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Don't laugh - What amps did Stryper use??


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Originally posted by gainfreak

Stryper was one of my favorite bands in the 80's and I'm not affraid to admit it lol
:D


As far as their tone goes, It depends on what album you are talking about.


The Yellow and black attack was a Modded marshall with a graphic eq before the amp.


The Soldiers album up until To hell with the Devil was a Mesa boogie MkIIC and a furman PQ3 parametric eq before the amp. The EQ is what gave them their sound. The furman boosted up the gain by +26db. They boosted the mids at a narrow bandwidth, cut some lows and boosted up the highs. The graphic eq on the Boogie was set in a v pattern.



The In God we trust album was a Mesa Quad and a strategy 400 Poweramp modded by Randall smith at boogie for more bottom end and they used the furman Pq3 before the Preamp.



Their last studio album before the breakup ( against the law) Was just the MKIIC straight into a boogie half back cab.


They used EV speakers for all of their albums accept the first one.

The EV loaded boogie cab was rated for 800 watts! (just like zakk wylde although he loaded the ev's in a marshall cab)



I have that old Stryper tone in spades and it is a fun sound to play around with!!

 

DO you find it hard to hide the fact that you're gay??? :wave:

 

:D

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Stryper was fucking cool :thu:

 

...and no, I'm not being sarcastic. 'To Hell With the Devil' was heavy as hell for those days. The song 'The Rock That Makes Me Roll' has an awesomely badass riff too! The vocal line "Stand up and FIGHT!" sounded HUGE...

 

They have a right to their beliefs, just like I have a right to mine - but that doesn't change the FACT that their music kicked ass.

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I must just be broken, cause I always thought(even before I played guitar) that they had absolutely horrid tone. It's just seemed to have no low end and focused on the upper mids. I love lower mids, loath upper mids. I guess just personal preference.

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From another poster in another thread:

 

I allways thought Ozs tone was amazing and he used to have this posted on his website about it .....

 

 

He boosts the mids with a parametric eq , and hits the amp hard for hi gain distortion ,

I us a 7 band eq pedal and crank the level into the amp for massive gain

words from Oz himself....

 

 

My earliest rock influences started in my pre-teens when my teenage uncles and cousins were listening to the Doobie Brothers, Deep Purple, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Led Zeppelin. My dad at that time had a few 8-track tapes of Santana, El Chicano and Malo where the guitar tones had more bite to them than I would have expected pops to be used to!

As time went on, I became mesmerized by the guitar tones of Tony Iommi of the group Black Sabbath. I spent so much of my allowance on different types of fuzz boxes and distortion pedals to try to match his tone. My favorite box then was the MXR Distortion +. I ran it into the front of a Kustom 2x12 combo. Eventually I talked pops into springin' for a Marshall stack with a 100 watt tube head. It punished my poor mother severely. A friend of mine, named O.D.,turned me on to an MXR 10 band graphic EQ that I started running into the front of my Marshall head. This is where we start..............

Let's start with my "Yellow and Black Attack" tone. I was hacking away at a Karl Sandoval creation.It was a Mighty Mite Explorer body with a Chavel neck...21 frets, unfinished.The body had only one humbucker pickup cutaway in which was placed a Seymore Duncan distortion humbucker. It had a stock strat tremolo bridge that never stayed in tune. I used a Modified 100 watt Marshall tube amplifier with an MXR 10 band graphic equilizer...I plugged my guitar into the EQ and the EQ into the front of the Marshall. On the EQ I boosted 10 to 15db at around 1K... (this causes a lot of noise because you're boosting more power than you should into the front of an amp that already has high sensitivity.) I would also drop a steep slope from 1K back to 100Hz where 100Hz would be set to -10 to -15db. This caused frequencies that would muddy up the distortion tone to be cut. Marshall amp settings were something like this---- master volume- 0, preamp volume- 10, presence- 10, bass- 0 to 3, mid- 8 to 10, treble- 10.

The master volume would become my main volume control. In some cases Marshalls go to 20. In that case the above settings should be doubled. This setup should work with most stock Marshall amps... any wattage. All of this was a basis for the rest of my tone search.

I used the same train of thought when I changed to Mesa Boogie amps for "Soldiers Under Command." I also switched from the MXR equilizer to a Furman PQ3 parametric equilizer preamp. This was a "LOW - MID - HIGH" section EQ with + or - 20db boosting or cutting. The low section would be set at a narrow bandwidth, 50 to 100hz at -20 db.......mid section at a narrow bandwidth, 1500 or 1.5Khz at +20db......high section at a wide bandwidth, 2000 or 2Khz at +20db. It had an input level control and I set it around 8. The rear input and output had a choice between -10db or +4db jacks. I used the -10db jacks.This setting would work with a Marshall as well.

