The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Longtime lurker, new member. I wanted to see if anyone here was using a Fender Super Reverb Tonemaster for their jazz playing? If so, I would love to share settings and discuss what is working and what is not working for you. Perhaps we can help each other improve our tone with this great amp.

    For my archtop, I have somewhat settled on 4-2-6-7 (vol-treble-mids-bass), with the tone rolled down significantly on the guitar. This definitely gives something along the lines of "the" warm, creamy, jazz tone we all dream about. Not quite there, but close. I also found that going XLR out, using the Shure 57 model setting on the back of the amp, improves it even more. Not quite the Joe Pass Intercontinental tone (my holy grail) but in the ballpark (and yes I know so much is in the fingers).

    In any event, thanks for having me and look forward to hearing what everyone else is doing with this amp.

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  3. #2

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    I have no experience with any of the tonemaster amps, but the Joe Pass Intercontinental tone is my holy grail tone. I get VERY close to that tone with any of my three ES-175's strung with flatwounds and played through any of my three Henriksen Class D amps. I have the tone controls on the amps set flat (12 o clock) and I roll back the tone and volume knobs on the guitar just a bit (and use the neck pickup only).

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by BasilA
    For my archtop, I have somewhat settled on 4-2-6-7 (vol-treble-mids-bass), with the tone rolled down significantly on the guitar.
    I used similar settings on my tube amps for decades, and I used bass amps to make the bottom even fatter. For some reason, I thought that my fat and flabby tone was "jazzy". But I discovered within the last 6 or 7 years that running the tone controls much lower on the amp yield a much more pleasant quality. I run my Blu, DV Mark Jazz 12, DV Mark EG250, and SuperBlock US flat with the highs at 11 o'clock and the mids (for those amps that have mid pots) between 11 and 12. I use either a CS PR or a Vibrolux in the backline at the club in which I play twice a week. I run the bass and treble at 3 on both and the volume at or slightly above 4, which is a bit more volume than I needed when I ran the bass at 7 and the treble at 5.

    The lower bass setting keeps the fundamentals but seems to reduce the second harmonics that cause the fatness - it's just not how a guitar sounds. If the speaker doesn't have the bottom end, pumping up the second harmonic is a good way to fake it when you want boom. But that makes the low string(s) sound different from the top 4 or 5, and I like all of the strings on my guitar to sound the same except for pitch. The Blu does that best, with the SBUS running a close second through my Toob 10, my RevSound RS8, or my RE 10" cab.

    I haven't played through a TM Super, but the above works great through a TM Deluxe. A prior thread similar to this one contained a post suggesting that we dial all the tone pots back to 0 and start advancing them in small increments one at a time, until we find the tone we like best. You have to spend some time checking all the combinations from 1-1-1 through 5-5-5 until you find the one that works best for a given guitar. It's a bit different for each of my archtops (16" laminated,16" carved solid, and 17" carved solid).

  5. #4

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    With my settings, I am experiencing the difference in volume between the low and high strings, the low strings being much louder…I’ll experiment with your suggestion. Is the DV Mark as good as everyone says? Oozing jazz tone right out of the box?

    Quote Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
    I used similar settings on my tube amps for decades, and I used bass amps to make the bottom even fatter. For some reason, I thought that my fat and flabby tone was "jazzy". But I discovered within the last 6 or 7 years that running the tone controls much lower on the amp yield a much more pleasant quality. I run my Blu, DV Mark Jazz 12, DV Mark EG250, and SuperBlock US flat with the highs at 11 o'clock and the mids (for those amps that have mid pots) between 11 and 12. I use either a CS PR or a Vibrolux in the backline at the club in which I play twice a week. I run the bass and treble at 3 on both and the volume at or slightly above 4, which is a bit more volume than I needed when I ran the bass at 7 and the treble at 5.

    The lower bass setting keeps the fundamentals but seems to reduce the second harmonics that cause the fatness - it's just not how a guitar sounds. If the speaker doesn't have the bottom end, pumping up the second harmonic is a good way to fake it when you want boom. But that makes the low string(s) sound different from the top 4 or 5, and I like all of the strings on my guitar to sound the same except for pitch. The Blu does that best, with the SBUS running a close second through my Toob 10, my RevSound RS8, or my RE 10" cab.

