amp with a single preamp tube to fool silly noobs like myself

Lesson learned: Not everything with a Marshall logo on it will make you sound like Hendrix

Anyway, it didnt take long till it crapped the bed. It ended up spending more time in the shop than in my room. My buddy had the 80Watt version, which sounded equally horrible, shrill, cold, unmusical...Both the clean and the drive channel still haunt my nightmares. It didn't break as much as mine, but I remember at least two times when he had to take it to a tech cause it went silent for no apparent reason.

Don't mean to shit on your gear preferences, good for you if you like your amp. But I'm sure you figured this out by now...I'm pretty much traumatised by my valvestate experiences

I respect your opinion dude. I have always had weird taste in gear. but I just have a way of making things work for me.
I have the 100w mine isn't shrill at all. Maybe I got a freak but I only use the od 1 channel with the gain almost clean but just on the edge of breakup if I dig in a bit harder with my pick attack. Master volume about half way. I actually run the eq with more treble than mids or bass. If I turn the mids or bass up it just gets way too sludgy and has little definition. I get my od and fuzz with my pedals. The valve in the preamp is just being used as a clipping diode which is why I just like the gain up just enough to tickle the valve with a fuzz or od pedal. It is an amp you have to set just right or it will sound crap. So I get what you are saying. My other amp is an all tube Hotrod Deluxe which I like, but I just like the Valvestate more because of how it takes pedals.

I could imagine the head would be less shity, since the combos probably came with inferior generic speakers, while the head version gives you the option of using a decent 4x12 cab loaded with yer own choice of nice speakers

Also have to admit, the guitars me and my buddy played back on the day, were on par with our chops. Or rather, he lack there off
My buddy had this god awefull metal axe, with fake emg's. I was rocking a '70s flee market piece of shit. Don't remember the name on the headstock, but it was something funky looking with a warped neck. Made in Italy, plywood body. Those were the days

So yeah, I'm sure your rig could sound a helluva lot better than how I remember my old combo

[KaosCill8r]

Mine is a combo. The VS102R with 2 celestian Black & Gold speakers.

[John Matrix]

Loma is pretty huge at this point for this scene definitely. I seem to remember teles/jazzmasters and a V4+OCD the last time I saw them? A RAT/Carvin would probably be pretty close to that in sound I'd think.

Neat. Good for those dudes. I don't know why we were on the same bill because it really didn't fit, but it was fun. haha. Carvins were the cheap go to amp at the time around here in California (Kustoms too). I'm sure if they've continued on and gotten bigger they've moved on from some of their old gear.

I just checked their wikipedia page and the guys that were in the band when we played together aren't even in the band anymore. It must have been around the time of their first EP.

edit: found the flyer...sorry about the sentimental post. haha.

Cool, always fun to find out about the bands around.

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HOLY FUCK DUDE. My old band played this show. I was in Unless, we shared a drummer with Loma Prieta. Anyway, back at the time of that show Loma was a three piece, 2 guitars and drums. One of the guitarists and the drummer are still in the band.

[lordgalvar]

HOLY FUCK DUDE. My old band played this show. I was in Unless, we shared a drummer with Loma Prieta. Anyway, back at the time of that show Loma was a three piece, 2 guitars and drums. One of the guitarists and the drummer are still in the band.

Fuckin' A, man. I knew I would run into somebody eventually. What year was this? 2006 or 2007? I think I remember them only having the two guitar players. It was a really cramped space to play and I don't remember much about it because it was a long time ago. haha. We were the really crappy band that played haha. I think I had a yellow yamaha sgv at the time. There was like a backyard with a white fence or something right? And the bathroom was inside the house. It was such a blur because I think I got off work, loaded up the truck, picked everyone up and then had to entertain my singer's girlfriend (which whatever, it was fine). Quite an alright show though. Everybody was good except for maybe us? haha.

Awesome.

[John Matrix]

Fuckin' A, man. I knew I would run into somebody eventually. I think I remember them only having the two guitar players. It was a really cramped space to play and I don't remember much about it because it was a long time ago. haha. We were the really crappy band that played haha. I think I had a yellow yamaha sgv at the time. There was like a backyard with a white fence or something right? And the bathroom was inside the house. It was such a blur because I think I got off work, loaded up the truck, picked everyone up and then had to entertain my singer's girlfriend (which whatever, it was fine). Quite an alright show though. Everybody was good except for maybe us? haha.

Awesome.

Yeah dude, that show was great. The show space was that tiny shed in the back yard. We played a Linkin Park cover (for the lols) and people were surprisingly stoked on it. I had a blast and thought all the bands were rad. It was the only tour Unless ever went on before imploding about a year later. We went down to Tijuana with Loma and played in this weird house with no furniture. Tight.

