I have the extreme good fortune to have in my town the very tech who refretted SRV's #1 just before the El Mocambo gig. He had a massive rig but his tone seemed 'smaller' somehow. Last time I saw him he was clean and sober and better than ever, though I did miss the original "Flood" tones. He kept complaining about his tone and would stop songs and unplug his pedals and throw them across the stage. Second time he had Reese with them and was clearly VERY drug-crazed. First time was with Tommy and Chris on Hendrix's birthday and it was freakin' life-changing. He also stacked Tube Screamers, even wahs sometimes. And, yeah, he got constantly bitched out by club owners for being "too loud". It had more to do with SATURATION than distortion and he used high wattage spkrs so he could turn up the amp to the point where the power tubes were really sweating and then the clean spkrs brought forth THAT sound. He was always moving forward, he was never stuck in one thing too much.Ĭlick to expand.Stevie's tone is a massive topic.His amps were heavily and continuously modded. Unless you're physically seeing him on video or in photos, there's just no telling. for all we know it was his ES335 and a Gibson Skylark. That's why I always chuckle when I hear somebody lay down an absolute like "SRV did _ song with #1, a vibroverb, and a TS9". Something "proving" itself was never part of his equation in real life, and I for one thing if he were still around, he'd probably be playing different guitars by now. He got to the strats by always moving forward. He also played Gibson hollowbdies earlier in his career, and even did time in the Triple Threat Revue with a Ric 360. The strats were also part of the evolution. He was known to track through more than 20 amps simultaneously so he could choose his favorite tracks. #1 had a flattened radius, larger frets, five way switch, and had all the parts changed out for Elite hardware. The only reasons the strats stuck around for his whole career is that he never found anything he truly liked better. He used to have Diaz switch parts out on the chassis while he was playing the amp so he could A/B caps and such in real time. That's why he had the deal with Hamiltone guitars, and was always having his Fender amps tweaked. He was always looking for something better. He was never satisfied for the most part with things that had proven themselves. he would switch out, and go back to the older ones sure, but would also use the newer ones frequently, and sometimes mix and match. He used the 808, then the 9, then the TS10, actually using the TS10 quite a bit. If there was a new Tubescreamer out, he wanted it. The pure cranked Blackface thing from the Texas Flood album is where it's at for me. You can hear an example of that on the "Live From Austin,TX" video, the later ACL appearance was all that muddy Dumble thing. later in his career when he got into the Dumbles his tone really gained up and got muddy, and I thought, suffered a lot. 99% of the time, SRV's tone is a lot cleaner than it sounds to the casual listener. I used to play 12's, but can't do it anymore. Don't know what gauge strings you use, but I get WAY closer to his thing with 11's than with anything lighter. Brighten up the amp, and try spending a lot of time in that #4 position with the bridge and middle together, and dig in really deep. If you want that tone at useable club gig volumes, IMO it can't be done. It just pushed an already red hot amp over the edge. It was almost used more as a clean boost, with the volume up and the gain down. With the amps set like that, the TS pedal didn't need much gain on it at all. Watch Live at the El Macambo for a great example of this. That makes for a hella bright tone most of the time. When it was sounding tight, with no flub or fart, and loud as hell, then the amp was right. He would set the tone of the amp, by turning it up, and jack hammering the low E string. The intro and rhythm tracking on that song is textbook Blackface cranked to the "annihilate" level, with no dirtbox. His technique for setting up an amp in those days was to use a Blackface like a Super Reverb or Vibroverb, and to turn it way, way up. His tones are also incredibly bright a lot of the time, especially on the Texas Flood album. SRV used all the positions on his switch, but really did a ton of stuff in the bridge/middle switch position. That's way too dark to get into his territory. IMO, the way to the SRV style tone is NOT with a neck pickup and a cranked up TS. The mid hump of those TS style pedals does a lot for beefing up the naturally scooped sound of a Fender amp. He even did lots of shows with the TS10 when it dropped. FWIW, he wasn't concerned with the vintage models so much. Most of it however, is the in between position (bridge/middle). There is a lot of neck pickup tone in some of the solo passages in that song.
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