Overdriving a tube mixing desk...want that tone!

[rockgardenlove]

I'm looking for that super saturated compressed tone that the Beatles used on "Revolution."  I heard they overdrove the whole mixing desk to get those lovely sounds.  The Shaka tube seems along the right lines, just I don't want that kind of guitar type distortion...I want that really super compressed almost fuzzy soft distortion that's jsut barely distortion...I know I can't get it with my amps...

So, is it as simple as putting a softer tube in a Shaka or what?  How do I get this tone!?

[zjokka]

I want that really super compressed almost fuzzy soft distortion that's just barely distortion...I know I can't get it with my amps...

I think a lot of what you are referring to is actually tape compression, apart from the rest of the excellent equipment like the tube powered mixing desk. Like when I as younger and we recorded rehearsals with simple tape recorders. The recording wasn't accurate, but it sounded fat because of the way analog tape clips the signal.


zj

[rockgardenlove]

Downstairs, a calmer Lennon explained, "Look, the reason I've got my amp turned up so high is that I'm trying to distort the sh*t out of it. If you need me to turn it down, I will, but you'll have to do something to get my guitar sound a lot more nasty."

To get a heavily distorted guitar sound, I decided to overload the microphone preamp that was carrying John's guitar signal. That satisfied John to some degree, but I could see he was good and pissed off that it had taken me a period of time to get the sound sorted out. At the best of times, Lennon had limited patience, but for this session, he seemed to have almost none.

"Revolution," Chapter Two

John wanted the second, up-tempo version of "Revolution" to be even tougher and more biting than the first one. All that week, while we labored over the remake, John kept demanding, "No! No! I want that guitar to sound dirtier!" Finally, I had an idea that might satisfy him—even though it was equipment abuse of the most severe kind. Because no amount of preamp overload had been good enough for him, I decided to try and overload two of them patched together. As I knelt down beside the console, turning knobs I was expressly forbidden [by the studio management] from touching because they could literally cause the console to overheat and blow up, I couldn't help but think, "If I was the studio manager and saw this going on, I'd fire myself!" The thing was, years later, this ended up being precisely the guitar sound every grunge band in the world aspired to.

From: http://www.guitarplayer.com/story.asp?sectioncode=8&storycode=14257

Are you sure it's just tape compression?  If you are, is there a way to get tape compression, without using tape?  Normal compressors sure don't get that sound.

[Johan]

I hav'nt tried it, but this one is a tape saturation simmulator from the same guy who designed the LXH-2 Marshall simmulator
http://home3.netcarrier.com/~lxh2/tapesat2a.gif
http://home3.netcarrier.com/~lxh2/tapesat.html

..could be worth a try...

[tcobretti]

The key to that sound is that you have distortion that isn't passing thru a speaker.  I'd try various dist/fuzzes plugged straight into the board, and I'd try them at low settings to start with.

[bwanasonic]

Do you want this tone for recording purposes, or live playing? As mentioned above, the speaker in your amp will act as a filter and make it difficult to reproduce that tone. For recording, I've found a couple of plugins that are useful for that overloaded sound (can't promise that exact tone, as I haven't tried). One is *Ruby Tube VST*, and the other is the *saturator* in Ableton Live.

Kerry M

[freak scene]

i think a better example of an overdriven tube mixer would be the whole Raw Power album from Iggy and the Stooges.  he pretty much turned everything up to the red and let it rip. 

[rockgardenlove]

Well, recording really.  I want some sort of box that I can hook up to my Presonus Firebox recording interface.  I want to use the line out to go to the input of the effect, and then send it back in through the line in.

[Noplasticrobots]

That schematic is a lot simpler than what I was expecting. It seems like running this through a Condor could yield some decent results, no?

[zjokka]

I want to say how this isn't the greatest Beatles distortion around, but as you're asking practical info:

-Record your part clean on hard disk
-Get a old magnetic tape recorder, with the big reels i mean. I bought one some years ago for 5 EUR or so
-Bounce the track from digital to tape whilst overdriving at will..
-Play back the tape and record to digital again.

like stated above, for playing live of course, this isn't an option, because of the speaker cabinet being left out of the equation.

ZJ

[rockgardenlove]

http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-TELMAR-555-REEL-TO-REEL-TAPE-RECORDER-PLAYER_W0QQitemZ9729846706QQcategoryZ15000QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Would something like that be suitable?

[cd]

If you're doing it non-realtime on a computer, fire up Adobe Audition, and run your clean guitar track through the distortion generator.  Set the generator so the curve looks like a brick wall - imagine an "L" rotated 90 degrees clockwise.  Do that two or three times, normalizing to 99% each time.

[spinoza]

Way cool!

I'm gonna build 2 and use rca plugs for use as a studio effect.

[Floyd Pepper]

About 10 years ago I was in a studio with a Allen & Heath mixer which a pair of 12AX7s is some of the pre-amp stages.  The mixer sounded great but I wasn't impressed with the guitar sound if you overdrove the mixer's valves.  For some reason we overdrove the vocals with the 12AX7s on one of the tracks.  Can't remember why and it doesn't sound that good.

At home I have a TL Audio Fat Man compressor that has a 12AX7 pre-amp.  Again, it doesn't sound that great overdriven but it's a great compressor and guitar DI box.

Does an overdriven 12AX7 ever sound good?

[rockgardenlove]

IMO a 12ax7 is a bit too harsh for mastering a whole song with...
I think you need a lower gain tube just on the clipping threshold.

[Floyd Pepper]

For the mixer and compressor I was overdriving the input when recording not mixing down.

[A.S.P.]

"A 12AX7" does not sound at all!
(it all depends on what you do with it...).

[rockgardenlove]

That schematic is a lot simpler than what I was expecting. It seems like running this through a Condor could yield some decent results, no?

I thought it would be preferable not to have a speaker?  That makes a speaker sim seem like an odd choice.