Tommy..quick question for you.. As SM's personal guitar tech, can you tell me whether he explicitly plugs his guitar into the amp (physical-direct) or via something else like a volume pedal or some kind of signal-booster (logical-direct).. I know he goes into the amp for dry signal and splits the dry/wet via the loop but am curious as to how he gets that gain-y dry sound.. Gain mind you not distortion..sounds like the signal itself is hotter than the standard pups and thus driving the tubes harder.
Question Question for Tommy re Morse setup.
- Thread starter cionian
- Start date
tommyindelaware
Well-known member
we go straight from the guitar.... to a tc electronic polytuner...... to the engl morse amp. the polytuner is a true bypass thru connection.
while the pickups are hotter on paper............they are set lower from the strings than most folks would do. i imagine the quality of gain your observing is due to the engl morse model amp. the third channel of that amp is steve's signature channel....& that amp seriously rocks.
while the pickups are hotter on paper............they are set lower from the strings than most folks would do. i imagine the quality of gain your observing is due to the engl morse model amp. the third channel of that amp is steve's signature channel....& that amp seriously rocks.
joe web
Well-known member
i´m not tommy sorry for that, but as far as i know, steve runs the guitar into a splitter or A/B box for sending the signal to a tuner and the other straight to the amp. no overdrive pedals or something else.
i played a engl SM-amp after steve did a clinic with this amp - no knobs have been turned since the clinic - and i was surprised how the sound was dialed in. the gain on the clean-channel was set so high, that the wasn´t a clean channel anymore - it got only clean by switching to the single-coil and turning down the volume a bit (on the guitar).
this setting had a lot of punch an really nice crunch-tone!
edit:
hey tommy my friend - i was a bit late with my posting.
i played a engl SM-amp after steve did a clinic with this amp - no knobs have been turned since the clinic - and i was surprised how the sound was dialed in. the gain on the clean-channel was set so high, that the wasn´t a clean channel anymore - it got only clean by switching to the single-coil and turning down the volume a bit (on the guitar).
this setting had a lot of punch an really nice crunch-tone!
edit:
hey tommy my friend - i was a bit late with my posting.
Jack FFR1846
Well-known member
Thanks.. I've found that if I go through to the amp via my GT8 without using *any* effects, the sound is very similar to Morse's.. Gainy and without using a lot of pre-amp distortion on the amp..the sound is aggressive, dark and clears up very nicely.. But being a purist..I'd still want to achieve that without any unnecessary AD/DA conversions which I do believe suck some tone.. BTW..I looked into the ENGL head..it's ridiculously expensive..over 5K!
tommyindelaware
Well-known member
since we switched to the polytuner.....we dont use the splitter anymore. the tuner is a true bypass unit....eliminating the need for a splitter.
i´m not tommy sorry for that, but as far as i know, steve runs the guitar into a splitter or A/B box for sending the signal to a tuner and the other straight to the amp. no overdrive pedals or something else.
i played a engl SM-amp after steve did a clinic with this amp - no knobs have been turned since the clinic - and i was surprised how the sound was dialed in. the gain on the clean-channel was set so high, that the wasn´t a clean channel anymore - it got only clean by switching to the single-coil and turning down the volume a bit (on the guitar).
this setting had a lot of punch an really nice crunch-tone!
edit:
hey tommy my friend - i was a bit late with my posting.
joe web
Well-known member
thanks for the info tommy.
do you have any updated pictures of steves rig? i mean the the new flashback delays and so on.
