GARY MOORE SETTINGS (PRETTY WOMAN)

Hi Guys

Hope you are well?

I'm about to tackle the Gary Moore version of pretty woman and would like to know if anyone has achieved this tone (FOR GIG LEVELS) and if so:

what pedals and amp settings your are using to achieve the tone.

Please do not come back and say "use your ears" as ultimately i can and will do this HOWEVER all of us know that the patch you set at home DOES NOT translate well into the gig environment so....... if anyone has a gig level patch and settings for this one MY NEIGHBOURS and i would be most most appreciative

Got a very close sound now - lots of listening and another two pedals were required

A lot will depend on what you are playing through the GM Conrad.  What guitar are you using?  If it isn't a top level Gibson LP model then you probably won't get a good match from advice people will be able to offer here. There will be a lot of variability to compensate for the guitar characteristics.

Another thing is that, while I agree with you in principle that room level settings aren't the same as gig level ones, having the GM power soak available does at least give you a head start.  I always find that the most important difference is that I end up with more gain used at room level than I would want at gig level.  Low Gain and high Master Volume seems to leave things a bit flat at low volumes though it comes to life once you can drive the room.  That's a universal thing with amps in my experience, although my Valvetronix AD120VT is much better than my valve amps in that respect.  It makes my home settings much rougher than when I can open the amp up a bit more and dial back on the preamp overdrive.  I really think that output transformers and most speakers need driving to open them up.  The Valvetronix doesn't have a power sized output transformer and the speakers are voiced for a neutral tone as all of the tone is in the modelling and the shaping valve amp.

Thanks bud

I have taken your advice and am using power soak with 5 watts and it has improved the sound radically !! Like you say you can get pretty close on using one set of sounds for home and rehearsal (as I just crank the master if I need more volume)

I have a new prs SE Bernie marsden which is a copy if Bernie marsdens "beast" Les Paul so using this the gm36 , an eq pedal and two OVERDRIVES (sometimes stacked) I've got pretty damn close ! Now all I need are his fingers !!

A PRS into 2 overdrives!!!!  I would have thought that was a bit extreme.  That should shred the ears off a bat!

Moore's tone on Pretty Woman has always seemed to be raucous but not overly high on overdrive to my ears but I have to admit I don't listen to him much.  I would have thought the Lead channel in the H&K and maybe it's boost would have given you a pretty close starting point which only needed tweaking.  But if you get closer with your set up as you describe then that's great.  It just surprises me that you would need to go to that much additional drive.

I would always recommend that you try to set up your sounds with a home setting on a low power soak 1/5W, and start with the same settings at close to the loudness you need for rehearsal or gigging by upping the power soak to 18/36W.  You need to keep the master volume up above about 1 or 2 o'clock to keep the output stage driven into that creamy overdrive that valve outputs excel at.  You should try finding the master sweet spot for you and then trim the power soak to stay near that.  For what you're trying to do, I think as soon as you drop the master volume level the amp will go too clean and also a bit lifeless.

Assuming you are using a footswitch to select preset voices like the FSM432, most people miss the fact that you can store your sounds in a block multiple times with different power soak settings.  First save them with the power soak on 1W or 5W in banks 1-10 say, that's 40 settings, then save the same sounds again in exactly the same order with ps at 18W into banks 10-20 for rehearsal and small gigs, and save them again with PS at 36W for larger gigs.  That way the same sounds are in the same place in each range and the master volume is kept close to the sweet spot for each venue.  You can then make minor adjustments for each level of course, but you are practicing at all times with pretty much the same sounds.

You are spot on i got very close using the ultra channel with master volume at 12-13.00 and gain at 9 o clock - nice liquid tone! This has become my default blues tone these days !

As for two drives - during his live performances he kicks the solos up a notch with the bad monkey. i use the warmth setting so the gain is very low - you are just boosting it -

At higher volumes though the BM can get a little "bright / harsh" which is not what is needed with the GM36 so i stack this into another overdrive with almost no gain and the tone setting on low / dark so that it darkens the tone. Works a treat !!

Saying that after testing the tone this morning i'm inclined to go straight back to the amp alone!

Yes i saw you good advice on creating banks of patches for different venues and I love it and will do that myself (soon) - just struggling for time (and a venue ) to do this

Excellent Conrad!  Lots of people have reported that low gain and high master volume is the way to success with a range of tones!

