Lessons
12 Pre-Show
06:38 2Skype Call with Andrew McEnaney
14:14 3Lively Demo with Zach Varnell
16:01 4Skype Call with Hannes Grossman
18:56 5Axe FX II XL with Cooper Carter
24:57 6Skype Call with Aaron Marshall
14:20 7Skype Call with Mark Lewis
10:23 8Skype Call with Jake Bowen
11:34Lesson Info
Skype Call with Mark Lewis
marks one of the brains behind Audio Hammer Studios down in Florida. So the way I like to say it is if it's a metal band and they've made a record in the last 10 years, Audio Hammer has probably done something with, um um, So you like White Chapel that the new White Chapel is probably the latest feather in his cap, which is amazing. That came out at number nine on Billboard's Insane. Nobody saw that one coming. And I think everybody thinks that's also the best sounding record today. Did cannibal corpse recently, uh, see job for a cowboy done Devil driver? Black Dahlia, Murder. I mean, just the list goes on and on pretty much anybody in heavy music, You know, they set foot on audio Hammer at some point or another. Hey, buddy. Hey, Thanks for the nice intro. That was cool. Yeah, well, I'm a fan, you know. Always happy to have you guys on. I'm a fan of you. Broke. Well, so what? I wanted to talk to you about MGs ale says hey always says that you are the best in the business at getting met...
al guitar tones, and I do not disagree with him on that. Hey, also tells me that you're the man when it comes to working with MGs, so I just kind of want to talk about that a little bit, since it can be tricky for some people. All right, well, I try. I don't know if anybody is the best, but if people like I do, that's great. So I thank him for saying that. But, uh, far CMGI's man, it's, um you know, there. How do you describe it? It's it's funny because a lot of a lot of pick ups or even amplifiers, arm or about They're amazing because of their limitations, I guess. And the sound of the MGs is is kind of born from the active pre amp. And the voicing of the pick up kind of being limited in its in its head room. I guess if you want to really technical about it, it's ah, and sometimes I actually will increase the head room one to pick up on it into that in a second. But you know, it's very compressed, you know, kind of mid range driven, you know, or even high mid range kind of peak sound that really works for metal because it's still compressed and brings out kind of that pick attack And that bite that kind of gnarly, you know, pick attack that people want. Um, so I mean, I've done tons of records with him. Um, and I do love him. But I will say, I mean, I also love DiMarzio on Duncan's to, you know, or even any other passive pick up the thing about MGs that makes him great. Is that is that compression in that sort of that sort of kind of over the top tone that will push an amp a little bit more than a passive pickup? And the pickup normally runs at nine volts. So, you know, especially with an extremely hard guitar player, you will have the pickup actually clamp down on a signal. You can even see it in the way form. It looks like a block in the way I was gonna say I a beat. And the guitar I have now a beat it with Seymour Duncan versus an AMG and looked at the way form and the way formers. Definitely. Uh, you could definitely see that. I don't know if it's I don't know if it's exactly clipping is the right word for you could definitely see it. And I was like So I've always thought they sounded compressed. But when I looked at the way former realize they literally are compressed. Exactly. Clipping is the word. I mean, that's exactly what it is. It's it's It's the head room of the preempt, you know, running out of voltage and clamping down on a signal. So sometimes, like, for instance, on the new cannibal corpse, you know, or even I think, uh, last Devil Driver, some other stuff, you know, we converted the mgs 18 volts, which doubles the head room, and you could see a drastic DiPaolo. Interesting. How do you How do you do that? You just add an extra nine volt battery, and it's very easy to look up on the Internet. You added in Siris. So it adds up Teoh to 18 volts and added a nine volt battery. It's very easy to do. You can do it with just an extra little to actual battery clamps and cost you two bucks from Radio Shack, and you can you can go and get a packet of you know 10 or nine volt battery terminals with open leads on. And then you just put him right around us. The other terminal. It's very, very easy to do. Take you, take you five minutes, then you have the other battery in and it doubles the headroom of the pickup. And then and then you get that kind of spiky pick attack back. But you still keep that little bit of that gnarly sound. It's kind of like best of both worlds. You get a little bit more percussive nous, which some people may not like. I like it. I like that a little bit more teeth to the sound. Sometimes you with a lot of gain on the M G. You can almost lose attack that involved in their kind of peaks, peaks through a bit more. So I've only used 80 ones, but I've heard great things about