Laney Supergroup?

[Byron Dickens]

 Do any of y'all know if anyone makes an amp sim of the Laney Supergroup? I have looked everywhere I can think of and come up empty handed. 

 

Revalver has a TI100 and someone else has a TF300 but neither are really what I want.

Edited March 1, 2023 by Byron Dickens

[Lord Tim]

I think you'll be able to recreate most of the sound with most sims and fuzz pedals if you're careful about it, honestly, but the defining sound is really the speaker or speaker IR. That's why very few of the Laney sims sound anywhere near close to what a real Laney does.

Check this stuff out: https://www.celestionplus.com/product/laney-amps-impulse-response-collection/

Not sure if they'll be that authentic, apparently the definitive sound is Goodmans rather than Celestions.

I think Glenn from SMG did a Laney shoot-out a while back with some IRs... let me have a look.

Ah: HERE WE GO.

Might be useful info for you?

Edited March 1, 2023 by Lord Tim

[Byron Dickens]

From what I have found out, Laney used Goodmans, Fanes and Celestions in their cabinets.

One thing about the Supergroup (and the Klipp) is that they were similar to a Marshall Super Lead  or JTM 45 but not as bright with more emphasis on the lower rather than upper mids and they are a bit fuzzier sounding. There is also some kind of undertone or note ghosting that is really subtle going on when you have them cranked.

I'm getting headed in the right direction in Amplitube with a Plexi with  subtle use of a Rat and octaver out front but it is not quite there yet.

@Peter - IK Multimedia

are you listening?

[msmcleod]

Apart from Revalver, the only other ampsim company that I've seen doing Laney is Overloud TH-U - their British Classics rig has the Laney GH100L and Laney Ironheart... no Supergroup though.

 

[Lord Tim]

That JTM with a Rat going into a good IR definitely sounds like a big step in the right direction though. You may want to pre-shape the EQ going into the amp to futz it out a bit in the low end, as well as giving it a little high bump for cut.

Dunno if you guys saw the video that Jim Lill put out where he put a bunch of amps against each other, where they were EQ/level matched and then ran into the same speaker, and in the end the difference was so small, he ended up getting the same results out of a chain of pedals into a power amp. Absolutely mind-blowing stuff, and really makes you think about EQ and tone stacks differently!

https://youtu.be/wcBEOcPtlYk

 

Edited March 3, 2023 by Lord Tim

[Byron Dickens]

Yeah, I've seen that video. That's an extremely informative and interesting scientific experiment but seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through as a practical matter.

It is far easier to be able to just plug in, twist a couple knobs and go.

If I had the space and disposable income, I would just get a Laney LA Studio and be done with it.

https://www.laney.co.uk/amps/guitar/supergroup/la-studio

[Lord Tim]

Yeah, I wouldn't bother doing exactly what Jim did, but applying that theory to making your own chains in the box is a handy idea. Find a reasonably similar amp, a couple of overdrive/fuzz pedals, a few different EQs and a great IR, and throw them into a FX Chain preset, and never have to think about what's going on under the hood ever again - plug in and go

For our last few albums, our guitar stuff has all been freeware: gate > pre-EQ > Tubescreamer > Lecto amp sim > IR loader > post EQ, all wrapped up in a FX Chain with a couple of the parameters (gain level, amp EQ, TS on/off, etc) exposed to make automation easy. Currently playing around with the Neural DSP SLO100 as the sim in place of the Lecto, and a few pre-amp compressors to simulate power amp sag and that kind of stuff. 

Honestly, I reckon with just that stuff and some thoughtful chaining and the right IR you'd get pretty damn close to that Laney sound.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Lord Tim

[Byron Dickens]

I had a chance to play around with this some more until I got interrupted and I found out  IK's Hiwatt cab model has Fanes. I dropped it in and got closer.  Interestingly, replacing the Plexi model with the JMP one seemed to be closer still.

 

On 3/4/2023 at 5:36 PM, Lord Tim said:

applying that theory to making your own chains in the box is a handy idea. Find a reasonably similar amp, a couple of overdrive/fuzz pedals, a few different EQs and a great IR, and throw them into a FX Chain preset, and never have to think about what's going on under the hood ever again - plug in and go

You're right on the mark here as far as making it sound right but in the course of working on this and thinking about it I realized that what I really want to do here is not so much copy the exact sound of any particular record or get a certain guitarist's "tone." (I'm long since past that) as to see what I can get for myself out of the same amp.

[Lord Tim]

Yeah, totally agree - it's good to base an idea on "that Eddie Brown Sound" or "that Iommi sludge tone" or whatever, but taking it in your own direction is definitely the way to go. It's easier than ever to drop in a few plugins and just sound great now, but that's where most people stop. It gets to the point where you can go "ahh, Slate Drums Metal Deluxe Kick 5, hey?"  I'm expecting "ahh, Bogren Digital's AmpKnob, hey?" any day now.

