To me, it really seems that he was trying to get a tone that simply could not exist in 1979- the hard-edged, compressed, solid metal tone without the raspiness. Eventually, they faced his stack straight into the wall to keep him away from it, and mic'd the back of it. He was constantly screwing with the knobs and effects, and this frustrated the studio engineer so much that he had a sheet of plexiglass installed over the knobs to keep Randy from touching them. The stuff I've read about Randy leads me to believe that he hated his tone more than any of us ever could. I have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about and am far from an obsesive/compulsive, tone snob. Now that I have several modeling processors at my beck and call I have to deal with better tone that's still constrained by limited dynamics. That I've never been satisfied with my tone is, in large part, because up until the age of modeling I was stuck with garbage similar to Randy's tone. I don't own the quality tube amp I'd like to and I've never owned a tube amp.
I like a wide variety of tones, some of which are pristine and others which are dirty and raw. I can't speak for anyone else but I take offense at your notion that my opinion of his tone is some kind of pompous snobbery. That discussion takes into account flavor, texture and sometimes what the food looks like. But they complement the rest of the instruments and the mix much like ingredients in a recipe complement one another.Įveryone may not like the same food as I do, but I can have an intelligent discussion of why I like one recipe and dislike another. Several of the wide variety of tones on that album are godawful by themselves. If you want to be crystal clear what I mean, get a copy of the self titled Toy Matinee album. IMO Randy's tone on Blizzard and Diary is neither pleasant to listen to on its own nor appropriate to the mix. But they're appropriate to the song and the mix. There are plenty of great tones, some of which are nasty, dirty sounds. Plus, I'd be out of a job and we'd all have nothing to talk about! Of course! If we all played Strat, TS-9, Super Reverb rigs, the world would be a very, very boring place.