Stevie Ray Vaughan sound???!
Question: Do you think that thick blues sound that he uses is an effects pedal or the pickups on his guitar. I'm citing songs such as "Lenny" or his cover of "Little Wing". They sound so beautiful, I'm trying replicate his sound the best I can.
Thanks for the help, Matt.
Answers: Do you think that thick blues sound that he uses is an effects pedal or the pickups on his guitar. I'm citing songs such as "Lenny" or his cover of "Little Wing". They sound so beautiful, I'm trying replicate his sound the best I can.
Thanks for the help, Matt.
Hi
Good Question. Stevie Ray Vaughan was an incredible guitarist, and a huge factor was his tone. Undeniabley great tone for sure.
There are many websites that you can find that will give you more information about his tone than you could imagine, and I'm sure many people will chime in here as well with ultra-specifics. I'm a big fan of Stevie, but probably not an ultra-expert. So, I'll offer what I do know, hopefully this will be helpful to you:
Guitar - Steve used a Fender Strat, pretty much exclusively. The one he used was pretty old, not sure of the exact year, but the most important thing is that it was more stock than custom. So, the pickups were traditionaly (and not the modern hum-cancelling types often used today). The wiring was standard, no coil tapping or funny inversions of the 5-way switch. One thing that was unusual about his guitar is that at some point, he installed a "Lefty" vibrato bar. Not a modification that I would recommend you do your self. Some think that this left vibrato bar was a key element to capturing Hendrix's sound, as Hendrix was truly one of Stevie's main influences.
Recommendation: The Fender "Stevie Ray Vaughan" model strat is actually a very good guitar. Really well made and pretty much captures the exact vibe you are looking for:
http://www.fender.com/products/search.ph...
Note: If you canot afford this guitar, which can cost as much as $1,200 new, a decent American, or Japanese Fender strat will do the job. Although if you want to really nail his tone, get yourself a set of Fender "Texas Special" pickups, they really sound great, and will get you closest to the tone he most often had:
http://fender.com/products/search.php?pa...
Amp - Stevie used a variety of amps over the years, but the ones he seemed to use quite often were the Fender Super Reverb, assorted other fenders, and a Marshall 50-watt head with 8X10 cabinet (more for the studio I believe, and not so much live)
Recommendation: Fender Super Reverb, although the less expensive and less heavy Fender Deluxe Reverb will work as well at reasonable volumes:
http://www.fender.com/products/search.ph...
Pedals - Ibanez Tube Screamer (probably the pedal that was on most of the time), Dallas Arbiter "Fuzz Face" (what you hear most of the time when Stevie played th e"Voodoo Chile" solo), Cry Baby Wah (possibly the "Thomas Organ" version), as well as putting his guitar through a leslie (What you hear on "Cold Shot")
Recommendation: Ibanez Tube Screamer Reissue or Fulltone OCD, Fulltone "69" full pedal, Fulltone "Clyde Deluxe Wah" pedal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibanez_Tube...
http://www.fulltone.com/CDW.asp
http://www.fulltone.com/69.asp
http://www.fulltone.com/stpframe.html
The bad news is that 99% of what you like most about Stevie came from his hands, he just played guitar as much as humanly possible, which is obvious in his music because he sounds so good. He had some serious soul, and to capture THAT you have to do three things and do them alot:
1) Live Life
2) Play Guitar alot
3) Repeat steps 1 and 2 over and over again.
I hope this was helpful to you.
Good Luck!
Kevin Chisholm - American Guitarist
I know he used a Tube Screamer effect pedal alot.
Im pretty sure its a pedal that he uses, I saw something about it in a guitar magazine, sorry I cant be of more help and tell you exactly which one it is
I just found out it was neither, what he did was use some really thick gauge strings about 11 or 12's, and tuned to e flat. They will tear your fingers up though if you are not used to it
Pick-up on his guitar
Its a combination of everything, but it's mostly been said that it was his pickups. The guitar he bought (the strat) was one of about 100 that *accidentally* came with "overwound" pickups. These definitely gave him that thick sound.
Fender sells a SRV series guitar (or atleast they did) in which they attempted to create the guitar as exactly like his as possible. Its not cheap.
Go see his brother, Jimmie Vaughn, ASAP! He absolutely rocked last year in Lexington as an opening act for Bob Dylan. My brother kept saying, "Look at those licks! DAMN! LOOK at those licks!!!" He sounded just like Stevie Ray, only I thought Stevie probably learned from Jimmie, and so did my little bro.
There's defintely a Texas sound to their music.
Amen, Brother Clint. Were you down there, too?
didnt look at how he played.
Just loved his songs...... seemed he could play the guitar at any angle.
Of course you'll want to start with a Fender Stratocaster. Little Wing sounds as though his pickup selector is set to the neck position pickup. You'll also want to thicken up the reverb and back off the mids a bit on any type of EQ you have to work with. Disable any compressor effect to allow your tone to breath and have texture level-wise. Disabling your compressor will also allow you to build your gain with your volume knob on your axe. I always kept my gain up so that I could go from mellow to stratosphere by increasing my volume on my guitar. You can achieve a moderately accurate SRV tone with most effect processors. To answer your Q specifically, his "sound" is more in the equipment (amps,pedals etc) than in the guitar itself. I'm sure he had custom gear too considering his talent and stature in the music world. His "magic" is in his heart and soul and pours out of his hands like a fountain of bliss. No man-made device can replicate that unfortunately.