Guitar Sounds and Tone

[DesiSerna]

"I have an acoustic and 2 hollow body electrics and a cheap Fender strat. I have a small Fender amp with distortion and reverb and bass, treble mid,etc. I also have a Mesa Boogie Lonestar tube amp. I am a low intermediate player. I also have an epiphone tube screamer and a Boss effects pad with many dials and options. All I want to get is that sharp, smooth, resonating jazz sound like George Benson and that blasting overdrive, distortion sound like the riffs in American woman or Hotel California(middle solo). Can you tell me what I should do to get these effects with my amp and guitar?"

The topic you inquired about is beyond the scope of my work. I'll share this post with some of my followers. Hopefully they can help. Stay tuned.

[kirkvan]

Personally, I found the combination of multiple stomp boxes, effect processors, modeling amp settings, etc. to be too confusing (relative to the time I was willing to invest). So, I opted for a DigiTech RP355 Guitar Multi-Effects Processor, which gives me 70 base programs, 70 custom programs (which I haven't needed), drum machine, integrated expression pedal, 20-second looper...on and on...more than I can imagine ever needing. A number of the 70 presets are a very clean jazz-like tone. I turn off all effects on my tube amp and let the RP355 run the show.

http://www.digitech.com/products/Multi- ... /RP355.php

[vincent]

You didn't mention which Boss effects box you were using but I might be able to at least point you in the right direction. You might want to check with some of their gear guys as well but...

A couple of things are needed for the "smooth jazz" guitar sound - light reverb and chorus and slightly treble equalization (I used to use a wha-wha pedal as a notch filter) on songs like "This Masquerade" playing guitars with natural sustain. I've not tried this on a strat although your acoustics should sound good with your tube amp.

American Woman ... you might want to ask Randy Bachman that question (he has a radio show on CBC in Canada and often answers gear questions); when I play it I set the equalization flat. I have an old "big muff" box (from the 70's, but I've not been able to find any way to reproduce the sound digitally... go figure!) which I plug in before the other effects. Digital effects are chorus (moderately heavy) and reverb to taste (depending upon which guitar you're using). I like tube amps and this song is a natural.

[Jazzman2010]

George uses a Acoustic F hole type electric guitar which is the standard type for "cool" jazz. It has a warm tone, usually heavier guage strings and is played through an amp that has little or no effects. In recording the records, you can usually hear some reverb. Probably not chorus or other effects in general.
The sound of the guitar on American Woman is more like a solid body guitar or semi hollow body with the equalization aimed more to the treble side (not a warm sound at all) perhaps with some cancellation of the tone of the pickups. Most rock sounds have some kind of overdrive on them where the signal is preamped to a distorted level and then amplified. With most effects pedals, I usually customize a setting that is not as radical as most of the presets that come from the factory with a little reverb (about a 3 level), maybe a tiny tiny bit of chorus and a little more than slight overdrive. You can then change the settings for other presets to get the kind of extra sounds you like. It is my belief that there is not currently any modeling modules or software that will actually duplicate the sound of the actual guitars, amps and effects that were used on the original recordings, but you can probably get close enough that most people can't tell the difference.