It wouldn't have been obvious to me but I can see what you mean about your use of pedals.  I would say that the idea of using two boosters to get enough clean boost and eq to make your tone work seems odd to my way of thinking, (though pragmatically, if it works... ).  I'm usually keen on a minimalist approach to pedal use.  Every one you add in the chain can add additional unwanted effects and interactions as well as the ones you are going for.  I would have instinctively gone for a single boost which can offer enough absolutely clean lift to do the job, it's not a hard task at these signal levels after all, and use separate EQ to get the tone right.

But that said, if you get the tone you want that way and you can control it easily in practice, more power to your elbow.  Now get those fingers up to speed and show the rest of us sausage fingered Kossof lovers how it should sound!

Should have mentioned i use an eq pedal in the loop to tame the harsh treble frequencies! I have since dropped the second boost pedal although i have ordered an full tone ocd (which arrives today) so i can play at home without using the 1watt setting - im STILL not convinced that adding extra heat over prolonged periods of time will be good for this amp - so the ocd should hopefully take care of the home tones and then 5 watts for practice is MORE than enough.

Got to say i'm having great success with the eq pedal (in reducing the harsh treble frequencies) and remember i'm using a PRS with an orange cab (with the dreaded Celectcion G12 Vintage 30's) so if its working for me others need to give it a go

Thanks for all the advice - much appreciated - ill let you bys know how i get on with the fulltone ocd.

As for a demo once i have pretty woman sorted ill do this (it could be a while!) as it is a bugger of a song to get right

Ooohh!  You're in danger of opening up a can of worms.

I have stated lots of times before, and others have too, the amp is well designed with features to help which are not in most other generic amps.  Heat will not be a problem.  That said it cannot hurt to reduce temperatures of course, I have my own little fan assisting unit as you may have seen in other threads, but it's a luxury fun addition and should be absolutely unnecessary in an amp of this type, and that's based on both the figures and the feel.  The most basic components would be able to stand these sorts of temperatures for many years.

You will note that, on the site we are not being inundated with reports of any problems in this area at all.  There have been a couple of amps with problems that appeared in the first month or so, but that is the usual case with any electronic unit and they are covered against it.  The H&K Facebook areas are also not loaded with people having problems.  It's a non-issue with your GM.

EDIT: Oh, and the amount of heat added by kicking in the power soak is one of the least important factors. At most it adds a paltry 17W on paper, (18W - 1W), probably less in practice.

Very pleased to hear that so either the OCD goes back, it becomes another voicing or it becomes another overdrive

My $.02 is that having a little transistor dirt and gain into a tube amp gives a sound/feel that it hard to get from (most) tube amps alone.  Don't feel bad about hitting the front of this amp with a little gain/dirt, I think that sounds great.  I do that with all channels - except the Ultra, which I do like on its own - but that's personal preference.  I love the creamy od of the Ultra with the gain around 9 o'clock (about 40-80 on the midi control).  Actually I do hit the front of the amp on Ultra with clean gain for some leads.  It seems/feels to me that clean gain into the front of this amp sounds a little different that just turning the gain up.  Some guitar tube amps have the gain pot between the first and second stage, so turning the gain up overdrives the 2nd stage.  An od pedal with say 12-20dB of gain may then overdrive the first stage.  Having each cascading stage slightly overdriven seems to me like where some of the magic is.... That, and having a little transistor dirt before the input then further distorted by the tubes - most heroes have some transistor gain/dirt on the floor that they punch for their solos.

While I was typing this, a guitar "rookie" at work (s/w engineers) asked me what od pedal he should get, and why. I told him some od pedal gain have an output knob that can give up to 20dB of gain - what do you guys use? and can it give that kind of gain? Not to get too far off the subject of our GM, he picked up a used Blue Jr cheap. I'm guessing the GM clean is probably similar to the Blue Jr...

Got to agree that an od pedal provides another "voicing" which you cannot get from the amp itself

I have a bad monkey (good gor The cost - £27), a joyo husky drive and now the fulltone ocd version 4.

Just got the ocd last night and it's a beautiful pedal but - let me get out of the honeymoon stage and then comment again.

best OVERDRIVES I have ever owned are the ocd and the Tc electronics spark boost (full size) - the spark boost is the most transparent overdrive available - it provides 20db of pure clean boost if you want it and several other options of boost with independant eq. I sold it when I bought the gm36 and I now regret it !! It makes everything sound better

ConradK wrote:
best OVERDRIVES I have ever owned are the ocd and the Tc electronics spark boost (full size) - the spark boost is the most transparent overdrive available - it provides 20db of pure clean boost if you want it and several other options of boost with independant eq. I sold it when I bought the gm36 and I now regret it !! It makes everything sound better

Never heard of the Spark before - just listened to some demos, nice. Even the mini has a purpose.