My Mesa Boogie amp was a Mark-II-C long chasis head with a variable voltage transformer for traveling. For some reason this head sounded like no other Mk-II.Originally the Mesa Boogie Co. sent this head to Grover Jackson at his guitar plant in San Dimas for some of his artists to try. It was also said that this head in particular was the prototype to the Mk-III amp still in development at the time.It was obvious that I had to have this head so Mesa Boogie allowed me to buy it and they sent Jackson a Mk-III in it's place. Later on, when I test drove a Mk-III head, my Mk-II-C blew it away.............To this day I still have this head. This head like most Boogie heads has push-pull knobs to change the characteristics of its parameter.It had a lead mode with a pull knob to turn it on and adjust its level and a separate lead gain knob.

The lead gain would be set to around 8; lead volume to 10. Preamp volume on the head would be set to 8 or 9 and pulled out; treble around 9 or 10 and pulled out; midrange around 2 or 3 and pushed in; bass around 3 and pushed in. The master volume knob would be my volume control but I wouldn't go past 3- 1/2. The master volume also had a pull gain feature that I would use on occasion. This head also had a graphic EQ that I would set in a "V" shape, dropping out honking mids and boosting lows & highs to my tastes. These settings plus slamming the front end of the head with the Furman PQ3 helped to make that Stryper tone that buzzed through halls around the world and caused many treble controls on home audio systems to be turned off ! I used this setup for "Soldiers Under Command" and "To Hell with the Devil" albums.

 

On "In God We Trust" I replaced my Mk-II-C with a Mesa Boogie Quad preamp powered by a Mesa Boogie Strategy 400 power amp. Mesa Boogie founder Randall Smith personally modified my Strategy 400's to give me more bottom thump! He always took care of me...... Love ya Randy!

For "Against The Law" I decided to give the Furman PQ-3 a rest and just plugged straight in to my Mk-II-C! For that album I became a different kind of guitar player, and the extra preamp was too much gain for my new style.Yet when ever I want that tone again, I just plug it back in.

Grover Jackson, founder of the Jackson Guitar Co. graciously gave me a collection of guitars that I will always cherish not only because they are great guitars, but because he always went out of his way to help me in any way he could.I still have a bunch of his records he loaned me back in 1989 to help season my guitar playing. I miss those days !.......

My favorite guitars of the bunch are my custom Soloists. It's only obvious because to this day I play them the most!!! They have Seymour Duncan Distortion pickups in the bridge position and Jackson PAF type pickups in the neck position. I used them on every album we recorded except for "Yellow and Black Attack" only because I didn't own them yet!!!

Recently I aquired an ESP-LTD model. A good friend of mine from ESP, John Gaudesi sent it over for me to check out...............It's pretty cool!!!

Another friend, Larry Bolon gave me a Blaze guitar. It has a nice neck. I don't know anything about this company. Anyone with info on Blaze guitars, please E-mail me.

Later.......OZ.

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Wow, ask and ye shall receive!!

 

I thought I heard a Mark IIC in there, but I wasn't sure when the MK IIC came out and I know that Stryper was playing around the time of "the bigger the rack, the better the tone" attitude of the mid 80s.

 

That's cool, thanks for all the info!!

 

Now, someone please buy my Road King combo :thu:

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Originally posted by gainfreak

Both oz and Michael sweet were using MKIIC's and not the IIC +
;)

 

I used to chat online with Oz once a week (his band Sindizzy used to have a chatroom on their website that he frequented), and he told me that his favorite amp was his MKIIC+. I dunno if he used it live or not but I do know that he did use the IIC+.

 

I used to have a IIC combo with an EV, loudest combo amp I've ever played through. I made a couple guys who worked for Crate/Ampeg real frustrated one day when the band I played in at the time played a show with them and they had full stacks but I could get just as loud with my combo....:D

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Originally posted by Jon Hiller

I used to chat online with Oz once a week (his band Sindizzy used to have a chatroom on their website that he frequented), and he told me that his favorite amp was his MKIIC+. I dunno if he used it live or not but I do know that he did use the IIC+.


