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Hi, I’ve bought an Epiphone Riviera to learn 1950s / early 1960s classic Ska rhythm guitar. I need to get it set up, but I’m hesitating due to lack of Jazz comping / classic Ska rhythm guitar experience. Can you advise please ?
It seems that classic Ska was originally played in Jamaica by Jazz musicians who did Ska session work to supplement their evening Jazz and Swing band shows. Their rhythm guitars were probably set up for Jazz, which I guess means higher action, wooden floating bridges and probably heavier gauge strings than what I was originally considering…
I imagine they did use their Jazz archtops for Ska, but I could be wrong. There aren’t many old photos on the Internet to help. Ernest Ranglin apparently first used a Guild X-50 in the 1950s then moved on to ES-335 style guitars. The present day Skatalites use a Stratocaster. Lower action and thinner guage strings on a Stratocaster might help with the repetitive fretting movement…
I’ve chosen a Riviera as the current version is a very close copy of the 1962 original, with bright mini-humbuckers and the frequensator tailpiece that seems to improve bass string clarity. It looks the part, sounds vibrant played clean, and seems to span the middle of 50s / 60s classic Ska period. Google AI popped-up and agreed that it is a good guitar for Ska…
I need to let the luthier know my set-up preferences. I’ve decided on a Tusq XL nut replacement, new D’Addario 10-45 pure nickel strings (I can always go thicker in the future and have the nut re-cut). The very first Riviera had bone saddles though, compared to metal on the current Riviera’s Tune-o’matic bridge. I wonder if Tusq saddles would help or detract with being heard alongside the brass instruments ? Should I go for low action, medium or high…
Any advice on set-up would be much appreciated. I value Jazz Guitar Online more than Google AI !
Greenwood
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07-01-2025 06:51 AM
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You're overthinking it. I saw a video of Ranglin playing a version of My Boy Lollipop on his single pickup Guild, probably strung with fattish flatwounds. Not muddy sounding at all, with the right EQ etc.
To get near that sound I'd probably start with any double humbucker guitar (whether solid or hollow) in the middle position. I think flats sound cool for this, but YMMV. A Strat strung with light gauge roundwounds would have a very different percussive feel, so it would depend on player input.
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I don't think the guitar really matters. Almost anything will work. It should be set up with a higher action so you can dig in more. The guitar is a percussion instrument. Even single notes are percussive. Muting is just as important as the notes. You're part of the rhythm section.
Your amp is probably just as important, because you want it to be clean but also pushed, so you don't have to play too hard. You want your chords, single notes, and chicka-chickas to be all heard. A spring reverb is pretty helpful.
Ska playing is repetitive, your wrist is going to be going back and forth without a break, so you want to be relaxed. If you get tired, your playing will sound tired. If your amp is set up well you will be more relaxed because you won't have to work as hard.
I'm not sure the nut will matter, because you won't be using open strings very much.
Oh, and you're going to break strings a lot. Thicker strings will help you break less strings.
Ernst Ranglin and the Skatellites have a lot of jazz in them, with longer solos. I'm not sure what kind of ska you're playing, but most of it is rhythm playing, not solos.
I'm a big Desmond Dekker fan. I actually don't know who plays on those old cuts, but it's great, sort of the gold standard for me. It has it all; single notes, chords, chord melodies, chicken scratch ghost notes.
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Hi, thanks Peter and Supersoul for your responses, much appreciated.
“The Skatalites - Essential Artist Collection” by Sanctuary Records is my current main reference. 50 tracks where all the classic Ska musicians merge into one big collective jam, so it seems. To me, it feels like Jazz comping transported to Jamaica with rum-fuelled horn section and intermittent enthusiastic shouting ! Quite appealing. Even the guiro (two bits of wood) used on some of the tracks in place of guitar creates a great rhythmic groove !
Ernest Ranglin, in an interview, said that he chooses the thickest strings and thickest pick he can find. So, yes, very percussive. And so higher action is probably better.
Yet, Lynn Taitt, who went on from classic Ska to be the main man for Jamaican Rocksteady guitar (I think it was him in The Aces who were the backing group for Desmond Decker’s “007” recording), used a Hofner Super Solid (Hofner’s attempt at copying a Strat but with two staple humbuckers) and the current Skatalites use a Strat.
So, I’ve been hanging somewhere between two bits of wood, a hollow archtop, ES-335 and Strat - probably as wide as you can get ! That’s why I decided on the Riviera as being roughly in the middle. In earlier days, The Loar was appealing, but an Epiphone is much easier to find and afford.