    I haven't played through a TM Super, but the above works great through a TM Deluxe. A prior thread similar to this one contained a post suggesting that we dial all the tone pots back to 0 and start advancing them in small increments one at a time, until we find the tone we like best. You have to spend some time checking all the combinations from 1-1-1 through 5-5-5 until you find the one that works best for a given guitar. It's a bit different for each of my archtops (16" laminated,16" carved solid, and 17" carved solid).

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by BasilA
    Is the DV Mark as good as everyone says? Oozing jazz tone right out of the box?
    Yes. As with many other amps, you need to tweak EQ to find the best tone for your guitar and style. But for me, the same range covers set & floating pickups over carved & laminated tops. The sweet spot is easy to find, and it’s not so narrow that you’re in and out within a few degrees.

    Yes, the reverb is a little bit weird and spacey if turned up beyond 9 to 10 o’clock. And it’s squeaky clean, so it’s not quite as “warm” as the Vibrolux. But I really like it.

    The stage is small & crowded, especially now that we have a big Leslie. And few of the touring acts that come through on Fridays & Saturdays will use it. So we keep it in the back and leave the PR and V’lux on stage. But I used the Jazz 12 every week while it was there. I’m judt too old to drag amps around

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by BasilA
    With my settings, I am experiencing the difference in volume between the low and high strings, the low strings being much louder…I’ll experiment with your suggestion. Is the DV Mark as good as everyone says? Oozing jazz tone right out of the box?
    I have the DV Mark Little Jazz. 15 lbs, sounds great and is pretty much as loud as I need to go, which includes unamplified big bands. Club gigs, but nothing really loud.

    I have mids at noon, highs at 11 and bass off or nearly so. I don't like a lot of lows in my sound. Even if I run it through a 12 inch cabinet I still feel that way.

    I use the reverb at about 9 o clock, which is not adding a lot of reverb. I have to add more reverb with my pedal board to get a sound I like. I recently tried going right into the LJ, so no added reverb, and didn't like the sound. Once I plugged in the pedal board (Boss ME80) my sound came back.

    Overall, I can get my sound from the LJ, with the ME80, and it goes as loud as I usually need.

    Like other amps, maybe more so, it is sensitive to position. I like it flat on the floor, but others don't. It has a rear port, and you may not like the sound backed against a wall. The composition of the floor may matter. It may help not to be right next to the amp, although I'm not sure about that.

  8. #7

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    Speakers?

    It makes a huge difference. I have a 64 with sets of CTS, and Vintage Jensen ceramics. A very different sound from each, but with both in XY, man it's heaven.

    b 4 (depends on the guitar)
    m 8+
    t 4


    Don't EVER use the bright switch!!!

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by BasilA
    For my archtop, I have somewhat settled on 4-2-6-7 (vol-treble-mids-bass)
    I run all my Fender and Fender-type amps with the bass much lower. It is my experience that the Fender-type amps support the bass of the guitar much more than other amps due to be built to match with the single coils of the Fender guitars.
    Hence, I have the bass rolled down for my archtops to max. 2-3, depending on the acoustic of the room. More bass makes for me the sound boomy and less separating chord tones.
    To give you a number, my Fender-type amp settings are 4-5-7-2 (v-t-m-b), with some variation depending on guitar and room. Tone pot on the guitar rolled down, but never down to zero.

  10. #9

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    “Tone pot rolled down, but never to zero” is practically a universal esprit-de-corps in this world.

  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by NSJ
    “Tone pot rolled down, but never to zero” is practically a universal esprit-de-corps in this world.
    And I'll never understand it. The "muted woof" of so many people who think that's "jazz tone." I don't hear that at all when I listen to Charlie Christian, Johnny Smith, Kenny Burrell..... I still don't really understand how the "muffled tone" thing became synonymous with jazz... other than Wes Montgomery's influence, but not everyone was trying to sound like Wes...

