Ry Cooder pedal set up

[Yankel]

Hi

I was wondering if there are any fans of Ry Cooder on this forum - and if so are there any patches or ideas of how to get close to his sound?

please see here:

Thanks so much.

[soundog]

Well, that video is a start. And there is plenty online regarding his guitars and hardware. For example, this. The guy is a guitar junky, and has a great collection of 6-strings, mandolins, and oddities.

 

I love Ry's playing. Its really staccato, percussive. And his slide work is masterful. If I was trying to emulate via Helix, I'd use old-school Helix blocks. Maybe a Tweed or Dumble amp, plenty of compression (a la a couple of compressors in series), and then a bit of the slapjack echo type stuff used in the video you posted. That vacuum cleaner looking thing is probably a preamp with transformer and tubes. Helix doesn't have vacuum cleaner looking things, but you could use a Teemah fuzz or the like to tear up the tone a little bit before it hits the amp.

[DunedinDragon]

Well being a long-time Ry Cooder fan from the 70s to current stuff, I don't know that there's any specific combination of effects that will fit his sound because his "sound" is really 90% technique and the rest changes with each song.  This is good news for the Helix because you really only have to get his hybrid picking with tremolo, and slide techniques down then add in the right mixture of effects based on each song.  Most of his effects are fairly light except when he goes for a more lush sound with delay and light chorus and vibrato.  Some of his more recent stuff can have a bit more dirt than most of his older stuff, but most of his stuff is really based on a very mellow mid-range strat, les paul, or 335.  I've always used a Vox predominantly on his stuff but he's mostly moved on to some of the newer boutique amps recently so you could probably use any of those types as well.

But the key with him will always be his technique which is very unique and people can immediately identify with that.