Article

Friday, October 29, 2010

Recording Guitarists: How To Recreate The Setups Of Classic Guitar Gods

An excerpt from Jon Chappell's book which highlights classic guitar setups and how to dial in that sought after sound.

Guitarists are constantly seeking their own sound or unique voice.

However, producers often resort to giving instructions like, “Give me a raunchy blues sound à la Stevie Ray Vaughan,” rather than “Give me something wholly original that I’ve never imagined before.”

It’s not that producers are unimaginative or that they deliberately want to mimic another guitarist’s sound; it’s just that categorizing sounds saves a lot of time and gives you a point of departure.

Often you’ll hear producers requesting that a guitarist get an “early Van Halen sound,” or a “Hendrix rhythm sound à la ‘Little Wing,’” or a “Dimebag Darrell over-the-top-solid-state-distortion” sound.

These are perfectly legitimate requests, and will come as often as the ones involving instruments and amps—as in, “Give me that Les-Paulthrough- a-Marshall sound, will ya?”

With that in mind, here are the setups of 14 well-known guitarists, from slide master Sonny Landreth to neoclassical god Yngwie Malmsteen. Keep in mind that these are only guides to one guitarist’s particular sound.

This is not the only sound that a particular guitarist produces, but the one he has used for a significant portion of his recorded work, and the one we associate with his “classic” sound.

Dimebag Darrell
The late Dimebag Darrell was the poster boy for the heavy metal ethos, and never made any apologies for his piercing solid-state distortion sound.

Like Hendrix, Darrell went first into a wah pedal (either the Dunlop or the DigiTech were on, but not at the same time), and then into another pitch shifter (the PS-3) before hitting the gain-shaping distortion box, the Boss DS-2.

After going into an MXR pedal–based graphic EQ (set in a “V” shape, as all good metal guitarists do), Darrell passed his signal through a rack containing a parametric EQ (for any final tone shaping before the amp stage), an MXR Flanger/ Doubler (his only time-based effect), and then through the Rocktron Guitar Silencer as his noise gate.

The gain on Darrell’s amp was rarely set to anything but 10, and the presence and bass were goosed while the treble and mids were cut, which kept the sound from becoming too brittle.

Kirk Hammett
The unique setup of Kirk Hammett’s wah pedals is the result of Metallica’s performing logistics.

The band usually sets up different “performing stations” when they play, and at various times during the concert they simply rotate around to the next area. But this presents a problem when you have to have access to your effects at all the various locations. So

Hammett devised a rig where the wah pedals act as mere controllers (allowing for longer low-impedance lines to run between them), while the brains of the wah sit in the rack offstage.

Hammett uses two preamps, the Marshall JMP-1 and the Mesa/Boogie TriAxis. These feed Mesa power amps, which drive three Boogie 4✕12 cabinets.

Hammett also uses a Mesa Dual Rectifier, but instead of relying on one head to drive three cabs (or employing three amp heads), he will load down the speaker out with a 300- watt speaker (which is buried offstage somewhere), while a load box takes the line-level signal and delivers that to the three power amps.

This has the effect of normalizing the amp output with the preamps’ output and gives a relatively consistent signal to all three tone-shaping devices.

Jimi Hendrix (Then and Now)
Jimi Hendrix’s tone is possibly the most emulated of all time, so many manufacturers have devoted considerable resources to recreating the gear that helped shape Hendrix’s tone, but is no longer available (or is too rare and expensive to come by easily).

First, a look at Hendrix’s original setup. Hendrix went first into a Cry Baby or Vox wah and then into a fuzz.

He used primarily two: an Axis Fuzz and the Roger Mayer–designed Fuzz Face.

From there he went into a Dunlop Uni-Vibe and Mayer Octavia before going into a 6550-equipped Marshall.

For the modern Hendrix sound, the Dunlop Cry Baby is the wah of choice, and then distortion units by Fulltone (Fuzz) or Prescription Electronics (Experience Fuzz) are considered de rigueur.

