Help with Bluesy-Jazz Electric Tone

[kkrauss]

Hi,

I was hoping someone might help me get a handle on achieving the kind of electric guitar tone in this audio clip by Peter Vogl from a guitar instruction site:

Blues Lick in F

I've been after this sound for quite some time, but haven't been able to capture it. I love the "pop" that he has on the attacks, and the sound is present not only in the lead line, but the rhythm guitar as well. At the moment, I'm working with a POD X3, and either an American Strat or a G&L Comanche.

If you watch the whole video, Peter is playing a Strat of some sort. I don't know if I'm missing the right model/effect settings, the right guitar, or playing technique (e.g. "slap").

Movie Version of Blues Licks

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Kent

 

[pure.fusion]

Hey dude,

For the last few months, I've been doing heaps of stuff with my POD X3 and a Blues Jr that I bought.

Now, everyone will have a different opinion on this, but for me and my ears, I can't get the POX X3 to sound like by Blues Jr mic-ed up; which incidentally sounds very similar to the MP3 you posted.

The POD X3 can do something in the ball park of the amplifier, but there are fundamental things missing from the POD that I can't begin to describe that *obviously* comes from mic-ing up a real amp.

That's not to say I've had no success creating other sounds out of the X3 that I think are more convincing, but these had more distortion than the clean stuff you're looking at.

If I had any advice at all, I would pass on the thing that gained me some results which is: Choose a Amp cabinet in the POD X3 that lends itself to a clean type of sound like the Double Verb (Based on* a 1965 Fender® Twin Reverb) rather than a 2002 Marshall "testicle tearer", and start from scratch.

Don't start with a preset and fiddle around from there; start clean, play with the amp/cabinet/mic section till you hear something you like, then after you've got the best result out of that, you might want to tweak it with some EQ or some compression or anything that gets you closer to the sound you want.

Hope this helps.

FM

 

[kkrauss]

On the right track!

Thanks for the reply! I think you have me on the right track. I started with a clean preset on the POD, and took the Double Verb amp/cab as you suggested. I punched up the signal hitting the amp model with the Gain/EQ stomp, then added moderate compression, and a digital slap delay in the neighborhood of 35ms. It's getting pretty close to what I want with the neck and/or middle pickups.

Thanks again!

-Kent

 

[loveofjazz]

Seems like my Princeton Reverb does that tone pretty well, but pure.fusion pretty much answered your question.

I will say that there was a preset with the name "Phaze" something (on my Pod XT Live) that was useful like this once you chose the 4 x 10 or 4 x 12 cabinet and increased the bass and mid settings.

 

[Tadpui]

For the lead guitar, I would say that "snap" comes from a hollow-bodied or semi-hollow-bodied guitar, and single-coil, soap-bar, or P90 style pickups, played with a pick. Put that through a dynamic amp with a lot of clean headroom like a Twin or other higher wattage Fender amp.

The closest you could get with a Strat would be on the neck pickup, the neck + middle pickup, or maybe the middle pickup alone. Most likely the neck pickup alone.

For the backing guitar, it sounds like a solid-bodied Strat on the middle pickup, or with some pickup combination that includes the middle pickup. And it sounds like he's using hybrid picking.

To produce some "snap" of your own, try some hybrid picking techniques. Keep the pick between your thumb and index finger as usual, but use your middle finger to "snap" the strings a little as you fingerpick with that middle finger.