How Pros Get Great Guitar Tone 

Watching Tim sitting in the cockpit of his amplifier spaceship always brings a smile to my face.

I've been blessed with ears that cant tell the difference between this rig and my $100 practice amp.

I was Tim's tech for session work for a few years. His portable rig was a microcosm of his home set-up. I learned a lot from the work he did with Rob Cavallo. He often ran through a single Bogner 1x12 with a V-30 and a hot plate. He always knows what sound the artist and/or producer he works with is looking for. That's how he got classified as "in demand".

I would really like a see a "How Pros Get Great Tone" where they actually show them dialing it in. What is the signal path? What are the tone settings? etc. We never really saw how he got the tone.

Tim pierce is absolutely one of my heroes and an inspiration for me. So many people love his music and dont even know who he is. He is a legend for sure and belongs in the music hall of fame.

Tim + Rick: an awesome conjunction of the best music wisdom YT has to offer, distilled and concentrated into one room. I love it. Tim always makes it sing.

So all I have to do is get a vintage Plexi and some outboard Neve gear. Helpful! Do you have Paul Reed Smith's number? And the winning lottery numbers?

Tim is like a compendium of institutional knowledge about everything guitar. The amount of actionable advice I've watched from Tim is incredible, from how to play to what to use to the attitude to bring. Just a treasure.

Tone is in the hands. For most rock, blues, country or pop music all you need is a single channel tube amp with reverb and an overdrive pedal. If you can’t make that sound good you need to keep practicing.

Lol 2 min in, all you need is a 1967 Marshall PA head that belong to PRS and Eric Johnson, a Marshall 4x12 with a mixture of rare cones, individually micced with rare and priceless mics. All sent through a million dollar interface starship control room and into Protools. Man I can’t even afford protools lol

Great video. I played through a PODGO and now a Fractal FM3. I enjoy watching videos like this and then seeing how close i can get to the tones i like.

Always a great conversation between these two. Thank you guys.

Great video! I always enjoy Tim's stories on his channel

I always immediately watch Tim Pierce collab videos when I see 'em. Great stuff!

Fabulous. Tim, Tom, Rick. Beat that!

Thx Rick love you n Tim chatin. Educational always

I can't get enough of watching (and listening) to Tim talking and playing.

Could listen to you guys all day! Always fascinating and a huge wealth of information for the masses...

Ask Tim when launch time is and when we can join him in his wonderful amp and gear space ship. ✌️🎸

LOVE IT TIM !!!!! 🎸🎶

Greeeeeat video. Cheers from Brazil

Just subscribed. Great content.

Awesome 💯

Bravo from a drummer that can entirely appreciate all that! Love me some killer guitar sounds!

I have a 10 watt Marshall practice amp, and the sound is great. and for my bass guitar I have a Vox Pathfinder bass 10. For my bass I have a great amplifier, but for guitar I prefer a Marchall. a super amplifier where there really is none better. Excellent video.

Rick Beato + Tim Pierce = BLISS!

Its amazing how much nuance you can actually hear on a modern cellphone. I could 100% hear the differences Tim was sharing. Ofc I would rather pop some headphones in and get the lows too, but I digress.

I love that cockpit Would love to make one myself

I wouldn’t even know how to turn the light on in Tim’s room😫

Amazing!! Having said that, Tim could play through an old school transistor radio and sound great.

Very nice my friend !

I want to thank you both.... you two are my top two RU-vid guitar channels, but Rhett and Robert are very close, alone with Mary.... thank you for all you do...

I remember owning 3 amps at 1 time. Mesa dual rec, small Marshall 20 watt & an old ampeg amp I used for my Korg DDD5 drum machine. Now I model everything cause I’m the best guitar player in my bedroom!!!!!