Fulltone makes the DejáVibe that closely emulates the original for a fraction of the price. For that square-wave octave sound, the Boss OC-2 does a nice job.

Much has been made of the fact that Hendrix played a right-handed guitar flipped upside down and strung left-handed.

This means that as a left-hander himself, Hendrix played the guitar conventionally, but there were several key differences in the imposition of his instrument:

1. The string tensions were all different, because Strats normally have the first string as the longest.

By reversing the strings on the Strat’s inline tuner configuration, the sixth string became the longest, and the increased tension on the thickest string significantly changed the resonant properties of the guitar.

2. The pickups were angled the “wrong” way, with the bridge pickup slanted toward the neck instead of the bridge.

This placed the first-string pole piece well up from the bridge instead of right next to it, as on a normally strung guitar. (The pole-piece heights were all different as well.)

3. The bar and the controls were above the right hand. While this may not affect the guitar’s tone per se, it affects the way a performer approaches the instrument, and we know from listening to Hendrix’s music that this was perhaps the most influential element on his tone.

Eric Johnson
Eric Johnson is a tone purist and therefore runs a fairly straightforward setup.

He gets almost all of his tone from the amp, invoking a Chandler Tube Driver judiciously and mostly for increased sustain rather than distortion.

Johnson employs two A/B boxes, which gives him three separate audio paths to choose from.

The first path goes to a tapedriven Echoplex and then into the Chandler Tube Driver and into a 100-watt Marshall head and cab.

The second path goes to a Mayer Fuzz Face and then to an MXR Digital Delay before also going to a 100-watt Marshall head and cab.

The third path begins with an Echoplex (like path #1), but is then split by a TC Electronic Stereo Chorus (mono in/stereo out) and output to two Fender Vibrolux amps.

Sonny Landreth
Slide guitarist Sonny Landreth has one of the most unique sounds going, partly because he employs an actual miked speaker in his setup.

He isolates and encloses the speaker and mic, and often works an honest-to-goodness Leslie cabinet into his rig (no simulators here!). A healthy overdrive and a mature and evolved vibrato technique round out this singular slide artist’s setup.

Known for his monstrous slide chops and widely varied repertoire, Landreth is also a purist when it comes to sound. He goes through an old red MXR Dyna Comp to get a smooth, sustained sound, and then into either a Demeter TGA- 3 or a 1954 Fender Deluxe amp.

From there, things get interesting. The speaker out goes to a Demeter Silent Speaker Chamber, which is an iso-cab housing a Celestion Vintage 30 or Classic 80 speaker and a mic.

The mic is either an SM57 or a custom-specified mic supplied by Demeter. From there the signal gets treated to an API mic pre with EQ and delivered straight to analog tape.

Yngwie Malmsteen
Much of Yngwie Malmsteen’s expressive phrasing technique can be attributed to his scalloped-fretboard Strat.

The increased distance between the string and the fretboard that the scallop creates allows him to control his vibrato to a great degree. By pushing down on the string and pulling it from side to side, Malmsteen creates some of the most expressive notes around—especially when he employs nearinfinite sustain.

That sustain is created by two maxed-out 50-watt Marshall heads, one outputting a dry sound, the other outputting the effected sound.

Note that one amp feeds a cabinet wired at 16 ohms, while the other feeds two 8-ohm cabs in series, so that the speaker output is equivalent.

Malmsteen is one of the only guitarists to use a sonic enhancer (a BBE Sonic Maximizer) in creating his sound, which he credits with adding a little more sizzle and definition to his top end.

Steve Morse
With his three-pickup Ernie Ball Strat hybrid and an arsenal of effects and amps, Steve Morse is ready for any kind of sound—fusion, new age, blues rock, hot country, and classic metal (for when he plays with Deep Purple).

Morse first goes into a pedalboard, which has two boost switches: one feeds his Peavey VTM-100 amp, and the other goes into his Mesa/Boogie TriAxis preamp.

