Stevie Ray Vaughn Sound

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Nick The Man

Nick The Man

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does anyone know how to get that stevie ray vaughn sound for drums and guitar? Thanks i know its a tough question
 
you're right. A lot of tangibles to deal with. You have to know the pickups he was using in his strat, which amps he was playing out of, how he set the eq's, how his sound was captured in the studio (mic the cabs, which mics, which cabs). If someone here knows his gear, they could probably help you out some. But a lot of his tone came not from his gear, but his playing. He has the most amazing feel. Brian Setzer was once quoted as saying he got to play Stevie's guitar backstage, thinking it was the key to his sound. But he says he sounded like himself. The key to Stevie's sound was in his hands...
I do know that he played a scalloped neck...
 
I can give first hand witness to this as well. He picked up an imitation Hondo Strat I had hot rodded with a new bridge and pickups. He made the friggin thing sing! It is kinda like asking how to get the "Jon Bonham Sound" It is, and always will be 99% the player.
 
yeah, SRV is a perfect example of this exact same principle, the sounds you get are gonna depend on the player.

But it does help to play 12-14 gauge strings. He also plays with his pick turned sideways, for a slightly fatter tone. I don't think he actually had scalloped frets.

But your not gonna get a tone this good unless you have a player that is pretty darn good.
 
4-Man Takedown said:
yeah, SRV is a perfect example of this exact same principle, the sounds you get are gonna depend on the player.

But it does help to play 12-14 gauge strings. He also plays with his pick turned sideways, for a slightly fatter tone. I don't think he actually had scalloped frets.

But your not gonna get a tone this good unless you have a player that is pretty darn good.
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I saw his strat in some pics, and the neck is scalloped. I was reading about his beginnings and what-not in the defunct Guitar For The Practicing Musician magazine. They went into detail about his stage rig, but it was years ago, and I can't remember much. Fender amps, I think.
 
I read he used Fender Bassman for amp
Can't remember what he used for his overdrive sound
 
Srv

i've heard he had used TExas Special pickups at times...their very bright/trebly pickups...but it's the whole that we hear.
 
Srv

i've heard he had used TExas Special pickups at times...their very bright/trebly pickups...but it's the whole setup and of course the mojo.
 
Search the guitar forum. This topic has been beaten to death.
 
Almost all of SRV's tone was in his hands. He had really big, strong hands. Which allowed him to do all his incredible vibrato and huge bends on heavy jazz guaged strings. He also tuned down a half step. His main guitar had a
"compound" radius. (curved at the lower register and flatter the more you played up on the neck.) This was by accident. It was from the neck being re-fretted so many times and resurfaced to take out slight imperfections.(yes, he was really hard on his guitars.) His action was set pretty high too.The SRV re-issues have the same set up on them. He didn't scallop his necks although some of them may have appeared that way just from wear.
He was partial to old Fender vibroverbs with a single 15'' in them. (They made them with 2-10" also.) Maybe the 15's gave him a little more "ballsier" tone? Although he surely cranked them loud...he used 12av7's I think instead of 12ax7"s for his first gain stage preamp tube. These are about a 7 on a scale of 1-10 as far as gain is concerned. A 12ax7 is more like a 10. This would give him a sweeter, cleaner sound when not driving the amp hard.
 
goldtopchas said:
Almost all of SRV's tone was in his hands.
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Being a guitar player, I don't buy this argument for a second.

Sure SRV could make a shitty guitar and a shitty amp sound awsome, but its not because of "his" style, its because he, like many good guitar players (including people not famous), can adapt to the way the amp response to what it is given. ie Give the guitar and amp what the guitar and amp need to work and sound good.

This takes skill and is something you have to be able to feel.

So the equipment is a VERY important factor and is imo 50% of the equation. The other 50% being skill (and I mean good skill).
 
I don't know, I've heard him play acoustic, and I would agree that it's pretty much all in his hands.
 
4-Man Takedown said:
I don't know, I've heard him play acoustic, and I would agree that it's pretty much all in his hands.
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Ugh....

Did his acoustic sound like the distortion from his electic? No.
 
Nick The Man said:
does anyone know how to get that stevie ray vaughn sound for drums and guitar? Thanks i know its a tough question
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Not without some serious smelling salts and a Ouiji board.

I don't know, maybe you could dig him up and cut off his hands, but I don't think they would do you much good.


On the equipment side;

A Strat with hot pickups
A Dumble
A Mesa
A Black face Twin
An old Bassman
A Plexi Marshall
A Vow Wah
A Ibanez Tube Screamer
A Leslie


Get all of that, and then learn to use it.

Other than that, find your own damn sound.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
First, I agree with everyone who says that the playing style is a huge factor, and SRV used a bunch of signal chains, but here's the classic- Strat w/ scalloped frets and rosewood fingerboard as noted above, with .013's > Vox wah > Diaz square fuzz > Tycobrahe Octavia > Boss chorus > Leslie cab (before the Vox and Marshall amps) > Vibroverb 2X10/Super Reverb 4X10,Fender Bassman w/ 2X12 cab, Marshal w/ 6550 power tubes and a 4X12 cab w/ EVM's.
I don't know enough about the Leslie to know how you go into it, and then to a bunch of combo amps in parallel. I've never tried to set that monster signal chain up. Just throwing this out as a reference point.-Richie
 
Outlaws said:
Ugh....

Did his acoustic sound like the distortion from his electic? No.
Click to expand...

I guess we're talking about different things here, I'm just talking about his sound in general. I think it was all in his hands. You're right, it didn't sound like the distortion from his electric, but it sounded like him.
 
Richard Monroe said:
...Strat w/ scalloped frets and rosewood fingerboard as noted above, with .013's ...
Click to expand...



SRV NEVER used a scalloped fingerboard. He used a fairly typical jumbo fret, something like a Dunlop 6150, which is not even a very large fret, as things go. Nothing like a 6100, which is HUGE. But the fingerboards were not scalloped.

Also, you missed the Dumble Super Overdrive, and after In Step he was using a Meas Boogie Mark IV.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Thanks alot guys! i didnt think id get as much response as i did
 
Thank you LIght, I stand corrected. I did, however mention that more than one version of the signal chain was used over the years, that's just one of them.- Richie
 
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