Blues Rock Guitar history

[Mr. Perfect]

I was allegedly at uni and then later in shift work but in reality full time in various bands - mostly avant garde jazz/punk/funk/rock crossover mashups as was hip at the time.

one of my bands got close to getting the right attention and had minor local notoriety before exploding into ego's at the first sniff of potential fame , another ended up with some credibility in even smaller, less relevant circles

I mostly played atonal, modal solos over odd ball riffs, tho sometimes with a pop/punk sensibility too, we tried to mix it up so every song was its own thing.

it all took quite the toll on me, I am a driven kind of person and the things I was doing to myself to maintain constant creativity arent healthy to mind or body, I ended up walking away from it all and not even listening to music, let alone playing it , for well over a decade.

only in the last couple of years have i felt I could just muck around with it as a hobby, play with music gently and creatively as a pleasure, not a passion.

Upon reflection you should have gone solo. Cream rises to the top.

[noddy]

hah, turds also float.

you can only work with what reality throws up, bands self destructing due to ego explosions is the common story, their isnt much you can do about it.

I think you are right about point 4 tho - on many levels despite being a full time band member I never really enjoyed the extrovert lifestyle, I relate more to the folks who play the local scene and sit down at the back of the stage.

[noddy]

PxUCmPbVqVU

[Mr. Perfect]

In case anyone is this world cares, other than me.

When With or Without You whispered into the world it was pretty life changing for me. Nobody had ever heard a song like that before. Say what you want, but I remember very clearly being in a room of about 30 people when the song had just been released and it came on the radio. Within 2 measures the whole room went silent and no one said a word before it was over, followed by uncomfortable silence.

I went on a tone quest then that never stopped, not only for the infinite sustain that was eventually solved, but on the huge strat tone, I'd never hear anything like it before or since.

There were several songs that had it.

Pride
Bad
Streets
Still Haven't Found
With or Without You
All I Want is You
Ultraviolet

and a few others. Early on I learned about Vox AC30s and Korg delays, and got some inventory. Close but no cigar. Some big pieces were missing.

Sometime in the late 90's early 2000's, I found online secrets 1 and 2, that being the Herdim pick that scratches the string and the dotted eighth note delay. I used to dial and pray but now you just take the bpm and put it on the dotted eighth. Very straightforward, and cool.

So, I had a signal path that went Strat - Herdim pick - 1/8th delay -Vox. And it was close. I pretended sometimes that I'd figured it out, but I knew I hadn't yet. A fully clean strat is very thin and plinky, chicken pickin'. I tried many things and asked many forums, no one knew. I thought it might the speaker, the pickups. Problem with strat pickups if you start winding them more they start sounding like humbuckers, and Edge had a decidedly single coil sound.

Years went by, I started building amps, mic pres, compressors, and fancied myself a tone guru, circuit designer. a few pedals, but pedals didn't interest me. I was all about that vintage tube magic, pedals were a poor man's knock off in my opinion. I had a few, tube screamers, fuzzes, but never had a lot of use for them. Sometimes a creamy overdrive pedal was easier than bi ampling something.

Recently a number of songs have been piling up that required a Marshall, and I haven't had a real Marshall amp around in some time. I don't want to take up any more space so I decided to look for a pedal.

Enter the MXR Superbadass. Looked good, sounded good, so I got one a month or so ago and it worked great, when I need some Marshall few will be able to tell the difference. I did some reading on it and everyone was talking about how it could double as a boost. I think I had heard about stuff like that before but never looked into it.

Reading up on boost I came across of few mentions of Edge using a Boss FA 1 booster starting in 85 or so. Edge transitioned from garage punk distortions to the clean strat sound around that time so it caught my attention. I had kind of given up on tracking down Edge gear a long time ago because his rig is beyond belief anymore, who knows what he uses for what. But it caught my attention and stuck in my mind.

For some reason I didn't put it together until earlier today, that maybe that was the missing piece. I plugged in, figured out how to mimic a boost pedal, and the heavens opened and the angels sang. After 30 years I finally found what I was looking for, no more chicken pickin, finally the glorious celestial Edge strat tone.

Strat - Herdim pick - CLEAN BOOST PEDAL - Delay - VOX AC30.

I did it.

[Mr. Perfect]

Back on the original topic, here is a classic little T Bone clip. Everthing is there, the voicings, progressions and the bending pentatonic solo sections. Any developing guitarist should be learning his stuff.

Not necessarily the catchiest music but fundamentally the structure of guitar based rock and roll is here in completeness. Really amazes me.

pFqK6PBq-hA

[noddy]

re: u2 tone, awesome you got what you were looking for (boom tish)
re: t-bone walker, he is a legend and for damn good reasons.

cant say that Im a real fan of u2 but I mostly certainly did notice Pride and Sunday Bloody Sunday off the earlier albums, striking songs... blunt opinion is its too much mid tempo, straight up and down, for me to listen to much beyond the highlights.