    I know many of the early amps... Gibson GA's, EH's, also Fender tweeds, were very mids-focused, and could have quite a bit of low end with an attenuated high end. Then as amps got newer, the mids thinned out and the treble became much more apparent. Maybe that has something to do with it... someone trying to get the tone of an ES-125 into a GA50, but with an ES-175 and a blackface Fender? That would require some guitar-tone-knob-lowering for sure, as the blackface amps have not only prominent treble, but are voiced with alot of presence (high-highs) as well...

    Just morning coffee thoughts...

  12. #11

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    4 Jensen P10Rs in the Tonemaster version of the Super Reverb...quite nice...

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by ruger9
    And I'll never understand it. The "muted woof" of so many people who think that's "jazz tone." I don't hear that at all when I listen to Charlie Christian, Johnny Smith, Kenny Burrell..... I still don't really understand how the "muffled tone" thing became synonymous with jazz... other than Wes Montgomery's influence, but not everyone was trying to sound like Wes.
    I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that most exposure to jazz guitar tone (and music in general) "when jazz was king" was through recordings, and the quality of all but the best records and home audio systems was less than great in the '40s, '50s and '60s compared to what came along later in the 20th century. Crystal phono cartridges and "full range" speakers in cabinets that were no more than cheap furniture with little or no acoustic science in their design were major causes of the dull plonk that was amplified jazz guitar tone for many.

    Wes had a pretty fine archtop tone on many of his records - the dull thunky tone we heard at home was a product of the entire recording and reproducing process to some degree. Seeing the greats live was a different experience. I sat stageside at Boston's Jazz Workshop to hear Wes for my 21st birthday (55 years ago) and he had the same sound of an L-5 through a Twin that we get today. His thumb must have been so callused that it was as hard as a pick to give his tone the attack it had - it was not dull at all. But that sound was dulled by our playback equipment at the time. As recoding technology and our audio equipment got better, jazz guitar tone woke up.

    I heard Pat Martino at the Club Harlem Lounge in Atlantic City in the summer of '64 with Willis Jackson. Yes, both Pat and I were under 21 in a bar (shocking in AC, I know!). I don't even remember what he was playing, but his tone was alive. Yet on his early recordings, it was significantly less so. The same was true for Sal Salvador (who brought his band to Steel Pier) and all the other greats I was lucky enough to get to hear growing up in a town with a lot of live jazz.

    So many jazz guitar players who got started back then seem to have emulated live what they heard on records from their marginal home systems. Exposure to live jazz guitar was limited unless you lived in a major metropolitan area or the home town of one of the young guns (like Indianapolis). Today, sound quality from earbuds and a mobile phone is light years ahead of what most people could get / afford back then. So now we know how even those old recordings really sounded. Some were intentionally thunky but many / most were not.

  14. #13

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    ^^George Benson talks quite a bit about Wes’s callus—said he would play with the side of his thumb when he wanted mellow, then “dig in” with the callus when he wanted to sharpen the attack.

    IMO that’s what fingernails are for…. ;-)

    As far as tone, much as I love Jim Hall, I think he set a standard for a “rolled back”, dark tone. A lot of modern players like Pat Metheny and John Scofield seem to be playing off his example.

    Btw, surely the drinking age was 18 in those days? I remember going to the Village Vanguard to see Woody Shaw when I was 18. There was a 2-drink minimum. I ordered whiskey sours. Funny I haven’t drunk them much since I was 18…

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
    I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that most exposure to jazz guitar tone (and music in general) "when jazz was king" was through recordings, and the quality of all but the best records and home audio systems was less than great in the '40s, '50s and '60s compared to what came along later in the 20th century. Crystal phono cartridges and "full range" speakers in cabinets that were no more than cheap furniture with little or no acoustic science in their design were major causes of the dull plonk that was amplified jazz guitar tone for many.

    Wes had a pretty fine archtop tone on many of his records - the dull thunky tone we heard at home was a product of the entire recording and reproducing process to some degree. Seeing the greats live was a different experience. I sat stageside at Boston's Jazz Workshop to hear Wes for my 21st birthday (55 years ago) and he had the same sound of an L-5 through a Twin that we get today. His thumb must have been so callused that it was as hard as a pick to give his tone the attack it had - it was not dull at all. But that sound was dulled by our playback equipment at the time. As recoding technology and our audio equipment got better, jazz guitar tone woke up.

