Low Volume Doom

[horseblanket]

Just curious what your approach is, if at all.
Having a baby in the house has me using some tube pre's (Meatsmoke and Orange and Hiwatt Clones) into my Mac using Torpedo WOS.

[ryan summit]

before i built the room
and we lost out jamspace
i asked the same question around here
what i got back,and did with good results is
.......(drumroll)..........
more speakers and a volume pedal at the end of your chain
dont touch your guitar volume
or put a volume pedal before dirt
that may be obvious but thats where i was screwing up
i also notice the 2x15 sounded better than the 2x12 at low vol
just lets that grumble rumble through

[horseblanket]

I figured as much.
However, i have to say that this Tube pre into Torpedo WOS software plus cab impulses approach actually sounds really good.
Have you had a chance to listen to the Lumbar record? No real world cabs or mics were used.
Just a Verellen Skyhammer Preamp into an iMac. Check it out. would love to hear your thoughts.

[AxAxSxS]

Yeah the lumbar record is great. Those preamps have a volume knob, essentially the same as adding a volume pedal at end of chain. Multi effect boxes like the gt-10 also do that. So it's really all about how you want to approach it. The only way you'd be screwed is if you are a die hard amp gain only person. Most of us don't take that approach as getting the tone we want would only. Be possible at building destroying levels.

[skullservant]

I (somehow) run a 50w Verellen and a 100w Fender PA100 in my one bedroom apartment. Luckily the PA100 has a Master volume, and the Verellen is sensible enough that I can keep it on 3. It's mildly problematic with recording (sometimes you can hear picking in the background while recording tracks) but I really just need to play farther away from my amps when they are mic'd for recording. I haven't gotten any complaints from the neighbors upstairs or next to us about any of the amps that I've had in the house. This Verellen actually has a line out that I haven't utilized yet, but I really want to.

That Lumbar record rules! Thanks for reminding me to actually buy it instead of listening to it on Bandcamp.

I used to (and still do, often) DI record when it's super late.

[ryan summit]

my axteacher has checked in
the only thing that i couldnt be satsfied at low vol with
b.a.t. pedals
i did get them to sound good
but i had to realize i wasnt gonna be crushed by them
its like you have to translate in your head
crushed is not a tone
its like an emotional response
just picture yourself on a chaise lounge
on the dustcap in the middle of the cone
enough with the metaphor
a few quiet weeks did make me a better guitar player
so ...bonus

gonna go listen to that lumbar now

[horseblanket]

Thanks for the info. I have been really curious how others are managing to keep practicing/creating under more pedestrian circumstances.

[Iommic Pope]

my axteacher has checked in
the only thing that i couldnt be satsfied at low vol with
b.a.t. pedals
i did get them to sound good
but i had to realize i wasnt gonna be crushed by them
its like you have to translate in your head
crushed is not a tone
its like an emotional response
just picture yourself on a chaise lounge
on the dustcap in the middle of the cone
enough with the metaphor
a few quiet weeks did make me a better guitar player
so ...bonus

gonna go listen to that lumbar now

Truth...and beauty.
You're right about the BATs though. People who don't get them haven't cranked em.
Almost all of their magic is held where their volume/output knob exceeds 3:00 pm.
Also, sig'd.

[Chankgeez]

...
i also notice the 2x15 sounded better than the 2x12 at low vol

... keep it on 3.

That's funny because I used to run my 100W head into a 2x15 with the volume on 3 as a practice amp.

Of course you can always go this route:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUy7bl_6YqI[/youtube]

[t-rey]

It just depends. So many things made to be heavy/doomy sound their best when really pushing the volume. To get big tones at low volumes, you sometimes have to try out a lot of different stuff to find out what works. I really think pedals/cleanish amp that's at least a 1x12 closed back are the way to go. My Musket sounds massive when recorded, even at whisper volumes.

[Kacey Y]

If you're already recording direct you might try running whatever usual amp you play, with a dummy load into a DI, then use some cab impulses. My current home setup is my Carvin X100B in half power mode, into a 2x12, but I've played around with that type of recording technique at home. I used the convolution reverb plugin in Logic and Redwirez impulses and I was pretty happy with the result. In that case I used my Hotplate and used the line out, but there are other ways you could do it, depending on your available resources.

I personally find just having a small amp setup at home is fine for me, I'd rather have a pretty similar signal chain and gain staging and just scale that up for playing louder (as opposed to choking the input signal and it not sounding like it will live and loud), but my level of noise is mostly about not disturbing the neighbors when recording demos. Only you know how loud is going to be ok. I've got a baby on the way and my wife and I decided to try not to keep everything too quiet, so the baby doesn't wake up at the drop of a hat all the time. How it will actually go down when the baby is here we'll see, but your situation is whatever it is and you gotta work with it.

[pelliott]

I have a Cbread Dirty Little Secret MkII on my board that's basically always on, so it feels like I have a distorting amp at pretty much any volume. And then I slam it with fuzz. It lets me crank the volume on the Pharaoh/Quantum Mystic and play large without getting evicted.

[Krosis]

I too suffer from the constraints of having to play low volume doom. Lately, I've been using an EQ pedal between the dirt and the amp and I'm finding it helps the tone at low volumes. You can use it to boost the dirt but keep the amp volume down and I find it sounds better than with no EQ.

[Blackened Soul]

Cascading huge reverbs are really huge, make everything sound huge, and if you do it right it'll have rumbling in a huge kind'a way

[mc_muench]

For midnight dooming, I get great results running my pedals into an old lead sled Acoustic power amp. I can dime my dirts and have everything on but use the volume on the power amp as the master master volume.