Texas Blues Tone and Ultra Low Action???

[Desert]

Re: Texas Blues Tone and Ultra Low Action???

Sure, check out 1:15 on the vid....it sounds to me like that Bb wouldn't last much longer, there's just no bell to it. It's not quite as dead as the first clip you posted where's he's playing the L Series Strat, but there's still not the chime you would get from raising the action on that guitar.

Here's a clip of my '68 into a totally clean amp. I use a high action, and you can hear how the chords and notes sustain. It's not Texas Blues, but you get the idea. There's no one right way to do it, and it's a matter of personal taste, so in the end everyone's going to decide for themselves how high they like their action and how they want their guitar to sound.

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=9836866

Cheers................................... wahwah

Hmmmm,....I guess I'm not hearing that you are. To me, I'm hearing a ton of chime...in fact, it sounds like he's relying on the strings hitting the next fret to add some of that clank/chime that I don't hear on yours (that sounds fantastic, btw).

On yours, I only hear one part where there is any contact on the next fret. I really like what you're doing there...it sounds big without any fret noise at all. Myself, using 11s, that might wear me out after a long night.

I'm wondering if part of the reason Chris is doing this is to use the low action as a form of compression...by putting a lower ceiling on each string's max level, which i could see coming in handy on a clean setting.

I've always set mine higher, to where I can make each note hot the next fret if I want to, but i have to push a little more to get it.

Great discussion, btw, and thank you for the clip. I may post one, too.

[Desert]

Re: Texas Blues Tone and Ultra Low Action???

Great-sounding clip! But don't you think there's a point of diminishing returns if you raise it beyond the point where the strings, in no way, are contacting the frets? Once you raise it beyond that level, what's the point? Are you saying that, in order to have no string contact, you have to raise to to "high" level? I kinda of use the idea of raising it till there is a slight buzz and then very gradually tweak each saddle till it's gone. Why raise it more than that?

That's basically what i do. I consider my action fairly low, but not plinky. I can choose to have the note smack the next fret or not.

[ParameterMan]

Re: Texas Blues Tone and Ultra Low Action???

Hmmmm,....I guess I'm not hearing that you are. To me, I'm hearing a ton of chime...in fact, it sounds like he's relying on the strings hitting the next fret to add some of that clank/chime that I don't hear on yours (that sounds fantastic, btw). I'm wondering if part of the reason Chris is doing this is to use the low action as a form of compression...by putting a lower ceiling on each string's max level, which i could see coming in handy on a clean setting.

I've always set mine higher, to where I can make each note hot the next fret if I want to, but i have to push a little more to get it.

I do hear a lot of that low action spank on CD's stuff and none on Geoff's. For me it depends on the guitar. Every humbucker guitar I own goes tubby and dull if I get the action in SRV-land - they like a little kerchang on harder notes. I'm always tweaking my action back and forth between full, clean fundamental and steely electric guitar bite. I never can decide exactly where I like it. I've found it also depends on string gauge, brand and picking style.

[wahwah]

Re: Texas Blues Tone and Ultra Low Action???

Hmmmm,....I guess I'm not hearing that you are. To me, I'm hearing a ton of chime...in fact, it sounds like he's relying on the strings hitting the next fret to add some of that clank/chime that I don't hear on yours (that sounds fantastic, btw).

On yours, I only hear one part where there is any contact on the next fret. I really like what you're doing there...it sounds big without any fret noise at all. Myself, using 11s, that might wear me out after a long night.

I'm wondering if part of the reason Chris is doing this is to use the low action as a form of compression...by putting a lower ceiling on each string's max level, which i could see coming in handy on a clean setting.

I've always set mine higher, to where I can make each note hot the next fret if I want to, but i have to push a little more to get it.

Great discussion, btw, and thank you for the clip. I may post one, too.

It could be that we're hearing the same things, but we have different names for them. I agree that he's relying on fret buzz to get it sounding clanky, but in my terminology I wouldn't describe it as chime. To me, chime is more of a strident piano-like or bell-like tone, where the note has a certain purity to it. So that may just be semantics. Onomatopoeia to the rescue! With SRV, I would hear Cold Shot as "changa changa changa chang chang" whereas with Chris it would be "Fvvva Fvvva Fvvva Fvvv Fvvv." LOL...talk about a technical tone discussion!

If we're talking about the same note, right toward the end of my clip, that doesn't sound out and has some buzz, that's a flubbed note and definitely operator error! I'm using 11's in standard too, which is also contributing to the substance in each strike. Obviously I'm playing with thumb and fingers in my clip, so it's relatively light attack, but there's plenty of headroom there to really attack hard with a pick and still retain that bell-like 'chime,' and of course it's the higher action that is affording this.

You might be right about Chris using the lower action and diminished dynamics that result as a form of compression, it could be effective in that way. And I also agree with Parameter Man that this could very well be guitar dependent and also relate to string gauge and picking style. In the end I guess we have to strike a balance between playability, tone and dynamic range, and experiment until we find what works best for us. Like so many things guitar related, there is no 'one right answer.'

Great thread and an interesting discussion.




Cheers...................................... wahwah

[firebirdV]

Re: Texas Blues Tone and Ultra Low Action???

I read this thread and it got me thinking about which living guitarist I liked best for the "texas blues". I ended up deciding on Mato Nanji of Indigenous and started looking for videos of him playing and coincidentally ran upon a video of him playing with Chris Duarte.

In this clip, I think Mato wins in terms of tone and playing, but that's just my opinion. (he's the guy with the 3-p90 guitar).



Here he is playing his usual strat.

[Bass_Medic_05]

Re: Texas Blues Tone and Ultra Low Action???

great player - but is he really billy sheehan's evil twin?

He does look like sheehan's twin on roids! lol

[blueman335]

Re: Texas Blues Tone and Ultra Low Action???

He's strangling the life out of that poor guitar with such a low action. He's clearly spent a lot of time learning and playing over SRV's licks, but he will never get Stevie's big bell tones with the strings flapping around on the fretboard like that. If you want to get chords and notes to really ring out stridently, you need to raise the action past the point of 'comfy.'

+1. However, the SRV thing is so cliche and overdone. I can't listen to any of it anymore, him or the imitators. Besides, there's better blues guitarists that deserve the recognition more than SRV.

Speaking of Strats, there's a young guy from the UK, Matt Schofield, that's worth checking out. That boy can play.

[JOLLY]

Re: Texas Blues Tone and Ultra Low Action???

Anyone here have a guitar that has great tone, even with crazy low action?

All of mine are like that.

[IanBallard]

Re: Texas Blues Tone and Ultra Low Action???

+1. However, the SRV thing is so cliche and overdone. I can't listen to any of it anymore, him or the imitators. Besides, there's better blues guitarists that deserve the recognition more than SRV.

Speaking of Strats, there's a young guy from the UK, Matt Schofield, that's worth checking out. That boy can play.

When I hear him, all I think think of is Albert King. About 80% of his stuff is right from his influence... with some other things sprinkled in. I like SRV a lot, but I'm also kinda burned out.