In terms of Tone, it seems that Daniel Piquê favors a rather “pure” amp tone, featuring effects in a subtle manner compared to his eighties virtuoso predecessors. It is interesting to see that a lot of guitarists have been going down this road recently.

Well, this is actually not true, we can see here that Billy Gibbons gets his tone from Marshall JMP-1 preamps (I own one, they are killer) with a digitech EQ in the loop. This goes to power amps and then into a demeter ISO cab which means that no microphone is used! We can see a Boss SE-70 multi-effect unit at some stage but that is all. Maybe some effects are added at the main mixing console? Not super vintage but this goes to show you that it is the hands of the guitarists most of the time…

The rig is shown at around 8 minutes and there are even JMP-1 settings shown at 10:50. The first half of the video is dedicated to Billy gibbons’s guitars and they have some serious attitude. Enjoy.

This album is the reason why I picked up a guitar. He enjoyed massive success playing blues numbers in the late 80s/early 90s with the “Still Got the Blues” album. It was followed by “Blues Alive”, a live album where his guitar tone is so big, it drips out of the speakers.

There is a funny anecdote about Kirk Hammett asking Bob Bradshaw, the L.A. guru of guitar gear, to give him the same tone as Gary Moore on “Still Got the Blues”. So Bradshaw started piling up racks and racks of gear and amps and effects, to no avail. Little did they know at the time that Gary Moore had only used 3 pieces of equipment to get his huge tone: a 59 Les Paul, a Marshall Guv’Nor pedal and a Marshall Bluesbreaker amp.

Anyway, I advise you to have a look at wikipedia for a complete biography and discography of Gary Moore. In the meantime, here is a short selection of videos showing the master of tone in action:

Enough romance, here is a more political side of Gary Moore, it’s also what rock’n roll is all about (if you can forget the cheesy 80s video effects but you’ll have to admit that soloing on the Giant’s Causeway looks pretty cool).

And finally, the final 4 minute solo of empty rooms recorded in 1987, another example of amazing tone and phrasing:

I never saw Gary Moore live and always thought I would have an opportunity to do so but alas no… Rest in Peace Gary, you will be sorely missed.

I will show in a video at the end of this post how you can approach EC’s tone and especially how to emulate the booster integrated into his Fender signature model but first, let’s talk about his post-1970 guitars, amps and effects.

The Clapton Stratocaster(s)

Shortly after switching to Fenders, Eric Clapton assembled his own Stratocaster, named “Blackie”, using pieces from different guitars. Blackie is probably one of the most famous Stratocasters ever. During the 70s and early 80s, Clapton made use of the “in between” pickup positions of his Strat to get really “glassy” and sparkly tones.

In 1985, Fender approached Clapton to discuss the possible release of a signature model. After a few different tests, the result was a Strat with a V neck, 3 Gold lace sensor pickups (same as on the “Strat plus” of the time) and a booster circuit built into the guitar. This booster circuit, that Clapton calls a “compressor” although it isn’t, offers a whopping 25 dB of boost. It is basically like having a boost pedal integrated into the guitar and allows Clapton to get his Strat to sound as if it had Humbuckers, increasing the fatness and the sustain. The Clapton Stratocaster is still being made today. The pickups are now Fender Noiseless pickups but the V neck and the active mid-boost circuit have remained (find more detailed info on wikipedia).

This booster circuit is a unique feature in the Fender line and chances are your Stratocaster hasn’t got it.

The Current Clapton Stratocaster Model

This is a personal opinion but I find that since Clapton added this mid-boost circuit into his guitars, he let go of his sparkly 70s sound for a fatter tone, full of sustain. I was also quite amazed to see that on the 2005 Cream reunion DVD, he seemed to be using the middle pickup a lot.

Amps and effects

During the 80s, Clapton went through a phase where he used Soldano amps and a number of rack effects such as the very rare CS5 Tri Stereo Chorus that I seem to hear a lot on the “Eric Clapton with Friends” concert. This was a bit of of a particular period tone-wise as Clapton never had much gear. Some fans regret that in the 90s, he went back to a much simpler rig.

