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Just wanted to start a thread on cultivating tone on the instrument. Horn players spend hours playing long tones in practice rooms. It would be cool to examine parallels on our instrument as well. My observations thus far
In search of the bell (inspired by our classical brethren)
1. fingertip placement on the string
2. fingertip placement on the fret
3. angle of fretting hand
4. pressure applied to string
5. pick angle
6. pick motion
7. pick placement (near PUP or bridge)
Things not in technique:
1. pick material (I use gemstone and love it)
2. bridge material (I drive six hours to get a custom bridge for this reason)
3. top material
4. body material
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09-02-2015 01:19 PM
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And string material, type, and gauge
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Ooh, i'll contribute later when I have more time, but i wanted to say "great idea for a topic!"
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I'm curious about this as well. Is anyone here using Bias? amp or fx? I have both and have been finding it a little tricky to find a great clean jazz tone.
I think the best amp I've played was either the Comins jazz tube amp and also an AER compact 60. That thing was amazing. Super light and seemed omni directional! Just seemed to omit sound in every direction
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That might go under another thread... gear... just kidden, hell if I care! Yeah, the AER 60 is beautifull but playing 900 for an amp takes a dent, ya knows? I play out of a DV Mark and I bring it to every gig and playing opportunity. My Eastman becomes a howling monster if I plug into a tube or anything else. A shame, because she sings through the AER and the Mark. You just gotta rebalance with the DV, hell of a lot of bass (they make bass amps, so it makes sense) But, after the AER, this amp is the closest I've gotten to replicating that beautiful woody sound you get from the Eastmans
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that, or get Doug's Plugs... That sounds like a last resort.
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Sweet thanks man! I didn't know about these guys. Honestly not much of a jazzer anymore. Mostly metal these days :P By the way the El Rey is killer for metal! Massive massive tone.
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I saw Shostakovich vid... whew! Hey guy, the more I listen to "modern jazz", the more the label doesn't fit... and that is a beautiful thing, indeed. You got Kurt doing his thang, Kriesberg being all crazy with those wide intervals, you got Chris Dave and Glasper doing their thangs, you got Frisell being the Zen Master of Guitar Meditation thing (love Frisell), Mounder, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. At it's best, jazz is a music of freedom where everyone listens and contibutes. At it's worst, jazz is a contest for whose _______ is bigger. Keep on listenin, sheddin, and posting those vids.
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Grammar mistakes galore... yikes. Posting makes me grammer all wonky!
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grammar!
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I spend 95% of my practice time playing through a ZT Lunchbox Jr. - the one that weighs 5 lbs and has a tiny speaker. It keeps me honest when it comes to matters of tone, and translates into me getting a nice tone when I am using bigger rigs in real playing situations.
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I gotta get Hep on this thread, he always talks about the ZT.
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This quote from Colin Flemming's review of Jeff Tain Watts explains why I never tire of going back to jazz:
“Farley Strange” marries a vocal about gumbo with a thick electronic sheen, a sort of Creole-vibe crossed with a sensibility out of mid-period Radiohead. “Diva Man” has a gravelly vocal from Ku-umba Frank Lacy suggestive of Blind Willie Johnson, which dovetails nicely with the following “Blues for Mr. Charley,” a classic pre-dawn, post-booze construct that commences with a souped-up dirge figure that transitions to Mobley-esque swing courtesy of Troy Roberts’ tenor work.
At it's best, jazz is a musical gumbo of all sorts of influence
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I don't know why I never thought of doing something like this. When Bireli changes pickups and starts playing in a totally new voice. Genius. Different tone = different lines = different personality almost. Love it!
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That's the key. Everyone who has a tone has spent hours. Seasons.Horn players spend hours...
Tone is cultivated as a garden. One digs in, seeds are planted, roots develop. With time amidst the tools and the culture, tone sprouts.
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Ken, can I quote you on that. Beautiful, man.
Pete, I changed out the pup on my eastman for a shadow, but the real game changer was replacing the stock bridge with a custom bone/ ebony bridge. As a classical player, I don't need to tell you why a bone bridge is no laughing matter.
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actually, it was classical players that inspired me to find a luthier 4 hours away to take on the project. I love the tone I get now. Now the problem is the freaking humidity. Having a thin carved top can be beautiful and ugly at the same time, depending on the weather.
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I will get a better picture up, this was taken to help make a custom gemstone pick. That white you see is the bone, the tone screws go right through the bone. So the tone goes string --> bone --> metal --> to a big ebony base plate that is fit perfectly to the top (the stock bridge had gaps). Some on here might even call me crazy, but I love the sound I get with that guitar.
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The question is, as primarily electric player (archtop or otherwise, doesnt matter), do you have to practice with an amp to cultivate your tone? Is practicing unplugged a bad habit?
