Guitarists - how do I make my electric guitar sound like one?

[SexyGreyFox]

I have a stratocaster shaped guitar (a Yamaha pacifica).

What does the WEM copycat do? Could I get close to the sound it makes using my amp's dials?

Your amp doesn't need to go more than Warm Bright on the Voice control and a WEM Copycat is a delay effect which you have on your Effects section.

 

[BlueMerle]

Your amp doesn't need to go more than Warm Bright on the Voice control and a WEM Copycat is a delay effect which you have on your Effects section.

Seems you're familiar with his amp, I'm not. Is it similar to some Line 6 amps? Assuming you're familiar with that brand.

On my old Line6 not only can I choose from multiple fx, I can also select different guitars. So, even though I'm actually playing a Les Paul I can select acoustic 12 string and the amp will make it sound pretty close to one. A bit gimmicky, but I'm just playing for myself.

 

[danlightbulb]

Your amp doesn't need to go more than Warm Bright on the Voice control and a WEM Copycat is a delay effect which you have on your Effects section.

Thanks. I've just tried clean bright + delay + reverb. Its getting there but its not quite right. Its hard to explain what it sounds like but I think the best way is that mine still sounds a little twangy, especially on the lower notes - whereas you don't hear the twang at all on the recordings im trying to emulate. If i turn up the gain it seems to help with the twang, but then sounds distorted especially if I play more than one note at once.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Thanks. I've just tried clean bright + delay + reverb. Its getting there but its not quite right. Its hard to explain what it sounds like but I think the best way is that mine still sounds a little twangy, especially on the lower notes - whereas you don't hear the twang at all on the recordings im trying to emulate. If i turn up the gain it seems to help with the twang, but then sounds distorted especially if I play more than one note at once.

Just remember you don't have the correct guitar or amp to do Hank Marvin justice, you'll get close but you need something like a Kemper Profiler, a Line 6 Helix or the one I use a Roland GR55 to get it bang on.
Even then with the first two you need to to use a Strat with exactly the same pickups Hank uses.
The GR55 also emulates the guitar and I also have a Boss GP-10 which also emulates any guitar and amp.

Seems you're familiar with his amp, I'm not. Is it similar to some Line 6 amps? Assuming you're familiar with that brand.

I have many amps and yes they are similar

 

[Raymond Lin]

Sounds like a type of slap back delay.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Sounds like a type of slap back delay.

Look up the WEM Copycat, you need one, back in 1972 I paid £100 for one.

Thinking about it Hank mostly used Binson's

 

[Raymond Lin]

Look up the WEM Copycat, you need one, back in 1972 I paid £100 for one.

Thinking about it Hank mostly used Binson's

I don’t need anymore delay pedals lol, I think off my head I have 6, 7 if I can find my Dispatch Master (or may be I dreamt i had it).

 

[jsmoke]

I had this amp years ago. It's probably a low range amp but did the job.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

I don’t need anymore delay pedals lol, I think off my head I have 6, 7 if I can find my Dispatch Master (or may be I dreamt i had it).

The joy of sitting down, cutting up reel to reel tapes into around 12" lengths and joining them together.
You then tried them to see you had made a good join so you didn't get a 'duh' every two seconds from the join.

 

[physichull]

Its a slippery slope you are on danlightulb. Chasing tones is a complicated and expensive game. No matter what equipment you own and how expensive it is, you will never have the versatility to truly sound like any guitarist given the sheer variety and expense of the kit they used.

You may get close, but as a chap in a guitar shop once told me when I was much younger:

"Just focus on trying to sound like you. You will never sound like Gary Moore. Only Gary Moore sounds like Gary Moore".

 

[Raymond Lin]

Look up the WEM Copycat, you need one, back in 1972 I paid £100 for one.

Thinking about it Hank mostly used Binson's

Whilst real tapes are nice and very cool...I am happy with the digital reproduction. Some are very good like the Belle Epoch deluxe or the EQS Disaster Traansport Sr.

