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12-22-2020 07:12 PM
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All I can hear is “Yeah, but this knob goes to 11.”
And “Hear that sustain...for days...”
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He never sounded that good on a strat. I think his touch and style is made for humbuckers, why he had to switch? Then again he's not the brightest bulb in chandelier as we have seen lately.
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Cool. Thanks for posting. Surely his expression changed over the years. This represents well the young man Clapton as known from Bluesbreakers and Cream.
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EC sounded best on a Strat just after he made the transition. The problem, tonally speaking with his later playing on the instrument is that he's trying to get the sustain of a Gibson on a hot-rodded Fender and only succeeds in getting a compressed, anonymous-sounding tone. IMO, the whole point of playing a Strat for blues is to hear the snap, crackle and pop it offers. Check out his solo on I Ain't Superstitious from the The Howlin' Wolf London Sessions for what I'm talkin' about (1'10"):
Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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I think you nailed it. Originally Posted by PMB
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Woman tone explained; what a find.
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O, man, I used to have that album. Remember when it was new. (I was 13.) Thanks for the memory! (I like that solo too.) Originally Posted by PMB
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I never realized Eric held his pick that way.
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Here's an article about Eric and the Gibson vs Fender debate
Gibson vs. Fender
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And here's "Bell Bottom Blues," a recording he used the Strat on. (Mentioned in the above article. Always loved this song.)
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I agree that's a great tone. His tone on his first solo album or 2 was also stellar, if very different from his Cream years. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
I find it interesting that so many artists want to "improve" on the qualities that made them successful. Santana has said he found his early SG and LP tone "thin" and preferred the tone of his PRS (I find his late 70's Yamaha tone, e.g., on Moonflower, to be superlative). Keith Emerson used to talk about how innovative his Yamaha synth was compared to the primitive Moogs he used earlier.
I know, you have to change or wither away. Some artists do change with the times and remain relevant--Peter Gabriel comes to mind here--while others do the same old shtick until they hit the nursing home.
For the record I've found Clapton's playing and singing and more specifically his tone quite acceptable throughout his entire career. The 2005 Cream reunion concert was great, and in particular the sound was miles above anything live Cream put out during their heyday.
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To me, the kind of straight ahead blues rock formula- pentatonic runs, bends, slurs, power chords- works the best on Gibson through Marshall. Or at least a humbucker equipped guitar. I'd never want to see Angus Young, for example, switching to strat (and he's smart enough not to do it).
Strat is great for more percussive oriented players, Stevie Ray Vaughn or Jimi Hendrix, with their heavy funky strumming, it worked great. Those just my thoughts, I could be off, but I'm solidly in the camp 'Clapton was better on Gibson.' Eddie Van Halen thought so too.
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He puts substance over style sometimes but it's exhausting to do that all the time;
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The guitar doesn't matter. I like Kirk Fletcher more with hummbuckers but he prefers Fenders most of the time.
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did tech work on a friends reproduction of the cream era ec the fool sg...typical of sg's it was comfy guitar and sounded cool at house volume....but really came alive when standing in front of a loud amp...like an ac-30 or a pumped twin (or ec's stacks!)...it practically played itself
strat is a completely different animal
cheersLast edited by neatomic; 12-23-2020 at 06:46 PM.
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Eric really was a scientist with the pick in his early years. From Have You Heard with the Bluesbreakers to the early Strat recordings, he had an extraordinary command of light and shade. I spent a lot of time in my early 20s with a friend who played a '59 LP Special and he had EC's Cream tones to a T. One of my friend's most insightful, Zen-style pieces of advice was to let the string play the pick, especially when bending. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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I'll never reject the Gibson / Marshall sound. (Though Ritchie Blackmore did well with his Strat / Marshall sound in Deep Purple's heyday.) Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
And Strat is good for funky, percussive players like Hendrix and SRV. (So is a Tele.)
Clapton's switch never bothered me, though. It just didn't. I never thought about it. Maybe because I'm more of a Fender guy. (Before I got into jazz, I played a Strat. It was damned comfortable to play too. I find myself missing it more and more.)Last edited by MarkRhodes; 12-26-2020 at 11:34 AM.
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Clapton sounds great on a strat from his first solo album through 461 Ocean Boulevard (which is mostly cranked Champs and Princetons). After that, he mostly sounds bad on a strat, and on other guitars too, because he mostly sounds bad, period. His playing just lost so much all around that it's hard to know how much to attribute to gear vs him just losing the ability to get good sounds out of gear. There are a few spots where his playing is better sounding and better executed, but overall the fire left him. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
That said, I can understand why he prefers strats. They're ergnomically perfect. My strat is my favorite guitar to play physically, even though it's often not the sound I want. They also cut through a mix on stage, and to a guy who's lost a lot of hearing and spends his life on big loud stages, he probably hears himself a hell of a lot better with a strat than a Paul.
On yet another hand, one thing I've learned in 30 years of strat-playing is that strats are very unforgiving when it comes to amps, effects, and gain staging. Get it right, and they really sing and support incredible expressiveness (Hendrix, Eric Johnson, Eric Gales, David Gilmour). Get it wrong though and it's either icepick in the eardrum or mud. It can be very challenging to get it right.
John
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For me Clapton was at his Best! early on with Fresh Cream and the Mayall Beano album. For newer stuff My fave Slow Hand is My Fathers Eyes ,for older material his solo with the Yardbirds on I Aint Got You is my favorite. Andrew Dice Clay has a pretty good version but it doesnt have to me, the Very Great solo from early Eric.
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The For Your Love album by the Yardbirds is a transition album as it has both Clapton and Beck. To me the I Aint Got You solo sounds like Clapton on a Fender guitar. When on their first US tour the Yardbirds Vox amps failed Jeff Beck rented a Gibson amp with a head and two 2-10 inch speaker cabs at our citys local music store. I later tried to have A. Dumble build me something like a stereo Super Reverb but his Custom Amp building did not extend that far in the eighties. Oh Well Im not sure I could have afforded it anyway as he wanted as much as 10,000$ for a 3 month delivery. The early Vox amps were built for the English current system and didnt do that well untill the power differences were worked out.
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Strats are comfortable to play, for sure. I only had Gibson SG, and not so much. I'm more of a Fender guy myself. But EVH figured it out, put a humbucker on it! Thats the sound I like. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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I loved Eddie's sound too, esp the early brown sound. (His sound changed over the years too.) I love to HEAR it but it's not the sound I want to MAKE. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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Right now I'm a complete tone hound. It's something to focus on. In the end there can be more to music than tone but tone is a friend.
This is still about the most angst filled album I ever heard;
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Got that album in '69 or '70 and learned the words to the Wolf's*songs. Forty years later I finally got a band and a public that would let me perform them. Patience, Grasshoppers.... Originally Posted by PMB
* The liner notes on that LP are of particular interest.
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mid-ranginess?
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