Does the Laney LA Studio Jangle?

A member of the That Guitar Lover community sent in a comment asking if the Laney LA-Studio could jangle like the Byrds or REM. I thought that it probably could with the right guitar and the right virtual cabinet. So I set that up and made a short recording to do so.

I set the Laney LA-Studio up to connect to my Apollo interface over a balanced line. I ran the guitar, a Fireglo Rickenbacker 360 into the amp (no pedals). Using the Two Notes Torpedo that is built right into the Laney, I used the Torpedo Remote to have the amp use an EL84 push pull power stage and a 2x12 cabinet with a pair of Celestion Blue speakers. Think AC30. Why that instead of an always clean Fender? Because the member by name of Colin, wanted to know if it would jangle if there was a bit of dirt in the signal so I wanted to achieve that tone using a Warm Audio Centavo. I could have just miked up an AC30C2 but that would not show the Laney’s capability.

You can determine for yourself if you think it jangles. It does for me in studio monitors and studio headphones. There is absolutely nothing remotely special about the three chord sequence, one instance clean, and the second with the Centavo in front of the amp.

I used only the bridge pickup on the Rickenbacker and left the tone full up on the guitar and flat on the amp.

Once the track was recorded, I created a bus track and put a full wet plate reverb on that, sending the guitar to both the main out and to the bus. This way I could use all the plate and still keep it separated from the guitar track. It also allows the use of a fader to give granular control over how much reverb goes into the mix. I used Izotope OZONE for the final mastering.

Here’s the track and thanks to Colin for the comment!