I used to have a IIC combo with an EV, loudest combo amp I've ever played through. I made a couple guys who worked for Crate/Ampeg real frustrated one day when the band I played in at the time played a show with them and they had full stacks but I could get just as loud with my combo....
:D

 

What I am about to say is just adding to this thread and please don't think that i am trying to start a pissing match!! I am merely stating what I was told!

I spoke to Michael sweet and oz fox though e-mails and live and in person at the Stryper expo. They both told me and my friend that they used the IIC's and not the IIC plus. Oz said that his IIC sounded so good that he didn't want to take a chance on modding it. Im not sure what to believe now but at least we know it was a IIC of some sort lol! Oz also posted on his Sin Dizzy website that he used a IIC (the exact word for word transcription was posted in this thread!!)

The bigger issue here is the Pq3. That was the real ingreediant to that tone and it will work with either a IIC or IIC+.

Peace!!

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Like Gainfreak stated, the Furman Pq-3 is really the secret to their tone. You could use it with a MkIIC, MKIIC+ or a MKIII and nail the tones that Stryper had. Michael Sweet sent me his PQ-3 settings in an e-mail, if I can dig them up I'll post them in this thread.

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Originally posted by luckett

Like Gainfreak stated, the Furman Pq-3 is really the secret to their tone. You could use it with a MkIIC, MKIIC+ or a MKIII and nail the tones that Stryper had. Michael Sweet sent me his PQ-3 settings in an e-mail, if I can dig them up I'll post them in this thread.

 

 

Cool!! Id like to compare the settings that I use to his!! I have oz foxes but my settings seem to work better with my amps!!GO figure!

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in the 'truth is weirder than fiction' category....

 

flashback to 1979....

 

My band (ArchRival) just finished playing a Hollywood club (I think it was Starwood...) the night before...it was a Saturday morning and I wasn't up out of bed when my sister came in and woke me up and said: 'there are 2 guys at the door want to talk to you about joining their band'....I thought she was kidding...NOPE!

 

got up and went to the door and here are 2 guys, long hair cool guys seems like...they say "dude, we were at your show last night and were blown away...we are starting a band influenced by Van Halen and we want you as our guitar player"....

 

turns out I wasn't looking for another band but what the heck? They asked if I would 'jam' with them and I said OK...then they said they lived with their parents just about 3 blocks away!:eek: and we can jam in their garage...roger that.

 

a few days later I show up with my gear (marshall 1/2 stack, Gibson Explorer) and they spark up a few joints and get HIGH..(this was before they became Christians...) I wasn't a stoner and declined...

 

well, these guys were VERY RAW!!! (we jammed on Van Halen tunes) they couldn't play/sing worth a dang and I figured a waste of time...I agreed to jam with them again in about a week...and it was worse...I told them I was totally comitted to my own band (which was mostly true...) and 'no thanks'....

 

*A FEW YEARS LATER*

 

I was at work and some guys were laughing hysterically (while listenning to their album on cassette) at a 'Christian Heavy Metal' band called 'Stryper' .... I still thought they sucked and weren't going anywhere...and the rest as they say....is history...

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Originally posted by Echoes

in the 'truth is weirder than fiction' category....


flashback to 1979....


My band (ArchRival) just finished playing a Hollywood club (I think it was Starwood...) the night before...it was a Saturday morning and I wasn't up out of bed when my sister came in and woke me up and said: 'there are 2 guys at the door want to talk to you about joining their band'....I thought she was kidding...NOPE!


got up and went to the door and here are 2 guys, long hair cool guys seems like...they say "dude, we were at your show last night and were blown away...we are starting a band influenced by Van Halen and we want you as our guitar player"....


turns out I wasn't looking for another band but what the heck? They asked if I would 'jam' with them and I said OK...then they said they lived with their parents just about 3 blocks away!
:eek:
and we can jam in their garage...roger that.


a few days later I show up with my gear (marshall 1/2 stack, Gibson Explorer) and they spark up a few joints and get HIGH..(this was before they became Christians...) I wasn't a stoner and declined...


well, these guys were VERY RAW!!! (we jammed on Van Halen tunes) they couldn't play/sing worth a dang and I figured a waste of time...I agreed to jam with them again in about a week...and it was worse...I told them I was totally comitted to my own band (which was mostly true...) and 'no thanks'....


*A FEW YEARS LATER*


I was at work and some guys were laughing hysterically (while listenning to their album on cassette) at a 'Christian Heavy Metal' band called 'Stryper' .... I still thought they sucked and weren't going anywhere...and the rest as they say....is history...

 

Cool story man.

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