The OCD is probably what this guy is looking for, it seems like a very good band for the buck - but he may save his $ and get the SD-1. The Bad Monkey is no longer in production - that's weird, because I see it ranked very high in a lot of reviews.

Thanks!!!

I just bought the bad monkey

Interesting ideas re this topic.  My own taste is for classic rock from the 70s/80s before the harder American sound took over.  So overdrive in sensible portions, distortion in small amounts and usually softened.  I know others will have different tastes and I'm fine with that.

Personally I use a clean boost pedal and an overdrive pedal of my own design and build.  The Okko Diablo is the closest I can find to it but my own has an important change to the basic stage topology to offer a little more gain and better matching.  I know that people still go for the "back to back diode pair" approach but to me that is the cheapest and generally nastiest way to get an overdrive sound.  Some work and work well but they are few and far between and it's because of a shed load of well set up eq to take away from that samey sharp squared off flat topped sound.  The general run of the mill ones just sound rough edged to me, (magic germanium diodes or not ).  I much prefer to go for a JFET based valve emulation stage or two and overdrive that.  You get important aspects like foldback and even order distortion introduced. It can give everything from clean boost, through on the verge crunch, to silky boutique valve overdrive sounds.  It's not designed to do metal!!!  

Another good alternative approach to take if death metal isn't your style is to expand things to a small back to back diode ladder.  This takes a number of stacked reverse diode pairs but gives each one a resistor to control its break level and degree of bend.  This way you can go from a full on straight clipping sound albeit at a higher level, down to a gentle curving limit almost like a compression.  Even two pairs gives so much more variation of distortion it's worth it and three is great.  It's easy and it works but it's never done!  Sometimes you see asymmetric 2 and 1 diode setups but they are static, adding carefully chosen bleed resistors offers greater flexibility.

How much gain a clean boost can offer depends on signal levels from the guitar and by the supply voltage of course.  Some types have negative lines generated internally from the positive supply or voltage doublers built in which of course doubles the capability.  I use that approach and it adds another level of flexibility.

On the type of technology, well, I could get controversial at this point but I'm going to resist that as I shouldn't hijack Conrad's post.

Hey bud

How is it that you know so much about this stuff are you a qualified engineer of some sort ? I have taken your very advice about not just listening to everyone's opinions - instead qualify the source for example - you've changed valves - great ! But what setup do you have and what style of music do you play because as you rightly pointed out - if I'm playing a prs and primarily quiet Jazz (I don't!) and you are playing death metal then quiet frankly - your results are not relevant to me.

Likewise I'm now expanding your philosophy by finding out more about the people dispensing the best advice - I do not mean to come across rude but if you are building pedals and have some kind of engineering background and - or practical knowledge / experience then I welcome you "hijacking the thread" as your contribution will be valuable to everyone

cherrs bud

Yes I do have a long engineering background in electronics design in much more demanding fields than guitar electronics.  It makes me a pain in the arse at times as people here will testify! So the idea of everyone being grateful to my zealous contributions is a bit of a funny one.  But my heart is in the right place and I come from a desire to debunk the secret mojo knowledge and make it more accessible to all.  I certainly can't tell you what problems are most common in a 1990 Blues Jnr for example, the techs who repair amps on a daily basis know much more than I do about that sort of stuff.  But when it comes down to details of how and why in the circuitry I generally have a deeper view of what makes it tick in the first place.  Not always, there are some very devoted techs out there who have studied, (and I mean studied properly not just "picked stuff up from their mentor as they went along"), this aspect too.  There are some pretty bad pieces of design out there in the most surprising places.

I have very strong views about stuff like component types which goes against the music industry "common knowledge", and there are many others better qualified than myself out there who feel the same and openly say so nowadays.  It's a field and an industry which is stuffed with myths and too many people profit from keeping them going in my opinion!  That should be stopped and everyone involved should work to demystify it!  Unfortunately the "priesthood" effect kicks in.  If you are fooled by those who state the incorrect as if they really know but who lack understanding and won't question, if you see others bowing down to their superiority in the field, if you then start to believe them to be something superhuman, if you then take on board the myths and start expounding them as truths yourself, congratulations, you have been accepted into the priesthood and all will now look to you as the "bearer of the mojo".  Mojo exists, there are effects out there which aren't yet explained.  However, once they're identified it isn't usually hard to dissect and explain them if you want to and work at it a bit.  And we should all want to.  Thinking or hearing something is so isn't proof!!!  If you can genuinely hear it you can measure it, and you can explain it.