[lordgalvar]

That might have actually been our last out of town show, now that I think about it. I do remember you guys playing the Linkin Park cover! I couldn't remember what show that happened at, but I remember that! haha.

[frigid midget]

Btw...If anyone has gear info on City of Caterpillar, Ten Grand, Off Minor, Four Hundred Years, Stop It!, Sleepytime trio,...I'd appreciate it

They may not all fit the screamo definition, but since they were a big deal for me through my late '20s and I'm going through somewhat of a revival, and since I also REALLY want to get involved in a new band with a similar vibe...I'd like to know if just something jcm 800-esque and a tele will get me there.

Judging on clips and shows I seen, the gear choices are all over the place. All kinds of amps, teles, sg's, les pauls, ricks, cheapo thrift store gear,....

Kinda Seems comforting that gear isn't the biggest concerns if I can come up with a handful of decent tunes...

[lordgalvar]

Btw...If anyone has gear info on City of Caterpillar, Ten Grand, Off Minor, Four Hundred Years, Stop It!, Sleepytime trio,...I'd appreciate it

They may not all fit the screamo definition, but since they were a big deal for me through my late '20s and I'm going through somewhat of a revival, and since I also REALLY want to get involved in a new band with a similar vibe...I'd like to know if just something jcm 800-esque and a tele will get me there.

Judging on clips and shows I seen, the gear choices are all over the place. All kinds of amps, teles, sg's, les pauls, ricks, cheapo thrift store gear,....

Kinda Seems comforting that gear isn't the biggest concerns if I can come up with a handful of decent tunes...

That's what I remember of the era even though I don't know any of those bands. Pedals were kinda seen as cheesy around most scenes in southern california except for some of the no-wave/noise guys (they used a lot of music man, kustom, and sunn stuff), metal (they were all using mesa/boogie, multi-fx, and rack setups), and some indie rockers. Rats and mt-2's (and boss overdrives/distortions) were around a lot...seem to remember some people using dod death metal pedals. Don't ever remember seeing HM-2's around at all. Everybody else just used whatever high gain amp they could get their hands on whenever I saw bands come through in that era. A lot of carvin, some marshall (cost prohibitive), sovtek, peavey, fender (again, cost), etc. I do remember a few dudes playing through rack setups (and I know a lot of bass players did at the time).

[John Matrix]

Yeah, honestly I think a lot of people are overthinking the gear aspect of this kind of music. I think the real answer is "whatever you can afford that is loud."

[lordgalvar]

Yeah, honestly I think a lot of people are overthinking the gear aspect of this kind of music. I think the real answer is "whatever you can afford that is loud."

That is a better way of saying it, haha. Only the heavy metal and nu-metal (well, I was from the hometown of korn and all those dudes) had the expensive stuff. Everyone else had what they could afford that was loud, like John Matrix said. There wern't cool PAs and stuff around to mic cabs. It was just loud half stacks and whatever little pa for vocals(had to bring mics to a lot of shows). There were alot of MIM fenders around because they were good for the price back then.

The other thing was there just wasn't a lot of pedals around then compared to now (EHX was just kinda getting back, boss was most everything. Digitech was around. DOD was everyone's first pedal until they got a boss. Lots of multifx being used as tuners and stuff). There wern't a lot of new choices in tube amps either. I don't even remember a single band even using a fuzz until I got one. When I saw Chaos UK around that time they were using a line6 pod on a stand, if that is any indication, haha. Carvins were common and cheap that's why there were a lot being used (i was using a sovek mig100h into a carvin cab, I wasn't even close to playing screamo stuff but we all had similar gear/played the same places/same pool of stuff to choose from/same pool of people in the scene...we all kinda traded gear a bit). Randall solid state heads like dimebag used were around a lot too.

[daseb]

$kramz sort of became a word to distinguish the stuff that followed later on from the first coupe versions of screamo, which was really just hardcore by people who didn't find much in tough guy victory bands or ex girlfriend revenge core or whatever, or were art damaged and pretentious. You can trace it back at least as far as early 90s Gravity records and Ebullition records bands but at the time to me at least it was just hardcore.

By the time we got into the end of level plane records era of like all the euro bands like la quiete, all that sassy white belt 2003 shit like early blood brothers and plot to blow up the Eiffel Tower, etc it seemed like it had kind of lost the connection to hardcore for better or worse (it's when I tapped out, I met too many sleazy pricks in bands and it lost the politics I found interesting) and that's definitely when the term $kramz got bandied about on message boards. Don't get me wrong there were good bands around but it definitely seemed like a different thing.

As others have said gear was usually pretty incidental to the actual music. Cheap and reliable on tour were as big considerations as tone. But once again for some reason I soak this shit up:

Off Minor: Jamie used a sg1 I think, with a Marshall preamp/power amp combo. Kev had a jazz bass and sans amp, definitely recorded inominate at least with a traynor bass head.