I bought the Ibanez from a few pages back and also bought a Vox modelling amp for it... its not tone perfection but its a whole lotta love for lounger room nirvana and its an awesome axe, so pretty, classic blues rock tones, easy and smooth to play.

[Mr. Perfect]

Lol I hate U2 with a passion nowadays, their politics, their "music", I hate them as people, but I was over the moon for them in the late 80's. At least half of it was the sonics, between Edge Eno and Lanois they did some groundbreaking stuff with atmospherics and shimmers.

But my 2 favorite tones from the history of rock are Edge's strat tone and Jimmy's Tele on the first 2 Zeppelin albums. The Tele was easy enough to figure out, but that strat tone was a bear to find.

In that T Bone clip a lot of the comments confirmed my findings in terms of T Bone putting all the pieces together and being one of the first rock soloists. Cool cool stuff.

I will be interested to see what you think of that Ibanez, I've got my eye on it.

[noddy]

I tried every gibson scale, double humbucker setup in the shop several times, I already have a top dollar strat, I wanted the fat end of the tone spectrum, which eliminated alot of the brighter sounding ones aimed at metal.

Its heavier than I expected but in terms of playability and sound, it was the cheapest of the "nice" ones - the only other instruments that were as pleasant toplay all cost more.

the gold and abalone trim is a bit over the top (hah) but the woodgrain and ebony are so classy, it all comes together, the pickups are just great and the action is very easy, the glued in neck is a really nice touch and it has mega sustain.

really enjoying it so far, its so much fun to get that classic blues/rock phat humbucker sound in a nice playable format, Ill say more in a few months when I have lived with it for a bit.

came with a perfect fit hard case which is nice too.

---

the vox modelling practice amp is a truckload of fun - ADIO AIR GT is the model, its like a boom box with a dozen or so solid amp simulations but also has bluetooth and usb audio connections and seperate volume knobs.

you can use your phone for backing tracks, or you can use it to drive the usb->audio chain on your computer and multitrack off it.

heaps of use for not much money.

[noddy]

Lol I hate U2 with a passion nowadays, their politics, their "music", I hate them as people, but I was over the moon for them in the late 80's. At least half of it was the sonics, between Edge Eno and Lanois they did some groundbreaking stuff with atmospherics and shimmers.

But my 2 favorite tones from the history of rock are Edge's strat tone and Jimmy's Tele on the first 2 Zeppelin albums. The Tele was easy enough to figure out, but that strat tone was a bear to find.

my 2 favourite tones are the bell like tones from the neck of a strat and the snarling tones from the bridge of a classic humbucker, I now have both of those and am very happy.

however, the telecaster bridge isnt that far behind, their was a super tele (humbuckers but with splitters to go single) in the shop and it was lovely, it was the hardest choice against the ibanez but was 500 more.

[Mr. Perfect]

If you find a good source of backing tracks let me know, I make my own using Reason. My process is pretty streamlined but it can be tedious.

I find no other amp accentuates the bell tone from the Strat than a real AC30.

[noddy]

so far, I have a found a crap mobile app which I regret giving money too and a truckload of generic background jams on google play music.

Im looking forward to getting into the tedious process of making my own hahaha

[Typhoon]

Lol I hate U2 with a passion nowadays, their politics, their "music", I hate them as people, but I was over the moon for them in the late 80's. At least half of it was the sonics, between Edge Eno and Lanois they did some groundbreaking stuff with atmospherics and shimmers.

. . .

Prefer One* and So Cruel from the Achtung Baby album.

*Love to sing this one at karaoke.

As for their politics:

U2, recently held a concert in Glasgow, Scotland.

Halfway through the concert, lead singer Bono stood in a spotlight on stage and asked the audience of 30,000 for complete silence.
Gradually the auditorium fell quiet.
Bono began slowly clapping.
He took the microphone and said: “Every time I clap my hands, a child dies in Africa.”
From the back of the crowd in a broad Scottish accent: “Well f*ckin' stop doin' it then, ya heartless bastard.”

~ Urban legend based on a joke by the British comedian Jimmy Carr

[Mr. Perfect]

This really really caught my attention. This is a case of analog amp overdose. The reality is big amps in a big room cannot be replicated, and instead of maybe 2 or 3 100 watters he went another direction and has almost a dozen 50 watters. Very, very compelling. In addition to his Fender scale heavy gauge tuned down a full step baritone sounding guitar you have a really interesting tone. Very mind expanding.

imCLj_QIHOk

[Mr. Perfect]

Also as I mentioned before my thinking and understanding of pedals has changed a lot. I started out thinking pedals were a cheap way for kids to pretend they were Metallica by buying a rat fuzz through a practice amp, and while there is some of that there are other pedals that really are more about building a full amp signal.

That is I would compare some pedals as adding a big carburetor on a 350 small block engine. Yes you can use a stock caruburetor or you can charge it up with some blowers.