Nowadays, he mostly uses his signature Fender Stratocaster  and a Fender Custom Shop Tweed Twin Amplifier (1957 Tweed Reissue). Add a Vox wah pedal in the mix and you have it! Simple, yet effective. I must also mention that he has a Leslie rotating speaker on stage and a switch to go from his Fender amps to the leslie and back. See here for more detailed info.

The Fender Custom 57 Twin Tweed Reissue - Clapton's favorite amp at the moment

This means his overdrive comes from the 57 Tweed Twin reissue amp cranked probably to the max and being further pushed by the mid-boost circuit of his guitar. By manipulating the guitar controls, he can go from clean (by lowering the volume and the booster) to screaming (by cranking the volume and the booster) without touching his amp. A lot more versatile than you’d think!

And let’s not forget Eric Clapton’s style and phrasing which is an integral part of his tone. He greatly varies his pick attack while playing which allows him to modulate the amount of overdrive with his fingers. Tyring to sound like him is a good way of realising why 50 years later, Clapton is still god.

Emulating that tone at a reasonable volume

The best way to emulate Clapton’s tone would be to use his signature Stratocaster and plug it into a cranked old Fender tweed twin which is not something very practical if you play in your bedroom or in small practice room/venues. And let’s not forget the 1957 Tweed Twin reissue has a retail price of USD 3999.

I followed a different approach here and tried to get a bit of the same feeling using a “normal” Stratocaster (without the integrated booster) and a clean bedroom level amp. I have decided to use two pedals : an Analogman modded TS-9 to provide some basic overdrive and a Boss SD-1 placed before to act as a booster, mimicking the mid-boost circuit built into the Clapton Stratocaster. In this video, I go from clean to slightly distorted (TS9 alone) to completely cranked (SD-1 + TS-9). Towards the end, I also lower the tone control of my neck pickup to about 3 to get a bit of the “Woman Tone“:

The guitar used for this video is my American Classics Custom Shop Stratocaster fitted with Kinman Avn Blues noiseless pickup. The amp is my trusty 1974 Fender Champ set clean whose 8 inch speakers cannot really provide much low end but still gives this sparky Fender tone. The settings for the pedals can be seen in the video.

I received a comment about my previous video which featured reverb added after the recording in Cubase in order to mimic the 60s plate reverb tone heard in numerous records. The reason I usually add reverb is to make up for the fact that I close mike my amp and don’t get any of the ambiance of the room. It is normal practice in studio environments, however I have decided not to add any reverb on this video above to leave the tone of the gear unaltered. I will be writing a post in the future to elaborate.

As to the now famed Tri Stereo Chorus, it keeps on living as a model in some Line 6 gear such as the Space Chorus pedal.

Eric Clapton and his SG - Picture Courtesy of Gibson.com

This first part will be all about the Gibson years and I will show you how to approach the tone of Eric Clapton using common pedals at bedroom volume. Mind you, I am talking about trying to approach his tone. Getting a Clapton type of tone at a reasonable volume is  quite difficult since he is fond of non master volume amps cranked as loud as possible, and of course a lot of it is in his fingers and his mastery of the instrument. But first things first, let’s talk about his guitars and amps.

The Birth of a Classic Combo: Gibson and Marshall

The album that really brought attention on Eric Clapton is “John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton“, also known as “the beano album” due to the cover showing Clapton reading this popular comics. This album was released in 1966. Clapton’s tone at the time was almost revolutionary as he used a Gibson Les Paul, which wasn’t popular, plugged into a completely cranked Marshall JTM45 (reissue models available from Marshall). The result was a fat tone which has now become an absolute classic.

You have to realize that at that time, Marshall was unknown and the JTM45, nicknamed later “Bluesbreaker” because of its impact with the band, was the first Marshall amp ever. And it was heavily inspired by Fender amps!

Anyway the classic Gibson/Marshall combo was born and Eric Clapton did a lot to popularize it. There are stories about sound engineers asking Clapton to lower the volume of the amp, which he refused to do as with non master volume amps such as the JTM 45, the gain and the volume are determined by the same knob.

