Marc Ribot on Amplification

[Litterick]

In Lithub, an excerpt from his new book:

My chief complaint against some practitioners of heavy metal guitar from the early 70s through the early 80s is that I can immediately tell their distorted sounds are not really placing their amps at risk. To whatever extent I have a moral sensibility, this offends it. I much prefer the subtler but less predictable distortions of the 40s and 50s (e.g., Charlie Christian, Hubert Sumlin, Pee Wee Crayton, Ike Turner, Chuck Berry), a time when amp designers weren’t such wiseasses. Still, the total deafness of those metal guitarists to these considerations lends them a certain charm all their own.

The astute reader may point out that a smaller amplifier would produce the proper ratio of “clean” signal to distortion at a lower volume. True. Also true: I have often used Marshall half stacks—large, loud amps. This was because I wanted to preserve at all costs the option of playing with a partially distorted sound—using a larger amp turned up almost all the way—rather than be trapped with the overdistorted sound (produced by having a smaller amp up all the way) typical of late-60s white blues players.

[Doctor Jeff]

That actually looks like an interesting read. He writes well.

I only know him from his work with other artists like Elvis Costello, Robert Plant and Tom Waits, where he plays relatively restrained but does create a certain soundscape.

I would have sworn he was playing a smallish amp like a Fender Champ or Princeton or somesuch on those albums.

[citizenk74]

In Lithub, an excerpt from his new book:

My chief complaint against some practitioners of heavy metal guitar from the early 70s through the early 80s is that I can immediately tell their distorted sounds are not really placing their amps at risk*. To whatever extent I have a moral sensibility, this offends it. I much prefer the subtler but less predictable distortions of the 40s and 50s (e.g., Charlie Christian, Hubert Sumlin, Pee Wee Crayton, Ike Turner, Chuck Berry), a time when amp designers weren’t such wiseasses. Still, the total deafness of those metal guitarists to these considerations lends them a certain charm all their own.

The astute reader may point out that a smaller amplifier would produce the proper ratio of “clean” signal to distortion at a lower volume. True. Also true: I have often used Marshall half stacks**—large, loud amps. This was because I wanted to preserve at all costs the option of playing with a partially distorted sound—using a larger amp turned up almost all the way—rather than be trapped with the overdistorted sound (produced by having a smaller amp up all the way) typical of late-60s white blues players.

[I had written a rather lengthy post for this, only to have my computer go off line. Second try, more concisely:]

I can identify with the sense of riskiness. It imparts an sense of urgency when the amp sounds as if it is about to melt down. Not so sure about amp designers being stealth humorists. I think potential warranty claims are a more pressing factor. But the sense of impending doom adds a certain suspenseful energy.

The partially distorted tone is necessary for the "Sax o' Fender" tone that is so important in both my Jazz and laic playing.

* My newly-acquired Fulltone Fulldrive 2 v2 has features to induce such a sense of risk - tiny switches that re-configure the signal path to produce and/or enhance certain asymmetries. Tones range from civil but assertive to aggressive and rude with a side of -opathics in degrees of offensiveness sucsessively devoid of nuance. Yummy!

**I have, and have used, a Marshall half-stack. I sit directly in front of it and I can not only hear it (albeit at safe, Power-Soak-ed) levels, but also feel it, which if you haven't tried it, don't knock it. Best. Near-field. Monitor. Ever.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

In Lithub, an excerpt from his new book:

My chief complaint against some practitioners of heavy metal guitar from the early 70s through the early 80s is that I can immediately tell their distorted sounds are not really placing their amps at risk. To whatever extent I have a moral sensibility, this offends it. I much prefer the subtler but less predictable distortions of the 40s and 50s (e.g., Charlie Christian, Hubert Sumlin, Pee Wee Crayton, Ike Turner, Chuck Berry), a time when amp designers weren’t such wiseasses.

I simply don't understand what Ribot is trying to say. I think the entire subject of distortion (like much of the lore of vintage guitars and amplifiers) is most often misrepresented and misinterpreted. I started playing guitar in the fall of 1955, and I'm quite confident that no amp designer at the time or ever before was trying to tailor or increase distortion of any kind. They were all trying to reduce it, the main goal until the Maestro Fuzz-Tone was introduced being to reduce distortion and increase the output level at which any distortion became grossly audible. A few players accidentally discovered that distortion could sound cool, by dropping or otherwise damaging their amplifiers. But I'm not aware of any intentional effort to design for or around distortion back then.

