• Registered: 2008-07-05
  • Posts: 85

Topic: The TONE...

Every once in a while I run accross tones that set benchmarks for me in regards to the killer cleans, the killer crunch, the killer single line tones...man - I've gotta say, the sound that's just lighting me up right now is the crunch guitar tone in the "The Hard Way", especially the first four chords that outline the vamp and come in at about 0:08 and are also under the chorus...just gigantic, big ol' bad Marshall tones.  Granted it sounds double and maybe even triple tracked but it's the TONE thats doing it.  It's funny how the simplest things more often than not put the biggest grin on my ears wink

Steve E

  • From: Gnashville, TN
  • Registered: 2007-02-14
  • Posts: 198

Re: The TONE...

The tone on that entire album slays me....as do all of Joe's albums.....he obviously pays a lot of attention to how things sound going down. Killer slide tones too.

"why isn't the number "11" pronounced "onety one"???....S. Wright.

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  • Registered: 2007-12-30
  • Posts: 12

Re: The TONE...

I'm a bit of a different one when it comes to tone. Of Joe's sounds, I'm a sucker for the sweet sounds he gets from that crazy Telecaster he uses live on Mountain Time and Sloe Gin. Too bad he's down on Fender, because he coaxed some good sounds out of the Strat. My favorite sounds out of the Gibsons from Joe probably are Had to Cry Today.

But my main tone influences are big, fat jazz boxes with a very warm sound. Not always easy to translate into a crunchy lead sound. My sounds tend to be pretty midrangy and usually on the neck pickup for leads, even on my Led Paul and my semi-hollowbody guitars. I like Warren Haynes' sound, and most of Eric Johnson's, and the woman tone that Clapton used in Cream. I would say one of my favorite sounds I've ever heard was on the G3 album with Satriani, Vai, and Eric Johnson. Eric used I think a 335 on Red House, and it stuck out like a sore thumb next to the other two guys' sounds, but the tone itself was magnificent. I think Eric used either the middle or bridge pickup on that song. I've been chasing a neck-pickup version of that tone ever since. It gets a little muddy with more and more overdrive, but if done right, I love it.

  • From: Harrison, Arkansas
  • Registered: 2006-04-21
  • Posts: 3,155

Re: The TONE...

Sloe Gin's a Les Paul, at least live anyway. Pretty sure it's that way in the studio too.

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make"

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  • Registered: 2007-12-30
  • Posts: 12

Re: The TONE...

Ah! Not Sloe Gin. My bad... and I've seen that video about 40 times. I was talking about Django. I saw him live and I swear he played that tune with the dark brown/orange Gigliotti Telecaster, right into Mountain Time after that. Crazy because, after a little researching, I've seen videos of him playing that song with both a Fender Strat and a Les Paul too, and I saw somewhere on this forum that Joe said he played it in the studio with a blue Gigliotti Strat. And you know what? He gets that tone real close with whichever guitar he plays. What does that tell us gearheads about tone?

6 Reply by nickabix (edited by nickabix 2008-08-04 11:31:12)

  • From: nr. London, UK & Mt. Airy, MD
  • Registered: 2007-03-07
  • Posts: 20

Re: The TONE...

I'm currently enjoying John Mayer's tone. Saw him recently at Hyde Park in London and was hugely impressed with his sound. Those "Two Rock" amps aren't cheap mind you! One of my favourite guitar sounds ever was, perhaps a tad randomly, Al di Meola playing on Paul Simon's track "Allergies".

But my number #1 favourite guitar tone is still - rather predictably for somebody posting to a Bonamassa forum - the J-man at the Boom Boom Room in Sutton (UK), playing a Les Paul through a JCM900 and a Van Weelden head, with a TS9 (I think*) and a DD-3 delay. Biggest guitar sound I've ever heard, by a mile.  I was actually gutted that the rig was so simple, as it meant that it was all down to Joe Skills (TM) and there'd be no magic box I could find on eBay to get the same sound!

*edit:  almost certainly a TS808, come to think of it.

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  • From: Denmark
  • Registered: 2008-04-03
  • Posts: 96

Re: The TONE...

joemisek wrote:

Ah! Not Sloe Gin. My bad... and I've seen that video about 40 times. I was talking about Django. I saw him live and I swear he played that tune with the dark brown/orange Gigliotti Telecaster, right into Mountain Time after that. Crazy because, after a little researching, I've seen videos of him playing that song with both a Fender Strat and a Les Paul too, and I saw somewhere on this forum that Joe said he played it in the studio with a blue Gigliotti Strat. And you know what? He gets that tone real close with whichever guitar he plays. What does that tell us gearheads about tone?

Its in the fingers <3

What did you expect to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wild beasts sweeping majestically over the fields?

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