Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 1:03 pm Post subject: Re: Cheaper way to get Robben's tone ?
collinsman wrote:
I know tone is with the player, but equipment does help some. Let's say I have a Standard Tele and a ' blues junior amp, is there a stomp box out there that can help bring that bridge pickup close to the Ford tone ? I know there's the Zen Drive" anything else, other suggestions please.
I am the glad owner of a Zendrive and I tell you it's the best pedal I ever had or have (if you want I can send you a list of my collection). So, if you want R's tone without a Dumble it's a good investment and worth the time waiting for it. If you want a cheap amp I can recommend the new Roland Cube 60 in combination with the Zen, you can get very close, if it's in your fingers
Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 31 Location: Cold Country
Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 1:53 pm Post subject:
Many good suggestions to think about, and much thanks for the Ideas. The thing I'm leaning to is the sparkle drive, or the Zen drive - BTW what's the waiting list now ? I really don't have much coin with three kids still at home and a wedding just last month. Hopefuully I'll have everything I need by mid summer _________________ I love Tele players Albert Collins, Gatton. Roy B,RF - and my guitar of choice.
Joined: 19 May 2006 Posts: 1 Location: Westminster, Colorado
Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 7:52 am Post subject:
I own a Barber LTD as well as a recently acquired Zendrive plugged into a 1966 Fender DR. While not looking to exactly model Robben's tone, I have been aiming for a full sustain/overdrive that retains good definition with single notes as well as chords and double stops. My experience so far is that the two pedals can elicit very similar sounds with these distinctions:
The Barber has more clarity in the top end, especially when dialing in a two pickup strat sound. I also feel that the distortion control is a little more linear, and easier to find the right blend of clarity and drive.
The Zendrive is definitely thicker, capable of a more robust drive. It's very smooth, and a little more compressed. I am still experimenting with this unit and not as comfortable with it as I am with the the Barber, which seemed like a good fit from the beginning. Zendrive seems to have some "excited" harmonic interaction in the high end which may detract from clarity. The 4 controls are quite interactive, so I may yet find the right stuff.
Bottom line - try the Barber LTD. At about $100, its' very much worth a listen.
Joined: 26 Nov 2003 Posts: 916 Location: Fairhope, AL
Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 1:26 pm Post subject: pedal
It's true that the Zendrive is a great pedal, and I'd love to have one myself. However, at nearly double what you can pick up a Sparkle Drive for, if someone is one a tight budget, I'd go for the Sparkle Drive now, and start saving for the Zendrive.
Frank
Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 3:45 pm Post subject: ... a more Doublel ike sound
hello Collinsman...
I think a Stampede Overdrive sov-1 can help you a lot!
I have had a junior, de luxe, de ville and even a pro junior. They all sound very excellent, with a nice crispy bassman sound. But if you need a good lead sound it hard to get it with those amps. There aren’t many pedals that work with these amps. Tubesreamers don´t and Fulltone doesn´t work either. I saw a band in Greece once; the guitarist had a Blues Deluxe with a very well working led sound. He had a DOD pedal, but I cant remember what DOD it was.
I plug my Mesa Quad Preamp into the return jack in the effect loop on my Fender Concert amp. I also have switched the speaker to EVM 12L. It sounds very close to Robben Fords style.
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 4:41 pm Post subject:
The Blues Junior is a more tweed oriented amp, and although the output of the Dumble resembles a Twin, the voicing of the amp is more tweed like. While Robben does use blackfaces in lieu of the Dumble on occasion, he does compensate some and as some have mentioned, the sound is different.
The Zendrive was voiced specifically to approximate Robben's OD tone with conventional equipment and technique. What is interesting is that Robben with his unconventional technique, bright guitars, and differently voiced amps, likes it too. That is probably your best bet. I have a Banzai Fireball like Robben used to use before the Zen. It is a very dynamic overdrive but definitely not "Robben in a box". Kind of snarly. Marin has done several wonderful clips with the Banzai that show it's colors. I've used my Zen when I had to use provided Fenders. To me it's primary attribute is it's playability. I also use it with my cover band set to darken and fill out the Strat I use for all those R&B rhythm parts. But I'm thinking of going to a more rocking OD tone since I already have the other thing covered with the OD section of my Fuchs (which is set to work with the 335 I prefer playing).
Robben's primary tone is the result of using his hands to lop the top end off of a very bright rig. The result is an emphasis on the midrange or fundamental frequencies of the note but with shadings of the upper harmonics intact. You can not nail this with eq adjustments, it just comes out dull. It is the mix of the two contrary elements that makes it work. Listen to the end of the solo on MD Blues on the Jing Chi Live album. The Tele gets very shrill and ice-picky. This is what it would sound like if most people played it. The tones on Blue Moon are primarilly the Tele, but played so that it sounds thick and fat. Same rig.