some of the other pickups in the range, especially the James Hetfield sake Inter ones. Have you worked with anything? Aside from the anyone's? I haven't heard that new head feels I've heard that they're great, you know, I've heard that they're great, and then I've heard that they're, you know, that they're just different, you know? So I'm sure that they're good. You know, I I can't say whether one's better and not I mean, there's times you know, where I've used in 85 in place in 81 that pickups actually even a hotter than in 81. But its voice a little different, I believe. I don't think it's a ceramic magnet. Or maybe it is. It's a little bit more vintage voice. The 81 It's not, It's Not quite, is not quite as aggressive sounding in the top end, Um, but some people like those in the bridge more. I think there was a few guys in the metal scene that they were using. The 85 81 reversed for a while, but it was do Jews in 81. You know, it's a typical typical set up. Yeah, so speaking of headroom and attack, I know one thing that I've messed around with a little bit and carries to get your thoughts on this adjusting the pickup height. You know, I used to when I was a kid, I thought having it right up next to the strings. This was the best because it's the hottest. But then I realized you're actually losing a lot of the dynamic range. That way you're losing a little bit of the attack. Is that something you experiment at all with on passive pickups? It's important. Um, I've always learned, and since you know, got, however, long ago, I started fooling with the MGs and putting them in guitars. Jesus, man, it's been a long time. I mean, sometime in the in the mid nineties, Um, it ah, it's actually best Teoh have. The MG is close to the pickup is possible, they say, because because of the way that pickup works with passive pickups, it's integral. You know, to really kind of dial in your own pick up height to taste and also with passives. The pole pieces can pull on the string and cause caused the string Teoh stop ringing because the magnet pulled on it too much. But with the MGs, that's not an issue. They say You're supposed to have him as close as possible. There's times where I've backed it off in the studio. Depending on the sound, you'll get a little bit more open sound if you back off the MG. But some people really want that. Like you said, that hot sound so majority the time that MGs and be right there next to string, which is not the case for the past. The other thing. You know, my personal experiences. Having tried him in a couple different guitars, they tend to be very consistent. You put him in and I bananas. He put him in even less Paul or something, and it has the same kind of tonal characteristic. At least it did for me. Is that your experience to it was my experience. Um, I think that's a mental experience that that somebody branded MGs in the eighties for some reason. And yeah, they do have a very characteristic top end to them that it allows a certain dig and feel on the AMP. But, for instance, like, Let's say you know somebody like like on Earth, like those guys have been endorsed by Ivan is since 2003. Now they're now they're with the SP and all their guitars that they've had custom made. I I think I think Can. Soucy has just in number herbal, innumerable amount of custom I bonuses that he's held onto, and they all have the MGs 70 sevens, 81 81 Sevens. Whatever. And I mean, we strung up a least a dozen guitars, all of them mahogany. Most of them had Floyd roses, some more hard tail, and we narrowed it down to about six guitars. And I can tell you that the 12 of those guitars sounded drastically different, drastically different in a and it wasn't. Yeah, they all had that at Upper mid Thing that the MGs have said it allows. You have to feel a certain way but the bottom end and then the attack especially like sometimes the pick attack would be very pronounced. And I'm not talking about, like the distorted pick attack. There's like a pig attack that comes through the distortion that's like a you know, the more percussive. I don't know how to describe it without actually pointing it out to somebody, but they were very drastically different. So the answer that question for me is no. I don't think that that is true in the sense that many people think it is. I think it's more about how the AMP feels because of Alice being pushed. Maybe Maybe we're not listening close enough. You know, you kind of look how many guys you know to be fair, how many guys can take custom? Ivan has a string them all up, engages strings and sit there and loop them on protocols. And you know what I mean? I mean, it's just it's just absolute, you know, insanity. How meticulous we get. Well, that's that's That's why you get the sounds you get because these are the links to go. Right, Right, Right. I mean, that's what we get paid to do. So Yeah, Cool. Well, we're about out of time, but thanks for letting us pick your brain about MGs. And I will see you soon, I'm sure. Yeah, No problem in Thank you. Take care. Yeah. Take care, man.