Hi all, I am a hobbiest player at home only, I am not good at defining tones and replicating them, and was just wondering if anyone on here who is good could help me dial in two tones into a preset I am making to get my sound at home via headphones and presonus eris monitors to be as close to Justin and Dan Hawkins from The Darkness - permissions to land sound is what I am after.
I have a preset I could share via the cloud, I am using scenes to build out one preset to have both tones within them via a scene change. I am happy to go into more detail here if needed on the few settings also.
I think I have the Dan Hawkins tone close, but my Justin tones are just way off, and I am struggling with both to get them nuanced and as close as I can.
Playing through Japanese Tokai Les Paul with dual humbuckers.
Thanks for any help anyone is willing to offer, and hopefully this is the right place to ask for it, of not apologies.
Hi, not an expert (or particularly a fan of The Darkness - good guitar sounds though) and still consider myself a bit of a newbie on the QC and amps in general, however I’d imagine to get the sound of that album would be pretty straight forward; first try the Marshall JCM 800 model in the QC (the “brit 2203” model), for Speaker Cab, try something with V30/Vintage 30s speakers.
I’d then start with the settings on the JCM 800 all at 12 O’clock (maybe turn down the treble a bit, however I’ve noticed that say compared to the Fractal JC800, the QC version to my ears has less harsh treble). Then try turning the Gain control up and then turning the Amp volume up, to saturate the sound a bit (you can then adjust the Output volume so that you down have a super loud/clipping volume on the Preset you are creating). I think with those settings you should be in the ballpark (with the amp volume being key to adding some extra gain/saturation), however the sound on the record is likely this (atleast J Hawkins’ sound):
Set the JCM 800 gain to say 3 O’clock, then ad an overdrive in front of the amp (say the Boss SD-1 - i.e the “Chief SD1” overdrive pedal in the QC. Or a Tubescreamer “Green 808” in the QC) - play with the overdrive/gain controls on the SD1; you shouldn’t need the gain or level set very high on the SD1 - start by setting it so when it’s on, it doesn’t drop the overall volume of the Preset (I believe this happens if you are compressing the sound too much) - for the sound you are after, you want to set it (messing with the SD1 and JCM800 gain and volume settings) so that the SD1 isn’t turning the sound in to a screachey mush, but pushed the amp, adds some extra gain and adds some tight bottom end and “thump” - you shouldn’t end up with too much hiss/waterfall effect or noise when you stop playing.
You could also try using some JCM800 and SD1 captures from the cloud.
Once happy with the sounds, maybe add a little reverb (ambience - not too much); after the speaker cab.
For Justin’s lead sound (which to my taste the tone/sound is a bit thin) - it very much sounds like to me, an overdrive pedal on top of an already gainy sound.
Alternatively you might want to try using the Friedman BE-100 amp model (lead or rhythm channel) - that could probably get you pretty close without even adding an overdrive pedal.
I think I did hear recently that (live atleast) in the earlier days, Dan used a marshal (JCM800 or Marshall SL100/Plexi(?) live and Justin used to use a Mesa Boogie Dual Recto (I also heard something about a Diesel on one rig run down or something?)
Think as a rule of thumb don’t go too over the top with the gain - the sound to me is kind of a classic nice overdriven Marshall sound (some of their sounds - certainly live in the early days sounds like Angus/Malcom Young’s tone, so you may also want to mess with Downloading an AC/DC preset from the Cloud and messing with that?)
Side note- you should certainly be able to get in the ball park if you have a Les Paul as you say (ideally with fairly hot pickups, but you can just dial in the overdrive to compensate if necessiary)
LEt me know if any of thsi helps, or if it turns out I’m talking out of my bum-hole!..
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thanks for the suggestions Wolfgang, my chain of thought to start out was similar to yours when it comes to Dan’s main rhythm tone, I went with the following;
Green 808 - Overdrive 0.5 / tone 5.5 / Level 7.0
kicking into the following amp
Amp brit 2203 paired with the 412 Brit 60B GB 90s (M) cab.
Gain: 4.0 / Bass 4.4 / Mid 6.5 / Treble 7.0 / Presence 6.0 / master 5.0 / output 0.0db
I am close with the Dan tone I think, its the Justin one I need to do some more work on, his is always talked about as being more creamier, with a little delay on the end and he used a RAT I think in front of the amp, I have tried the rodent pedal and it just makes it sound way off to me, so I am struggling how to make the Justin tone closer, thanks for your suggestions though, gonna try a few out
I think one thing to keep in mind, at least from what I’ve heard of J.H’s playing, is he often uses the neck pickup for solos? (explains the creamier sound) - I think he can sometimes backs off the tone on the neck pickup too for an even creamier sound.
IIRC on one solo I heard that i liked on that first album, I think he played with a half-cocked Wah sound too?
A little spash of chorus might be on there too - I’d have to listen again.
Oh, forgot to mention; I’d suggest cranking the Master of the JCM800 re; your settings above
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