The Woman Tone

As the sixties went on, Marshall amplification listened to the players asking for more power and the result was the 100W Marshall stack. The PA systems at the time were pretty weak and mostly used for vocals or other acoustic instruments which means that guitarists had to rely on their amps to be heard – even in big venues. This explains why some bands carried several 100W Marshall stacks on stage, which would have been properly deafening at close range.

Clapton joined Cream in 1966 and the band become accustomed to big concerts hence his need for 100w Marshall stacks. After his beloved Les Paul was stolen (read about it on Gibson.com), Clapton switched to a Gibson SG and an ES335. Using these guitars and a healthy amount of amp overdrive, Clapton came up with what is called the “Woman Tone” by lowering the tone control of the pickups,  creating a “wailing” sound. He also started using a brand new effect, the wah pedal. Here is the master explaining his 1968 tone in person:

In this video, I wasn’t struck by EC’s hairdo or his mustache but by the reverb you can hear in his tone. Was it a studio plate reverb? Or just the sound of the venue?

I have tried to reproduce a similar sound using a small clean Fender Champ amp, a Tube Screamer (Analogman TS9) and a Morley Pro Wah. To mimic the reverb heard in the video above, I have added a “Vintage Plate Reverb” in Cubase after the recording. I have used the Reverence plugin with the “Vintage Plate Reverb 2s” preset.

This “Woman Tone” approximation works best with the neck pickup of my Gibson SG 61 reissue. But it is also interesting with the bridge pickup and the two pickups together, as a I show in this short video:

The amp was set clean (Volume at 2.5) and the Analogman TS9 had the following settings: Drive at 3, Tone at 9 o’clock and level slightly above 12 o’clock. The wah was plugged before the Tube Screamer and the amp was close miked using a RODE NT4.

So guys and girls, it is time to take that twin humbucker guitar out of its closet and crank it!

In the next installment of this mini-series of posts dedicated to Eric Clapton, I will focus on his Strat tone.

This video preview will surely put you into the Chrismas Spirit, Voodoo style !

Thanks to French information web site Rue 89 for the find.

I remember the first time I heard Carl Verheyen, I think it was when his rock/blues/fusion “Garage Sale” album came out and it was a big slap in the face (or a kick you know where). Every time I see the guy playing, I feel like selling all my guitars and picking up a new hobby. Case in point, here is a little solo rendition of Little Wing that he did during a clinic (the video quality is not that great but watch the playing):

And here is a really cool video where Mr. Verheyen explains how to setup a Stratocaster Tremolo so that the damn thing stays in tune (and he demonstrates the result using a cheapo tex mex Strat):

I found this video on Dunlop’s blog. It shows the touring gear of John Mayer in details and it’s pretty interesting stuff. We can see his Tube Screamer is of the TS10 variety and that he still uses his old Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal (the 90s version):

Jimi Hendrix - Picture courtesy of Wired

The tone of Hendrix is still a mystery today even if everybody is now convinced that his fingers were mainly responsible for it.

Anyway, in order to approach his godly sound a good place to start is Roger Mayer, Hendrix’s own guitar electronics guru. He still makes pedals today, make sure to visit his website. In particular, his series of fuzz is similar in spec to what Hendrix was using in the 60s.

A more mainstream manufacturer, Dunlop, has a series of three pedals in its Hendrix line. Here is a Guitar World video demonstrating them. It comes close enough…

To conclude, here is a link to a funny video of the Jimi Hendrix Experience visiting a street of Paris and positively scaring off the passers-by. This video was apparently buried in some archive vault until now…

So long Jimi!

Australian guitarist John Butler was revealed to the mainstream in 2004 when his third album, “Sunrise Over Sea”, was released. This album included a huge hit single: “Zebra“. John Butler always plays in a trio configuration, hence the name of his band “The John Butler Trio”.

