That tone

How do guitarists like Van Halen and CC DeVile get a really clean tone with loud harmonics?
The volume of your harmonics is related to your gain, higher gain the better the harmonics.
I was reading a post in which i guy talked about how for stuff like metallica and slash stuff, you play with loads of gain but mute strings and be really carefull in your playing to aviod distortion but while keeping a full sustained tone. Well thats how i play but i cant see how Van halen still gets a high volumed harmonic since he does nt have alot of gain!!
Is the noise gates or summin used? effects?

Am i standing to close to my amp!! i stand within 2 or 3 metres of it!! how far away should u be!!?

Try this link...
http://www.vhvault.com/~mr5150/evh-brown-sound.html
It explains a lot about van halens setup etc...
(although like it says in the article, a lot of the information about his amp or guitar modifications are false rumours perpetuated by Eddie himself)

Gain, the word guitarist love to misuse.......

Originally posted by pstring
Gain, the word guitarist love to misuse.......

Isn't gain just another word for volume anyway?

Volume is the result of Gain...........

So wot is gain then?

How does slash get his amazing tone without that much gain!! Like on the song estranged. When i turn the gain down it sounds plastically and hollow!! I hate that sound!!

Misused by guitaists and amp manufacturers, The "Gain" knob on an amp is really just another volume for a preamp or preamp stage, When most people hear an setting with a ton of pre-amp distortion, they think, Hey lots of "Gain", no it's just alot of pre-amp distortion, and it really doesn't take much to get that sound. To simplifiy this, just think of any control like volume, gain, Master 1, Master 2, etc.... as just a volume control that affects the next stage that it feeds into, feed a distorted signal in and the final signal out will sound distorted. Gain really is the difference between the input and the output, ie.. 104millivolt in, a 1.04 volt signal out, the difference is the gain of that device be it a effects pedal, tube or whatever. What Slash or VH are doing is cranking the amp into power tube distortion instead of pre-amp distortion which has that fuzz box sound, power tube distortion is much smoother sounding and this is where the tube amp is un equaled by the solid state amp, a non-master volume amp cranked wide open will go into power tube distortion, or by turning down the pre-amp and turning up the final Master volume you will get a similar result....... Man am I windy!

Ok, that was awesome, but explain it to a dumbass, heres my amp,

Overdrive channel 2 - Volume 3, Gain 10, master volume 4!!!

Now thats actually quite loud!!! So wota u mean?
Lowering the channels gain and turning up its volume?

Wots post/pre amp?

Also how loud does the amp have to be? does slash get his tone when hes playin in his bedroom?
ie am i likely to even ever here this tone as a bedroom guitarist?

Also am desperate to get am all valve amp, maybe a TSL, wot dya fink?

OK, an amplifier is basically a pre-amp and a power amp, and since we are talking about VH & Slash, we'll say this is an all tube affair, a preamp tube like in most common amps today, a 12ax7 is 2 triodes in one tube, basically 2 complete tubes in one, each half of the tube is a "Stage", in an amp we could have many pre-amps, like a Bogner has 4, some Mesa Boogie's have 3, etc.. a preamp can be a simple 2 stage (1 tube) design or multi stage, in the preamp is where you also have your tone controls, from there your signal eventually finds it's way to the power amp, in a 100 watt Marshall this is where the 4- EL34 power tubes are, this is as far as I'm going with that, you ask about your amp setting, I'll give you an example from an amp I have that might clear this up, I have an amp that takes the signal from the guitar and goes into a 1 stage pre-amp, the only control it has is a volume, you could call it a Gain control, from there the signal goes into a 2nd pre-amp which has all the tone controls and a volume, or you could call it Master Volume 1, from there the signal to the Power Amp, but before it does it goes into another Volume control, you could say it's the Final Master, if I want to drive the Power amp into distortion, I turn the Final Master to 10, and adjust the other 2 volumes as I want, just as long as I'm feeding a fairly strong signal to the power amp the power tubes will distort, and it can be a strong clean signal or a strong dirty crunch signal, the power amp just needs a strong signal, if I turn the first 2 volumes up and the final down, the sound may be distorted but the power amp is only getting a small portion of the signal and the power amp won't distort only amplify the already distorted signal of the pre-amps. VH & Slash's sound rely on two things Tubes & Power Amp Distortion, add those together and you get Mega Volume, and that gets you the long sustain and loud, clear harmonics, if you want that at a bedroom level, you'll need a 1 watt amp cranked to 10.......................