    I heard Pat Martino at the Club Harlem Lounge in Atlantic City in the summer of '64 with Willis Jackson. Yes, both Pat and I were under 21 in a bar (shocking in AC, I know!). I don't even remember what he was playing, but his tone was alive. Yet on his early recordings, it was significantly less so. The same was true for Sal Salvador (who brought his band to Steel Pier) and all the other greats I was lucky enough to get to hear growing up in a town with a lot of live jazz.

    So many jazz guitar players who got started back then seem to have emulated live what they heard on records from their marginal home systems. Exposure to live jazz guitar was limited unless you lived in a major metropolitan area or the home town of one of the young guns (like Indianapolis). Today, sound quality from earbuds and a mobile phone is light years ahead of what most people could get / afford back then. So now we know how even those old recordings really sounded. Some were intentionally thunky but many / most were not.
    Thanks for sharing these great stories! Someone who actually heard Wes live just wow...

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
    I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that most exposure to jazz guitar tone (and music in general) "when jazz was king" was through recordings, and the quality of all but the best records and home audio systems was less than great in the '40s, '50s and '60s compared to what came along later in the 20th century. Crystal phono cartridges and "full range" speakers in cabinets that were no more than cheap furniture with little or no acoustic science in their design were major causes of the dull plonk that was amplified jazz guitar tone for many.

    Wes had a pretty fine archtop tone on many of his records - the dull thunky tone we heard at home was a product of the entire recording and reproducing process to some degree. Seeing the greats live was a different experience. I sat stageside at Boston's Jazz Workshop to hear Wes for my 21st birthday (55 years ago) and he had the same sound of an L-5 through a Twin that we get today. His thumb must have been so callused that it was as hard as a pick to give his tone the attack it had - it was not dull at all. But that sound was dulled by our playback equipment at the time. As recoding technology and our audio equipment got better, jazz guitar tone woke up.

    I heard Pat Martino at the Club Harlem Lounge in Atlantic City in the summer of '64 with Willis Jackson. Yes, both Pat and I were under 21 in a bar (shocking in AC, I know!). I don't even remember what he was playing, but his tone was alive. Yet on his early recordings, it was significantly less so. The same was true for Sal Salvador (who brought his band to Steel Pier) and all the other greats I was lucky enough to get to hear growing up in a town with a lot of live jazz.

    So many jazz guitar players who got started back then seem to have emulated live what they heard on records from their marginal home systems. Exposure to live jazz guitar was limited unless you lived in a major metropolitan area or the home town of one of the young guns (like Indianapolis). Today, sound quality from earbuds and a mobile phone is light years ahead of what most people could get / afford back then. So now we know how even those old recordings really sounded. Some were intentionally thunky but many / most were not.
    Yes, I've thought much the same thing, especially with the older recordings such as Charlie Christian & T-Bone Walker. I always assumed to hear CC live back then it did NOT sound like his recordings. That's one of those "we'll never really know" things, but it makes sense. Between the dull sounding amps and the dull sounding recording methods...

  17. #16

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    For me, Joe Pass’s tone in Intercontinental is the gold standard. I’ve heard part of that magic was the mic’ing of the amp with a shure57 and the placement relative to the speaker. I guess you never know when you catch lightening in a bottle, sure wish someone took copious notes on how that recording was made and how that tone was achieved.

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
    Btw, surely the drinking age was 18 in those days? I remember going to the Village Vanguard to see Woody Shaw when I was 18. There was a 2-drink minimum. I ordered whiskey sours. Funny I haven’t drunk them much since I was 18…
    It was 21. We’re talking about the 1960s. Some states lowered it to 18 starting in ‘68 IIRC. But in 1984 a federal law was passed denying highway funds to states that didn’t make it 21.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
    It was 21. We’re talking about the 1960s. Some states lowered it to 18 starting in ‘68 IIRC. But in 1984 a federal law was passed denying highway funds to states that didn’t make it 21.
    Ah since kids were being sent off to fight the Cong in Vietnam--might as well be able to buy a drink while in the Saigon bars, right?

