Ideal jazz tone...

[distressed_romeo]

What sort of tone does everyone like in their jazzier playing? Do you go for the classic jazz-box sound, or a more modern fusion sound? Distortion? Chorus/delay effects?

Personally, I tend to go for a more modern jazz/fusion tone; I love chorus and delay effects on my clean sounds for both lead and rhythm, and play a lot of bebop licks with a distorted sound. Actually, I consider myself more a jazz-influenced metalhead than a pure jazz/fusion player, so there's not a great disparity between my tone for both styles.

Actually, I had a lot of fun playing some funk-fusion grooves recently with a phaser set for a faux-leslie effect...

What about some of the more jazz-focused guys here? Mikey D, I'd be interested to know what your tonal preferences are with your eight-string...

 

[Chris]

I like the classic jazz box, but with a lot more low end - I usually have the lower frequencies jacked way up, because a lot of the progessions I play tend to utilize the low strings as semi-basslines rather than plain roots.

 

[Drew]

Kenny Burrell is where it's at, for me - tone, phrasing, groove, total package. I really want to grab one of those Schecter semihollows for that sort of stuff, it'd be a lot of fun to bang on.

 

[distressed_romeo]

Kenny Burrell is where it's at, for me - tone, phrasing, groove, total package. I really want to grab one of those Schecter semihollows for that sort of stuff, it'd be a lot of fun to bang on.

Burrell rocks...one of my favourite old-school jazzers. I love the smoky, bluesy feel his solos have.

 

[Desecrated]

neck pickup only, tone controll turned all the way down, absolutly no distortion, tube preamp, into tubevox, into microphone thats connected to tube preamp and tube compressor.

then some tube on that.

 

[RgAscendant]

Neck pickup with the tone rolled completely off, into a nice warm tube clean sound. Yum!

 

[Leon]

fusion

i want my jazz to rock!

 

[telecaster90]

I usually have my Tele on the neck pickup with the tone knob all the way down. I use this patch on my Zoom pedal which has a Roland JC amp simulator thing with no gain and plenty of mids and bass. The leads I do in jazz band at my school are usually on more blues rock kind of songs. My patch for that has wah with gain around 60 or 80 and more mids so my tone sticks out.

 

[Mikey D]

What about some of the more jazz-focused guys here? Mikey D, I'd be interested to know what your tonal preferences are with your eight-string...

Cheers...Would it be a surprise if I said 'Charlie Hunter'! (Well, older charlie, not effects laden rocker charlie)

Seriously though, I definately dig the 'B3 on strings' sound and do own a rotosphere.

However, as with everyone else, I am looking for my own sound. I may be copping all the charlie stuff now, but there really isn't anyone else is there!?

The tones I like are the rhythm/lead of Scofield, the effected solos of Krasno from Soulive and a bit of Holdsworth.

Currently, I have a bit more top end/mid on my bass than charlie (thinking more jaco than jimmy smith) and the guitar side is volume rolled off slightly, tone about 3/4 on and either both for rhythm playing and neck for lead.

Best of both worlds really.

I'm currently looking for a new distortion pedal, but not sure to go RAT TS9 or look at more boutique ones. Or I am considering the guitar rig 2, tried the demo and with two inputs it suits me down to the ground.

 

[rummy]

I love the woody sound from a neck pickup with a tiny bit of dirt.

 

[maskofduality]

all tone rolled off is the way i've learned to think of it... but when you switch between straight jazz and metal parts, i've needed to have a bit more tone to make the distortion stay alive (i've only got a master tone and master volume on my guitar) so i just keep it at half nowadays.

 

[distressed_romeo]

Just out of interest, does anyone use flatwound strings? I use them on my fretless (a Thomastik-Infeld 12-50 set) and they sound great. I know they're apparently a big part of the classic jazz sound, and I've been tempted to try them on a fretted guitar occasionally...

 

[Jongpil Yun]

Neck into a Roland Jazz Chorus, tone on about 5, EQ'd with average bass, large mid spike, and treble rolled off a bit.

That, and Vai's Tender Surrender style tone.

 

[dpm]

For clean jazz tone I just roll off the treble on my VC50 clean channel as I don't have a tone control on my guitars. Usually I roll off the guitar volume and use the neck pickup on my usual metal sound, but it's not a clean sound then.
I'd say that my approach is like yours, jazz influenced metal player. I love playing complex chord progressions with a tight metal kind of vibe, and I've just discovered a bit of light compression and peak limiting before the amp works wonders for that. The compression only just happens when you play several notes at once, single strings don't have enough level to get it happening.

 

[distressed_romeo]

For clean jazz tone I just roll off the treble on my VC50 clean channel as I don't have a tone control on my guitars. Usually I roll off the guitar volume and use the neck pickup on my usual metal sound, but it's not a clean sound then.
I'd say that my approach is like yours, jazz influenced metal player. I love playing complex chord progressions with a tight metal kind of vibe, and I've just discovered a bit of light compression and peak limiting before the amp works wonders for that. The compression only just happens when you play several notes at once, single strings don't have enough level to get it happening.

Hmmm...the only thing I've ever used my compressor for is to add a little punch to touch-style playing. I might experiment with it more when I get back on the electric.

Interestingly, there was a bit on the Q and A section of Pat Metheny's old website where he was asked what role compression plays in his tone, and he said he's never used it for anything, even though all the patches on effects units that claim to model his tone seem to feature it...

 

[dpm]

Does he use the tone control on his guitars much? I'm not that familiar with Metheny's playing. IME rolling off the tone kind of acts as a compression, as the peaks and attack tend to be in that treble zone. Maybe they're trying to emulate that? Or maybe he just has extremely consistent pick attack?

That peak limiting on the distorted sounds helps clarity by stopping things distorting too much as the level hitting the amp doesn't increase like it normally does when you hit a chord.

 

[distressed_romeo]

Does he use the tone control on his guitars much? I'm not that familiar with Metheny's playing. IME rolling off the tone kind of acts as a compression, as the peaks and attack tend to be in that treble zone. Maybe they're trying to emulate that? Or maybe he just has extremely consistent pick attack?

That peak limiting on the distorted sounds helps clarity by stopping things distorting too much as the level hitting the amp doesn't increase like it normally does when you hit a chord.

He rolls the tone almost completely off, and he picks with the round end of the pick (using a fairly light one as well) which is probably a big part of it. You're right that his picking attack is extremely consistent...he's an incredibly smooth, controlled player.

 

[jim777]

I don't generally like tube amps for straight jazz, unless they are the uber clean style 60's Fender types played uber clean. Or something like an X-100B Even so, I use tubes for solidbodies and transistor amps for hollowbodies for straight up old school jazzy playing.