 

[danlightbulb]

Its a slippery slope you are on danlightulb. Chasing tones is a complicated and expensive game. No matter what equipment you own and how expensive it is, you will never have the versatility to truly sound like any guitarist given the sheer variety and expense of the kit they used.

You may get close, but as a chap in a guitar shop once told me when I was much younger:

"Just focus on trying to sound like you. You will never sound like Gary Moore. Only Gary Moore sounds like Gary Moore".

I get what youre saying however i would see it as there being a few fundamental types of sound i would expect to be able to get from any electric guitar setup.

At the moment i can switch everything down and get a non driven sound more like an accoustic, or i can turn on various levels of gain and go into a heavily distorted sound. But Im struggling to get the clean, non twangy, electric guitar sound in the middle.

 

[Raymond Lin]

A truly clean sound depends on a lot on the guitar and amp.


A Les Paul through a clean Marshall JCM800 sounds different from a Strat through a Fender Twin Reverb. You can only get as clean as the gear you have, then for gain and effects sound you can add it with pedals. That’s why a lot of people prefer to get a “pedal platform” amp then get all the pedals for the sound they want. Much easier to get gain from a clean amp then clean up an overdriven amp.

 

[Nitefly]

I get what youre saying however i would see it as there being a few fundamental types of sound i would expect to be able to get from any electric guitar setup.

At the moment i can switch everything down and get a non driven sound more like an accoustic, or i can turn on various levels of gain and go into a heavily distorted sound. But Im struggling to get the clean, non twangy, electric guitar sound in the middle.

Without reading most (any) of the thread, it seems you are looking at an ‘overdriven’ tone. These tones traditionally come from ‘pushing’ the tubes of a tube amp. Crudely speaking, some amps (and many ye olde amps) get a lot of their tone from their ‘power tube’ section - the tubes that amplify volume after the signal has been ‘processed’ (which is why they are sometimes called post-amp tubes and why this sort of gain is post-amp gain). This is why a lot of traditional amps have to be turned up very loud to sound their best - a clean, but ‘broken up’ sound. A well known brand of amplifier that (purportedly) needs to be loud to sound good is ‘Marshall’.

Frankly, almost any amp of this style is far too loud for home use.

Other amps apply gain BEFORE the power tube section, in the pre-amp section. This gives the modern, hyper distorted sound you would associate with bands like Metallica. A well known brand of this type of amp is Mesa Boogie.

For a typical home use set up, if you have a simple amp with a drive/ distortion channel, you will probably be best off setting the gain to very low and raise it until the point where it’s not quite as distorted as you had in mind. Then it’s a case of smacking those strings! Attack them! Hurrrghhh!!! Different amps will be different in their response but you will find that the harder you play the more distorted it sounds. Play hard and you will find yourself broadly with the tone you are looking for.

You can do the opposite by having the gain slightly higher than what is ideal on the amp and then roll back the volume on your guitar itself.

BUT (and someone may have mentioned this already) you can make pretty much any guitar sound better, more full and convincing by apply reverb and delay. Some over-zealous types will say this is cheating but that’s absolute rubbish. If it sounds good, it’s good. Delay and reverb should ideally be applied at the very end of the signal chain, post power-tubes (in the effects loop). I can’t watch the video in the OP right now but I can guarantee there will be reverb and/or delay.

There are guitar effects that are completely unobvious that can really affect your sound - not what you’re looking for but just as an FYI. Things like noise gates and compressors. When you go down the rabbit hole of tone, it can get really complicated.

Another obvious point, your tone will pretty much always sound crisper, cleaner and neater with single coil pick up as opposed to a ‘fatter’ sounding humbucker - so if your guitar has both experiment between the two

Finally, I have some insanely expensive equipment (pretty much as expensive as it gets) and you can spend forever trying to make your sound better. It’s far better to spend time PLAYING.

