Then retire the Pod (sorry I an not a big digital modeling guy).
Setup the pedals like this:
RC > AC > TS9
Every tone you want is here. The AC is the only pedal that I have ever played that gets anywhere close to the Robben tone through a fender clean amp.
The RC will fatten up your overall tone. The Silver modded TS9 will get you the crunch tones and the RC and TS9 together will get you all the Landau tones....
I use this combo right now with my Fender Deluxe reverb and it just kills....
Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 3:06 am Post subject: SD -9
Add a SD -9, analog man silver mod recomended. It's great to get the bridge pickup FAT lead sounds. I'm mot sure that Landau use it but Scott Henderson uses the SD-9 for lead bridge and TS-9 (Mike mod) for neck sound ONLY. Scott H also use the RC for overall boost.
I diden't like the AC that much, i prefer my Fireball 1 or the TIM. But on the other hand i HAVE Dumble sounds from the amps.
Check out my soundclick page for a few clips, some with bad playing and bad recording but some is quite OK, if a may say so
SD-9 rules
Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 11 Location: hamilton, canada
Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 7:16 pm Post subject:
Thanks guys for all the great ideas. Looks like Analogman is the way to go. They are pricey, but if gets me the TONE, who cares, right?
I heard some great response about the AC and the RC.
TLe
2> Can you give us the details an the Landau guitars and rig?
Mike is using only a Sunburst Strat with whammy, thru a marshall with F/X rack and lotsa pedals. I'll give more detail after the startup dust settles.
Can you remember?
Mike mainly uses an old black beat-to-shit looking strat with a tremolo and pickup setup H-S-S instead of S-S-S like stock strats. All his strats are setup that way, the Tylers , and Valley Arts, too. He has several old strats. I don't see him playing the Tylers much. I've been watching him since 1983 when he played a red Valley Arts strat with an effects cab rig that looked like mission control and had hot and cold running Mesa-Boogies with the twelve inch single Boogie speaker cabs all over the left and right side of the stage.
Now he favors a much drier sound and uses fender 4x10 and Marshalls with small cabs for small clubs. His effects case rig is really stripped down to a few pedals in a drawer, and a power supply. The effects case is small now. it runs out to a Bradshaw pedal board with the sturdy metal stomp buttons, a volume pedal, and wah-wah. Make no mistake, Bradshaw's been all over his rig and you couldn't buy a cleaner signal path for all the love and money you have. But it's simple now.
Mike always has controlled the dynamics through his hands and awesome use of the volume pedal.
He's been using a Les Paul lately with an amber finish, and he does all the tunes you would think he'd play a strat on. I've seen it several times recently at the Baked Potato. He also plays a 175 looking guitar with P-90s on it too. He uses that for the strat sounding stuff as well, and that guitar is kick ass. He plays the old black strat a lot and I think that is his favorite.
I see you guys really questing for his gear, but the truth is that Mike could walk into a Walmart, pick out the crummiest stuff, and after a half-hour or so of finding out where he can split harmonics and how loud he has to go to get it, he could make you see God.
Robin too. He is in LA a lot where I live and I've seen him since the early 80's and I've sat six feet from him, with no one between us, playing with Don Mock and some other instructor from GIT in 1984 at a vegiterian Jazz Club (California right?) called the Come Back Inn (sadly, not there anymore). And Robin played like I never heard, with that clear compressed sounding ringing sustain and awseome tone he has and it was on a steel string Martin with no amp! Don and the other guy were playing Ovations, I believe. And the tone and the sounds were insane.
And that is because Robin, like Mike. is a natural. All the cats in LA will tell you Mike's a natural. They have the hands, dudes. Its all in their hands.
And they have drop-dead timing. They are all about time and groove.
Work with a metronome and a recorder and listen to yourself.
So, work on your timing and your groove, boys. Forget about the amps and the boxes and the guitars. They aren't going to make you sound any better. Only you are going to make you sound better.
Spend 80% of the time playing with strict timing and only blow for 20%.
Or you're not going to get any better. You'll stay real mediocre and be surrounded with more and more really expensive equipment.
