Help with guitar tone

[IanHenry]

This blues guitarist, Snowy White has released a new album (February) and whilst waiting for my copy to be delivered I started listening to some of his older stuff on Spotify

. Anyway I was so impressed by his Guitar sound on one of his tracks, Midnight Blues, that I tried to emulate it, but I can’t get anywhere near it. I’m using my Les Paul Classic Antique through a Vox VT20+ modelling amp. I have no idea what equipment Snowy uses, but I do know he always plays a rather old Les Paul Gold top.

If anyone would listen and has any ideas, it will be much appreciated.

http://www.last.fm/music/Snowy+White/+videos/+1-Q8F-DMgHXPs

 

For anyone who has never heard of Snowy White, he has a very impressive C.V, having been a member of Thin Lizzy for a few years, and he has also played on Peter Green, Pink Floyd, and with Roger Waters to name a few.

 

I really want to nail this guitar tone so as I said, any suggestions will be appreciated.

 

Regards,

Ian.

[Versatile]

Hi Ian....a beautiful clip to listen to...

 

This man has real soul and a fine touch

 

Semi futile to try and copy the tone, as it will be partly influenced by the recording ambience

 

But a great example of tasteful blues playing

 

To my ears a meld of Green/Knopfler/Beck

 

Sounds quite clean with carefully adjusted reverb level

 

But the skilled control of dynamics is the main contribution to the great tone....

 

V

 

[jnastynebr]

EQ wise, sounds like a lot of treble and mids on the amp with the treble pickup and a little reverb. Its pretty clean, but he is getting some break up with dynamics. If I had to guess, I would say he has some gain, but backed off the volume pot on the guitar.

I have a modded DS-1 that I use with the gain turned down to get a "tinny" mid boost. Its a nice trick to get some unique tones, but you still get the break up when you hit the notes right.

[stein]

GREAT clip. LOVE that sound.

 

I think he may be playing through a small, old cheap amp, like a champ or something. One thing I can tell is that he is not using hardly any effects. That midrange growl he is getting is the natural sound of the guitar. I can also tell he is flipping through the pickup settings. Also, there is not a lot of bass, either the amp doesn't have it, or the controls for the bass are turned down and the tone control up.

 

I would try experimenting playing on clean settings without pedals and messing with the tone controls, to try and get a clean sound with lots of mids.