well my guitar is a partsocaster (a good one) hand made except for the pick ups it has a alder body maple one peice neck and it has vintage noisless pickups in the neck and middle with a dimarzio virtual solo in the bridge also has a graph tech nut and im gonna get the callham upgrade kit for the trem but what i need to know is whats a good vintag single coil sound jimi/srv souding set and what do i do with my old pick ups and last but not least should i replace my 15 watt spider 3 with a bugeara tube 30 watt ??? thx

The harsh reality is that even if you had access to Jimi or Stevie's rig, listeners would be able to tell from the first note that you weren't them.

You are still going to sound like you and that's were you should focus your efforts.


Cheers,

Snowy.

I agree with the previous posts, but for some of my customers, I suggest Fender Custom Shop 57/62s and a Deluxe Reverb... SRV often used a Ibanez Tubescreamer as well (with the gain cranked down) to get a hotter sound. He also used a ton of different amps, but a DR is a great start.

Whats most important to know is that REAL TONE COMES FROM THE HANDS AND FINGERS, not from gear. Most salespeople dont want you to believe that, but its the truth. I would suggest tightening your belt and practicing your chops. Nothing wrong with sounding like someone else, but you will find that you develop your own style as well.

+1!

I know Mastercard Maestros with $5000 guitars, stacks of boutique amps, and pedal boards that resemble the cockpit of a 747 yet they still can't manage to pull off a decent generic rock riff. let alone emulate their favorite guitar gods.

Get yourself a decent used Super Reverb, a ProCo Rat, a Digitech compressor, and a Fuzzface then practice, practice, practice. Two or three hours a day for a year should do wonders for your technique.

Arjay

Learning to emulate the greats is not a completely worthless exercise.
Getting close is possible but a perfect emulation is not. Obviously.


1) Get a real amp.

2) Practice.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I have enjoyed my days studying and trying to sound like my idols, in fact I think it is a huge help and part of the journey until you settle in and find your own sound. Hendrix is easy as all you have to do is go on ebay and get a Hendrix Digitech pedal which is truly amazing, and will give you a ton of his tones pretty much dead on. I will say you will have to get the tone switcher adapter that comes seperate as it is set like a wah pedal but for some songs has a toe and heel switch that you just cant pull off fast enough , but the adapter makes it a breeze. Besides with the control knobs you will find a million tones of your own for originals. Stevies tone will be much harder as you do not have the amp power that you need but a tube screamer and Wah are pretty much the only effects you need. Have fun and learn all those licks and riffs as it is part of schooling and then make them your own..

I was under the impression that Hendrix just played at 62 Strat (off the shelf, with no mods, and three SC pups), with a Tube amp (Fender or Vox), a Fuz Face, and Vox Wah-Wah.

But as others have said, it's a lot down to his mojo, and not tech. I'm sure if he was alive today, he produce all manor of noise with just Diddley bow.

[edit] I meant for Jimi, though I think SRV would be similar too

For SRV set the amp with lots of bass, the treb at half and the mids just under half, volume as loud as you want. Get and overdrive and set the drive to about half, tone to half and volume as loud as you want.

For Hendrix set the amp with lots of treb, half on the bass and barely any mids. Throw in a fuzz face for some crunch when needed.

Tweak to taste.

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Tune Low, Play Hard & Floor it!

Get three plexi stacks with greenbacks in the cabs. Roughly £30,000 for the three if you can find em. (advisable to get a house in the middle of nowhere to accompany the amps)
Get a 67-69 strat, £5-8000
A vintage univibe, £1000
A 67 Fuzz and Octavio, £3000 for the pair.
A 67 Wah £400.

£42000 therabouts and you still wont sound like Hendrix.

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No no and no

+1

I've played rock and blues for around 40 years and I learned from the same players that SRV,Clapton and others did....they picked it up from the older bluesmen,the ones no one remembers now...but they did one other thing,they took what they learned and forged their own sound,style and tone.
Do I sound like Clapton,SRV or Hendrix....heck no....can I play decent authentic blues with my own style?...yes....will I ever be famous?...no way.

from what i've heard/read the general recommendations for the hendrix tone is a vintage style strat into a marshall turned up as loud as possible...SRV also used strats but into fender amps, and he used pretty thick strings and a tubescreamer like stratcat said.

in my opinion the issue of gear vs playing is a fine line that we have to walk as guitarists...if you've been playing for a few years and practicing pretty hard and want to seriously upgrade your tone then obviously you don't want to be still playing a squier into a little fender practice amp, but at the same time there's no reason to spend thousands of dollars on tone when your chops aren't good enough like the poor fellow in retroverbial's post.

Gear IS part of the equation. My suggestion for pickups would be a Dimarzio Area 67 in the neck (This pickup sounds scooped and Hendrixy in the neck) and an Area 61 for the middle for a more fat but midrangy SRV tones. I think those will complement the Virtual Solo VERY well.

The best thing you can do at this point is upgrade your amp. Get a tube amp, that's really the sound you're after. Pickup changes and pedals hardly mean anything unless you're playing through a good amp. With a little adjustment of the EQ you can get any kind of tone you want.

As far as pickups go if you want to change them I'd recommend Fender Texas Specials (my personal favorite), Fat 50's, CS '69s, 57/62s or really any true single coil pickup. I had Vintage Noiseless pickups in my Fender for a couple of years, but to me they sound flat. I bet they would sound a lot better with a mid boost like Eric Clapton has, but I didn't want my guitar to have active electronics.

And the most important thing of all is to practice your tail off! There's nothing wrong with copying your heroes and using their tone and technique as a foundation, but learn to play guitar with your own voice. To me that's more rewarding then nailing a certain tone.

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Man, I stuck my finger in my ear and I didn't hear anything......when I cupped my hand over my ear, wow, I heard the ocean....LOL! So interesting how I can have my guitar set up with my amp and stomp box and can pop out some licks that have cool sounds like SRV and then hand the guitar to my friend and he will knock out a few licks and sound completely different. Ya, maybe still some bite, and sustain and compression. What he plays sound equally as good but just...different. His sound and scale structure is more along the lines of other players but not SRV. So point well taken....

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