THE DIRT ON CRUNCH TONES
4.
SATURATED
GAIN
5.
POSTCRUNCH
The arrival of Eddie Van Halen in 1978
signaled a hot, new guitar tone in hardrock circles. The sound of saturated gain
was razor-sharp and featured avalanches
of sustain and distortion. In the following
years, many guitarists had their Marshall
heads “modded” to achieve the maximum
crunch, as few off-the-shelf models had
caught up to the phenomenon (aside from
Mesa/Boogie).
Thanks to tone-monsters like Dimebag
Darrell of Pantera, Alexi Laiho of Children
of Bodom and the guitarists of Mastodon,
today’s heavy guitarists use sick levels
of dirt, far beyond the realms of simple
fuzz and distortion. Thirty years ago,
Metallica pioneered the “scooped mid”
tone with pumped-up bass and treble EQ
frequencies, pulling down the mids for a
beefy, hollow wall of doom — some call
it the “frying bacon” tone. Today, many
of these tones can be found in not just
pedals, but also software amps run via
computers and even smartphones.
By the mid-80’s, that searing, liquid tone
became a tonal standard in the hands of
shredders, like Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe
Satriani, and George Lynch. It was first
exemplified in stompbox form through
the Boss Heavy Metal pedal and ProCo
Rat, but today, there are zillions of hi-gain
boxes out there.
SONG: Pantera’s, “Walk”, features
blistering riffs and lead licks from Dimebag
Darrell, all of which hinted of the kind of
massive crunch we hear today.
SONG: Racer X’s Paul Gilbert and Bruce
Bouillet scorched more than a few tubes in
the wild instrumental, “Scarified.”
Suffice to say, dirt in the 21st century is the Wild West of tone.
Anything extreme is fair game, from retro fuzztone and lo-fi,
battery-sputtering gunk — to full-bore crunch. So what are
you waiting for? It’s time to get down ’n’ dirty, folks.
Pete Prown is the leader of Guitar Garden, which has
several CDs to its credit, as well as a veteran guitar
journalist. He also writes fiction, available at
www.peteprown.com
60
GUITAR TRICKS INSIDER
DIGITAL EDITION
OCT/NOV