Inspired by you, Rick, Thommy and lots of others I went back into my guitar play which honestly was ideogolically a refuse of effets. NoFX ain't a band name. So, expering the instrument again I got some cheap but nice pedalls experimenting with tone. Oh boy. I got 3 guitars, one accoustic and finding tones for each of it is just a mad project on the new built pedal board containing a compressor, a boost, eq, rev, del and some overdrives and a tuner. Man this is endless. ❤

Tim is a super legit tone master.

Very nice setup! The only thing I’d want to add in there is an old 30W or 50W Orange box - I’ve loved those sounds for almost 50 years!

Another great informative and entertaining video from Rick B. If you're not subscribed to both of his channels, you're missing out on some of the best music related content on youtube.

Gotta do one of these but for bass!

Omg i thought i was on tims channel… when you showed up rick i got such a fright

the secret to tims sound, 100k dollars in amps, pedals, effects, 1073 mic pres, compressors , noise gates, expensive ribbon and condensor mics, limiters, eqs, and ability…thats all lol

Rick that's cool. I just bought a Helix modeling pedal. That is why. I can't afford all that gear but I can get SO CLOSE with one pedal. That would be something I'd like to hear you discuss. We've agreed digital is ok for recording (mostly). I see so many pros using modeling pedals. As a live sound guy I LOVE them as it makes my job so much easier. What do you think of them?

Tim is a GAS!

Beato 2 is the Beato 1 , of Beato 2s !!! ❤

Tim in his cockpit, always fun. Coolest guitar studio to pop into and check stuff out.

All the late 60's Marshall Plexis are the peak of rock guitar tone. The PA system Plexis heads made with 4 channels for mixing vocals/bass/guitar/accordian are maybe even better than the 100W plexi that Hendrix made famous. All these amps can go from clean country to hard rock distortion with out any pedal, just by using the guitar volume knob. All the vintage Marshall plexi vary from 50-100-200Watts of tiube power. The 100W+ ones are arguably the loudest guitar amplifiers ever made. Hendrix, Page, early Kiss, Free/Bad Company played these live. The sheer amount of volume and air pushed these can attain with a full stack of 2 4X12 speaker cabinets will literally make your pants legs move 10ft away. Just one of these full stacks played at full in an arena concert setting does not need to be mic'd for the floor audience a first outside deck to here it while the rest of the band is coming thru the main PA system. In fact, that is how Hendrix and those guys used them.

Get a $20k signal chain. Got it! 🤣 Kidding of course. I love your content, and naturally anything with Tim is gold!!

Nice!

I'm just a mere vocalist, but God that guitar and his rig sounds magical

"I like to be the last guy to find the thing" I can certainly relate to that. :)

I love how Tim nerds out, and Rick encourages him. 🤣🤣🤣

Very cool

Tim's so cool

This just came out while I was watching the Who has the most recognizable guitar sound? video from a while back, that's a pretty good segue there.

This guitar/amp setup immediatly wants to start "What's Next To The Moon". w.w.w. as good as it gets

Perhaps sitting this close to your gear with a guitar should be mentioned. There’s a good chance of getting a lot of hum. When you turn sideways it can be heard, facing certain directions reduces the noise. There always seems to be an ideal spot in the room where the noise is almost eliminated, distanced from whichever piece of equipment is causing it. The more gain cranked, the more line noise, and single coil pickups themselves can really highlight it. But I’m sure Rick has experience, especially considering Chris Green’s use of single coils and gain. Noise gates can reduce some of this, EQ filters, but compression can bring it back, especially during sustaining phrases. This is a good reason to track separately so it can still be worked with during mixing. It depends when and where in the song or mix. Another important aspect is feedback, having the guitar near the playback speaker and the level of the speaker. I think being loud is good for the ‘tone’ because it feels much more live, and the guitar behaves similar to the garage days. Another unspoken factor is mic preamps can be pushed into distortion themselves, with input gain. So if you have low gain amp sounds, they can sound more on edge just using the mic pre’s distortion, at times. I see quite a few mic preamps always in Tim’s setup, so he has numerous mics downstairs. I think these are great for adding bottom end as well, providing they’re not causing a phase issue. Anything that helps with the in-room, cabinet sound.

