Creamy Blues Tone

[CianPH]

Hi All

 

Have been struggling a bit to get the tone I'm looking for. This kid on youtube has nailed his blues tone so looking to get as close as possible. There's just a real nice character to his tone. 

 

In the comments he mentioned that his chain look like this:

 

"Fender American Vintage 56 strat. Amp is a Deluxe Reverb. My pedal chain is: Polytune 3- TS808 - BB Preamp - J Rockett Archer - TC Electronic Flashback delay!

I use a J Rockett Archer as a clean/ warmth boost. On my amp the treble is around 6-7, bass around 4!"

 

Have tried for quite a while but don't seem to be coming close at all. I have a US Strat, a variax (if that helps) runnign through the Helix and into an L6 Powerrcal 112 Plus. 

 

Does anyone know of a similar tone or facny giving this one a go and passing on the settings?

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

[CianPH]

Each to their own I suppose but I think the tone is really good (as do a lot of the youtube commenters). There's a creamy richness to it and a little bite too and he controls it a lot with just the knobs which I like, rather than the pedals. I'd like to find a tone that breaks or sings at the twist of the volume knob so something that's just about to sing at a slightyl lower volume. Hopefully that makes sense somewhat. 

 

Anyways as I mentioned I have the Variax JT59 which can get me a '59 Strat or I have an actual US strat too so my guitars arent the problem, I'm just looking for pointers for the Helix!

 

"Play with presets and pickup selection" doesn't really help me too much but I appreciate the response ;)

 

Ps. there's a few more vids on his page but I just grabbed any two as an example. 

[brue58ski]

Well as far as the chain goes.

 

Fender American Vintage 56 strat. Amp is a Deluxe Reverb. My pedal chain is: Polytune 3- TS808 - BB Preamp - J Rockett Archer - TC Electronic Flashback delay!

 

You have a strat, the Helix has a Deluxe Reverb, the Polytune is just a tuner. It also acts as a buffer but you don't need that. The Helix has an 808, the BB Preamp is an Xotic pedal and the Helix's Kinky boost is an Xotic EP Booster, the JJ Rocket claims to be built on the "Centaur" circuit and the Helix has a Klon Centaur model called Minotaur, he says he uses that as a clean/warmth boost so keep the gain low and adjust the output so that it's the same level as when it's not on when you're clean. Adjust the tone to get to "warm". the Flashback emulates many different delays so I'm sure the Helix has you covered there.

 

So I dont' know how close the two pedals Helix has are to the BB Preamp and the JJ Rocket but one of the things I love about the Helix is when I can emulate exactly the chain a particular artist uses in the Helix, it's usually gotten me in the ballpark. Even if those pedals don't come close I would then just start to wander through all the other distortions in the Helix. On other thing to mess around with with your Strat is the input impedance. See how that affects things. The Variax does this automatically so there's no way to do that with the Variax. That's all the advice I have. Good Luck!

[soundog]

Judging from the number of stomp boxes on the filing cabinet behind the guitarist in the youtube frame shot, I'd say that guy has worked for a long time on his tone.

 

To add to brue58ski's good tips .... so much is dependent on your guitar and the pickup selection, volume, and tone controls on the guitar. If you're using a Variax, don't forget to try using it without modeling (as a "normal" guitar). For blues tones, I like using some Minotaur before the amp. Dial it in low at first. Then play with the gain and volume settings of the Deluxe Reverb block. Get a good sense of how the tone changes (adjusting guitar settings, Minotaur, and amp gain/volume) before adding other effects blocks. Between those adjustments, you've already got a lot of variables that work together. After you get close to a tone you like, you can add any distortion/fuzz, reverb, and delay effects to taste.

[CianPH]

Thanks both, great tips. I have gotten a close base tone, just trying to get a bit more character out of it now (over and above what I can do with my fingers).

 

Cheers

[Lone_Poor_Boy]

Note: I deleted my posts last night because I was critiquing the player and not answering your questions, and since I knew many here could answer them far better than me.

 

That said, Soundogs post reminded me of one thing I noted that I believe is relevant.  Try the Variax non-VDI.  Or the Strat.  The Variax does great on a lot of stuff but via VDI it was not working out for me on anything with finesse/nuance.  It does fine via 1/4", no battery, as a regular old guitar.  Relative to the songs you posted, I would likely be frustrated doing the shuffle on the processed Variax, but it would probably do fine on the Ray Charles tune as it has more things to mask it's imperfections.      

[SaschaFranck]

You could as well just post some DI guitar snipplets of your own, sort of resembling that style. Then people could try to reamp it.