    It was actually increased state-by-state beginning in 1980 or so. I was living in GA at the time. I turned 18 in November '79, and had a few months of legality until they raised it to 19. (Fortunately, I looked a lot like an older frat brother who gave me his old student ID card, so I never once had a problem buying beer in college.) I think I was OK after November '80. Eventually, they raised it to 21 due to Fed pressure, but I was already 21 at that time.

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
    Ah since kids were being sent off to fight the Cong in Vietnam--might as well be able to buy a drink while in the Saigon bars, right?
    .
    If you're old enough to fight, you're old enough to drink.

    My dad served on the carrier Hornet in WWII (actually Hornet, then after she was sunk the Enterprise) as a radioman/gunner in SBDs and SB2Cs. When they would pull into port, the sailors would raise some hell... well, the sailors AND marines. Drunken fights, etc. San Francisco complained to the Navy about it. Apparently there were quite a few fake IDs at the time....

    So the skipper of the Hornet (I don't recall his name, it's in my dad's war journal), lined the crew up on the deck and announced there were complaints in town, apparently not only alot of trouble, but alot of "underage" drinking. And he was going to take care of that right now. Dad said there were 2 typists set up on deck, and they lined everyone up to have their IDs confiscated, then re-issued new ones with "proper" birthdates on them. My dad got up there, he was underage, had faked his ID, handed it over, and when they handed him his new one it had a NEW birth year on it. Dad was now "officially legal" to drink!

    Afterwards the skipper said, "I figure if you're old enough to fight a war, your'e old enough to drink."

  21. #20

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    I heard some of the greats live, including Wes (L5), Chuck Wayne (D'A), Joe Pass (boutique archtop, can't remember which), Pat Metheny (playing a 175), Mundell Lowe, George Benson, Barney Kessel (CC pickup), Herb Ellis (175, I think), Jim Hall (boutique, I think), Jack Wilkin (Comins GCS-1ES through an AER Compact 60), Vic Juris (Fuchs amp, don't recall the guitar), Mark Whitfield (archtop), Ed Cherry (archtop), Chico Pinheiro (Benedetto, Frameworks), Mimi Fox (various) and maybe some others that don't come to mind.

    I don't recall any of them sounding muddy.

    But, when I go out to a club with a less advanced guitarist, I often hear a muddy, bassy sound. I often wonder if it sounds that way to the player, or if the highs are getting lost in the room.

    But, here's a strange short story. At a student recital, the guitarist sounded terribly muddy to me. I happened to be standing next to Mimi Fox, so I asked her about it (I was studying with her at the time) and she said it sounded okay to her.

    In my own playing, I use a Little Jazz, with an 8 inch speaker and I turn the bass all the way down, or close. Comins GCS-1. That gives me a thick enough solo tone, but my tone on comping chords usually doesn't sound all that good (it can, in the right room). The chordal tone isn't thin enough (I don't want a lot of low end when I'm comping, thin sits better in the mix, for my taste). I can get closer with the coil splitter, but that gives me a problem compensating for the loss of volume -- and I have to remember to switch it back.
    Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 02-08-2023 at 06:55 PM.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    I heard some of the greats live, including Wes (L5), Chuck Wayne (D'A), Joe Pass (boutique archtop, can't remember which), Pat Metheny (playing a 175), Mundell Lowe, George Benson, Barney Kessel (CC pickup), Herb Ellis (175, I think), Jim Hall (boutique, I think), Jack Wilkins, Vic Juris, Mark Whitfield, Ed Cherry, Chico Pinheiro, Mimi Fox and maybe some others that don't come to mind.

    I don't recall any of them sounding muddy.

    But, when I go out to a club with a less advanced guitarist, I often hear a muddy, bassy sound. I often wonder if it sounds that way to the player, or if the highs are getting lost in the room.
    I agree with you. Even the thunkier greats had some wood and sparkle in their live tone. Sadly, I never got to hear Chuck Wayne in person. I still listen to his recordings often - he was a wonderful player.