John Butler in Auxerre, France, 2007 - Photo by Benoît Derrier

Guitars and Guitar Style

His guitar style and and use of gear are quite original, although not entirely unique. His main instrument is a 12 string acoustic guitar made in Australia by Maton. I should actually say 11 strings since the higher ‘G’ is removed as, according to John Butler, it makes the guitar sound too trebly. This guitar is used “normally” as well as plugged into effect pedals and a Marshall amp to give it a more “electric” vibe.

From a style point of view, John Butler’s mastery of finger picking and slide as well as guitar percussion make him an interesting guitarist to study, quite fresh compared to the heavy rock super fast arpeggios type. Don’t get me wrong, I like super fast heavy metal players but it is sometimes nice to study a different style, which happens to be quite technical too!

John Butler also plays a Dobro, a banjo, a Telecaster or a 6 string acoustic guitar but I will concentrate in this post on his 12 string tone. In this interview, John Butler explains in details what guitar he uses and his signal path, which is fairly complex but I will try to summarise it here.

Signal Path

John Butler’s 12 string Maton is fitted with two pickup systems, one for the “electric” tone and one for the “acoustic” tone.

For the electric tone, the magnetic part of a Seymour Duncan Mag-Mic soundhole pickup  is used. This is what goes into the pedal chain. This pedal chain is composed of a Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive, a Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe, a Boss RV-2 Digital Reverb, a Dunlop CryBaby 535Q wah and finally an Akai Head Rush E2 delay. The pedal chain then goes into an Avalon U5 instrument DI/preamp. The signal from the Avalon U5 then goes into a volume pedal and an Ibanez TS9DX overdrive before going into a 1975 Marshall JMP Super Lead amp. phew… The volume pedal allows to blend in more or less electric tone, very clever…

Here is a photo of the pedal chain (source here):

John Butler's Pedal Chain

For his acoustic tone, John Butler relies on the integrated APMic pickup system devised by Maton for their guitars. The signal from this pickup system goes into an Avalon M5 Microphone Preamp. Both Avalons preamps (the U5 mentioned earlier and the M5) go into a mixer and then into a switcher box and then into the main mixing desk. This is the “acoustic” tone. But from my understanding, since the output of the two avalon preamps are mixed together, some of the pedal effects are part of this acoustic tone, not so purely acoustic then…

John Butler uses the same system live or in the studio. In the latter case, his guitar is also recorded by microphones which gives him another signal to play with. This whole system is very flexible as it can provide a pure acoustic tone, an acoustic tone with effects or a more electric tone. The amount of electric tone can be controlled via a volume pedal.

Let’s Try to Approach John Butler’s Tone

The idea in this series of posts is to try to capture the spirit of one’s tone with a minimum of gear. I hope to inspire you into using an acoustic guitar in an “unconventional” way, that is augmented by an electric guitar amp and effects. I have not tried to reproduce the acoustic/electric duality of John Butler’s setup and have focused on the electrification of an acoustic guitar. It is something than few guitarists do but which can open a world of possibilities.

I am lucky enough to own an Australian made Maton guitar, an EM225C to be precise. It is equipped with the AP4 pickup system, also designed by Maton. It is a fantastic instrument but has “only” 6 strings. So the first pedal I decided to use was a BOSS CH-1 chorus in order to simulate a 12 string tone. I then decided to use a BOSS RV-3 reverb, close enough to the RV-2 John Butler uses. Both the RV-2 and RV-3 are discontinued so you will either have to get the newer RV-5 or look on the second hand market. I also decided to use a BOSS SD-1 overdrive which is a cheap but good enough overdrive. Of course, you could be using an Ibanez Tube Screamer or any other good overdrive, including your amp’s. Finally, I opted for a Morley wah because we all love some wah action.

The final chain went:

Maton EM225C Guitar -> Morley Wah -> BOSS SD-1 Overdrive -> BOSS CH-1 Chorus -> BOSS RV-3 Reverb -> Fender Champ amplifier set clean.

I show at the beginning of the video how a chorus effect can emulate the tone of a 12 string guitar and then I show the whole chain:

The settings were:

The amp was miked with a RODE NT-4 and recorded with a BOSS Micro-BR. The recording was then transferred into Cubase 5 to add some compression (mainly to optimise the volume).

