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Post by eeyore on Mar 8, 2019 12:08:24 GMT -7
Just got the Tele back last night. Had Hot Rails installed, strung with Fender 150JL's 12-50 with the wound 3rd, and tuned to drop-c. The sound with the Hot Rails is exactly what I was looking for. Dark and angry when driven, warm and mellow when clean. The low C sounded almost like a piano through the EMS when clean. I have had the Hot Rails bridge before, so I knew what to expect. I was worried that the neck would be too muddy, but it isn't. The EMS itself is a solid foundation that, so far, hasn't required pedals to get a good sludge/stoner rock tone. Still much more experimentation to go. This seems silly, but I gotta get off I disagree and stand AWAY from the amp more often. Sitting basically in front of it with the speakers below my ears, I know I'm not hearing it as Dr Z intended. Going to try some bright strings next (purple M-Steels). I went a bit too far with the pure nickel thinking things would still be too bright after the pup swap. Too much fun...
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Post by Chilly Gibbons (Todd T.) on Mar 8, 2019 15:28:29 GMT -7
I’ve been tuning my guitars down to C with 12s lately as well and using the Therapy with EL34s with a Celestion G12H 55 for stoner/sludge (Matt Pike!) and am loving it. Z amps are perfect for occupiers of the low end due to their inherent brightness as well as how articulate they are. Not sure Doc had the stoner/desert rock crowd in mind when designing, but it works extremely well!
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Post by eeyore on Mar 9, 2019 7:51:13 GMT -7
I’ve been tuning my guitars down to C with 12s lately as well and using the Therapy with EL34s with a Celestion G12H 55 for stoner/sludge (Matt Pike!) and am loving it. Z amps are perfect for occupiers of the low end due to their inherent brightness as well as how articulate they are. Not sure Doc had the stoner/desert rock crowd in mind when designing, but it works extremely well! Totally agree. Not knocking ANY style of music, but Z's base seems squarely rooted in clean and lower gain styles. Yes, Tracii Gunns, but that's a rarity. I for one would love to see Z making inroads to heavier styles. The EMS (and Therapy obviously) can get there. I'm trying hard to cop the big downtuned gainy sounds without a stompbox. Honestly, despite the encouragement to use the solid state rectifier, it adds an almost too harsh edge to the tone. I pretty much stick to the tube rectifier. The gain is only slightly reduced. Ah well, I'm babbling... phone typing can't keep up with the thoughts. Lol
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Post by Chilly Gibbons (Todd T.) on Mar 9, 2019 11:42:21 GMT -7
Right on! NO PEDALS! And I’ve found that at those low frequencies you don’t need as much gain as you’d think, it’s more about punch and articulation which the Zs have in spades. Agree that most users are of the lower gain persuasion, but Doc’s lineup is very versatile. I would love to see Doc come out with a flame thrower though....
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Post by jeffmp on Mar 18, 2019 17:36:56 GMT -7
I’ve been tuning my guitars down to C with 12s lately as well and using the Therapy with EL34s with a Celestion G12H 55 for stoner/sludge (Matt Pike!) and am loving it. Z amps are perfect for occupiers of the low end due to their inherent brightness as well as how articulate they are. Not sure Doc had the stoner/desert rock crowd in mind when designing, but it works extremely well! Totally agree. Not knocking ANY style of music, but Z's base seems squarely rooted in clean and lower gain styles. Yes, Tracii Gunns, but that's a rarity. I for one would love to see Z making inroads to heavier styles. The EMS (and Therapy obviously) can get there. I'm trying hard to cop the big downtuned gainy sounds without a stompbox. Honestly, despite the encouragement to use the solid state rectifier, it adds an almost too harsh edge to the tone. I pretty much stick to the tube rectifier. The gain is only slightly reduced. Ah well, I'm babbling... phone typing can't keep up with the thoughts. Lol I agree about the tube rectifier!
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Post by jeffmp on Mar 18, 2019 18:01:04 GMT -7
Tell me about the hot rails. How hot are they? How is the combo with the tele/ems?
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Post by eeyore on Mar 20, 2019 3:54:46 GMT -7
Tell me about the hot rails. How hot are they? How is the combo with the tele/ems? This is the second guitar I've used them in, sorta. The first one was a bridge pickup swap only. This round, I got the set. The neck pickup is pretty boomy and bass heavy. The highs are very warm. It was a struggle to get the amp EQ set to where both pickups sound great. What I ended up doing was lowering the bass side as far as it would go and raising the treble side. That helped a lot. The bridge is very hot and while it sounded fantastic in a korina bodied ASAT I had, it might be a tad much for the ash. That said, it's still a great pickup for the style of music I play. Nice and chunky, lows stay tight even when tuned down, highs aren't too harsh, and mids are very aggressive. It will remove most of the Tele twang, so I wouldn't recommend it if you like traditional Tele sounds. There's also loss of note separation on some chords. Now, when split, it's close... not exact, but close enough that you can pull off a Stones tune, but probably not a convincing Paisley tone. Clean noodling when split and in the middle position sounds sweet really. So, with the EMS. The clean noodling I just mentioned was with the High switch engaged and the gain almost maxed. Naturally, I backed the guitar volume down. Point being, the Hot Rails clean up very well and the EMS responds nicely to that. With that "mode", light picking and strumming had a nice clean tone, then digging in put a little hair on it. It was a fun five minutes of my life before switching back to the full bridge and chugga chugga metal riffs, lol. I'm already thinking of picking up a pawn shop or import Tele to serve as a host for the Rails and then maybe looking to Fralin's for the American. The factory noiseless pickups were a bit too flat and the Rails might be a bit too much. I'm going to play around with different strings first and see if that helps (already tried a few and the pure nickel seems best so far) . I didn't think I'd miss the single coil sounds but I kinda do. Hoping maybe to find something in between. The input on the EMS seems easy to overload, so i may have better luck using a pickup with a bit less output on this particular guitar.
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