Improving my heavy tones.... Help

have you tried perhaps downtuning? even only a half step to Eb.

I'm sure if you tweaked the amp and the pedals to the correct degree, you could find a decent metal tone. if not, i have a Vox AD30VT that is 30 watts, tube hybrid and has an actual model for a metal amplifier. i dont play it that often though so i cant comment on it. less than $300 though. very versatile and has wonderful.

i think with the metal distortion pedal and the 2 EQs you have mentioned, there is no reason you can't get a good metal tone from your HRD.

follow up question: What basic EQ shapes would you suggest? I currently do a frown before the pedal and a scooped mid (smile) for the post-distortion. I run flat on the amp itself (post preamp)

The first thing I'd suggest is taking those EQs out of the chain and finding the best tone, without them. Then, I'd put them back, one at a time, starting from a flatline. Find the best tone with the one in, before the distortion, then take it out and find the best tone with the EQ after the distortion and go from there. Remember to note the settings, so that you can return to your reference point, at any time.

(assume I run, guitar>>EQ>>metal zone>>Screamer>>>EQ>>>Amp for metal)

I really don't see a need for all those distortion pedals, I run a tube screamer through an amp that has mediocre distortion and it can give me a decent sound, i just turn up the distortion on the amp and turn the volume knob up (but NOT the distortion) on the pedal to give a louder and more intense distorted signal.

Of course, after doing that the amp does become alot noisier.

I agree with greybeard's advice, and if that doesn't work, try looking at some other amps.

I wouldn't normally plan on using the screamer and distortion at the same time. I was just working with what my chain looks like atm. I use the screamer more with amp distortion and the metal zone by itself normally.

I think I am at the "new amp" stage. I have played with the settings until I am blue in the face and a couple of buddies (one of which is a very accomplished musician) looked at me and said...

"fender's don't do distortion well"

They also said:

"get a lower power amp, that way you can crank it to get better tube saturation and thus it will 'metal' up faster."

Just trying to figure out if maybe a peavey classic might be a better solution for my uses.

What is it about the sound that is comming from your amp that is not currently 'heavy'?

Is it overall 'bigness' of the sound?
Does it feel underpowered?
Is it missing bottom end? High End?

I would try putting your amp in the distorted channel (im not familliar with that specific amp), and give it a low gain profile like 1 or 2. Then on the tube screamer, give it a mid-gain and probably mid to high drive. Most metal tones are also very high in bass, with a varying mixture of mid and treble, where most is 2ish mid and 2-6 in treble, most often having 6-10 in bass.

Once you have gotten that balanced, now is the time to turn your amp up to its saturation point (you might have to tweak a bit more on the eq, gain and drive now, but just a bit). Once you have gotten where you want to be here, start adding the EQ pedals into the mix. A gain in the 1-2k range will give your guitar a bit more cut through the mix. You also might want to drop the 800ish range a bit. A very good method is to find the levels you dont like comming out of your amp and reduce those EQ levels, then slowly turn up the amp.

Hope that helps =)

Phinnin

Don't get rid of your HRD yet. I also own an HRD and I have also been working on getting HEAVY tones out of it. Some suggestions.

1) Add a cab. I bought a Avatar 2 X 12 cab with two Celestion Vintage 30's. This is a great sounding cab, gives the amp a much fuller sound. It pushes 3 speakers quite easily.

2) One thing you might try is bypass the amps EQs altogether. Simply go out of your pedals or multi-efx straight into the Power Amp In.

WARNING! Turn the volume down completely on your pedals or guitars before you do this.

Otherwise you may get BLASTED by super-volume. When you go straight into the Power Amp In you bypass the pre-amp section of your amp altogether. Your Volume, Bright, Drive, Lows, Highs, and Mids controls will have absolutely no effect whatsoever. All volume and tone is controlled by your guitar and effects.

Try this, you can get a lot more chunk out of the amp. It may sound a little less warm though.

Might be a good idea to put a volume pedal inbetween your guitar/effects and the amp.

3) Try a speaker substitution. I have just ordered a Celestion G12T-75. This is the famous speaker Marshall uses in it's cabs. It is known for big bottom end, shrill highs, and subdued mids. So I am hoping this will give the amp a more Rock flavor. The HRD is an outstanding amp, but face it, it is a Blues amp by nature. A very good one at that.

I think right now that bypassing the amps preamp section will help you a lot. Then you will be able to more carefully dial in the tone you want with your EQ pedals.

Just watch out for the blast. :D

Edit-

Also, part of the problem might be your effects. I was tweaking my Zoom GFX-1 to try to get a super heavy scooped mids Marshall tone. But the amp could not seem to handle it. I was getting all sorts of low frequency hum that sounded terrible. I thought it was the amp and especially the speaker, that it couldn't handle these super lows.