In this post we will look into his gear and learn how to recreate the same kind of lead tone using just a few common pedals that I will demo in a video. Although his studio albums – especially since the late 90s – feature a lot of different pedals and textures, Satch has a simpler approach on stage. 90% of the time, he uses the same recipe for his tone and the rest, as always, is in the fingers.

Photo by CodePoet taken on 2008-10-26 @ Variety Playhouse, Atlanta

Guitars

Although he played a Kramer Pacer on “Surfing with the Alien”,  Satriani quickly became an Ibanez endorser in the late eighties and remains one today. His Ibanez signature JS family of guitars has not stopped growing. The “classic” workhorse model is the JS1000. There is a more affordable version named JS100 and more esoteric models like the newly released JS2400 with 24 frets or the JS1600 without tremolo. The JS1000 that he uses the most has a bolt on neck, 2 Di Marzio custom humbuckers and a floyd rose type of blocking tremolo system with fine tuners.

As such, it is very representative of 80s “guitar technology” after Eddie Van Halen took a Stratocaster-like guitar and put a humbucker and a floyd rose on it, making it a bit of a cross between a Fender and a Gibson. The pickups were specially designed for this line of guitars and I must say I especially like the neck pickup which has a very “glassy” almost Stratocaster-like quality. On the JS1000, the humbuckers can be split to sound like single coils, pretty versatile. The blocking tremolo system allows for much abuse and Satch is a great abuser, he can get the wildest effects out of it and still stay in tune.

Amps and Effects

In the eighties, unlike many other fellow metal or rock guitarists, Satriani often did not get his big distortion tone from a super cranked Marshall boosted by some overdrive pedal. He used (and still does) distortion pedals in front of a clean amp. The BOSS DS-1 orange distortion was a very important part of his tone from the eighties all the way to about 2009 when his own VOX Satchurator distortion pedal was released. I went to his “Super Colossal” tour show in Paris in 2006 and I distinctly remember  seeing him switching from clean to his signature lead tone by pressing on the little orange pedal in front of him. I am 99% sure it was a DS-1. This surprised me because it was not long after his own line of amplifiers (the Peavey JSX) had been released and there were quite a few behind him on stage. Although these amps are highly capable of providing lots of gain, he was obviously just using them clean and getting his distortion from the DS-1.

Now on the topic of the DS-1, it is loved by some and loathed by others. Some find it synthetic sounding or thin, etc. Let me tell you that it is not the kind of pedal that will sound great through any rig, it works well with some guitars and amps but can sound horrible used with others. Also, it does not have 100 sounds but one so if you love it, you’re in luck, if you don’t, you will be tempted to throw it out of the window. That said, a lot of pros use it and get great tones out of it and it has been in the BOSS catalog for over 30 years now! This controversial aspect of the DS-1 tone explains why it is one of the most modified pedals on the market. There are great mods by Analogman, Robert Keeley, Monte Allum, etc. It seems that in more recent years, Satriani was using a Keeley version (like his pal Steve Vai) although I am not finding any hard evidence of it.

The BOSS DS-1 Distortion: love it or loathe it

It is funny to see that tone purists on forums are quick to qualify Satriani’s tone as bad, you know the “he should use a Les Paul 59 and a bassman from 1756 instead of an Ibanez and a cheap BOSS distortion” kind of remarks. Let me tell you that I have seen lots of great guitarists on stage and Satriani’s tone is one of the best I have heard. It really serves the songs and compliments his playing.

There are two other effects that are an important part of Satriani’s tone: delay and wah. He has used up to 3 delay units in series in the 90s. He has never been a fan of rack mounted gear and all his effects were usually pedals placed in front of him. The exceptions were two rack mounted chandler delay units that he would use on top of an old BOSS DM-2 analog delay or DD-2 digital Delay (see this guitar geek entry). His settings for the three delays were interesting: the first delay was quite short, the second delay longer and the third even longer. The blending of the three gives a very spacious tone. If you don’t have three delays you can try this with your favorite recording software, this sounds a bit like a reverb without using a reverb.