And pedals are worst of all.  The whole field is stuffed with myths and legends.  If a design depends on a particular type of component to sound right then it isn't reliably repeatable and it's a bad design!  But you can't test the faith of a diy pedal builder, they're stronger than the Spanish Inquisition in the way they will die for their beliefs.  

It's an engineering field without enough true engineering (in only my opinion).  Any way, enough of that, others have sensible and informed opinion here too and this is one of the better forums for that aspect, not too many mojo missionaries here thankfully.  You'll soon sort out the one from the other.

Thanks bordonbert - your feedback and explanation appreciated. Ill take all of that into account and i DO ASK that you challenge anything that i'm saying that is not correct as I have no desire to keep throwing money at companies who simply have large marketing budgets.

I too have discovered a LOT of myths - for example when you buy a bad monkey od pedal for £27 and then realise it sounds EVERY bit as a good as a £200 "boutique" pedal - which uses the same circuit!

You have to trust your own ears and not buy into the marketing hype

Hijack away - please as it is to the benefit of all us to have someone with your knowledge debunking the myths and saving us GASSING SAPS money!

Only thing I would add to what you said Conrad is that trusting your ears has to be taken with a pinch of salt in some circumstances.  In a shop, comparing two amps, speakers or pedals is fine.  The differences would be significant and, with quick changes, your ears will tell you which you prefer.  But your ears have a limited ability to discern true differences when they are more subtle, (no matter what some "golden eared" people think).  They have a very limited ability to hold an accurate impression for longer than a few seconds, so for example replacing components other than plugins in an amp is not really reliable, the change takes too long.  And worst of all, they are often influenced by your mental state, as in "I WANT there to be a difference so, there you go, I can hear a clear improvement".  The legendary "Placebo Effect".

The only way your ears can be really relied on is when they are making a quick comparison of sounds and when they don't know which they are hearing.  Step in the Blind Listening Test.  This approach has been instrumental in making me the sceptic that I am of the improvements offered by most demonstrations of "mojo" in music.  I was first introduced to it when I worked in the hifi industry where it is absolutely essential in design and development, and I've applied it since then to some areas of guitar work too.  It showed me that there is no one that I have yet met who can tell the difference between many of the components that are quoted as "critical" when applied to guitar.

For example, there was a huge outcry a few years back when it was discovered that Gibson were using plain old ceramic capacitors in the tone circuitry of many of their guitars.  At their prices, why didn't they use a premium capacitor type like the fabled "orange drop" which is famed for its golden sound?  Well the answer is not that Gibson the ultra huge corporation were involved in ripping off their buyers, it was simply that Gibson could hear no difference between the two and, rather than spend £1 when 1p was just as good, they did the sensible thing as any large scale production line manufacturer should.  Now I would have to ask, if these caps made the guitars sound so rough, why was anyone buying Gibson guitars in the first place?  The answer to that one is that the ceramic cap usage wasn't discovered by using ears and hearing a poor sound, it was discovered when someone opened up the back, saw what was in there, and raised a hue and cry against Gibson "'cause everybody KNOWS that the premium caps sound better".  And so the witch hunt started.  Up until then there was no problem!  After that, no matter how much Gibson may insist there was no difference, the "mojo gurus" continued to poison the well.  (And a lot of them made a lot of money selling completely unnecessary expensive caps to boot!)

In that case, (and the case of most magic cap types in amps too), setting things up so cap types can be swapped instantaneously with a simple switch inside the same guitar, and then conducting blind tests with those who reckon they can tell the difference doing the playing and reporting, guess what it shows!  And another area is diodes/bipolar transistors in distortion pedals.  There will be a difference between germanium/silicon types but for the rest of it, they're all effectively doing the same job in the same way and differences will be absolutely minimal and generally indistinguishable in the context of what they are doing.  With modern circuit topologies, (WAY better than the primitive approaches of the 60s), it's the chosen circuit topology and eq which can make a pedal sound different not the semiconductor types.  PCB use in guitars is slated without any proof it makes any difference, (it doesn't change the sound at all, it actually offers benefits in other areas), and many techs offering hand wiring refits are raking it in!

You can fool all of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool anyone once they decide not to be fooled!

Good point and one I have learned after years of buying equipment

Like you I'm a sceptic so the difference must be significant and immediately noticeable or the new one. Goes back.

case in point - I have actually managed to tame the brightness with an eq pedal so after messing about with my amp some more, I've decided I'm not going to get new valves - I will eventually try others but this will be once the current ones fail.

I will try another cab in due course big I'm in no particular rush to do this as with the treble tamed I'm enjoying the orange cab with the vintage 30's