[Byron Dickens]

I think it is so strange some of the rarest boutique amps that few people have even heard of and other assorted oddball stuff that gets modeled. Hell, Overloud has a whole collection of models of converted film projector amps!

But one of the most iconic amps in the world, used for years by one of the most influential guitarists of all time on some of the most influential recordings of all time is ignored.

[Xoo]

On 3/3/2023 at 2:57 AM, Lord Tim said:

That JTM with a Rat going into a good IR definitely sounds like a big step in the right direction though. You may want to pre-shape the EQ going into the amp to futz it out a bit in the low end, as well as giving it a little high bump for cut.

Dunno if you guys saw the video that Jim Lill put out where he put a bunch of amps against each other, where they were EQ/level matched and then ran into the same speaker, and in the end the difference was so small, he ended up getting the same results out of a chain of pedals into a power amp. Absolutely mind-blowing stuff, and really makes you think about EQ and tone stacks differently!

https://youtu.be/wcBEOcPtlYk

 

That was interesting.  That said, I think immediacy (whether an amp or an amp sim) of getting a sound you like is as important as anything - I just bought a new THU add-on pack and immediately got a sound I loved out of one of the presets it shipped with that made me get round to actually recording some guide tracks I've been promising someone for ages!

[Lord Tim]

Yeah, I'd agree with that. I got the Neural DSP SLO100 immediately after trying out the demo because it just worked with no screwing around. Ironically, fitting that into our genre(s) has worked out to be harder than I expected - sounded killer on classic metal and hard rock, and solos have that great 80s singing tone, but thrash and death metal sounded too nice for my tastes. Great tool in the kit though, and the solo tone is really inspiring once you fiddle around with pre-EQ, etc.

[Byron Dickens]

So far in my attempts to get an early "Black Sabbat- ish" sound, I've actually gotten my best results so far from sticking a Rat clone in front of my little Marshall Lead 12 combo that I closed off the back of.

Edited March 30, 2023 by Byron Dickens

[Lord Tim]

Like actual hardware, you mean?

Might be worth grabbing an IR of this stuff, and doing a neural model of the distortion too, using something like ToneX. That way you can just dump it into any project later without the messing around (and I'm sure others would appreciate the model too)

[Byron Dickens]

Yessir. Hardware.

That little Marshall 5005 has sometimes been described as a mini Plexi. Those old mosfet amps were killer! Don't let anyone tell you different. I'm really glad I kept it.

Closing off the back of it seems to have made a real difference. Really tightened up what low end there is out of that little 10" speaker. 

I don't have the wherewithal to get a model of the tone but then I don't need to: I have the gear. 😁

On the software front, I found that switching back to the Plexi model, ditching the octaver and mixing the Fanes and Greenbacks in the Hiwatt cabinet got me closer still.

As far as sharing it: while I'm not exactly morally opposed to preset-osis, I would rather share the formula so others can cook up a tone on their own. In the course of crafting it, one might come up with something even better or more inspiring.

The formula is really simple: a plexi-ish amp with a dirty,  kind of fuzzy boost in front of it. Turn up the treble, mids and cut the bass. Run it through Fanes or some vintagey CCelestions

Did I duplicate the "Tony Iommi sound?" No, but duplicating anyone's "sound" is a moving target anyways. Did I get the same kind of tone, one that sounds like it could have been on a early Black Sabbath record? I think so.

Incidentally, Laney just came out with their Ironheart pedal amp. It is supposed to be the first one of a series. If they come out with a Supergroup one, I'm going to be all over that sucker like white on rice!

[Xoo]

6 hours ago, Byron Dickens said:

Did I duplicate the "Tony Iommi sound?" No, but duplicating anyone's "sound" is a moving target anyways. Did I get the same kind of tone, one that sounds like it could have been on a early Black Sabbath record? I think so.

I know that now...wish I'd known it 20+ years ago 🙂

[Lord Tim]

Yep, anyone who chases an artist tone is asking for wailing and gnashing of teeth. Even if the gear is exactly the same between each album, move a mic a centimetre away from the cone and the tone is DRAMATICALLY different.

I'm kind of in the same boat where I was chasing that George Lynch singing lead tone for years and you only need to listen to the difference between Tooth and Nail, Under Lock and Key or even between each Lynch Mob album how different the tone was every time, even though at the core of it he was using the same old Plexi (the secret, besides his nutty angular playing and vibrato, turned out to be a pre-EQ and greenbacks), but the spirit of that sound was there at the core of each thing, and it was built upon differently each time.

[Xoo]

Many years ago, I had the pleasure of doing a recording session (in my spare room!) with Hawkwind's original guitarist, Huw Lloyd-Langton, doing a cover of one of his tracks.  He brought his guitar and I just plugged him into a first generation POD Pro, picked an amp and speakers almost at random, and he sounded near identical to how he did on the original recording...

I've now managed to get a sound very, very similar using a TH-U amp model/effects chain that is nothing like the gear he would have used in the mid-80s.

So I now completely ignore what gear was used!