    As a reformed mudslinger, I can tell you that it sounded that way to me and I liked it! I played a 175 through a B15N for years, and for some odd reason I loved that flabby bass. I thought it gave my solo gigs a real boost, and I loved the dull, muddy tone for my solos with the band. It wasn’t until the leader for whom I played 3+ gigs a week for a few years told me to get a “better” amp for the weddings etc I was playing with him that my tone tightened up.

    I always blamed it on the rock and pop that gradually replaced standards and swing tunes. But I’m pretty sure now that it was my heavy tone that he didn’t like. When I played 1/4 note comping on dance tunes, he often asked me to turn the amp down. This was strange, since he usually asked me to turn it up on everything else.

  23. #22

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    "That gives me a thick enough solo tone, but my tone on comping chords usually doesn't sound all that good (it can, in the right room). The chordal tone isn't thin enough (I don't want a lot of low end when I'm comping, thin sits better in the mix, for my taste)"

    That's where the bridge pickup comes in handy. Blend the neck pu w the bridge to tame the heavy bass when comping. For the longest time I only used the neck pu but years ago when I started playing r&b /funk tunes it forced me to blend the pu's to get a less boomy sound when comping.

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
    I agree with you. Even the thunkier greats had some wood and sparkle in their live tone. Sadly, I never got to hear Chuck Wayne in person. I still listen to his recordings often - he was a wonderful player.
    .
    Maybe you'd appreciate this story.

    In the mid 60's, probably 1966, I was studying with Carl Barry (still around and still great) in Brooklyn. Carl had a trio gig in a neighborhood bar in Bensonhurst. Just the usual single storefront gin mill. I was 16, but they didn't card me because I was with Carl. I had my first beer in bar that night.

    As I recall, Jack Wilkins (who taught at Sid Margolis' studio on Kings Highway along with Carl) was on bass that night. I don't know who played drums. Chuck Wayne came by to sit in after playing the Ed Sullivan show. Chuck was astonishing. I recall thinking that he could solo in 4 note chords better than others could solo with single notes. Together, they played with a kind of ethereal or "floaty" sound (hard to describe) which I haven't heard since. I think it had to do with the comping being Chuck Wayne style with 4 adjacent string-chords, often on the high strings. So, there was a lot of room between the comp and the bass.

  25. #24

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    I realized at one point, that for me to hear into the chords I need my guitar to have some top end.

    I also have the problem that when I get the chords sounding right, the single note stuff sounds a little too thin.

    About 15 years ago I did a stupid youtube vid describing how to use the gib four knob system to balance the neck and bridge PUs to be able to cut a little. I thought I discovered it… but similar to everything I have “discovered”, in music, someone else had already figured it out, and most likely wrote a book.

    I just spent a year working on a system of triads and inversions, that I thought I had come up with. Just a few weeks ago, I ended up with a book, that had a huge section on exactly what I had been working on for a year.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by st.bede
    I realized at one point, that for me to hear into the chords I need my guitar to have some top end.

    I also have the problem that when I get the chords sounding right, the single note stuff sounds a little too thin.

    About 15 years ago I did a stupid youtube vid describing how to use the gib four knob system to balance the neck and bridge PUs to be able to cut a little. I thought I discovered it… but similar to everything I have “discovered”, in music, someone else had already figured it out, and most likely wrote a book.

    I just spent a year working on a system of triads and inversions, that I thought I had come up with. Just a few weeks ago, I ended up with a book, that had a huge section on exactly what I had been working on for a year.
    I realize this is probably a travesty, but you could try setting your guitar tone to be a good comping sound, a bit thin and clear, and kick on any manner of pedals for a fatter midrange tone. Who knew! (I know that's a bit obvious).

    I have a floater that is a bit on the thin side, great for chords, and I'm experimenting with 3 pedals to see which one or combination works best for that: an Empress Compressor II, a modified Boss GE7 EQ, even a King of Tone in clean boost mode- they can all work for that with the right guitar and amp.

    In terms of inversions, I must have spent 2 years on that with my old teacher, and a great one, Harry Leahey in New Jersey. And every time I think I've discovered something new, I hear it on an old Johnnie Smith or Wes record!