What was the motto of the 80's --- too much is never enough?
If 5 is good for you, then 10 is where I want to start.


Ok, so enough of the clichés.
How much gain did I use? ALL OF IT.

It's rock-n-roll, crank that sucker up.

Reverb is a big thing too. My Peavey Bandit 65 had excellent hair reverb.
I had a horrible time trying to program my fx trying to recreate it when I went all digital.
*I only used the Bandit for volume and reverb. ALL tone was always through my fx. My Rocktron PRO G.A.P. had it all the way up.



I am going though the patches on my modeler ----
my "lightest" sound that I use for that style of music consists of:
An Ibanez Tube Screamer (with 0 distortion) running into a 1982 Marshall JCM-800 at 89% gain and a 2009 Engl Fireball 100 at 56% gain.
Obviously, with no reverb or echo, it is not very 80's. But, as I said, it is metal enough to cover the light and dry stuff. --- two amps equals light, lol.


My main 80's patch uses:
A Chandler Tube Driver with a 77% drive running into a 1982 JCM-800 at 100% gain.
Add in some reverb and echo, and you are rocking away.


BUT...
Since I am no longer in a full-time 80's metal band, I don't know what I would be using if I needed it. But 100% seems to be a good start.

If you're actually taking your band serious, have a sound guy or someone who is intimately familiar with your band's sound and understands gear, that you trust and have them do a live level check... For a band with one guitar, it's not so much a big deal... if you have two guitarists it becomes very important.

Almost every guitarist who practices alone at home ends up putting too much gain, too much bass and too much presence or too much saturation... and while it sounds great cranking up loud in your garage, it ends up sounding like shit when you add all the other instruments.

So long as it doesn't get fizzy like the intro to Painkiller, I'm all for it. I needed varying amounts of gain for the band I had some years ago, doing everything from heavier versions of Classic Rock to Man In The Box to vintage Sabbath (where I wanted the tone to be closer to the original). If there was too much gain, you wound up with fizz.

Exactly. I had to adjust my gain back in the 90's. I thought it sounded awesome, high gain rip, your face off. But once I was playing with the other guys the definition and separation of notes got completely lost in the land of fizz. Then in the late 90's when I got into running sound I got a much better understanding of why I was told to back off the gain. To this day I tell guys they should back off their gain to get a better, more intelligible, guitar sound. They fight it at first, just like I did, but after hearing a recording of the difference they pretty much always come around.

Not too much, actually. I use the available gain on my Rivera and that's it. Think "Savage Amusement" era Scorpions. I am the only guitar in the band, and our live sound is very clear.

As well, it depends on the amp's gain structure. My JCM800 even with a pedal in front boosting the amp's gain sounds different than my TripleRec through the same cab. While the 800 doesn't have as much gain as the TR, the TR has more useable gain. I can push the 800 via pedals into "angry bees" but the Mesa remains clear and articulate, just "more gain".

Since I've got the cabinet in another room I can crank the head up to stage volume and still be able to see (and hear).

Well, it looks like me, Whitesnake, and a local 80's Metal Band in Connecticut are all alone in this.

But I'll agree with everyone else --- you don't just turn everything up. You have to make it sound good.

I have a Mesa Road King II combo and can say the same thing. It sounds very gainy, very dirty but the notes are actually very clear and articulate nicely. I really didn't notice that until I got a Line 6 DM4 to try different distortions thru the clean channel and they are much more saturated and fizzy as described here, than the Mesa itself.

And you have to have someone who can be impartial to kick everyone's ass in shape, the same way a producer or sound engineer would do. Everyone will have what they think is their ideal tone is... and you really need to have that other person adjust settings on both guitars and bass to find complimenting settings. And you really can't do it yourself, kinda like doing your own soundcheck isn't all that great.

