Re: Smaller Speakers

["Michael P. Hughes, Ph.D." <pycraft@elec.gla.ac.uk>]

>Umm... so why do people put up with this for guitar?
>I don't understand the amp obsession.  Why not learn
>to love the sound of something other than the strange
>coloring traditional guitar amps provide?  Is there
>really something inherently "good" about them, some
>deficiency in the tone of the guitar the amp makes
>up for, or such?  Or are guitarists just used to how
>guitars sound on other people's records?

OK, here's my humble opinion.  

Undistorted, there's no problem putting guitar into the PA.  Allan
Holdsworth, Mike Oldfield and others extoll the virtues of going direct to
the board.  I do it myself - it gives a nice, acoustic-y tone.  

When distortion is used, however, much of the playing dynamics live lower
down around the note fundamentals, which can get severely masked by
distorting harmonics.  This leads to a tone which was popular in the late
80s, oft referred to "wasp in a tin can" tone.  Older speakers remove the
higher order harmonics, allowing more expressive control over playing.

What I have done in the past is a compromise - go into 2 channels of the PA
with a clean sound on one channel and the fuzz sound on the other.  Put
different FX on them (this system had a Chandler echo and microverb on one
side, a Yam FX900 on t'other) ans dend them to separate speakers.  This
preserved the dynamics of the note (on the clean side) with the distortion
and sustain, and gave an interesting shift as the sound passes from one
side to the other (if the clean signal is louder than the distorted).  I
have to say, that was one of the most inspiring setups I've ever heard.
Sadly, that rig is now back with its owner :(

>What is wrong with Stanley Jordan's tone (I've never
>heard it)?  Is it just not-what-you're-used-to?
>Would you complain if it was coming out of a DX-7?

Put it a similar way - given the choice, would most keyboard players go for
a real grand piano or a DX7 recreation of one? 

Michael