What's up everyone? I'm Ola Englund.
And today I'm figuring out the guitar tone of the album The Gathering by Testament
The Gathering by Testament is one my favorite album productions of all time
It's just such a force, a brutal force
Uh... with the... you know, the slamming drums by Dave Lombardo
The chunky-ass rhythm guitar, and bass and...
Holy shit it sounds so good
It was produced and mixed by Andy Sneap
And at the time of the arrival of the album
I was very very much into Andy Sneap and his productions
And I was hanging on his forum, and you know, asking for knowledge and whatnot
And I knew at the time that, you know, the album was basically Triple Rectifiers
You know, the Rectifier probably boosted with a Tube Screamer, an 808 or something similar
Classic Andy Sneap, you know, V30 speakers and whatnot
But that was like 20 years ago
I have to refresh my memory a little bit, so...
In before making this video and prepping for it
I went up on the Andy Sneap forum and I found this info about the album
From Andy Sneap himself
Ok, Testament - The Gathering- guitar
Dean guitars with Seymours
So Seymour Duncan uh...
Seymour Duncan JB in that matter, he answered this later in another post
Boogie Triple Rectifier and Boogie cab
With Vintage 30 speakers, Shure Beta 57
Alright, that's cool, but there's no boost in it, someone asked....
"Are they boosting the Rectifiers?"
Andy Sneap replies: "no"
"it was straight in"
I mean, the thing with Rectifiers is that...
For me personally, to be able to make it sound good
Or like, sound good with my hands and my playing
I have to use some sort of boost or an overdrive
And I kinda thought that...
Of course they would use an overdrive, I mean, it's so chunky of an album
But reading this line from Andy Sneap I was like 'Mmh... really?'
F***, that means that you either have to pick really really f***ing hard
To get that tightness out of a Rectifier, you need to f***ing...
... dig in to those strings
Or you know, if you use EMG pickups, you get a little bit extra active push
And now when I go back and listen to the album
It does actually sound like an unboosted Rectifier
What makes the guitar tone and the whole production so chunky
is just all the elements together
I mean, the drums... I mean, the slapping drums, man
The bass guitar, and you know, the compression of the mix and all that
That is what makes it so brutal
It's not necessarily that the amplifiers were pushed
Go back and listen to the album, man
It's definitely a non-boosted Rectifier
I've never thought about this, because I just assumed that they were using a boost
So for this demo today...
I gathered up all of this shit that was in the list
But for this album he was using Seymour Duncan JB's
And I'm going straight into my Mesa Tremoverb
Now, this is not a Triple Rectifier
A Triple Rectifier is 150 Watts, this is a...
This is a 100-watt Dual Rectifier right here
But this is what I have at the moment
Triple Rectifiers aren't that common here in Sweden nowadays
I played one before, I have a demo, long time ago
This will do for today, man, I think we're gonna... it's gonna be ok
And then I have a Mesa cabinet with Vintage 30 speakers
And a Shure Beta 58 microphone right there
I also have a stereo microphone
And I'll mix that in a little bit just give a little space, you know, to the tone
And... yeah, man
Was that it? I think I'm ready to go, ok?
So let's turn it on
How are we with volume? I need more volume, I think.
Note that it's just the guitar into the Rectifier and nothing else right now, ok?
Immediately when I start to play, I feel that I have to...
... put a lot more effort into my picking technique
And obviously this just says a lot about Eric Peterson as a rhythm guitar player
He is an absolute beast
This guitar is also tuned to C, which is one of the tunings they used for The Gathering uh...
DNR was tuned to C and Down For Life is C# actually
F*** yeah, man
I'm running the amp in Bold mode and Silicon diodes
Modern... on the channel, ok?
Gain is now at like 1 o'clock
Max
It really becomes muddy right there
It-
I mean, there's no cheating with this setup right here, I mean...
If you play shit, it's gonna sound like shit
Usually when you have an overdrive, at least that helps a little bit
To cover up your bullshit and your bullshit playing
You have to have fixed strings too, when you're digging in to your guitar, ok?
I think this is a 0.62 in C
It's a little chunky, but it's nice, man
You can push really hard onto this string, and it won't go sharp
Shit man, I'm getting tired playing like this
Ok, just as a test and demonstration
Let's plug in a Tube Screamer, ok?
Just to demonstrate...
... how it sounds with a Tube Screamer, and you know...
It will make it a little bit easier for me and my playing at least
I mean, this is what I probably figured the tone would be like, you know...
Having Level on max, Gain at zero
Tone at like, you know, 1 o'clock, a little looser
Than you know, a lot of other productions
And this guitar is a Dean Select V
It's called... it's not like their cheapest
It's not their most expensive, it's like in-between
I don't know if you can see this, but it has a gloss-finished neck, it's black
But the backside is a little brown, so you can see the wood a little bit
And then you have a satin neck right here
So you have a shift from gloss to satin
There it is, holy shit that made me tired in my right hand
I mean, you have to push and dig really hard into the strings
If you're gonna play this amplifier and this setup without...
... a boost, just saying
Anyways, there you go, that's the Testament...
... The Gathering guitar tone for your right there
I still think to this day that Testament are still using Triple Rectifiers
And if you ever got to catch 'em live
I mean, their tone and live tone is just balls-out amazing
Not sure what they're using for pickups today
Eric was using EMG's for a while, not sure what he's using today
But for this album it was a Seymour Duncan JB
It was an unboosted Rectifier with Vintage 30 speakers in a Mesa cab
And a Shure Beta 58
If you have any questions, if you have any suggestions...
... of what artist tone video I'm gonna do next
Let me know in the comments section
Thank you so much for watching, goodbye