In the last decade, he went back to using one good delay pedal, often an old BOSS DM-2: see photos of his 2010 experience Hendrix tour pedal board.  Of course, Satch now has his own delay pedal made by VOX, the Time machine. As to wah pedals, he used an old VOX model in the early days and a few years back he was using a Jim Dunlop 535Q, but he now has his own model made by… VOX: the Big Bad Wah. This is no coincidence that the first three pedals he designed with VOX are a distortion, a delay and a wah because these are the basics of his tone. An overdrive called Ice 9 has just been announced by VOX in the same range.

On the subject of amps, as I mentioned before, he rather uses them clean. In the 90s, he was using a Marshall Anniversary head and later on switched to his own line of Peavey JSX. Apparently, he is going back to Marshall after his short stint with Peavey.

To summarize, a good wah, a distortion and a delay plugged into a good clean amp is the basis for Satriani’s tone on stage. I am not saying that it is all you need to reproduce Satriani’s every tone, I am saying that this is the recipe for the lead tone he uses live about 90% of the time, especially on classics like “Surfing with the Alien”, “Satch Boogie”, “Ice 9″, and so on. Amongst the remaining 10% of the songs, some can be heavily reliant on one particular effect like the Digitech whammy used on “Cool #9″; the Electro Harmonix POG used on “Super colossal” for that super fat tone; or the Fulltone Ultimate Octave for several other numbers. I must also mention the use of modulation effects like a BOSS CH-1 chorus, a BOSS BF-2 Flanger or a univibe clone such as the Fulltone Deja Vibe. This is especially obvious on his clean tones although his pedal board has not been consistent in that respect. Pedals come and go with the different tours and albums.

Let’s redo Satriani’s Lead Tone

For this endeavor, I have used a RMC1 Wah pedal, a stock BOSS DS-1 distortion and a BOSS DD-3 delay plugged into my trusty Fender Silverface Champ set fairly clean. I don’t have an Ibanez-style guitar so I have used my Gibson SG 61 Reissue since humbuckers are a must for Satch’s lead tone (I accept donations in the form of JS1000s ).

A pity I don’t have a floyd rose kind of tremolo, I should not have sold my shredding guitar. If there is one thing that I have discovered, it is that Satriani has an extremely clean technique (emphasis on extremely clean) that my gruff style cannot match in a million years. Also, I am not able to reproduce the super smooth legato runs that Satriani is a specialist of as I am used to picking every note. Nevertheless I sure had lots of fun getting my old DS-1 out of the closet!

The settings were:

• BOSS DS-1: DIST almost on max but not quite, LEVEL at 12 o’clock and Tone quite low at 8/9 o’clock
• BOSS DD-3: LEVEL at 10 o’clock, FEEDBACK at 12 o’clock, TIME at 2 o’clock and MODE at 800ms.
• On the amp: Volume at 3, BASS at 10 and Treble at 2.5 (the amp is fairly bright as a lot of fender amps are)

First of all, Joe Bonamassa, who is an absolute guitar freak and has one of the biggest tones in Blues Rock has released just a few weeks ago an album entitled “Black Rock“. It sounds absolutely killer, after listening to it I feel like selling all my guitars on ebay. Here is the trailer for his Royal Albert Hall DVD released last year, the guy is 100% genuine, a real guitar lover:

Another big name, Slash, has just released his new album entitled Slash. It is full of guest singers and musicians such as Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, Fergie, etc. You can buy it and listen to it on www.slashonline.com. It rocks, it sounds big but is not overproduced, quite remarkable! It sounds a bit like Guns’n Roses recorded with 2010 technology.

Here is the trailer for the album:

And finally, Robben Ford and Michael Landau have teamed up for an album which should be released around now. It is entitled “Renegade Creation”. The myspace page of Michael Landau features some live footage of him playing with Mr Ford. For those of you who don’t know Robben Ford or Mike Landau, let’s say they are at the top of the heap of US session and stage guitarists. Their solo stuff is on the blues jazz fusion side of things and I am sure the album will be well worth a listen.