Having played quite a bit of bass, it's nice to have a complimentary mix instead of trying to surf the frequencies the guitarists aren't hitting. My last band, at least a third of the time I'd be playing an octave up because they already had a good deal of the chugga chugga frequencies that are great to have when when you're rehearsing or practicing alone, but kinda sucks when you try to get in the studio for full rehearsal and have guitarists dueling volume knobs... and hearing horrendous hiss when everyone stops playing. lol

We did our own soundcheck a few times, though the singer/guitarist had his doubts. The first thing I did was turn my amp way down, then walk out front with my wireless rig and we'd run through a song, and all I'd hear was the vocals, his guitar, bass, and drums. Then I'd have the singer turn my amp up to where he could hear it comfortably in the full mix. Then we'd swap places and let him decide if I was too loud. More often than not, he turned his amp down a notch, or had me turn mine up.

It can be done if everyone leaves their ego for the audience and doesn't cockwhip the rest of the band with it. Ain't no room for that shit IMO.

The only time I had to turn down was when he showed up with a muddy TubeWorks 4x12. We had the same head (Fender RocPro 1000) and I had my Carvin 2x12 cab, which was balls-louder, cleaner, and more articulate than his 4x12. His cabinet sounded like it was in the next room; muffled and buzzy, and we were just using the amp's gain.

I have been in this game for a long time!!! Been playing live and loud in metal bands pretty much since metal was invented! I know how to get good tone live. We have a soundman. All that stuff is covered. What I am talking about is the amount of gain you play with live. I found it more enjoyable to play with a ton more gain than I usually play with. This of course... added hiss... which the crowd really couldn't hear... and it added the fact that I needed to roll his guitar volume down a few numbers in between songs because if not it would start to generated harmonic feedback. Last night I was putting several of my live amps through their paces turned up nice and loud and I prefer the tone of the amps with as little effects as needed and with just enough gain. Still... soloing just doesn't sound as full and its not as effortless as compared with playing with a ton of gain. My point is.. I experienced this and it seems that the pro's play with a ton of gain live. When I saw Van Halen Eddy had so much gain and effects on his guitar he could have played every song totally with his fret hand. Same thing with Whitesnake, Dokken, Motley Crue, Def Leppard etc. Now... I didn't think they had the best guitar tone I have ever heard because it was so effected and so saturated and so over the top it was almost hard to tell what they were playing. Still.. it seems to be a common practice. On the flip side... I saw Rascal Flatts and the guitar player in that band was playing Bogner Ectasy's and he probably had one of the best live guitar tones I have ever heard. It was crystal clear, articulate and the solo's sounded awesome but he wasn't ripping solo's nearly as complex or as fast as the guys in the metal bands so he really didn't need all that much gain and effects. I need over the top everything when playing Whitesnake, Dokken, Ratt, Scorpions, Skid Row etc... Even Guns and Roses needs a ton of gain and "schmutz" to get the Slash tone. He doesn't play dry or with minimum gain. His tone is over the top with tons of gain, reverb, delay, compression and other effects.

An easy solution would be to check with the band you just played with and get a rundown of the gear, fx, and settings.
And then try to match it with your own stuff.

But, the other thing to consider is venue type and band status.
Arena shows don't do well at Jimmy's corner pub. And most bar bands fail in a stadium.
If the band is putting on a show, it is a little different than trying to make people dance.
Each situation requires something different.


I know it was a mocumentary, but amps are useless unless they can go to 11.

He was using a Dual Rectifier 1/2 stack. For pedals he had a bunch of stomp boxes in the loop but the only one that was on was the delay. For solo boost he switches between the 2 channels. His Dual Rectifier is a 1st year model prior to them putting switchable solo boost in the amp.

I know that amp has a ton of gain and he was using all of it. It has a lot more gain than my Marshall DSL100. I threw a Zakk Wylde ZW44 preamp in front of my DSL and my gain increased about 25% easily. So did the noise and the hiss but its not something anybody will hear live. I think I am going to use it just for soloing to make it more fun.

I took Steve Vai's Berklee course recently through Berklee online and noticed he uses an absolute SHIT TON of gain, in addition to kicking in the sustainer for many songs. Since then I've been using more gain for my leads and it definitely makes some things easier. You have to be way more careful when it comes to muting strings and turning down between songs to deal with the hiss/hum (or use a noise gate), but you get the hang of it -- I'm sure you've already mastered those techniques jg, so no big deal for you probably. For 80s rhythm though too much gain sounds too fizzy.... I find I need a lower gain tone to get that ballsy rhythm sound.