A follow up question is ... It's a different touch needed for electric guitar, much more softer than if you play an acoustic. Well, it's rather statement, but anybody thinks so? Just telling from my experience of playing Gypsy jazz and jazz on electric guitar. I cant use the same touch on both. Especially with some amps, solid state, where if you dig harder, you'll get awful harsh clipping tone.
Speaking of solid state, yes, ZT Lunchbox rules! I add plate reverb pedal, and work master and gain controls to get me some dirt, because I hate sterile clean tones of solid state amps! Then, I can control the tone and go from cleanish rhythm to dirty lead by just changing a pick attack. ZT allows me to do that, it reacts like a tube amp. Brilliant! Sometimes I add Blue Note preamp, if I have to play at very low volume. Just to make sure it doesnt sound too clean. I love it- dirty, mean, and mighty unclean, thats the tone for me!
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Other variables, room, weather, bassist, drummer, number of audience members, horn players, keys... I've found that my tone is seldom the same gig to gig, and that different gigs/lineups require different tones,ie my archtop tones don't cut it in my 8 piece 4 horn r&b band etc. I have ball park tones I aim for in the different situations I gig in regularly, with a little mental list of what gear works best for each. Time and time again I find in an electric situation my "fat" Tele is most flexible, and my Rivera Clubster Amp can do it all. In an acoustic situation my Gitane D500 is never wrong and my Taylor 412 is exquisite ( why don't they make a dedicated jazz guitar). Becoming aware of how other instruments affect my tone and vice versa has been a big help, my GL Bluesboy is pretty bright for a jazz trio but in a band with keys and horns it sits in the mix really really well.
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position on the neck is really important- some things just sound wrong in position A vs position B which sounds perfect.
Choice of upstroke and downstroke is also important - ttook me years to realise this.
personally I don't think equipment is a major factor - I always sound like me, although there is gear I prefer which makes it seem easier for me to play
the guitar's action too - I need a certain amount of resistance from the strings to produce a passable tone
ymmv ...
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Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
Yup, I played gypsy jazz for a few years and I found the same thing. I loved learning the picking style and I found that it was a very useful technique that gives you a very very strong swing in fact I found that I can't really play jazz unless I'm using this technique. And, yes you definitely have to tone down the movement in order to not over play an electric guitar. I think most gypsy players develop a fairly large movement in order to play at the volume of those jams. This means when I go over to electric I can be economical with the movement and play even faster
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A couple more thoughts. Pick shape and composition. Pick material makes a difference. Long ago I too used an agate pick. I had several Min'd picks and a couple of others, but I found one in particular to be my favorite. Then one day it slipped from my hand at practice, fell in slow motion to the ceramic tile floor and broke into pieces, along with my heart. It was like my dog had died. From that day, I decided that every link in the tone chain was to be widely available, cheap and on hand with redundant system redundancy. I bought picks in quantity, tested each one, and made sure each of my gigging guitar's cases contained the following: lots of picks, spare batteries for the tuner, band-aids, earplugs, mic puffs (clean and sterile), strap with working locks, Pepto-Bismol, throat spray...you get the idea. But I digress.
Pick shape: contour and thickness make a difference. I went through a longish period of modifying commercial picks to my ever-changing needs. Dunlop Stubbies, Big and Little, were prime candidates for work with files, sandpaper, and bits of stone and wood to achieve just the right shape in 3-D for the kind of articulation I wanted. learned a lot and made a mess.
Attack/amp repsonse: I have always relied heavily on the soft-knee compression of tube to shape my notes (when appropriate) to produce a kind of horn-like or vocal quality. Pick contour and touch vital. Not always successful...
Amplifier: The amp is an extension of the instrument, and must be encountered on its own terms. That perfect tone you get at settings xyz.3 may sound great in your practice space, but my experience is that live on stage, you can forget that. Unless you are using the amp strictly as a personal monitor, your at-home settings will bear only a distant relationship with what you will need to create a similar sound in company with other instruments and an ever-changing room-acoustic environment. Point being: learn to play the amp - those knobs and switches are there for a reason. Adopt, adapt, improve. Oh, and try to relax!
Apologies for the long post. Have devoted some thought to the subject.
Last edited by citizenk74; 09-04-2015 at 12:39 AM. Reason: Clarity, spelling
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Citi, that was awesome. Thank you for your reflection. A +
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Here's a good question for you woundie roundies. Hep really got me to clean up my sound. This alto player I play with in Brooklyn was like, did you change your amp? I was like, nah, it's just this magic kink I have in my patch chord...
Anyway, Hep got me to play with a little more treble and it cuts through the mix so much better and doesn't sound boxy anymore (thank you!). I may try and get more trebly, as the Eastman can be very bright, I have roundies, and the bone bridge thing.
Okay, sorry for being long winded, here's the question:
Do you find that the way you approach the string with your fretting hand is different with more treble than with less? I notice a lot more string noise and fret squeak with more treble. I have to be super careful and intentional as I up the treble, especially on the high E string.
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