Amp settings for SRV tone?

[Frogfur]

Here is the deal. Don't let anyone introduce "can't" into your life. Tone my
Friend is in the fingers which translates into sound through your amp.

It's not so much the amp you have, but rather what you can do with what
You got to work with. It is your phrasing, techinique and fretboard knowledge
That advances your ability to play as you'd like. Then worry about amps.

Get with it brother... you can do this.

 

[d1m1]

Yeah, well, SRV's blues style is one involving a lot of bends; both full semitone, tone and 3 semitone bends, but also a lot of little fractional bends for accents. Heavy strings make these bends more difficult, and most players that I hear have trouble bending accurately in the heat of battle anyway.

For many players, what was merely difficult with 0.009 or 0.010 strings becomes impossible with 0.013s. I don't recommend it. String guage is overrated as a determining factor in tone.

yes you re totally right. i just wrote it as part of the tone. he also use to have a very high action setting which is also hard to play but also part of his tone because the fat strings vibrate wider and produce a huge magnetic field. he had a really punchy play style and picked the strings hard. if he would use thin strings and a low action the strings would buzz all the time and brake.. thats why it´s hard to get his tone.

 

[Blues Buzz]

There's a ton of very good information here... I have been chasing the SRV tone since the very first time I picked up a guitar... What can I say I'm a tone chaser.

All the information given is pretty spot on.. But when all is said and done and you still don't think you sound like Stevie, well it's because your not...

I truly don't mean to sound negative or put anybody down, but what it all comes down to.......... Is the hands, it's all in the hands, he was aggressive, he beat the snot out of his Strat..

I only say this because I would hate to see the OP spend countless hours and money trying to find something that's already in his hands... Its up to him to get it out (release his inner SRV) FOR FREE!!!

 

[cristi tanasescu]

i cannot understand why one would copy another guys tone..

 

[Blues Buzz]

i cannot understand why one would copy another guys tone..

Well If I want to do a cover of "pride and Joy" "tightrope" or any other SRV song for that matter, I would really like it if it actually sounded like SRV....

For crying out loud, why don't you take a look at your own sig, you chase tone and capitalize it to boot

 

[timgman]

Ingnore the prick comments.. just practice >practice >practice and tweak your amp.
You'll learn soon enough how close you can get..

You'll also widen your horizons and develop your OWN style.... with a cool SRV influence,

 

[st.bede]

Tone or timber is a very important and fundamental element of music.

Trying to sound like someone else is typically based on two elements: either a work requirement or trying to learn about timber.

So much of musically learning comes from the subconsciousness. What you find exciting is like a flag post of how presently you understand music and how you need to grow. At one point, I wanted to sound like x. Then that changed to y after I started understand how timber and frequency where working together in x's playing.

Music tends to be way more about the mind then anything else.

 

[st.bede]

Ingnore the prick comments.. just practice >practice >practice and tweak your amp.
You'll learn soon enough how close you can get..

You'll also widen your horizons and develop your OWN style.... with a cool SRV influence,

I would not say that they are "prick comments". (Even though they have that feel). We are all in different spaces and it is typical that at one point we try and develop an individualized relationship to tone. This typically develops when we get to a point where we are nuance-ing the physicality of the instrument. In other words, I want my tone to work with me and not against me.

You are right about practice but at the same time it is also common to use a search for another person's tone or new sounds to keep the motivation high.

(... better to be motivated from a desire for new sounds then from feeling bad about your playing... )

(I am sounding too matter of fact, right now in my life. I make tons of mistakes all the time so I certainly understand that I know very little... peace).

 

[jimmer_5]

Here's some tips.

STICK TO THE SQUIER - Correct scale length and feel.
Tune half step down (Eb-Ab-Db-Gb-Bb-Eb)
Get a capo - if you want to play regular songs - put it before the 1 fret - PRESTO - guitar will then be just like regular tuning from 1 up - 1 becomes 0 again.
Don't go bananas on the string gauge - fingers, nut, trem, neck and so on will all create problems. Just don't.
Get a tube screamer style Overdrive -> Joyo vintage OD / Boss SD-1 (Both affordable) (KEY PART!)
Cheap tube amp for clean tone. Spongy tone.
Practice!
Practice string attack - soft plecs pref.
In the future you might want to get a tex-mex set too. (AlNiCo)
Blocking the trem would also be a wise choice. (Piece of wood and you are of to the races)

This is great advice. I would add to it the following:

- Heavier Strings - Try going up to 11's and tuning down. Even this will have a big impact on your tone. LAte in his career, even Stevie was using 11's instead of the 13's.