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[Mr. Perfect]

This is one of my recent tone secrets, easily the best compressor pedal anyone made for guitar, from Australia. I would add it is another factor for the Edge clean strat sound, not only does it level out busy ping pong delays but it takes the muddiness out so well.

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[noddy]

that rig is amazing.

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gain stacking is how I learnt to do it in the 90's when i was really into it and ran the fender tube amp as my main.

tube screamer -> rat -> input stage at amp nearly full volume, -> output stage in amp as loud as i could get away with.

neither of the distortion pedals had much of their own distortion added, those knobs pointed to the left but they did help overload the tube's and the rat on/off was mostly the only one I did with my feet, the rest i could bring back to clean(ish) with my volume on the guitar.

the actual sound of the distortions that come out of the pedals is quite nasty, unless you want that.

my main problem is the output overload on the amp was when the sweetness really kicked in and thats too loud for anything but rehearsal rooms and gigs.

---
compressor looks neat, for the sound i chase I dont like compressors but they do have a place in the wider aspects of building a track up.

[noddy]

now that ive had a bit of time with finally having the double vintage humbucker mid range thickness vs classic american strat single coil bellness I have dreams of hacking up my perfect compromise heh.

double pickup - single coil neck, humbucker bridge, with the middle position splitting the humbucker into single coil and out of phase joining it to the neck for that classic strat funky clean sound on the inbetweens.

think ill get a cheap chinesium telecaster kit to make it happen.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Here's a question for you gentlemen:

What measures do you take in terms of hearing protection?

[noddy]

WOT ? SPEAK UP YOUNGEN , I CANT HEAR YOU OVER THE RINGING NOISE.

back when i should have cared, I didnt... now, I wouldnt go into a room full of screaming tube amps if you paid me.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Which is usually the case- the damage is done.

And, after reading everyone's opinions and trying different methods...it is not something we have a good grasp on beyond the :

-careful with loud noises
-don't bang your head
-don't come down with certain viral infections or something like diabetes
-oh, and don't age

[noddy]

3.5 out of 4 aint bad

more seriously - ive raved a few times about the new modelling amp things and this is the number one reason, the ability to play around with different tones at comfortable loungeroom volumes.

I know it doesnt behave like a real tube amp , pushing large amounts of air around, but nothing does - included recording said amp and playing it on regular speakers at regular volumes.

---

on the flipside, Im hating DAW's .. with a passsion, their is something just wrong about them all for someone coming from a tape multitrack backgroud.

lack of physical buttons is a killer, too many options with too many buried features and crazy workflow tricks, too much latency, or worse, subtle fears of latency that may or may not be true.

i sure hope I get over this and grow to like them, Im limited to linux or windows and ones I can try for free.

[noddy]

pedals have also exploded since I last paid any attention to all this.

back in my day you had boss pedals and a handful of others and multi fx things sucked , it was all quite simple.

now, their are cabinets full of them and knowing which ones are just reverse engineered classics with a few resistor values changed or whatever is completely overwhelming.

GET OFF MY LAWN.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

3.5 out of 4 aint bad

more seriously - ive raved a few times about the new modelling amp things and this is the number one reason, the ability to play around with different tones at comfortable loungeroom volumes.

I know it doesnt behave like a real tube amp , pushing large amounts of air around, but nothing does - included recording said amp and playing it on regular speakers at regular volumes.

Which is yet another reason to make the switch-over myself (for most things).

---

on the flipside, Im hating DAW's .. with a passsion, their is something just wrong about them all for someone coming from a tape multitrack backgroud.

lack of physical buttons is a killer, too many options with too many buried features and crazy workflow tricks, too much latency, or worse, subtle fears of latency that may or may not be true.

i sure hope I get over this and grow to like them, Im limited to linux or windows and ones I can try for free.[/quote]

What's a physical button?

[Mr. Perfect]

Here's a question for you gentlemen:

What measures do you take in terms of hearing protection?

Fortunately I took precautions and my ears are good. I used good old fashioned earplugs back in the day but these days in ears seem to do a reasonable job to keep spl down.

I also avoid big volume amp rooms. I saw an arena show abou 15 years ago and was in the wrong spot up front and my ears almost died, i had forgotten my plugs. I should have walked out, but I was lucky on that night.

[Mr. Perfect]

Which is yet another reason to make the switch-over myself (for most things).

---

on the flipside, Im hating DAW's .. with a passsion, their is something just wrong about them all for someone coming from a tape multitrack backgroud.

lack of physical buttons is a killer, too many options with too many buried features and crazy workflow tricks, too much latency, or worse, subtle fears of latency that may or may not be true.

i sure hope I get over this and grow to like them, Im limited to linux or windows and ones I can try for free.

What's a physical button?

If you want to go to tape go to tape. I have no problem with digital these days, but to each their own.