 

[physichull]

To reflect a little on my experience, I really LOVE the tone from the Darkness guitarists Justin and Dan Hawkins. (I know, I know, don't @ me, I love the Darkness!)

I've got a Gibson Les Paul, I've got a Marshall amplifier and a wide array of pedals. Try as I might, I cannot replicate their vintage, classic rock tones. No matter what, I can't replicate their tone. I don't have their expensive vintage Marshall amplifiers, which they often use with a Vox AC30 to cut through the Marshall noise.

You will be able to get a very pleasant clean tone with the equipment you have, making a few tweaks here and there. Hell, there isn't a day that goes by when I don't fiddle with the amp EQs, they are virtually never set to the same thing each day. As Nitefly eloquently nailed right at the end of his post, you will get most satisfaction from playing and getting better.

 

[Nitefly]

To reflect a little on my experience, I really LOVE the tone from the Darkness guitarists Justin and Dan Hawkins. (I know, I know, don't @ me, I love the Darkness!)

I've got a Gibson Les Paul, I've got a Marshall amplifier and a wide array of pedals. Try as I might, I cannot replicate their vintage, classic rock tones. No matter what, I can't replicate their tone. I don't have their expensive vintage Marshall amplifiers, which they often use with a Vox AC30 to cut through the Marshall noise.

You will be able to get a very pleasant clean tone with the equipment you have, making a few tweaks here and there. Hell, there isn't a day that goes by when I don't fiddle with the amp EQs, they are virtually never set to the same thing each day. As Nitefly eloquently nailed right at the end of his post, you will get most satisfaction from playing and getting better.

The Darkness have a great tone or should I say combination of tones. I think however there is definitely a modern bite to it. The more AC/DC style tone can be found at the end of ‘stuck in a rut’ and really I think the secret to that is playing big open full-fat chords and smacking the strings like I mentioned above bringing the amp into overdrive. You can really hear those high strings sing out. It’s not actually THAT distorted and is definitely more like a classic rock tone, as you say.

Meanwhile, if you listen to the end of say, ‘I believe in a thing called love’ there is WAY more drive there, even some mild harmonics. To my ears, there is a very mild frequency scoop on the mids which is basically impossible to pull off on a Marshall amp without an EQ pedal. Just the tiniest scoop can make it sound far meaner. Also boosted brilliance (ultra high frequency above presence) can help on that. I’m sure it’s also tracked multiple times to sound super fat and the bass is in there too.

That’s another thing to bear in mind - what the bass guitar is up to. When you play Black in Black (AC/DC) by yourself you’ll omit to play the ‘third note’ of each chord in the main riff. You’ll be like hmm that sounds really cool but the A chord doesn’t sound quite full enough.... what’s going on there, fffffffff!?!! Turns out, the bass guitar is hitting the missing note from the guitar, filling out the sound. That is a super cool and very clever trick... requires more than one instrument unfortunately!

My ‘cheat techniques’ are put on a noise gate for ‘inhuman’ precision, mask the gate with a soft delay, run your tube screamer at max volume but minimum drive (for compression), always have a mild scoop on the mids (the 750htz slider on my boogie). Have the treble high to slam the pre-amp and keep raising it to get the right level of distortion. That’s for the Justice For Alll killa tonez though

I think you need a PHD to run a boogie, absolutely ridiculous. Turning up treble increases gain, mids, bass... just about everything. You have to roll with bass no higher than 1/10, then increase the bass with the sliders. Completely arse backwards from any other amp ever!

 

[Nitefly]

Spoiler: Completely unsuitable advice for the OP

@physichull see if you can find a cheap second hand one of these - run that near the front of the signal chain of dip the 1k slider at a fraction lower, say half way between 0 and -6DB.

https://www.andertons.co.uk/guitar-dept/guitar-pedals/eq-pedals/mxr-10-band-eq-silver

You will not believe the difference it can make to your overall sound. Can’t say it’ll solve you’re problems though

Be warned though because fiddling with EQ brings an unnecessarily level of fiddling to your set up and is really best avoided other than for subtle differences, or you’ll be lost in space and time in a tone-maze!