I was wrong, it was the pedal. I listened to my preset with headphones and got the same exact sounds. I realized it was the pedal not being able to handle itself (hope that makes sense).
It was the pedal, the amp was just reproducing the signal it was getting. So, I experimented, reduced the gain a little, tried a different distortion and got rid of the cab simulation I was trying, and viola! I ended up getting a really heavy tone without any super low rumble bass.

Remember, when you set an EQ in a "V" you are really boosting the lows and highs to a great degree. This can cause distortion and hum. Setting an EQ in the middle is "flat", neither boosting or cutting a particular frequency. So, you may not want to push the bass up higher than the middle.

So, it takes lots of experimentation, but keep trying, you can get these tones out of this amp.

Thanks for that input Wes. I actually found this out myself already. In my quest for the Crunch, I went out a bought a PODxtLive. I figured that if my buddy could get super heavy tones from a spider II that a POD (with a Line 6 Insane Model) would be able to keep up. WRONG.

But in trying to get the POD to work best, I tried plugging it into the effects loop. HOLY COW that's a loud amp.

Great suggestion on the cabinet. I had no idea I could push another set of speakers. In fact, I thought that impedance issues would make a 2nd cab a problem. I know the peavey is designed to push a cab in addition to its base speakers.

I wasn't really planning on selling the HRD, its the POD that's destined for the scrap-heap if anything. Hell, even that will most likely stay at home, its really fun to play with.

I am still gathering information and opinions but it seems to me that my solution will come in the form of: EL84 tubes, the right pedal (tonebone british or whatever its called) and maybe a power attenuator/lower power amp.

Still looking for any input.... The Crunch is Out There!

Hey Havocdragon:

I wanted to address your questions on that spider II:

The Spider just sounds MUCH hotter. Massive sustain, Huge bottom end, little to no noise. That's how its better. I can get the sustain to match and the bottom end to be close, but to do so it gets so sensitive that just pulling my fingers off the strings creates a horrific noise/feedback problem.

I tried to use the insane mode on a POD and I get really close but its not quite there with the lows. Plus the POD just kills the tube tone. The clarity goes to hell and it sounds muffled.

That spider II doesn't have a noisegate per se but since it is modeling something with that insane mode, it must have some kind of gate built in.

In all honesty, I wouldn't give a rip about this damn amp if my buddy didn't always go into "rockstar" mode when he's had a few drinks.

Phinnin

The pedal makes a difference. I have a friend who plays in a working band who always uses his HRD. He has the Digitech RP200 and man, it sounds awesome! He gets unbelieveable tone. I asked him and his amp is completely stock, no modifications whatsoever.

The HRD has two output jacks under the head. The amp will operate at 8 or 4 ohms. The stock speaker is 8 ohms, the outputs are in parallel, so if you get an extension cab, it doesn't matter whether it is 1 X 12, 2 X 12, 4 X 12, 1 X 15, 4 X 10 or whatsoever, as long as the cab is rated 8 ohms total impedence.

This amp sounds even better with a cab.

Here is the salesman in me again. Check out Avatar. They make great cabs, you can choose your speakers, prices are great, and best of all, if you have the black tolex and silver grille you can get an exact color match. Looks great. The cab is a little wider than the amp though. But it is hard to find a Fender cab for this amp.

Avatar Speakers

Here is a pic of my 2 X 12 at a gig.

Thanks for the input and link Wes. I am sure that tone is out there... I just gotta find it.

Phinnin

Oh yeah, I'm still working on it too.

You can handle your buddy "Rockstar". Turn Volume to 6, he won't stand a chance. 8)

Oh, and don't use the complete effects loop where you come out of PreAmp Out into the Line6 and then back into the PowerAmp In. You are not bypassing the amp's preamp section this way.

No, go straight from your Line6 into the PowerAmp In. All volume and tone is controlled by your guitar and pedal. Takes the amp's EQ out of the equation. So, you can fine tune your tone with the pedal. This might get you there.

Yeah, I bypassed the whole front end of the amp (preamp). I hated it. It was so uncontrollable it was unusable. That PODxt is a nifty thing but since a huge part of the control of the unit is based on a small dial on the back of the amp and is very sensitive, I found it not worth hassling with.

Then I compared the tones coming from the POD through the HRD and just the HRD by itself. NOT EVEN CLOSE. I mean the HRD by itself was so creamy and smooth I was sporting semi-wood in seconds.

That, in a nutshell, was the deathnell of the POD.

Nifty little toy. That's about it.

Here's thoughts on my signal chain. What I do for a pre-amp is run a stereo 50/50 watt tube power amp bridged to 100 watts into a dummy-load. (dummy-load was built by Paul Rivera). From the dummy-load the signal is only line level out and a head phone stereo out. The power amp has 2 - 12AT7's, 2 - 12AX7's, and 8 - EL84's. Running at it's saturation point it gives me crunch/punch and sweet sustain that allows me to control every nuance and dynamic's of my style.

Combined with equalizers between all the units that make up my signal chain I end up using 16 rack space's and 5 amp's. Additional piece's of equipments can be added when needed. I wrote this to help give you an idea of another way to achieve great tone.

Joe