Stop it: whatever was cheapest. At the end one dude had a strat with one pickup/volume knob and the other a SG. Adams live bass tone was cheap basses (olp, epi thunderbird) into various acoustic heads that he would crank until they blew up then just buy another one into an acoustic 4x15 that I think Parker from cough now owns. Bass tone on the record was apparently line 6?! The bass sound on that record is to die for.

Four Hundred Years: jcms, one guitarist had an ibanez, other had a SG. Erin used an ibanez atk bass, bull had an ibanez road master.

Someone in ten grand had a Kramer aluminium neck guitar. Matt Davis used a les Paul jr at one point.

You know the lamest thing (apart from the fact that I'm phone posting this from an emergency room?). I live in Australia and never saw most of these bands. Just used to obsessively pour over photos in zines and record inserts to work out what people were playing.

[casecandy]

not trolling but can someone explain screamo and skramz to me? ... and whats skramz? fuck I cant keep up.

I think someone alluded to the fact that the genres keep getting reclassified as a way of differentiating "the real stuff" from the mainstream, mainly because people keep appropriating and/or misusing the established terminology. Emocore, screamo, skramz, powerviolence, it is all the same stuff: underground punk with a focus on emotional, rather than political lyrics, and a reputation for chaos.

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It used to be called "emocore," as in "emotional hardcore," but few emo bands have ever relished being called "emo,"*** and Ian MacKaye, the de facto founder of the genre, thought it was flat-out stupid, as hardcore was always emotional. (To me the crucial difference is that emo is almost never political.) Today the word "emo" could be used to describe bands as poles apart as Bright Eyes (maudlin country and folk) to My Chemical Romance (Queen-inspired goth rock). And it wouldn't be completely inaccurate because those bands share a fanbase, who in turn share a lifestyle that revolves around those bands.

Then it was called "screamo," a portmanteau of "emo" and "scream," a reference to the style of the vocals. This, too, is a bit unnecessary, because emocore always had screamed vocals. But it was useful for a spell to differentiate the underground bands from the more popular stuff, until the term "screamo," too, caught on. People began to use it to describe bands like The Used (rock), Thursday and Thrice (post-hardcore), Avenged Sevenfold (boozy metal), and even bands with absolutely no connection to the original scene or genre (nü-metal bands like Linkin Park, Deftones). Basically, to plebs, if it has screamed vocals, it is screamo.

To avoid being lumped in with those bands, people began to refer to the bands they used to refer to as screamo as any number of absurd other things, like "violence," "ultraviolence," "powerviolence," "skramz," "Euroskramz," etc. It is telling that the words "emo" and "screamo" were already in Chrome's spellchecker, but it did not recognize "skramz." In ten years, the word "skramz" will be used to refer to some shit your little sister listens to, and all the Trü Punx™ will be calling their music SuperDuperSkreem or some dumb shit.

But a scream by any other name would sound as sweet. All you need to know is this: screamo bands will fuck your bitch. Emo bands will cry because the screamo bands fucked their respective bitches. Both offer something very compelling when done right.

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If you want to hear what screamo/skramz sounds like, check out:
Amanda Woodward (French), Ampere, Antioch Arrow, Ariadne's Thread (they suck but are representative of the genre), Circle Takes The Square, City of Caterpillar, combatwoundedveteran, Dag Nasty (O.G.s), Daitro, Das Oath (best-ever cover of "We Are The Champions," LOL), Embrace, Envy (Japanese; some genre crossover with doom), Evylock, Fugazi (obvi this band got much bigger and different but deserves a nod), Funeral Diner (a personal favourite), Hot Cross (one of the better bands in the genre IMO), I Would Set Myself On Fire For You, Indian Summer, Jerome's Dream, The Kidcrash (this is the guy that makes Science Amplification's band), La Quiete (Italian), Louis Cyphre (French; meh), Moss Icon (O.G.s and another personal fave), Native Nod, One Eyed God Prophecy (brü00tal Montreal band), Orchid (one of the more beloved screamo bands), pg. 99, Québec, Racebannon, Raein, Reversal Of Man, Ringers, Rites of Spring (the ultimate O.G.s who were the originators of the genre), The Saddest Landscape, Saetia ("Becoming The Truth" is incredible IMO), The Shivering, Sinaloa, Staircase, Swing Kids, Union of Uranus, Unwound, Usurp Synapse (crazy shit!), Welcome The Plague Year, Zann, 1905.

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*** The only band that ever really, truly embraced being called an emo band is Say Anything. Their 2007 album In Defense of the Genre is a double-disc concept album about how awesome emo music is. Like all double albums, it is too long, but it is nonetheless fantastic.