The techniques involved are not unique to Robben but he has probably refined them to a greater degree than most others. The mechanical aspects of the techniques can be learned, the musical application of them is Robben.
If someone could make a box that made regular folks sound like Robben, there would be a line around the city. Well, Alf has come the closest yet to that and look at the waiting line for his pedal. _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 31 Location: Cold Country
Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 7:21 am Post subject: rats ~
Dam$ it all ! - no magic box, not magic pill, no magic diet ! what's the world coming to...
ll
ll
ll
V
If someone could make a box that made regular folks sound like Robben, there would be a line around the city. Well, Alf has come the closest yet to that and look at the waiting line for his pedal.[/quote] _________________ I love Tele players Albert Collins, Gatton. Roy B,RF - and my guitar of choice.
Joined: 21 Jul 2003 Posts: 401 Location: College Station, TX
Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 8:07 am Post subject:
That's right - no magic nothin - except practice and hard work.
Aeolian - thanks for this post - talking about touch and technique gets one closer to the "magic" than all the gear talk ever will.
I learned along time ago, when I started playing country, how limiting a pick can be. Trying to emulate James Burton, Albert Lee, or Roy Nichols is a great way to learn to use fingers, banjo rolls, etc. Then take these techniques and apply them to blues or jazz or whatever. These days I still use a pick, but more often than not incorporate 2 fingers as well, both the nail and tip, to get a wide variety of tone and emphasis. Never could get the hang of palming the pick or whatever but with this approach I don't need to.
Try a simple experiment. Strum a triad with a pick and listen to the sound. Then use your pick and 2 fingers to pluck/strike each of the 3 notes at the same time and listen to the difference. Try it with your nails, then fingertips. Using all three at once in these differnt variations gives you a much wider pallete of tone. There are times when a well struck chord with a pick does the trick, but then there are times when a more percussive approach sounds better - mix and match. You just increased your range of dynamics, too.
Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 31 Location: Cold Country
Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 7:10 am Post subject: tone/RF
It's been a spell, but I have the RF tone down with my 335 dot epi using a " Real Tube " OD pedal, but can't get it with the Tele. The tele is a more comfortable guitar and my favorite, so any Ideas. The setting I have on my BJ amp are rev/4, master/6, mid/10, bass/6, treb/8, vol/4 & on the OD pedal - output 3/4, drive 3/4, hi 1/4, mid 9/10,lo 9/10.
..any more ideas..thanks _________________ I love Tele players Albert Collins, Gatton. Roy B,RF - and my guitar of choice.
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 4:45 pm Post subject:
I've gone into this before, as have folks like Anders and a fellow who jumped in loudly proclaiming to have "the secret" and got soundly trounced out of the forum.
The main thing is the very light touch on the strings near the bridge to just barely mute the higher order overtones, but not so much as to kill the sustain or make the tone sound dead. Funny that telefunk mentions playing with fingers. I learned to do this technique (I call it partial muting) listening to Jeff Beck in the 70's when I didn't know that he used his thumb and I was trying to emulate that lack of a pick sound at the beginning of a note. I eventually learned to use it as a kind of tone control while I played. When I heard Robben, I saw how he used it to create a unique voice for different notes in a lick (which is another reason why static knob settings won't capture the sound, it's always subtly changing). If I had his musicial sensibilities I might be able to cop some of that adaptive tone within licks bit. This gives it that vocal or sax like feel. You can get some different tonalities out of picking dynamics with a good amp, but varying the partial muting gives you much more range. When I worked in a music store, I used to demonstrate how (with an overdriven tone) I could get the bridge pickup to sound like the neck pickup. (At that time, in the mid 70's I worked for a Fender dealer and you couldn't give Strats away, everyone wanted LesPauls so I would try to show kids that you could get any sound with any guitar by using the right technique). This is how on things like the Blue Moon or Jing Chi album, Robben can use the bridge pickup on his Tele and make it sound like some humbucker guitar.
There are many other subtle technical things such as how he lays the pads of his fingers across the string instead of fretting with the tip of his fingers. The angle of attack of the pick, sometimes using the corner of the pick, using fingers instead of a pick, to how the guitar is held. All of this affects the tone in some fashion or another. You have to play around with all of it and find the combination that gives you what you want. Then there are more advanced things Robben does like poping the string while muting out the attack and then letting go of the mute so that it develops a kind of "wah" sound. Or doing that and then sliding the note so it rings brighter. There's bunches of this on the BlueLine albums on songs such as The Brother, Rugged Road and The Plunge.
And if you get the techniques, you can get this basic sound with a Tele, BJ and good stompbox. _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:47 am Post subject: Robben's tone
Just to add to the discussion (confusion?), I play a Les Paul Standard through a Blues Junior, and I've been able to get close to Robben's tone with a Danelectro Daddy-O Overdrive--and if I really knew what I was doing, I'd probably be able to do better!
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