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Old 10-20-2020, 09:49 AM   #1
jonaxolv
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Default Guitar tone I can't decipher, please help me!

When I first heard this song back in 2016, I remember thinking it was probably the coolest guitar tone I've ever heard. It's clean, but has a hard sizzle smoothly shrieking in the background. You can hear it throughout the entire song, but in 00:20 or 01:08 for example it's really clear

Wasted Milk - Causa Sui
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpk7lq1nXko

I've been into rock music and playing guitar since ever, but only now I'm trying to really record/mix something up. And as you know, I found out the way a guitarist thinks of his music is pretty different from the way a producer/sound engineer does.

The thing is, I haven't been able to get anything like that. I've tried a bunch of fuzz/overdrive pedals, but none sounded like that. It almost sounds like this dude's guitar input is messed up. How does he maneged to get this effect in only some frequencies? Maybe he's using some kind of 'glitched' pedal? Maybe the speaker distorting from high volume, but I can't reproduce that at bedroom level, like, with limited space and neighbours.

I've tried spectral editing, but it didn't work. The closest I could get was splitting bands and adding a dynamic waveshaper in the higher frequencies, almost making it an earrape, then turning the volume down. It sounded a little bit similar but not professional at all.

How do I get this kind of tone? Someone help me for God's sake
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Old 10-20-2020, 10:26 AM   #2
Coachz
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Sounds like saturation on top of saturation on top of saturation with a bad connection
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Old 10-20-2020, 10:38 AM   #3
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Sounds like it might have a Fuzz Face or something similar in there.

Doesn't account for all of it, but that might be part of it.

Like Coach said, saturation or something similar driving real hard as well.
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Old 10-20-2020, 01:13 PM   #4
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Neck pickup, single coils, close mic, tons of vintage fuzz but played delicately.

Cool track
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Old 10-20-2020, 01:39 PM   #5
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Yeah that’s just a lot of distortion trying to self-oscillate with very little treble from the guitar itself. A vintage FF (this is probably something similar) accomplishes the “very little treble” thing just by having a super low input impedance that “loads down” the pickup, but you can get similar from more normal distortion boxes by turning down the T pot on the guitar. It kind of takes a special sort of distortion to self-oscillate like that, though. It might just be really loud through the amp and microphonic pickups, I suppose. Basically if he wasn’t playing, it would just scream the whole time, but that’s actually a very small signal amplified a whole lot and then when he hits the string, the much bigger signal sort of pushes that smaller signal so far past the limit that it’s just flattened out and lost.
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Old 10-20-2020, 01:56 PM   #6
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Gated fuzz aka extreme crossover distortion
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Old 10-20-2020, 03:37 PM   #7
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Some of that could be mis-biasing a fuzz face until it want's to spat/spit like that, depends on how "gatey" it is which is a result of the misbiasing. I love that sound and have a few FFs I've built with a pot to adjust this. Except it isn't really 'that' distorted. To the OP, there are plenty of builders who build such fuzz boxes, many are hobbyists but some not. I'm sure you can probably get this out of the fuzz factory by ZVex though I'm guessing since I haven't listened to or played with that circuit in a while.
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Old 10-20-2020, 03:40 PM   #8
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It really doesn't sound gated to me. Gated fuzz doesn't usually self-oscillate. Cuz, ya know, it gates.
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Old 10-20-2020, 03:54 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
It really doesn't sound gated to me. Gated fuzz doesn't usually self-oscillate. Cuz, ya know, it gates.
And when its close but not actually cutting out it has a similarish sound, but regardless the OP can get in that direction with a Fuzz Factory...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MomzVgL_2KA

Or he can go nuts and beyond the ask and build one of these (or have someone build it), which I keep putting off...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAPOWwvoof0
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Old 10-20-2020, 06:03 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
Some of that could be mis-biasing a fuzz face until it want's to spat/spit like that
That's more likely than crossover distortion. And easier to set to get the desired sound.
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Old 10-20-2020, 06:29 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ErBird View Post
That's more likely than crossover distortion.
I thought part of the splat was crossover distortion.
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Old 10-20-2020, 10:55 PM   #12
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Hey, peeps...

From this interview -

https://www.backseatmafia.com/living...ith-causa-sui/

I’ve always been using the Fulltone 69 a lot, and on Return to Sky the T-Rex Mudhoney got a good workout as well as the Magick Fuzz by Magic Pedals, which is awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-AcEaO0G6Y
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Old 10-20-2020, 10:56 PM   #13
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maybe a bit of overdrive also
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Old 10-20-2020, 11:11 PM   #14
numberthirty
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Quote:
Originally Posted by martmix View Post
maybe a bit of overdrive also
I did find myself thinking "Either Of Those 'Fuzz' Options + The Mudhoney..." might explain a lot when it comes to that sound.

That said, the Magick Fuzz really felt like it got most of the way there all by it's lonesome.
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Old 10-21-2020, 11:26 AM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
It really doesn't sound gated to me. Gated fuzz doesn't usually self-oscillate. Cuz, ya know, it gates.
What do you mean by self-oscillate? Can I reproduce this effect in Reaper?

After some replies I've installed a gated fuzz plugin. In the 3 band-splitter I added it in high and low frequncies and, well, it didn't sound precisely like the song, but sounds pretty nice if I adjust it correctly.

I really want to reproduce this guitar tone, but if I at least sound as cool as it, I'm good
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Old 10-21-2020, 11:30 AM   #16
jonaxolv
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
And when its close but not actually cutting out it has a similarish sound, but regardless the OP can get in that direction with a Fuzz Factory...
Sick tone man, maybe that's what I need
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Old 10-21-2020, 11:38 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jonaxolv View Post
What do you mean by self-oscillate?
One way or another it feeds back all by itself.
Quote:
Can I reproduce this effect in Reaper?
Turn down the guitar’s T pot or lowpass the signal before it hits the distortion. Try mixing in a relatively high frequency tone generator (experiment with frequency and wave shape, maybe some noise for good measure) at a relatively low level* before it hits the distortion. Use a buttload of distortion. There’s a thing that real tube amps do when they are just clobbered with very big square waves where they kind of fold over and fart out, and I’ve found that amp sims have trouble with that, but I’m not sure I’m hearing much of that in your example. Do hit the amp sim hard so that it adds a bit of extra overdrive of its own.


*after the distortion, it’ll be loud, but if you bypass the distortion, it should be barely audible vs the guitar.

Edit - I have some pretty nasty JS fuzz “pedals” in the stash that you might find interesting. Gated, spitty, octave up and/or down. None of them self-oscillate (I should look into that...), but they do get ugly.

Edit the edit - occurs that it’s not super easy to find things in the stash just by my name. Here’s a link to another forum which has the full list. https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/th...-pedal-plugins

Last edited by ashcat_lt; 10-21-2020 at 02:08 PM.
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Old 10-24-2020, 09:06 AM   #18
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Zoom ultra fuzz uf-01 does gated fuzz well with weird noises.

Amazing on bass and guitar
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