ricky said:
Those are some nice tones on that Kings X tune! I can get that clean tone out of my VAI or SuperClean. The dirtier tones are beautiful. Almost like a solid state amp with a tube screamer or something. Did the Lab have the ability to get the overdriven tone by itself or did he use a pedal?
The Lab L5, L7, L9 and L11 combos (same electronics, just different speakers) were master volume amps with two channels, one clean and one drive. They were non-switchable, though, so Ty would plug into the drive channel dialed in for his lead sound -- channel volume and mids cranked -- then back off the volume on his guitar for rhythm and clean sounds. He would also tweak a mid-boost on his guitar, an '83 Strat Elite. It had Alnico 2 pickups (bare covers, thought to be early single coil rails), a dummy coil for noise cancellation, a 50k audio taper volume pot, and a precursor of the boost in the Clapton signature Strat. The preamp applied a base level 6db boost to the pickups at all times, then a tone knob allowed you to roll in an additional 6db of mid boost roundabouts 200Hz on the fly. This gave the Strat a not-quite-single, not-quite-humbucker tone as well as further goosing the drive channel for leads.
The chances of getting all three sounds out of a single module are pretty low, even with a Strat Elite, so Rob may have to divvy them up between two modules like with the Carvin Legacy. I'm not much of a soloist, though, so I would be perfectly happy with a single module that nails the rhythm and clean sounds, then rely on a boost and/or eq pedal to get the rest of the way to that sweet, singing sustainy lead tone when/if I need it.
In fact, if I had to have two separate Lab mods, I would love for one to be tuned for the crispier rhythm/clean tones on
the third KX album and the other to be tuned for the relatively thicker rhythm tones on
the fourth KX album. (The same amp was used on both albums. I attribute the difference in tones to less mid boost on the Strat for #3 and a change from Crown power amps and Marshall cabs to Mesa power amps and cabs around the time of #4.) Call one the Golden Lab and the other the Black Lab.
And don't even get me started on the Mesa Dual Rec tones from
the fifth album...
