How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

[icantbuyafender]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

sig pups are just another way to distract occupy a tone chaser

I'd rather sculpt my own tone than cop someone else's ... Or fail miserably at try to cop it.

 

[IanBallard]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

yes it was he even called it that many times!:laugh2:
my favorite was the first B/W charvel before he turned it into a mess, but then again i am very biased about charvels. i own 5 guitars and 4 are charvels

You could say it was a Boogie Body/Charvel built by a drunk teenager.

 

[IanBallard]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

sig pups are just another way to distract occupy a tone chaser

I'd rather sculpt my own tone than cop someone else's ... Or fail miserably at try to cop it.

This is why I got into hybrids (Thanks BachToRock!) so I can "make" my own pups and why I built my own guitar.

 

[orpheo]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

I don't see signature pickups as a way to get an artist's tone, rather as a pickup on its own, with its own merits.

about page: like him on record. live he's sloppy, major turn off.

about evh; whats about him anyway? why does it seem like 70% of the board wants to sound like him, or be him? I wouldn't want to sound like him or be him for all the tea in china. boring tone, ****ty playing. always, always the same licks, same soloing structure.

 

[IanBallard]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

about evh; whats about him anyway? why does it seem like 70% of the board wants to sound like him, or be him? I wouldn't want to sound like him or be him for all the tea in china. boring tone, ****ty playing. always, always the same licks, same soloing structure.

It's rock and roll, not Stravinsky.

 

[orpheo]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

It's rock and roll, not Stravinsky.

sure its rock 'n roll, but Van Halen is boring rock 'n roll. Rush is also 'rock', but Rush is super-diverse, never really boring, yet I hear nobody who says "I want to sound like liveson'. (well, I do, rather than evh but ok).

 

[IanBallard]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

sure its rock 'n roll, but Van Halen is boring rock 'n roll. Rush is also 'rock', but Rush is super-diverse, never really boring, yet I hear nobody who says "I want to sound like liveson'. (well, I do, rather than evh but ok).

I like them both. Big Rush fan... big Van Halen fan. Apples and Oranges.

 

[TeleLubber]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

I don't see signature pickups as a way to get an artist's tone, rather as a pickup on its own, with its own merits.

This is a good point.. take the JB for example.. I would venture to guess that 95% of players that love the JB aren't trying to sound like Jeff Beck.. but love it for it's unique tonal merits.. Technically tho.. the "JB" isn't a sig model.. even tho it was a prototype for Jeff Beck and the JB really stands for "Jazz/Blues".. only later to be exploited by 80's hair metal.. go figure

I use my ears.. not endorsements to base my purchases.. I learned my lesson with "Texas Special" Strat pickups chasing that SRV/Texas Blues tone.. I know some people swear by 'em, I personally think they sound like somebody is scraping metal on a chalk board.. cringe

Leave Pagey alone.. he had his great moments on tape.. just not on video tape.. LOL

 

[orpheo]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

This is a good point.. take the JB for example.. I would venture to guess that 95% of players that love the JB aren't trying to sound like Jeff Beck.. but love it for it's unique tonal merits.. Technically tho.. the "JB" isn't a sig model.. even tho it was a prototype for Jeff Beck and the JB really stands for "Jazz/Blues".. only later to be exploited by 80's hair metal.. go figure

I use my ears.. not endorsements to base my purchases.. I learned my lesson with "Texas Special" Strat pickups chasing that SRV/Texas Blues tone.. I know some people swear by 'em, I personally think they sound like somebody is scraping metal on a chalk board.. cringe

Leave Pagey alone.. he had his great moments on tape.. just not on video tape.. LOL

true, true. he's just like me! I had my great moments in my living room... just not on stage!
:joke:

 

[Coma]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

finally someone grew a pair.

page... Ugh... Opium. That's all I can say without being an utter dream killer for all the JP fanatics. He recorder track over track over track to get his sound! Layer any guitar as much as he did and you will get that same "big guitar sound" that he is famous for. I love his work, but tonally I am less than impressed.


::duck!!

This!

I really only liked the tone he got on Physical Graffiti and I think he was using a Super Distortion then. It's the sloppy solos that turn me off. Heck he could barely hack through "Whole Lotta Love" on that movie with Edge and Jack White. I love Zeppelin but I just don't "get" Page's playing sometimes.

And this!




Thank god, it's not just me.

 

[Ed Hunter]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

about evh; whats about him anyway? why does it seem like 70% of the board wants to sound like him, or be him? I wouldn't want to sound like him or be him for all the tea in china. boring tone, ****ty playing. always, always the same licks, same soloing structure.

Yeah i am sure EVH wll lose sleep over this

 

[Ed Hunter]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

This is a good point.. take the JB for example.. I would venture to guess that 95% of players that love the JB aren't trying to sound like Jeff Beck.. but love it for it's unique tonal merits..