There were some intentional uses of distorted guitar tones as early as about 1950, when Ike Turner used an amp that had fallen off the roof of his car on the recording "Rocket 88". It was hardly subtle - listen to his playing at about 2:25 on the original (harmonizing with the sax):

Paul Burlison also found out the hard way that an amp that he'd dropped made a distorted sound. He discovered that a loose tube was giving him what he wanted, so he loosened a tube when he needed some fuzz. As the story has it, the first intentional use of circuit-derived distortion from a studio console (also accidental) was apparently the result of a transformer failure at a 1960 Nashville studio during a recording session with Marty Robbins. Although it's widely described as being on a guitar solo, it sounds to me like it may well have been Grady Martin's bass. You can hear it in a solo starting at 1:25 in this clip -

Whatever it was, the engineer and Robbins were smart enough to realize that it sounded kinda cool, so they left it in - and the engineer designed a circuit around germanium transistors to create similar distortion. He sold that device to Gibson, who used it for the FuzzTone. I remember going to the Pleasantville (NJ) Music Center in latw '62 or early '63 to see the first one in our area. It was actually advertised initially as a way to "make an electric guitar sound like a violin", which it did not do. And it took me about 30 seconds to decide that I'd never want to use such a thing. At that time, I was playing a 345 through a Pro and trying for all I was worth to sound like Wes. I played rock, blues (which had limited audience appeal in my world at the time), and anything else that would get me a gig. But I and most audio engineers designing guitar amps failed to grasp the potential of controlled distortion for some years. Blues performers who used small amps got some great squish and sizzle from them because they were dimed. But most did this only because they couldn't afford or didn't want to schlep bigger amps.

I strongly doubt that anyone thinks it adds anything to the music to push an amp to its limits. We all did it when it was necessary, and that was usually because our amps were too small for the venues we were playing. We did it to get the volume and the sound, regardless of the distress our amps were experiencing. Once we figured out how distortion could enhance our sounds, amplifiers changed dramatically and a world of pedals was created. But even with that, no one wanted an amplifier to operate on the verge of exploding (largely because we'd then have to buy a new one). Stars did weird things to their amps, e.g. Dave Davies sliced the cones on his speakers with razor blades. But the Kinks could afford to destroy a few amps along the way - and even so, they did these things for the sound and not the psychological profiles of their equipment.

As for heavy metal, Iron Butterfly and Zeppelin had gritty guitar sounds in about 1969 - and I don't know what gear they used. But Tommy Iommi defined metal guitar. He used banjo strings and dropped tunings, and he pushed the envelope into serious overdrive. I remember reading an interview with him in which he said that when Black Sabbath outgrew his 50 watt Marshall, he initially used Laney amplification because they gave it to him. It had little distortion until he tried a "treble booster" given to him by a local player to push the input and get a bit of overdrive. Within a few years, Marshall gave him a pile of their big guns and they were off to the races. If they did push those amps to the breaking point, it was only in pursuit of the tone they wanted - no one wanted am amp to blow in the middle of a concert.

[citizenk74]

Some of the pioneers of irresponsible non-linear response indeed pressed their amps to and sometimes over the brink. Hendrix famously blew up a full Marshall stack on Johnny Carson's show. I was watching and about died laughing*. Talk about great TV! Of course the general anarchic spate of aggressive abuse of amps was encouraged and abetted by the popular press. The WHO were utterly broke for years paying for their lengthy string of trashed hotel properties, as were some others, if I am not mistaken. Basic economics took a while to sink in. Perhaps it was the tinnitus. Or the coke.

* That was the show where Jimi named Billy F. Gibbons as a guitar player to watch. That was when BFG's band was opening for Hendrix when Hendrix was opening for The Monkees. The word "surreal" comes to mind. The sublime and the ridiculous are seldom far apart. Fun times for all, I'm sure.

[Litterick]

I simply don't understand what Ribot is trying to say. I think the entire subject of distortion (like much of the lore of vintage guitars and amplifiers) is most often misrepresented and misinterpreted. I started playing guitar in the fall of 1955, and I'm quite confident that no amp designer at the time or ever before was trying to tailor or increase distortion of any kind. They were all trying to reduce it, the main goal until the Maestro Fuzz-Tone was introduced being to reduce distortion and increase the output level at which any distortion became grossly audible. A few players accidentally discovered that distortion could sound cool, by dropping or otherwise damaging their amplifiers. But I'm not aware of any intentional effort to design for or around distortion back then.

Ribot does say, "Not accidentally, as manufacturers in the late 50s and early 60s raced to design equipment with less and less distortion, guitarists turned up louder and louder to subvert their efforts."

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Ribot does say, "Not accidentally, as manufacturers in the late 50s and early 60s raced to design equipment with less and less distortion, guitarists turned up louder and louder to subvert their efforts."

I think he misinterpreted that. We turned it up because we had to compete with louder and louder band mates in larger and larger venues, and we finally could.

The average drum kit in 1955 had a snare, a kick, one or two toms, a hi hat and a crash-ride. By 1965, it had 3 toms and 3 or 4 cymbals - and drummers started holding both sticks like clubs so they could bang harder. Bass amps grew to be taller than bass players and blew past 100 tube watts. Portable organs and electric keyboards came along and suddenly there were portable Leslies and powerful keyboard amps with tweeters. More bands had horns every year, and sound reinforcement came along to make everybody louder than us.

The first huge amps were clean as a whistle. Few of you ever played through a 15” Fender Showman, an Acoustic 361, or a Kustom 200 with twin 15s. So let me tell you that it was like sticking your fingers in an electric socket while a grenade went off in your face. These were not created for headroom to spare - they were made to be loud and they were, with little or no audible distortion.

Mike Matthews started ElectroHarmonix in 1968. His first product was the LPB1 (Linear Power Booster), which juiced an amp’s input stage to the point of distortion and beyond. Then came the Big Muff, and the race was on. But it was not the amp designers and manufacturers who started it.