Robben Ford Discussion

[bluenote]

I cant help but get involved with the never ending tone threads.. I went to my local music store at Christmas time when they have the cheesy strat and amp Christmas package for $250.00, then I travel to New Orleans and find my favorite voodoo shop and and purchase "robben tone" the large can of course, at the gig I sprinkle just enough powder, ahem, on the guitar and VIOLA!! it Robben Ford ladys and gentlemen!!! ya cant tell the difference. Buy the way David didnt the Troggs have a version of Hey Joe where the vocal were almost impossible to understand....peace.
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herbalaire vaporizer

[JohnnyZ]

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Trust me folks, this is the real deal...
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Soul on Eleven

[Aeolian]

I see this thread has new legs.

While Daved make a great analogy. I think it's also valid for someone to go to a vocal teacher and ask if they could develop aspects of Michael's voice that appeal to them. Of course, the intrinsic character of someone's voice is pretty hard to change, but notice how close the timbre of many trained opera and stage singers is compared the variance of voices one hears at the local Karaoke bar.

I think a certain amount of chasing Robben's tone is valid. If you approach it from a context of developing vocabulary in tone production. Not as a matter of dupicating equipment or settings. Someone might really like the vocal way he dulls and brightens the timbre during a phrase (I do) and endeavor to develop this for their own playing. Someone might really like the way he pops the strings to get additional attack in the middle of a phrase (something not unique to Robben but something he does very well). Having a thick overdrive tone has been a holy grail for many guitarists for many years. One should avail oneself of many different players approaches to managing this. From checking out various equipment, settings and playing techniques.

From all this, one will still end up with their own personal sound. But just as we all steal licks from players we admire and amalgamate them into our personal styles, there should be nothing wrong with stealing tonal aspects of players we find enjoyable and amalgamating those into our personal style.

If you copy from one, that's plagerism. If you copy from more than one, that's research.
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There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
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[Bluelobster]

Besides the facts you're describing Aeole, so well explained as usual, there is another intricancy : what's up with that kind of guy who can emulate lot of voices ( if not seen on tv everyone knows or knew one) and plays guitar (i mean electric guitar) so he can plays just "à la " ,SRV,God,Jimi,Gambale,Robben,and so and...........................Actually that implies mastering the guitar, the fingers, the brain, the ear then amps, fx, stomp boxes, rooms, power.

Endless tasks. Fun to have.

[Aeolian]

Bloby, have you ever seen Greg Koch doing a Fender clinic? Amazing. He morphs from one recognizeably signature sound to another just as fast as he fires off one-liner jokes. And he can jump into the style of that player sufficiently to make the whole thing instantly recognizable.

So when he plays what he wants to, he can draw from so many influences and make so many great tones.

Just as you might hear a bit of Bloomfield in this note Robben plays, and a touch of Django, or Pass in another.

These masters have the vocabulary at their command. Vocabulary of timbre as well as vocabulary of musical ideas. And they weave it all together in their own personal styles.

But they had to start somewhere. And trying to grok the tone of those they appreciated was a foundation for what they achieved later.

I've mentioned this before. Occasionally folks will remark that I am trying to emulate aspects of Robben's sound. Or at least they hear things that make them think that's what I'm trying to do. Maybe now that I've become very familiar with Robben's playing, that has seeped in. But people were saying this to me long before I'd ever heard Robben play. What they were hearing was me trying to grok Jeff Beck. Not that there is much similarity between Jeff and Robben. But in trying to mimic Jeff using his thumb, I developed a technique the evolved into a kind of way of mimicing rolling off the tone control. Then hearing Robben, I heard new and musical ways to utilize something that was just a way I fought with tinny tone.

I've no idea how or why Robben developed what he does. Maybe it was from a similar frustration with overly sharp or tinny sound. Or maybe it came from an entirely different place. Watching him play, I know that if he is doing anything like what I do, he does it from different hand positions and with a degree of control I could never achieve.

Whatever it is that he does, there is merit in trying to find some way of your own to achieve something similar. And then meld that into your own vocabulary of music.
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There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com

[Aeolian]

Saw this discussion over at the Gear Page http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=263537
The "puff of air" comment and the comments about Robben emulating horn players (actually, he IS one himself) are germane to this. That might very well be the basis behind Robben developing these aspects of the voice that he has.
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There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com