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Help with Tone (bought a 78 jmp) will trade herring tabs!

 
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ryantfk4444



Joined: 11 Sep 2008
Posts: 2

PostPosted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 8:39 pm    Post subject: Help with Tone (bought a 78 jmp) will trade herring tabs! Reply with quote

I have transcribed a ton of herring and have written it all out... I have alot of tabs of solo's from live shows with phil lesh mainly 2004 stuff.. endangered species..project z and jazz is dead.

I just bought a 1978 marshall jmp 50 watt and got a mojo 2x12 slant unloaded cab...put in eminence gb12 legends...running it through a vanamps soulmate reverb, hotplate, and analogman tubescreamer... but honestly it sounds like crap... so muddy... not like herring tone at all... ispent a ton of money for all this stuff.. I need help....anyone haev any suggestions?

thanks
ryantfk4444@hotmail.com
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Schmoot



Joined: 29 Dec 2004
Posts: 7

PostPosted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 7:17 pm    Post subject: Some ideas... Reply with quote

Hello ryafk4444,

I'll try to help you out, but I have some questions first. There are other experts on this forum that I am sure can chime in useful information beyond my expertise, but here's a first shot at it anyway.

Jimmy Herring is definitely one of my all time favorite players, ever since I discovered him by lucky accident playing live with ARU in Teluride in 1990 or 1991, so I have spent some time trying to understand his tone.

Questions:
1. What guitar are you using?
2. I assume it is a non-master volume 2203 or 2204
3. I am also assuming the amp has 2 (or 4) inputs such that you can bridge the channels, if needed.
4. What volume are you able to play at - withouth the hotplate?
5. How much gain does the amp naturally have? I.e. is it really hot or more like an original Plexi with lower overall gain? Is it modded or original?
6. Do you have a lot of experience playing with Marshalls? Everyone I have played even of the same model is quite different.
7. I don't want to give you a bunch of stuff you may already know. And if you can transcribe Jimmy's stuff you likely have a good idea what your are doing!

Here are some things to get you started:
1. Hook up your guitar directly to the amp without any pedals, and without the hotplate especially if you can get away with the volume
2. Try to first get a good solid clear and clean tone with the volumes at half or less. I assume you can get this with the tone knobs around mid settings (12:00 or 5 on the knob setting)
3. I use a JTM 45 with higher gain, or a JVM or a TSL. All of these seem to accentuate the bass as you start bringing up the gain.
4. Once you have the desired clarity at a lower overall clean and crunch level, bring up the volumes of the amp. Notice if the amount of bass really comes up. I have found I have to bring the bass down to about 2 or 3 and the mids down to about 3 with the treble up at 7 to 9, depending on the guitar. If you can't get a non-muddy sound here, I wouldn't go further until you really tweak the amp to find the sweet spots.
5. Once you can get a good crunch to lead sound with these settings, and they are more like clean - sustain as opposed to heavy metal scooped distortion, you could hook up the hot plate and try to duplicate your previous tones.
6. With the hotplate, you should be able to crank up the volumes and start getting a lot more power tube crunch and sag. When doing this you may have to back off of your treble. I find the amount of treble interacts with the masters quite a bit to define the level of sustain and overall distortion. I have used Hotplates in the past, but also found they can muddy up the sound if you try to crank the amp into them too much. I haven't used them in a while.
7. Jimmy's tone seems less distorted overall coming straight from the amp, at least to me. So before you hook up or turn on any of the pedals, I think you will have a powerful clear but sustaining lead sound, that should be reactive to your volume control on you guitar - i.e. if you turn down your guitar you will get a good clean sound and a good edge of clean/crunch sound halfway, before being full up where the sustain and more girth kicks in.
8. Adding the analog man tube screamer should give more overall sustain and fatness, plus allow you to get to where that edge of feedback sound occurs. But this pedal may tend to squash the level of dynamics you can get out of just using your volume control with out the pedal in the signal path. If you a/b compare the two and find a big difference consider getting a true bypass loop. I don't think the analog mods have true bypass by default. I have one and they sound killer but they are buffering the signal even when the pedal is "off."
9. I am not familiar with the vanamps reverb. Is it a pedal or a tube unit like an old Fender tweed box? I assume your signal path is guitar-ts-rvb-amp-hotplate-speaker. I also assume you can mix in the level of reverb.
10. Have you gotten to take the amp to a live gig and really crank it up yet?


