OM: Brown Sound

[SoulJah]

I was fooling around today with my jem floral today, I haven't been able to put her down since I got her back from Mark. For most of the day I was working on Km Pee Du Wee by Steve Vai but somehow I got lost a little and tried tweaking my gear to get the fabled BROWN SOUND.

The tone I was trying to get is more early DLR era Van Halen when he was using modified Marshall Plexis. I'm not much of a fan of his 5150 tones. Anyways I recorded it using some cheapo 13 dollar microphone which I use primarily for talking over the net to various women, and sometimes people who I think are women. That's a whole different matter altogether. So please excuse the crummy sound quality, it's just the humble mic straight into my pc sound card. Don't own any fancy interfaces or SM57s

I tried to keep the playing as raw as possible, nothing too fancy or over the top, the playing is more oriented to demonstrating the tone. Some rhythms which I felt were kinda Van Halen'ish. And some leads and things where you press the notes with the fingers on your right hand. Role Reversal!
Or more commonly known as Tapping.

I hope you like it, I almost woke up the neighbours.

This is my virgin attempt posting stuff here so please go easy on me.

Here it is.
http://s25.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1Z1CWYPZTUT5H1UFIT0SZWQPVF

Try to guess the gear.

I betcha' can't.

 

[Vaiyen]

pretty close to the brown sound, but not thick enough I guess. I like your playing!

 

[Mr_X]

isn't it suppose to sound like his brother's snare drum? i do not know what brown sound is suppose to be. but comparing with some of his earlier works, its quite accurate perhaps more mids.

 

[thor666]

the brown sound was actually referring to the drum sound but it caught on as VH's guitar sound instead.

 

[hay88]

nice tone man! i guess if it's a little thicker...would be totally awesome

 

[SoulJah]

Thanks very much for the comments.

I think the lack of thickness stems from the fact I'm using a cheap 13 dollar sim lim square computer mic. It's funny how it sounds totally different when I listen to a recording from listening to it live.

But other than that I'm loving my amp tones.

 

[Vaiyen]

what's your setup like, man?

 

[penguin]

hmm nice tone...although in a mix i think u might get drown..
im guessing that ur using a modeller something like zoom or gfx8..etc..

and abt the tone u can trim the high end part a just a little bit to make the tone more rounded...and phaser might help to get the brown sound..
bro experiment with mic positioning..it might do wonders..

as for ur playing its great man..u like to dig in the notes ..thats gd habit

 

[SoulJah]

what's your setup like, man?

You won't believe it.

Ibanez Jem77FP - Johnson J-Station - Peavey Rage 158 (It's my friends's practice amp, I used it to prove a silly point LOL!)

I'm using the Brit Stack model, gain at around 3 o'clock, mids and highs on full. No reverb, a tinge of delay.

That's it.

Penguin thanks very much for the comment, I'm pretty new at recording, I've got a lot to learn as well as a decent pc recording setup to buy.

Thanks for taking a listen.

 

[penguin]

ha...u use a modeller...as i suspected
hey bro..im learning too...

 

[andrewtheshredder]

hey, nice tone and nice playing!..
perhaps try downloading some free recording software so that you can improve the quality of your "recorded" sound there..
try n-track or audacity