For your guitar sound, do you like it wet or dry?
- Thread starter Modern Saint
- Start date
Yngtchie Blacksteen
Helper
Always a little delay, but just enough to provide the illusion of a larger sound. Don't care for reverb.
As for other effects, I use a distorted sound a lot. On the rare occasions I wanna be Alex Lifeson, I'll add my CE-2.
As for other effects, I use a distorted sound a lot. On the rare occasions I wanna be Alex Lifeson, I'll add my CE-2.
Help!I'maRock!
Mediocringly Derivative
Rocket 88 was 1951. So we'll say mid-50s for the sound to become deliberate, solidified in 1958 with Rumble.
Grant Gross
Kick Henry Jackassowski
I consider distortion and OD effects, but -- and perhaps I'm wrong -- I don't consider them wet effects. I consider reverb, delay and some other modulation effects as wet effects.
I'm I totally off here?
Help!I'maRock!
Mediocringly Derivative
Interesting point. So what is the determination between a "wet effect" and a "dry effect"?
mikesr1963
Gonna walk my dog, you?
Wet is running two amps, one of the amps is run without effects (can be running distorted) and the second amp will run the effects (will be distorted if the other is distorted and include the delay etc.
Well, technically, that's a wet-dry setup.
Eddie Van Halen runs a wet-dry-wet setup. He's got a central cab that's got no delay/verb while the stage left and stage right cabs have differently set delays.
Grant Gross
Kick Henry Jackassowski
So by that logic, if you're running only one amp, it cannot be wet? I'm not sure I'd agree with that.
To me, one amp with a ton of reverb or delay would be wet.
mikesr1963
Gonna walk my dog, you?
Not my definition bro, is what it is.
Grant Gross
Kick Henry Jackassowski
No, I'm pretty sure there are several people who'd disagree with you, including Dave Hunter, author of Guitar Amps and Effects for Dummies. What you've described is defined as wet/dry setup in his book. One wet amp, one dry amp.
Page 289: "A guitar sound with no effects added (and especially no delay or reverb) is often referred to as dry; one with these effects is called wet. A wet/dry rig uses two amps one dry ... and a second wet."
Modern Saint
Starve your Fear, Feed your Dream!
Early uses of amplified distortion[edit]
The first amplifiers built for electric guitar were relatively low-fidelity, and would often produce distortion when their volume (gain) was increased beyond their design limit or if they sustained minor damage.[3]
Around 1945 Western-swing guitarist Junior Barnard began experimenting with a rudimentary humbucker pick-up and a small amplifier to obtain his signature "low-down and dirty" bluesy sound. Many electric blues guitarists, includingChicago bluesmen such as Elmore James and Buddy Guy, experimented in order to get a guitar sound that paralleled the rawness of blues singers such as Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf,[4] replacing often their originals with the powerful Valco "Chicagoan" pick-ups, originally created for lap-steel, to obtain a louder and fatter tone. In early rock music, Goree Carter's "Rock Awhile" (1949) featured an over-driven electric guitar style similar to that of Chuck Berry several years later,[5] as well as Joe Hill Louis' "Boogie in the Park" (1950).[6][7]
In the early 1950s, pioneering rock guitarist Willie Johnson of Howlin' Wolf′s band began deliberately increasing gain beyond its intended levels to produce "warm" distorted sounds.[3] Guitar Slim also experimented with distorted overtones, which can be heard in his hit electric blues song "The Things That I Used to Do" (1953).[8] Chuck Berry's 1955 classic "Maybellene" features a guitar solo with warm overtones created by his small valve amplifier.[9] Pat Hareproduced heavily distorted power chords on his electric guitar for records such as James Cotton's "Cotton Crop Blues" (1954) as well as his own "I'm Gonna Murder My Baby" (1954), creating "a grittier, nastier, more ferocious electric guitar sound,"[10] accomplished by turning the volume knob on his amplifier "all the way to the right until the speaker was screaming."[11]
In the mid-1950s, guitar distortion sounds started to evolves based on sounds created earlier in the decade by accidental damage to amps, such as in the popular early recording of the 1951 Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm song "Rocket 88", where guitarist Willie Kizart used an amplifier that had been slightly damaged in transport.[12] Rock guitarists began intentionally "doctoring" amplifiers and speakers in order to emulate this form of distortion.[13] In 1956, guitarist Paul Burlison of the Johnny Burnette Trio deliberately dislodged a vacuum tube in his amplifier to record "The Train Kept A-Rollin” after a reviewer raved about the sound Burlison's damaged amplifier produced during a live performance. According to other sources Burlison's amp had a partially broken loudspeaker cone. Pop-oriented producers were horrified by that eerie "two-tone" sound, quite clean on trebles but strongly distorted on basses, but Burnette insisted to publish the sessions, arguing that "that guitar sounds like a nice horn section".[14]
In the late 1950s, Guitarist Link Wray began intentionally manipulating his amplifiers' vacuum tubes to create a "noisy" and "dirty” sound for his solos after a similarly accidental discovery. Wray also poked holes in his speaker cones with pencils to further distort his tone, used electronic echo chambers (then usually employed by singers), the recent powerful and "fat" Gibson humbucker pickups, and controlled "feedback" (Larsen effect). The resultant sound can be heard on his highly influential 1958 instrumental, "Rumble" and Rawhide.[15]
jaxn slim
Your Worst Nightmare
Oh shit. Randy done broke out the Wiki.
I always think of wet as referring to reverb, but I know in a recording context it usually means any effects.
Since 100% of my playing these days is either acoustic or home recording, I'm doing the fully dry thing. When recording, I just plug directly into my interface and do all my effects in the DAW. It's quick, painless, and everything is reversible.
I always think of wet as referring to reverb, but I know in a recording context it usually means any effects.
Since 100% of my playing these days is either acoustic or home recording, I'm doing the fully dry thing. When recording, I just plug directly into my interface and do all my effects in the DAW. It's quick, painless, and everything is reversible.
Help!I'maRock!
Mediocringly Derivative
Yes, thank you for telling me about the history of guitar I'm well versed in.
Modern Saint
Starve your Fear, Feed your Dream!
I consider a wet signal a signal that has been processed. A dry signal is a signal that has not been processed. I don't consider OD/distortion as processed as the original signal is merely just an amplified signal. Wet signals have been altered via time shifting creating the illusion of an ambiance type of signal. This can be accomplished either by phase shifting, modulation or altering time of the affected signal.
I don't see it this way because a chorus/delay/reverb pedal can mix both the dry and wet signal in one enclosure. The mixed signal is then just run into a single amp.
Knox in Box
Rustbelt refugee.
Depends what volume I'm playing. Mostly I use a bit of reverb at bedroom volumes to convert a sense of playing loud. It's more inspiring that way. If the room already has a good sound at volume then I would turn it off.
Help!I'maRock!
Mediocringly Derivative
I see the act of amplifying a guitar as processing. Anything that's added to change the clean signal is an effect. Therefore, the distortion that happens when turning up an amp is an effect. So are other forms of compression. We rarely hear un-effected guitar sounds.
Now if you want to call compression and EQ dry, and all other effects wet, then go for it. But to me, it's an unnecessary categorization.