With the amp, I’ve got a TC Electronics Ampworx Combo Deluxe 65 amp in a pedal. It’s got a good reverb and a ‘master volume’ control, so with high headroom you can achieve near-break-up with the volume turned way down.
The fact that it is electric guitar comping, does that mean that you can be less percussive and use the amp to deliver more of the power of the strum ? If so, could the strings be less heavy than in the old days ?
Greenwood
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I would turn the tone knob to the treble side and use the bridge pickup if my guitar had one. Tone is incredibly over rated, don't worry about it beyond getting it good enough. When you play live, a room will change your sound all night long as people come and go.
Also, muddy jazz tone is dull and boring.
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I played ska for the best part of 2000's in different bands, we've opened for the Skatalites, The Toasters, The Slackers, The English Beat and so on, and I played many different guitars. I had strat, tele, Gretsch hollowbody, Gretsch duo jet, and I saw guitarists in all those bands playing whatever... In my experience you can play anything through anything, it don't really matter that much. All you need is a good percussive attack, the muting technique, and choose the right chord voicings. Basically that's one style where I'd say it's all in your hands.
Now upstroke or downstroke, that's where the most important debate for guitar players in ska is. Oh boy, some will want to cancel you if they see you are using upstrokes, call you a fraud haha. I had those discussions.
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Upstroke is clearly the correct technique, I can tell by hearing it.
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Hi Hep To The Jive, thanks, that’s really good to know.
I’ve read there were more upstrokes in classic Ska and then Lynn Taitt reversed things to the downstroke for Rocksteady. After brief fame as the top guitarist in Jamaica he moved to Canada and apparently faded away (hopefully not due to championing downstroking !).
I wonder if they had the same arguments for the guiro
as in Baba Brooks Band performing “Vitamin A”
Amazing that two bits of wood were chosen above a comping guitar !
Greenwood
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You would think, but the 'purists' claim otherwise, and would shame you lol. There was an interview with Ernest Ranglin somewhere where he said they played downstroke for proper feel on all the early ska records, maybe that's where the purists are coming from?
Originally Posted by AllanAllen
But then the two tone ska guys most certainly didn't care about that rule, and the 3rd wave absolutely used upstroke for those crazy fast tempos. So... who cares, whatever works!
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Long as you plug into a Twin Reverb the rest won't really matter. Good luck!!!
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Anything will do. The sound quality of those old recordings is so bad that you can’t really hear anything over the horns, except the odd guitar slide.
Def sounds like downstrokes though. The skank sound associated with later ‘roots' reggae still used a mix of up and down strokes.
Here is down strokes.
The Alpha Boys music school sure did turn out some great musicians. My fave recordings are by Top Deck. Those were sessions paid for and produced by Justin Yap. They had a sound and energy that the other studios didn't capture (imo). 'El Cid’ is on my funeral playlist.
Here is a good example of Yap’s work, for those not familiar.
For me the biggest sin and why I only ever listen to the early recordings, is that I want my ska to sound like an old tape, not a mini disk. This is why many never capture the early sound of Jamaican Jazz; not even the Skatalites. The cleaner the sound the less I like it.
I recently found an old classic I’d been hunting down for nearly 30 years.
Last edited by Archie; 07-03-2025 at 07:55 PM.
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Hi Archie, thanks for your response. Yes, the roughness and energy and ‘dirtyness’ of classic Ska is what first attracted me. It’s a bit like rough Trad Jazz.
Maybe I’ll set up the Riviera with Tusq saddles after all to tone down the sharp brightness of the stock metal saddles. As I’ve currently got 10-45s, it also might help avoid broken strings as mentioned by Supersoul. I wonder if using a Tweed 55 amp pedal instead of Deluxe Reverb 65 pedal would help ?
Here’s another ‘dirty’ classic Ska track with that irresistible comping, but maybe the guitar sound doesn’t really matter too much, just being there ‘in the pocket’ swinging is more important:
Rocksteady cleans things up more to support the R&B&Soul influenced singing. Here’s a great Rocksteady track by The Techniques that seems to bridge classic Ska and Reggae:
And then the Australians bring back ‘dirty’ Ska (can’t quite make out the guitar, though there is one there !):
All still have that rhythm guitar comping spirit born of Jazz, me thinks. I wonder who started it all - wasn’t there a guitarist from Belgium way back ?
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Downstroke for sure on the Jamaican recordings but upstroke for the Later two Tone like specials and Madness. You can tell the difference by comparing them both.
Lynn Tait was another Jamaican guitarist to check out. They had much thicker sounds. Watch out for feedback issues as the band will probably be loud so a 17 inch full size could cause you problems. I saw earnest ranglin at reading about 2003 he was playing a full size guild.