- Fender Tube Amp - Part of the struggle to replicate Stevie's tone comes form the fact that he would run multiple amps at once, including some boutique amps like his Dumble. However, a Fender tube amp can be had for surprisingly little on Craigslist. I know I see the Hot Rod DeVilles (both 2x12 and 4x10) for $400-$500 on a regular basis. Save your money for something like this - a great amp will improve your tone dramatically.

- Pickups - You can make a lot of headway with your guitar by simply swapping in some quality pickups. I am no expert on Strat pickups, but Fender, Seymour Duncan, and Dimarzio would be great places to start. Look on eBay and Craigslist for deals. Buying a "loaded pickguard can make this easier, but will cost a bit more. An inexpensive guitar with good pickups can sound amazingly good.

 

[tonedragon]

Turn your amp up to 7-8. Then turn down vol control a bit. Turn down tone controls a bit. Then let her rip!!!!!!!!.

Its that easy. Oh and have fun.

 

[Frogfur]

If it's that easy..would you post some of your tone works in the proper section. I'd like
to see how easy it is. Not a smart ass comment but for real.
Please..

 

[Mordor]

Squier Bullet, neck pickup.Can't help you with the EQ (treble-middle-bass) though, that one you are gonna have to look up.

 

[d1m1]

what do you think about this nice toy?

 

[Splattle101]

What do they mean by 'previously'?

Did it get married to another tubescreamer and change its serial number?

 

[entresz]

I reckon you could get in the ball park with a good clean amp and a tube screamer or similar. I have a Boss OD-3 which is kind of similar to a TS, but it adds a bit more compression, which makes it good if you are using a totally clean amp. Sounds remarkably convincing to my ears anyway. It's the player that does 90% in my opinion; ie. Albert King still sounded good as ever when he used the solid state Acoustic amps (in fact that's one of my favorite blues tones).

 

[rich85]

those pesky texas bluesman using weird gauge strings

All string influencing tone debates could have been settled forever by Gibbons and SRV swapping guitars for a quick jam

the look on their faces playing each others guitars would have been priceless though.

 

[dennistruckdriver]

I believe it was Nugent who said he found Stevie Ray's guitar to be unplayable for himself.

 

[LeftyF2003]

He mixed several amps to get his tone (Fenders, a Dumble Steel String Singer, etc) but a Strat on the front pickup a black face Fender and a bone stock TS-9 Tube Screamer will get you close. Contrary to popular myth (and confirmed by Stevie's guitar tech) he used a TS-9 for most of his professional life after his first album and had switched to a TS-10 when they came out. This does not help sell a lot of TS-808s, but there you go! Also of note, he used 11s on his strats. This was still enough tension to twist the necks on his vintage strats which were a nightmare to straighten out. There's a good article on this in Guitar World - I'll look on my iPad and post the date of the article when I get a chance.

 

[BoxyBrown22]

When you say SRV what comes to mind is a bunch of cranked amps getting played by someone who's making the pickups clip...

Until 84-85 his live clean tone came from this

That's a Marshall 4140, he would run it as his clean amp with 2 Vibroverbs as his dirty amps. The 4140 gets the closest of any one amp you can go out and buy for SRV tone though, but even then you won't get it. Vibroverbs are the same, but his were modified. Fender made some based on Stevie's some years back, they were killer amps.

I've met a few people who knew him and played with him before he was making money, apparently it didn't matter if he used a Music Master amp or Vox, Stevie sounded like Stevie. ES335? Apparently 'Say What' was recorded with one. You can do like I did and buy a ton of stuff to get as close as possible you'll never sound like him, but you'll have a lot of fun and find out what you like along the way.

 

[stealthelephant]

The fact that he used 13s is a big misnomer.
His E was 13. And at that he often used an 11 for this string.

Ernie balls 12s "not even slinky" are thicker on every other string that SRV used.

Therefor, u can comfortably get SRV on 12s.