Sambencuda Tone

[jgcable]

Went to see Jim's band Chaos Theory Saturday night. If you have any questions regarding killer amp tone.. ask Jim. His rig sounded amazing. I think he should do a full breakdown as to what he uses live. It will help a lot of JCF bro's who are looking for an absolutely killer live metal tone for clean, rhythm and soloing. He was using Engl, Marshall, TC Electronics and a bunch of other stuff. It really was an inspiring event for me. Jim has always had a great ear for amp tone.

[sambencuda]

Thanks John! Thanks for coming out too. I wish I had more time to chat. Paul and I are planning on coming to Hards to see you guys this weekend. I'll give a gear breakdown later today or tomorrow. It's really pretty simple.

[sambencuda]

Ok, Here's the 10 cent rundown.

My head is an Engl Fireball 60 with Tungsol 5881's in place of the 6L6's. That change woke up this amp. gave it a ton of mid growl. You would either hate it or love it. Anyone who ever complained about their Fireball getting lost in the mix would not complain anymore if you switched to these tubes. I use a Marshall 1960AV 4x12 with Vin 30's. This cab fits this head perfectly. I use an older boogie halfback 4x12 for rehearsal and it doesn't even come close.

I run a Gmajor in the loop for a couple of reasons. I like the delay in the Gmajor a lot especially in the loop. I also use the Gmajor to switch channels on the Fireball. each patch on the Gmajor has the ability to switch the tip and the ring of a stereo cable open or closed so I can switch from dirty to clean and switch between both master volumes so I can get good balance between both channels. I use a Midi Moose to change between patches. I basically use three main patches. Main/dirty, Clean and Boost. The main dirty patch is dry with no effects at all. It simply doesn't need it. the clean patch has a little delay, reverb and almost non existent chorus. The boost patch has a little delay and is 3db (I think)louder than the others. I have a few others for octave and anemic sounds and some heavy delay stuff. other than that I use pedals.

My pedal board is pretty simple. I run into a TC polytune, then to TS9 for lighter gain stuff(run it with the clean channel) Then into the BF3 Flanger I did the vintage mod on, then to a pickle vibe(I don't have room for a dunlop, but I'd love one) then to Digitech Whammy 4 then to my good ole Bad Horsie 2 and last but not least through an MXR Smart Gate which is absolutely necessary. The Engl is insanely noisy. The Fireball 60 doesn't come with a built in gate.

Thats it. I love this rig. It's simple, easy to dial in and sounds killer. For guitars I use a PRS custom 22 with a custom shop Duncan Custom with and Alnico mag and an Alnico 2 in the neck. I also use a Gibson Spirit XPL with a JB/Jazz set. Those are for Flat tunings(we always play 1/2 down). I also use a Jackson SLSMG with a Custom/Jazz set for drop C tuning.

[Hellbat]

Interesting chain. I run my bad horsie 2 at the front of the chain in my setup. I find it eats the other effects if it comes after them. That said I rarely use it and when I do it's usually dry or just a little delay/reverb.

[jgcable]

Thanks Jim, that Whammy 4 is awesome. You were NAILING those RATM tones.

[sambencuda]

I tried the Bad Horsie in front and I couldn't hear a difference with my ear. I should probably try again.
The Whammy is a great pedal. I really need to figure out how to control it thru the Gmajor with the midi moose though. It's quit a tap dance to hit the solo boost, turn on the whammy pedal and then get the pedal in the down position before the solo Que. I'd like to be able to go to a patch on the gmajor and have that same preset number turn on the whammy. Gotta look into it.

[sambencuda]

I saw John's band TCO last night and talk about a simple rig! It's a 50 watt rectifier through a 5150 cab? pretty sure he's just using a delay in the loop and a few pedals in front. Straight forward in your face snarl. You guys sounded great John.