Do you remember the times when listening to Punk Rock and Skating went hand in hand? This culture was very popular in the late 90s and early 2000s.
In the following lines we will tell you about a trio that made millions in sales during that period and was the icon of America’s skaters.
Originally from a small town in California, the guitar player Tom DeLonge, the bassist Mark Hopus and the drummer Scott Raynor formed one of the most famous Rock Punk bands – Blink, later renamed to Blink-182. In 1998 the drummer was replaced with Travis Barker.
In the rising wave of Pop Punk Rock set by Green Day, Blink-182 gained popularity among the audience and ranked between the most listened and watched bands in the MTV of those times. The catchy melodies and the funny lyrics launched their songs to the top of the charts.
Although they started their musical career in 1992, the real breakthrough came in 1999 when they released their third album “Enema of the State”.
The band has eight albums, many singles and numerous music videos. Punk scenes around the world have seen many of their live performances. The energy blasting of Pop Punk genre brings them over 50 million copies sold worldwide. The singles “What’s My Age Again?”, “All the Small Things”, and “Adam’s Song”, were faced with ultimate success on the Music Televisions. Their fourth album, “Take Off Your Pants and Jacket” which was released in 2001, was greeted with no less success than the previous one. Even in its first week out it sold a great amount of copies worldwide and was certified double Platinum by the RIAA. Several of their best selling singles – “All The Small Things” ,”Bored To Death”, “I Miss You” and “Feeling This” were even certified Gold by the RIAA.
There was a pause for the band between 2005 to 2009 due to absence of one member of the group – Tom DeLonge, but after that the trio united again. After working on a new album in 2011 the world welcomed their sixth studio album. Compared with previous albums this one didn’t get as much success but still had a few good singles though.
In January 2015 after the departure of DeLonge, the band recruited a replacement – the new guitarist and vocalist Matt Skiba.
The next album that they released was in 2016, and it is their seventh in a row. For this one, we noticed more success. They reached number one in UK and US charts.
The eight album of Blink-182 was released in 2019.
After members’ arguments regarding their future and recording process, the band Blink-182 broke up and are no longer in the music world. A little more curious information: A few of the members released a new song in 2020 called “Quarantine”. But we never know if they may surprise us with one more album with hooky, laughable and uplifting songs. Let’s hope for the best!
“All the small things” in Amplifikation 360
We know many of the fans of the band would like to bring the guitar tone of Tom DeLonge in front of their computers and we dug into his guitar rig.
Gears
Guitars:
As for the guitars he uses Gibson signature model Tom DeLonge, Fender Custom Shop signature model, Fender Fat Stratocaster, Gibson Les Paul Standard.
Amps:
For the amplifiers he chose several – Marshall JCM 900, Fender Twin Reverb, VOX AC30, Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier, Oranges etc.
The song we picked is one of the most high energy songs “All the small things” from their most successful album. This song, DeLonge dedicated to his girlfriend at that time and it remained the most triumphant single of the band. He recorded it in a recently bought house in a room that he insulted with foam padding himself. This song somehow stays a mirror of this style that we love, Blink-182 will be remembered with it and also the video that we all watched with great pleasure.
And now without further ado let’s get into the tone.
Tone Recreation
Punk in general represents a culture and way of thinking. So, the tone is not about complications. It is about plugging your guitar straight into the amp and rock on.
The tone is really simple and some inside information about what was used on the track led us to use our Amplifikation Caliburn amp simulator in Amplifikation 360
The amp is the Amplifikaton Caliburn C type, which is based on JCM900. 4×12 cabinet with one 57 classic mic and maybe a noise gate in front to clean up some string noises.
Tip: if you want a tight mix, play it rhythmically correct and use well intonated guitar with fresh new strings,
The gain is set after 2 oclock to achieve more tight distortion. The lows are almost at zero. As we talked before, it’s a British based amp and if you want a tight tone, turn that low level down.
Crank the Middle position to the end. You want to cut through the mix. Treble and Presence are around the middle with opposite settings. It depends on how bright your guitar is.
Here you can hear the tone:
Audio Sample:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13X1cfQQTpy5-eHJBsWVNjP1peJBL4Ej8/view?usp=sharing
Here you can download the preset and copy it to your presets folder:
Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YT2p2KNcrN2ol13CpIO8sQJSb66uabl9/view?usp=sharing
We’ve included two presets. One for the left guitar track and one for the right. They are doubled with slightly different settings and cab.
The preset file for A360 looks like this: 182 Left Guitar.ka360p copy the file after extracting it from the zip file at:
Presets folder:
Windows:
C:\Users\[User Name]\Documents\Kuassa\Presets\Amplifikation360
Mac:
/Users/[User Name]/Music/Kuassa/Presets/Amplifikation360
One thing is for sure about this outstanding band. They left a bright presence in the history of Punk Rock music and we will wait eagerly for their future projects!
Stay tuned for more tones with history, explanation and preset for download!