Absolutely correct, i use the JB in all my guitars and do love jeff beck but i definitely am not out to sound like him by using a JB model duncan.

 

[St_Genesius]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

Honestly, naming pickups after particular artists actually makes it LESS likely that I'm gonna choose that pickup. It's not that the marketing is failing; it's that it works TOO well. If you name your pickup (with or without endorsement) the "Clapton Bluesbreaker" or whatever, my assumption is that the sound you're chasing with that model has very little to do with anything I'm interested in.

That said, such naming conventions are not a full stop roadblock for me. I managed to overcome my distaste for dinosaur rock enough to order pups referencing Led Zep and Van Halen, but it did require me to mentally shove aside their names and focus only on the specs. But I think the only reason I was willing to do that was that I had already decided I wanted to try some pickups from that builder and pretty much all the models were named after guitarists you'd hear on 97.1 The Brodeo: Your Home For Hits From When You Were Young.

 

[Aceman]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

Interesting though that some win huge doing this.

Pearly Gates, for example. JB, of course. And I'd say the Custom Custom, even if not explicitly named as a VH pup.

I think all of those pickups have a VERY distinct sound about them.

But do the Slash/DiMartini, 78, etc....Why wouldn't I just get an A2P/JB/PAF????

The sound you need is the sound you need - no doubt.

 

[formula73]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

I love the Page hate. I've been preaching this for years. I am NOT a good player and I can play circles around anything he has ever done. Aside from the writing, I have never understood why he's a guitar god.

 

[IanBallard]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

I don't "hate" Page at all. I LOOOOOOVE Led Zeppelin and I especially love his acoustic work and his compositional ability. He also has an awesome groove and has a nack for directing jams. Just check out the 18 minute "Dazed and Confused" version on the BBC record... yes, I always skip through the yawn-inducing "bow solo" part, but once the band kicks in, if you can look past his sloppy runs, he really produces some great riffs for Jones and Bonham to weave through. Truely genius in that aspect. I also particularly like how he played "Black Dog" on the live DVD from the Madison Square gig. He really "breaks down" the groove, does a little palm muting stuff to give it edge. He really was (maybe is, but who really knows?) an incredible compositional and production genius in his time and for rock and roll.

But I think there were far more amazing soloists out there. If Page had the time and interest to sit down and practice those runs, they would have been cleaner and more articulate. But whatever. Like the EVH comments, it isn't like JP will lose any sleep in his mansion over some over-opinionated dweebs on messages boards.

 

[Simon_F]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

I don't get this whole 'Page is sloppy' thing. To me those imprecise flurries of notes he does are part of his style, the way he flings the paint at the canvas, and I dig the end result. If he played with the technique of a shredmaster he wouldn't be Jimmy Page.

 

[formula73]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

That might be true but I'd definitely like his lead playing more. I don't necessarily want him to shred, per se, but just a *little* cleaner and keeping the loose feel like on the records. Joe Perry's a good example, I think.

 

[IanBallard]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

Exactly Simon. I do overlook the "lack of precision" in his improv runs, for the bigger picture. The WHOLE BAND is what makes Led Zeppelin awesome.

"Jimmy Page is an excellent producer. Led Zeppelin 1 and Led Zeppelin 2 are classics. As a player, he's very good in the studio. I never saw him play well live. He's very sloppy. He plays like he's got a broken hand and he's two years old. But if you put out a good album and play like a two-year-old live, what's the purpose?"

That's pretty harsh, especially since Page has said a lot of really nice things about him but he was being honest. I think maybe that comes from the fact the Eddie spent hour after hour practicing, honing and perfecting his technique and to hear a guy lauded as a "Guitar God" or whatever play the way he often did live, is kind of insulting.

I mean, I can't come up with the classic and great riffs he did and my soloing is not much better, if not worse, there are no expectations or guitar accolades in my realm.

Tone-wise, that's even more of a puzzle to me. Clapton got AMAZING tones in the mid-60's with a Les Paul and Marshalls and lots of guys like Billy Gibbons and Jeff Beck had amazing tone... even obscure bands like Stray Dog from the early 70's just rip JP's tone apart in terms of what I like in tone and that's bite and presence. Seems like he always had his tone knob turned down and presence nob on "0" in the studio and then put 6 layers of equally flat tone on top of it. He finally got it together with Physical Graffiti in my opinion.

 

[astrozombie]

Re: How to get "That guy's tone" funny thing...

This kind of reminds me of when people buy Dimarzio Billy Corgan model strat sets when in reality Corgan used Lace Sensors for some of Smashing Pumpkins most sold albums.

and the Cobain jagstang coming with some weird pickup when Kurt used hot rails in guitars he used single coils in and JBs or Super Distortions in everything else.