Let me know if this gets you started in the right direction and we can try a 2nd or 3rd round of tweaks as needed.

I am really interested in the Jimmy Herring Tabs you have and would appreciate if you could send/fax them to me.

Good Luck,

Schmoot
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ryantfk4444



Joined: 11 Sep 2008
Posts: 2

PostPosted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 11:46 pm    Post subject: jmp info Reply with quote

THanks for the tips man...heres an ebay link to the amp (yes I've already started to panic and look into other options- I need it badly for gigs and I can't afford to be tweaking something too much as all I have besides it is a modded deluxe reverb that is just not loud enough for gigging) anyone heres the link... I've been told there have been mods done to it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=260285589882

It has a master volume to the left of the power switch and it looks like an extra preamp tube in the back... I'm running it through a mojo 2x12 with 2 50 watt eminence legend gb12's wired in a series to 16ohms.

The amp is beautiful...maybe I'm just not a marshall guy...or I don't know what I'm doing with it (because I've played fender combo amps for as long as I remember).

If you got any further advice in looking at pics of it and the chasis I'd love to hear em... my 2nd option here is to try to get rid of everything and buy a blackface super reverb... herring seems to be able to get a good growl out of those amps with his pedals (didn't he just use fenders with phil lesh?) and they have a beautiful clean sound... I might look into a tube factor...do you know anything about those? I'm only 22 so I still have a TON to learn about tone... I'm sure you have much more experience then me... anyway thanks for your help... as for the tablature... do you have a fax number? The place I teach at has a fax and I could start faxing you some..they are hand written and a little sloppy...but I'm very confident in the notes and most of the shapes (I try to check with videos on youtube for his fav positions and shapes) You could say I'm obsessed and on a bit of a herring binge... I just finished the solo on jazz is dead to scarlet begonias.... great melodic solo... I could send over that one first if you have interest? This guy has quickly become my favorite player of all time.... well along with Oz Noy, Hendrix and SRV.... if you haven't heard Oz Noy you HAVE to check him out.... hes on the vanguard of experimental jazz fusion guitar...doing the coolest stuff with guitar pedals since hendrix.... I'm actually gonna drive into NY to take a lesson with him in a month.. I'm so psyched.... you can email me at ryantfk4444@hotmail.com with your fax # or quicker respones... I'd love to get this jmp sounding like the tone on the jazz is dead albums..but I'm just lost

thanks again...
ryan
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gsbe



Joined: 30 Oct 2004
Posts: 65
Location: Lexington, VA

PostPosted: Sat Oct 25, 2008 5:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Love to see you post the transcriptions somewhere....I'll scan them to PDF and host them if you want!
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smv929



Joined: 16 Sep 2004
Posts: 107

PostPosted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 3:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i would like to see those too. Jimmy's finger positions sometimes elude me. I'll get the notes ok, but spend most of my time trying to figure out exactly how he's fingering the lines.
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smv929



Joined: 16 Sep 2004
Posts: 107

PostPosted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 3:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Regarding tone, there's so much to touch on without hearing you that it's almost useless. I might miss the boat, but I'll give my 2 cents. The tips posted above are a great starting point.

You might find a Super Reverb which has 4x10 spearkers seems to help me get one of Jimmy's tones. Also it helps when I play a guitar with P-90s. I have a PRS with those.

You have the pedals needed. I would add that it seems Jimmy's tone always cuts through the mix like a knife. I believe it's due to mid range. The tube screamer has a mid boost. However, Jimmy doesn't use that anymore. I believe he's using the Hughs and Kettner peddle (?) which is a nice clean boost pedal. But he does use humbuckers, which have more mids compared to single coils. I really like my Gibson SG (which has 57 Classics) through a Super Reverb. Very Jimmy sounding to me.
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