Hi everyone,
As of yesterday I was trying some different Garcia tones in practice, and came across something interesting. For starters, everyone knows the classic Live Dead tone was just pure crankage. Like full volume and everything. Yet I have read somewhere (though I couldn't find the article), that he never turned his amp up past 6. Now this was in the mid-seventies, and I assume he is referring to that time point and on. So in mimicking those volumes, I find that a twin cranked with humbuckers sounds great, while a twin past 8 or 9 with single coils sounds terrible. Which makes sense, according to what he actually did. But now, I find that this has risen a playing problem for me. If I want to play Live Dead, there's no way I can get that tone without CRANKING the amp. Yet any 72' tone and on, I have to constrain my volume to six or seven, which is still loud, but the single coils have no real punch through the mix unless loud (but they can't be cranked, hence leading to gross tone). This makes sense in why Garcia used 3 twins in 72' and 4 jbls afterwords. Not to mention the entire 30ft tall wall of sound. So, only having one amp, I was wondering how to appropriate volume levels, both Live Dead and afterwords. Wanted to know what you guys did. Anyways I found this interesting. Thanks
As of yesterday I was trying some different Garcia tones in practice, and came across something interesting. For starters, everyone knows the classic Live Dead tone was just pure crankage. Like full volume and everything. Yet I have read somewhere (though I couldn't find the article), that he never turned his amp up past 6. Now this was in the mid-seventies, and I assume he is referring to that time point and on. So in mimicking those volumes, I find that a twin cranked with humbuckers sounds great, while a twin past 8 or 9 with single coils sounds terrible. Which makes sense, according to what he actually did. But now, I find that this has risen a playing problem for me. If I want to play Live Dead, there's no way I can get that tone without CRANKING the amp. Yet any 72' tone and on, I have to constrain my volume to six or seven, which is still loud, but the single coils have no real punch through the mix unless loud (but they can't be cranked, hence leading to gross tone). This makes sense in why Garcia used 3 twins in 72' and 4 jbls afterwords. Not to mention the entire 30ft tall wall of sound. So, only having one amp, I was wondering how to appropriate volume levels, both Live Dead and afterwords. Wanted to know what you guys did. Anyways I found this interesting. Thanks
"Rock the boat, skin the goat!"