OP you should completely ignore this post because I’m going down the rabbit hole, not suitable advice for any beginner.

 

[physichull]

Ha! These posts need a whopping big disclaimer on them to the OP to say that we are now the biggest hypocrites in the land!!! We are discussing precisely what we said you should never do!!!

Interesting post @Nitefly , you make some interesting points.

Current gear: Gibson Les Paul Standard 2018 (blueberry burst), Marshall DSL40C. By no means 4x12 cabinet, but I don't need that for what I do, and to be honest, I don't need a 40W valve amp either! It knocks down walls if you turn it up! Pedals: Boss DD7, Big Muff Pi, CS-3, TC Corona chorus, Boss GE-7, Mr Black Supermoon, Boss CS-3, a RAT, TC Golden Plexi - I know, I already have a Marshall but I was curious for just a few quid! a Bad Monkey and the Dane.

This is the lesson to learn about chasing tones and why its a bad idea:

I love Dan's tone in particular, hearing his guitar on its own is just a super rhythm tone. Justin has a creamier and more "Les Paul Custom" kind of sound.

I heard Justin used to use a ProCo RAT. So I bought a ProCo RAT. Can confirm, it just doesn't work with a Marshall amp. Like, not even slightly. I tried using it just on the clean channel and the OD channel and it just doesn't work. £130 of wastage.

I can get quite close to that Black Shuck kind of tone with my amp alone. I sometimes use the Boss EQ, but mostly for the level boost - keeping the EQs fairly flat. Using a Muff just muds everything, that's a useless pedal for the Darkness, but I didn't buy it for that reason.

The Bad Monkey on the other hand, it was fairly cheap at the time but its absolutely fantastic. Love it, gets a little closer to the creamier more overdriven tone of Justin's guitar. Its a superb pedal for the money.

Interesting your comments about the EQ and scooping a couple of the frequencies. I usually just resort to my amps EQ, but occasionally, given the limits of my amp, I often find myself turning the dials up quite a long way. You are spot on about the gain though, less is definitely more, particularly for Dan's tone, and just use your playing style to make is sound nastier! Most of the time my gain is only on around 10-11 o clock.

9s strings for solos, 10s for rhythm. I play 10s most of the time though....

You are right about the "mix" with the various band components, you can never really get close, plus all the post production tweaks, and the multi-tracking as you've said, you can never get it that close.


As an aside, there is a lot to say about the Darkness. They get a lot of stick and are kinda seen as a bit of a joke now, but they are massively underrated guitarists (maybe they aren't amongst guitarist circles....?). But their last 3 albums have been absolutely top notch stuff with some great guitar work and catchy riffs.

 

[danlightbulb]

Would anyone be able to either describe, or link to a video of, perhaps the five or so fundamental sounds that I should look to experiment with?

Perhaps by era? Eg how would I get a 50's sound, a 70's sound, an 80's sound etc.

All I can currently do is get an overdriven sound, which sounds ok when using single notes but sounds too distorted if Im playing chords, or a non-driven sound, which sounds nice but has limited sustain.

I can get a few effects out of my amp like phaser or delay, but I'd like to get the fundamental sounds right first.

My guitar has two single coil pickups and a humbucker at the bridge end.

I think the general issue I am having is getting sustain without distortion.

 

[builder22]

Can you get the notes to sustain when playing unplugged/no amp?

Did you try downloading the patches/presets for your amp...they’re probably rated and might have some descriptions that will help you find a tone u want...like One called ‘Hank Marvin’ or ‘The Shadows’ etc
If the high rated ones still sound rubbish you’ll need to **** about with the guitar and/or practice!