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I remember this one from the '80's. Not sure if it helps but I liked it.
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I think that this question is not about power of the amp but the player’s touch. You can never reach same physicality and accuracy with thin gauges. Originally Posted by Greenwood
If You want to get authentic, get the cheapest gear You can, I guess that they had only cheap gear in 60’s Kingston.
Somebody mentioned the ”right chord voicings”. My band have had a ska/reggae version of our original song in our set list and I struggled to find any information about the right voicings to sound more authentic. Too much jazz chords wasn’t the ticket, more like upper string triads.
Good luck, a bit of ska is always refreshing!
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Loud, clean amp. Tone is far down on the list of importance. The guitar is very much a percussion instrument, part of the rhythm section. Heavier strings can take a wider range playing strength. Skinny strings will crap out. Originally Posted by Herbie
For chord voicings, so much of it matters about the rest of the band and finding your sonic space. If there's a keyboard player, maybe play in a higher or lower register. If there are horns, you probably want to stay out of their range. Or at least be conscious of these things, because sometimes you might play a guitar part that fits in with the horns or keyboard. If there are no horns... again different.
Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. Ska is dance music.
The Selecter live from 1980. They have two guitarists, keyboards, bass and drums. The guitarists weave in and out of eachother and almost sound like one. Both on Fenders and the amps are clean except for the occasional lead. They play both up and downstrokes. The one guy is almost entirely rhythm, the other guy is like 80% rhythm with some lead parts and more ringing out texture chords.
Last edited by supersoul; 07-05-2025 at 11:02 AM.
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Duck Soup is a great track, I’ve got that on vinyl. Reid had some good songs with the Skatalites. ‘They' say that before reggae there was Prince Buster but I think Justin Hinds, was one of the biggest influences in the emergence of rock steady and reggae.
Another classic ska track 'Lucky Seven', which is credited to 'Justin Hines’ and the Dominos, yet I had always suspected it was King Sporty or Prince Buster, doing the dejaying backed by the Skatalites.
Sound will vary from stage to stage, room to room. The energy and feel, will be far more important.
I used to play drums in a roots reggae band. It was a great time!
Whilst Earnest Wrangling takes credit for inventing Ska, he was never a member of the Skatalites (as far as I know). No doubt they mostly used bar chords or full voicings, so they could mute the lower strings.
Last edited by Archie; 07-05-2025 at 10:24 AM.
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Hi, Thank you Archie, Herbie, Heybopper, Sleeko and Supersoul for your input, very helpful.
I’m putting together a final post from me to summarise what I’ve just learnt from this forum along with some links to a long article from JazzTimes on Jazz’s connection to Ska, what it was like in Jamaica and also videos from a top guitarist on the art of Jazz comping and how to set up your electric guitar (watch this space).
Archie, that was an interesting photo that you’ve just posted. The guitarist looks like he has a flat-top Gibson jumbo with a soundhole pickup. I wonder if it is stuffed with old socks ! Just shows that, yes, any guitar could do for Ska. And, that looks like top guitarist Lynn Taitt at the back holding a dismantled mic stand looking a bit worried !
As it’s been a hot summer here with people outside partying, here’s another classic Ska track ideal to step out into the cooler evening with a rum punch
(with the guitarist clearly being there to support the horns).
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I think the proper name for Ska is Jamaican jazz and it is referred to as that in some quarters. Originally Posted by Greenwood
Hi, Thank you Archie, Herbie, Heybopper, Sleeko and Supersoul for your input, very helpful.
I’m putting together a final post from me to summarise what I’ve just learnt from this forum along with some links to a long article from JazzTimes on Jazz’s connection to Ska, what it was like in Jamaica and also videos from a top guitarist on the art of Jazz comping and how to set up your electric guitar (watch this space).
Archie, that was an interesting photo that you’ve just posted. The guitarist looks like he has a flat-top Gibson jumbo with a soundhole pickup. I wonder if it is stuffed with old socks ! Just shows that, yes, any guitar could do for Ska. And, that looks like top guitarist Lynn Taitt at the back holding a dismantled mic stand looking a bit worried !
As it’s been a hot summer here with people outside partying, here’s another classic Ska track ideal to step out into the cooler evening with a rum punch
(with the guitarist clearly being there to support the horns).
The guitar is a Gibson SJ200 (or there about). I think the singer on the right is Stranger Cole and the women might be Patsy Todd.
Stranger Cole is credited for having made the first reggae song in 68 with Bangarang. The song also includes a sort of solo by Lester Sterling, which means the founding of Reggae, is also from Jazz.Last edited by Archie; 07-07-2025 at 08:53 PM.
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