The delay thing was a game changer for me

Tim is a professional guitarist. All of this are tools of his trade. Just like a top mechanic they've got the right tool for everything they may encounter within their imagination...it's not supposed to be for everyone...

The next best thing to hanging out with two legends...

What is your thought on the Blackheart amps? I have a Handsome Devil 15 stack and I really love it. It makes a great pedal platform even without it having an effects loop. Love, Peter

Rick needs to get Tom Bukovac in for an interview . One of the best session players in Nashville.

Hearing people talk about tone is like hearing people talk about wine to me. Sometimes you just gotta shut up and enjoy it.

Tim and his cockpit of sounds and tools 🫣✈️

Tone is more important than skills!

Hey Rick, have you ever had Kenny Wayne Shepherd on for an interview?? I'm fascinated by how Why We Cry and Pearl Jam's Yellow Ledbetter sound so much alike in the opening and closings!

Nice

I was literally just thinking to myself, "self, this is a recent video upload and I see some of Tim's amps behind him, I'm going to comment and ask just what that dual set of inputs Marshall he has in the background of his videos is", and lo and behold, it's literally answered in the first few seconds lol

Did Tim buy that from Ryan Fowler's in Towson, MD recently? They had that PRS/EJ amp for sale for $13k.

I would be curious to know if Tim was to choose a small 4 pedal fly rig, with a Ir for foh. what would he choose.

Thia ia great but i'd love to see how you would do this with amp sims in the box for us bedroom producers.

Is it the pickups of that guitar that you can hear every note or the amp. ?

That's not how the pros get the ultimate tone. That's how the super nerd gear addicted pros get it! 😂😂😂 Amazing. Wish I had an island of happiness like that ❤

It’s taken me years to get in the habit of using the guitar volume knob to change my tone.

Honest recommendation to name the channel Rick Beatwo.

Plot twist. It's in his hands the whole time. Doesn't matter what the gear is. His hands, intention behind the playing, touch... he could play through almost anything and sound really consistent. The gear is about 10% of the equation

I need a video explaining how he gets in/ out of that cockpit 😂

Beloved gear nerds ❤️❤️❤️

Wait for other guys to do the work and find the cool things….😂 That is how I put together all the components of my gigging organ rig. Great sounds Tim.

Tim besides being a great guitarist is the Albert Einstein of guitar knowledge.

64 Bassman has a tube rectifier I believe, after that Leo went to SS rectifier

Uncle Tim in the Rockpit

Tim, have you tried the Boss Katana? It's a close second...

i have no idea what he's talking about, but it sounds great

If memory serves me correctly, didn't Paul Kossoff used a Marshall PA head with Free?

I’d love to know what monitors he hears all that through.

problem is, through my tiny, tinny PC monitor speakers (yeah I know I could use headphones) it all sounds the same. So I will need to take your word for it.

Which Brand /is the Goldtop guitar , ??? It's Cool

2:45 wisdom

I see a couple of UA Pedals too

J Mascis uses the same amp!

I mean, yeah it sounds great, but not everyone has the means to buy a vintage Marshall or two and pair it up with vintage cabs and a rare mic. How about a video on getting a good sound on a budget?

Mid-Range Fist. 👊

I had one of those PA heads. I couldn't make it sound good, but I think it needed work.

Didnt he use a Sound City 50R prior to the Hiwatt?

Kinda hilarious that a guy with a socalled simple guitar into an amp setup and minimal effects has a NASA style setup that almost makes the rig of The Edge look simple by comparison.

Piles of money

Nice! Where’s the rest of it? 😂🎉

Louder is better. I listened to Zoom Club by Budgie in the truck today and it just doesnt sound good quiet. Loud, it rocks. It moves you to emotion.

Compliments the quality of the amp and it's raw tone, then goes on to present a full rack of equipment being used to actually get the tone we hear. So I guess need a few more bucks than just the amp.

😊❤

Tim is the David Attenborough of music.