Guitar Gear Forum

So iwas fucking around with the XXX.. Sumthin was off in it lately.. I still don't know exactly what it was, but I have seemed to fix it.. New tubes all around, but the issue I was having didn't seem to be the tubes.. but yeah.. Idk.. I just know that it sounds awesome for what it is.. All that troubleshooting had me truly go rolling tubes and Im one who agrees it usually doesn't do a ton, but this made a great improvement.. I really feel I got the old amps back!!

Or maybe its just my special new cables!! hahah

Also, I remember putting together this JB/Custom hybrid pickup awhile ago.. so its the same as the 59/Custom, accept its with the JB.. I have the Custom Screw coil and Jb slug.. Originally I kept the small ceramic magnet.. And it was fine but I guess I didn't dig it too much. Ad I remember throwing an alnico 8 in stand I never tried it.. Initially the I tried the JB 8 I used that as my main pickup for like 7-8 years.. And the Custom with an alnico 8 always sounded good too.. So BOTH should sound awesome.. And yes its fresh to my ears, but this is unbelievable. Its so fucking heavy ad clear.. It really did take the best of both pickups with the a8 and sorta married em together.. its got crushing rhythms of the custom and the leads sound great like a JB.. I WILL be experimenting more with this pickup.. I know ESP uses a JB/Custom hybrid on some of their guitars, but I don't think it uses an a8.. And I believe you can hear in the clips, this is just a massive tone..

XXX crunch boosted with a ts808. 57 on a g12,65 creamback
https://app.box.com/s/ljv1w2kw9a9tf08w4mc7nktx6z2gbu7i


And for some sort of comparison I just plugged into the 5153 el34 100 watt. Straight into the red channel. Same guitar and mic/speaker
https://app.box.com/s/ocoqvjhw5rqf9wcc4myuiupgnk6yl1t1

I think they both sound great.. Different enough too..

Both sound great!!! These sound a bit thicker in the low midrange than your usual clips, especially the XXX. Possibly the A8 pickup? Or maybe the Creambacks.. whatever it is, it's cool.

Both sound very good, but the XXX sounds "bigger" to me than the 5153. Like its on the verge of being too much, but it never gets to that point which is a very cool spot to be.

Guitarbilly wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 11:39 am Both sound great!!! These sound a bit thicker in the low midrange than your usual clips, especially the XXX. Possibly the A8 pickup? Or maybe the Creambacks.. whatever it is, it's cool.

All I know is This pickup in my Strat is awesome. I even played it this morning first thing before work cause of how good it was last night! I love this tone. On both amps. I’m definitely gonna make another one of these. And then of course I’ll have the OPPOSITE coils, so JB screw and Custom Slug, to experiment with. But this one with the A8 and Cuatom screw/JB slug. Damn near perfect in this guitar. It sounded just as great this morning! Ha. That’s kinda where I’ve been trying to get and dial in for awhile now. The whole chain matters of course, and one of the other things that has transformed my guitar recordings is using my CAPI(Api essentially) preamps but using the Pad to drop the volume and using a lot more preamp gain. Cause it just fattened up the tone in the perfect way. I used to use them standard, whatever gain was needed and I never found the sweet spot. The API definitely has more mids compared to the NEVE stuff but they were kinda cardboard sounding. Not when you use the pad and hit the preamp gain harder. Sounds awesome. I was very close to selling them until I stumbled upon this way. Now the Neve may be going up! Haha

macaronisalad wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2024 1:17 pm Both sound very good, but the XXX sounds "bigger" to me than the 5153. Like its on the verge of being too much, but it never gets to that point which is a very cool spot to be.

yep pretty much how I hear it too. It’s tough for me to pick a fave but I would lean towards the 5153. The way I dial in the xxx is definitely more scooped. So it does sound a bit bigger than the more mids of the 5153. But it’s really close. I’ll prolly end up using both and then when it comes to mix stuff I’ll sorta sprinkle in the other one that isn’t the main tone… Cause I find I like this sound a lot and planning to re-record a song tonight if I have time.

And here’s the tone in a totally different style but I knew it would work. It comes across different than the “test”
Clip I made up yesterday. But I love it. For sure I’m making a not of all these settings and going with this for the shit I’m still sorting out vocals with. Progress has slowed but we’ll get there. I’m working with someone who’s not a vocalist and we got some shit accomplished and now I just need to extract more from him! Haha. I’ll find it. Or I’ll have to fly out to Germany and hold hands with my REAL vocalist and carry him across the finish line too! Swear to Satan. Vocalists…..

Anyway, I mixed both amps here. 5153 being the dominant one. I just liked a bit more of that mid push. XXX is filling in the gaps a bit. It just sorta made sense with their tonal differences that they’d work well together

https://app.box.com/s/d0le9179mwzy98r0530h43uztos2r8qh

the xxx has always been my favorite of yours, it just fits what you do