He uses a series of volume pedals to bring various elements in and out, such as the synth guitar volume, the delayed sounds generated by the various Lexicon devices in his rack, and an arpeggiator or clock from his Lexicon PCM42.

Morse favors Peavey 4✕12 cabs for his straight guitar sound, but also has two full-range three-way speakers for his acoustic and synth outputs.

Joe Satriani
Joe Satriani sets up his signal chain in a fairly orthodox manner: wah first, distortion second, and time-based effects after that, before finally going into the front end of a Marshall 6100 head, with 6550 power tubes substituting for the more common EL34s.

Satch’s setup is suspiciously Hendrix-like, having the wah in front and then a Fulltone Ultimate Octave later on in the chain.

But Satriani also makes expert use of delay (something Hendrix didn’t experiment with much), using three different delays.

First is the Boss DD-3, which feeds into two Chandler Digital Delays in series.

Steve Vai
Everything starts out normally enough in Steve Vai’s rig, with a distortion pedal, wah, and whammy pedal, but a switching controller steps in to turn this setup into something ingenious and unconventional.

The switching system selects between the various time-based effects in the rack while sending the pedaldriven signal to the amps’ inputs.

The amps’ effects loops bring in the effects via the send and return jacks, and the amps’ slave outputs go into two VHT power amps.

Eddie Van Halen
He’s come a long way from the days when he would just plug a “Frankenstein Strat” into an MXR Distortion+ and a Phase 90. Actually, the Phase 90 is still in his rig, but Eddie’s setup has become a little more sophisticated.

He gets all of his distortion from the amps, whether Marshalls or Peavey 5150s.

The amp switcher can select the path between the Marshall and Peavey, and the timebased effects (which include Eventides, Rolands, and Lexicons) all come via the amps’ effects sends.

After going from the amp preamps to the effects sends to the effects rack, the signals are not returned, so the power amp section of the Marshalls and Peaveys never gets used.

Instead the signals are sent to three pedals (a Cry Baby wah, a Boss OC-2 octaver, and the abovementioned Phase 90) before going into a rack containing speaker simulators and power amps.

The speaker simulators are necessary to take the high-end edge off of the line-level signals from the Marshalls’ and Peaveys’ preamp sections.

After being simulated, the line-level signal is delivered to the power amps and sent to three 4✕12 cabinets.

Stevie Ray Vaughan
He was a little bit blues and a little bit rock and roll. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s setup gave a nod to Hendrix, with the Vox wah in front and the Diaz Square Fuzz and Tycobrahe Octavia in the chain.

Vaughan also employed a Boss chorus pedal and a real Leslie before driving an armada of Fender-made amps.

Vaughan also played through a Marshall configured with 6550 power tubes instead of EL34s.

Carl Verheyen
Studio ace Carl Verheyen uses a combination of devices from pedals to rack-mount gear, but he essentially runs two paths: clean and distorted.

For his distorted sound, he goes through his pedalboard (which contains such front-end devices as a Cry Baby wah and an Ibanez Tube Screamer) and then into either a Marshall head or a THD modded Plexi.

The speaker outs of both heads are run through a load box (the THD Hot Plate) to convert them to line level.

At this point the signals are carrying all that wonderful amp distortion, both from the preamp and power amp stages, but are at line level, where they can be further processed by a Lexicon PCM41 before being amped up by a solid-state power amp to drive the speaker cab.

Verheyen approaches his clean sound a little differently. After the pedalboard, Verheyen first goes through a tube-driven

Fender reverb unit, which provides a gain boost. He then puts the signal in mono through a Chandler Digital Delay and takes the output through a stereo delay (mono in/stereo out).

The right and left outputs each go to matched Vox AC30s. Verheyen considers his clean sound, as outlined here, to be one of his trademarks.

To acquire “The Recording Guitarist” from Backbeat Books, click over to www.musicdispatch.com.

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