And if you don't believe me, come down to the Baked Potato and check out Mike Landau. A few weeks ago Robin Ford dropped in to jam with Jeff Babko's band Shogun Warrior, I missed it, but I heard Robin killed.
Work with a metronome and a recorder and listen to yourself.
So, work on your timing and your groove, boys. Forget about the amps and the boxes and the guitars. They aren't going to make you sound any better. Only you are going to make you sound better.
Spend 80% of the time playing with strict timing and only blow for 20%.
Or you're not going to get any better. You'll stay real mediocre and be surrounded with more and more really expensive equipment.
Thanks for all the information on Mike's setup. All the gear freaks here love that kind of info.
Two comments. First, I fully agree with your comments on timing. Pat Metheney goes so far as to say that you can play anything if you play it with good timing. And he demonstrates that by playing a chromatic scale with cool timing, and it sounds great. A lot of people, guitar players especially, overlook this.
Second, it's Robben, not Robin.
Look... I know no one wants to hear nobody from nowhere (me) wax eloquent about why they shouldn't chase more signal processing, etc.
But Mike and Robben would sound like Mike and Robben playing any guitar. "Did he just say any guitar?" I said any guitar. Through any tube amp.
Dumble amps. Robben plays them. You better hope you never have to unless you got the mojo hands like Robben does. Dumbles are just really loud and clear, and when you got hands and groove like Robben, sure it sounds good louder. Because it would sound good softer, too.
Robben would sound good between two cups and a string.
Go for your own sound. Bring your own time and groove to the party.
I'm going to end with telling you guys some true stuff that I want you to try to wrap your minds around. When Mike Landau put out Tales From The Bulge a lot of good developing guitar players listened to that CD and they just freaked. Nobody had heard that kind of juicy tone before.
They stopped their own progression and spent the next "fill in the blank" years trying to get to that tone and technique. They stopped themselves cold from making their own progress.
These were guys that were on their way to developing their own thing and something that others would have said "Hey man, I like the way you interpreted that. You have a good groove".
And most of them are still trying because, and I think you know the punchline, nobody sounds like Mike Landau but Mike.
They robbed themselves of their own progression. And that is sad.
I'm not saying not to try to distill the good stuff, but remember the basics and remember that it is all in your hands. And it is all about time and groove.
Joined: 14 Nov 2003 Posts: 142 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Sun May 30, 2004 7:13 pm Post subject:
what a cool discussion!
Fortunately, like the ever present discussion of melodic development vs scales, I think most people on this board realise that gear/fx etc (like scales) is just a vehicle. If anything, the pursuit is for good tone generally rather than specifically for Robben tone.
Although I wonder how many people have their delays tuned into 116ms...
Interesting the comments about cups and string too. I seem to remember reading some years ago a quote from Dumble similar to this. Can't remember the quote exactly but he was being pressed on how big his role was in producing Robben's tone and he said something to the effect that Robben would be able sound good playing a rubber band.
Which, depressingly, is probably true!
One interesting exercise I think everyone should try:
- locate your latest recorded work
- locate your earliest recorded work
- compare your tone
What you may find (like I did) is that despite significant improvements in guitar, amplifier, effects, knowledge, ears and hands is that your basic tone may not have changed that much. That's not to say we should all go back to playing crappy gear, just that everything else is just refinement. In essense, I suppose it's your musical 'personality' - except for maybe a slow evolution it really doesn't change that much.
Failing that, go out and buy some paper cups, string and rubber bands and see how you go.
Chris _________________ because I rock, and that's important.
Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 1043 Location: Boulder, CO
Posted: Sun May 30, 2004 7:16 pm Post subject:
NoCredit wrote:
Mike mainly uses an old black beat-to-shit looking strat with a tremolo and pickup setup H-S-S instead of S-S-S like stock strats. All his strats are setup that way, the Tylers , and Valley Arts, too. He has several old strats. I don't see him playing the Tylers much.
Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 1043 Location: Boulder, CO
Posted: Sun May 30, 2004 7:18 pm Post subject:
NoCredit wrote:
He's been using a Les Paul lately with an amber finish, and he does all the tunes you would think he'd play a strat on. I've seen it several times recently at the Baked Potato.
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