Jump to content

Laney Ironheart (2x12 combo) - "boost" issues: oversaturated sound


oddbeck

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Hi!

 

I have the Laney Ironheart 2x12 combo (60 watt). Since day one I've had an issue with the amp in that the sound gets too muffled when I have cranked the gain all the way up, and then add some boost via the boost on the amp.

 

If I have the boost at 2.5 or higher and when I "chug" on some metal riffs the chunkiness and tightness warps into a muffled "chug" for the duration of that chug (maybe 200-300 miliseconds) ... All the clearness and attack gets smoothed out and the sound is just awful for that brief moment.

 

It's as if the "massiveness" of the sound is too much for the amp so it's not able to handle it and warps everything into a muffled sound for the brief moment of the "chug" in the riff.

 

If I turn the 'boost' down to something lower, say 2.2 ish or 2.3-ish it just about copes and that's something I can live with. I like the extra attack and boost that I get when the boost is somewhere around 2.3 but I wish I could have had more "gain" adding the extra boost.

 

Has anyone else this problem?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Sounds like a Pickup issue to me, not an amp issue.

 

If the guitar has hot would humbucker with a DC resistance of 8K or more what happens is the Mid gain goes up and the treble and bass response goes down. They may sound OK when run clean but they gain up too quickly and its all mud tones.

 

Some Pup manufacturers like Dimarzio and Seymour work around this problem by varying the strength of the magnets, Bobbin type/shape, wire gauge and slug alloys to get a stronger output while maintaining frequency response. If you've ever visited the Seymour Duncan site they even give you a basic EQ graph that tells you how much Low/Mid/Highs the pickups put out.

 

Personally I don't use hot winds. (I have at least 10 dozen sets In my spare parts cab removed from various guitars) I use vintage winds because most amps are designed to work with a vintage wound pickup.

 

You can get by with hotter winds if the amp has boosted treble and a wide range of controls but matching pickups to an amp is just as important as matching speakers, which is your other possibility.

 

The amp may simply have muddy sounding speakers with too much lower mids. They come with what they call Custom HH speakers. That's usually code word for made in China. I'm not knocking the speakers. Some generics can be perfectly fine and they may be perfectly matched for that amp.

 

If you have the issue with many different guitars using different pickups I'd think about a speaker upgrade. I would focus on the pickups first however. Try backing the pickup height down to 4mm from the strings when you hold the last fret down. Use a ruler. You can even adjust the bass side to 5mm and the treble side to 3mm and see what that does to boost the highs and clean up the lows.

 

Again, pickups have a huge impact. If its a high end guitar with good pickups then I suggest you take care of the issue using pedals. An EQ or other tone shaping pedal may be needed to contour the pickup tone to the amp. Many of these new amps are designed for guitarists into heavy metal. ( Laney is a brand that's competing in that market) If you were to plug in an inexpensive fender with single coils the gain ranges might be perfect for that guitar. Other guitars may simply not be suited to the amp. Finding the right amp for your preferred guitar can be a quest. Many musicians spend decades looking for the best combination and simply make due with what they have till they barter for something better. May be something you need to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
...

It's as if the "massiveness" of the sound is too much for the amp so it's not able to handle it and warps everything into a muffled sound for the brief moment of the "chug" in the riff.

 

I believe those amplifiers have an additional 'compressor' circuit built in.

 

The problem you are describing sounds like a compressor that is compressing too much. I have a similar problem using my old Sure wireless system with my Les Paul. The bridge pickup on the Les Paul is quite hot and, when I really dig in, the the limiter on the wireless transmitter compresses the signal too much and momentarily reduces the sound of the guitar to an unusable level.

 

Does your amplifier have the Dynamics control? If so then try turning it down (or off) to see if that will allow you get the extra gain you like from turning up the Boost control.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I believe those amplifiers have an additional 'compressor' circuit built in.

I'm pretty sure they don't. But distortion compresses signals in its own, and I think that's what's happening here. The OP is simply playing with too much gain an "squashing" the attack. I really think a LOT of rhythm players (including my bandmate) play with too much gain and distortion.

 

If I turn the 'boost' down to something lower, say 2.2 ish or 2.3-ish it just about copes and that's something I can live with.

 

The boost function on the amp probably boosts all frequencies evenly, so the big blast of bass frequencies could be causing that over-saturated attack. An outside booster pedal that boosts MIDS might work better than the amp's built in boost. Try a tubescreamer with the drive turned down low but the volume cranked up. Boosting the mids will give you more gain without the excess bass... Your mileage may vary.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Yes, it most likely boosts all frequences, I tried with an actual boost pedal instead of the build-in boost in the amp, and then there was no squashing of the sound. Worked ten times better, and I also got much more gain.

 

I still wonder if there are just certain times when my brains thinks "more gain - more gain", while more gain isn't actually needed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Gain is addictive. You have to constantly dial back basics and work with cleans every so often and when you work up in gain you need to know when enough is enough.

 

You also have the issue when adjusting gain at low volumes and high. Anything your set at low volume when practicing is going to be useless turned up playing live.

 

I played out a couple of weeks ago at a party on my buddy's ranch. We set up in a huge barn that had excellent resonance. there were two other guitarists who had they're amps dialed up for bedroom tones.

I used a couple of pedals and ran my amp clean.

 

Those guys spent the entire night fiddling with they're sounds fighting feedback and hiss. Compared to my guitar they sounded like white noise. You couldn't make out a single note they played. Sounded like total garbage.

 

By the third set they asked me how I was getting such great tones. I told them I was running 100% clean and for leads I used a Tube screamer, that was it.

 

The one guitarist had just bought a Strat and when he plugged it in its started feeding back like crazy. I plugged it into my rig to test it and had perfect tones right off the bat. I told him, he'd need to build all new presets for that guitar. The settings for the Fat humbuckers he normally uses wont work. I also used my TS with it and had it sounding like Hendrix in no time. He went on line and bought the same pedals on his cell phone.

 

The rest of the night, they were dialing back to clean tones and using a very mild drive for leads. It actually started sounding good after that.

 

Of course when you dial up cleaner tones you have to be a much better player. You cant use a bunch of noise as a crutch to cover up your mistakes. The thing is when you play live you have allot more adrenalin flowing and working harder to get clean notes isn't very hard.

 

The other key is the natural room resonance. When you dial up cleaner tones that natural reverb comes at you from all directions. You learn to use it to sustain your notes instead of using drive. Amp reverbs aren't the same thing either. Spring reverbs are highly localized coming from only one place, the speaker. Natural room reverbs come at your from many different angles. As you move around on stage you find various sweet spots where you can play along in tempo with the slap back.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...