wat do I need to sound funky?

[Athin]

Hi,
      What effect(s) would I need to build to get that classic funk(-like I think) sound. I'm talking 'bout the dry real cool sound like in the first 5 seconds of "let it shine" by Santana. I'm more your distortion kinda guy so I can't figure out what effects are in use. I suppose there is some sort of eq in action, but what else. Any ideas?

[Mark Hammer]

Hi,
      What effect(s) would I need to build to get that classic funk(-like I think) sound. I'm talking 'bout the dry real cool sound like in the first 5 seconds of "let it shine" by Santana. I'm more your distortion kinda guy so I can't figure out what effects are in use. I suppose there is some sort of eq in action, but what else. Any ideas?

First off, you need soul my friend, soul.

The classic funk/soul sound is clean, clean, clean.  So, usually a semi-acoustic of some kind, or a Fender, strung very tight and high.  If you can bend strings without bleeding, your string gauge is too light. :wink:

Another essentially part of the clean sound is going to be a bright, clean amp; a CBS-era Twin, or equally clean, bright, and powerful amp might just be perfect.

Can you be funky without a wah-wah or autowah?  If you're a singer, maybe, but if you play guitar, no.  The thing about funk is that it's all about playing around, complementing, and referencing the rhythm.  So, that not only involves the abilty/capacity to play very abrupt "punctate" lines, but the ability to accentuate the beat within whatever you play.  One of the things that wahs and autowahs can do is serve as pseudo percussion instruments by placing a tonal emphasis at certain points.  Listen to "Shaft" and tell me which instrument is more responsible for the pace and rhythm, the high-hat or guitar?

In the 80's, the percussiveness of guitar was added to by aural-exciter type devices.  Guys like Nile Rodgers used them heavily to punch up the pick sounds and the little chicka-chicka noises ("Chicka-chicka what?" say the John  Mayall fans), and they are probably what you hear when you describe the "dry" sound, since they can make guitars sound almost acoustic (I use an exciter type circuit for my "Woody" acoustic simulator).  These devices need single coils, and a clean, bright-sounding amp and speaker, which makes them a natural match for funk players.

This is not to suggest that funk players use nothing BUT what I describe.  Indeed, you'll find lots of phasing and fuzz and echo and other treats, whether its Ernie Isley, Funkadelic, whoever played the solo on Wilson Pickett's "Engine, Engine #9", or talkbox-master Roger Troutman.  But the basic funk sound is one that is aimed squarely at the rhythm player.

[casey]

you need some rayban sunglasses, and a feather boa, and a
purple velvet hat.....  oh yeah..

[bwanasonic]

Various out-of-phase pickup combinations can help get that real *spanky* funk sound. The direct-to-board sound is a famous funk sound (see Prince). Really approaching the guitar as a percussion instrument, using highly developed right and left hand muting is key to real funk sounds.

Kerry M

[travissk]

You could also experiment with compressors... the Orange Squeezer is simple to build and pretty in-your-face; the Ross is more transparent.

[puretube]

the ONE

[Athin]

Ahh... soul.... gonna be hard 'cause I traded mine for a state-of-the-art soldering station I know the playing style is different (trying to work that out too). Being a blues/rock guy I thought they use some sort of echo/delay to get that sound (like the edge from u2 does). This is going to be more of a 'philosophical' problem .... I knew about the wahs though, honestly I did. Now... what are "aural-exciter type devices" ? sounds... funky. And another problem - string gauge, I like my 8's. There are things you can't do on 10's, not unless you practice (much). I don't :roll: That's why I DIY....
Puretube... what's that you're saying - the ONE... R U pulling my leg? or is there a box named like that [yeath right, though I didn't believe there is one named kamasutra, anywayz, not until recently].

[Peter Snowberg]

For a really funky pedal build an MXR Envelope Filter or buy an off-the-shelf offering designed by that cat Puretube. He's got the funk.



LARRY GRAHAM ("inventor" of the Slap-technique),

bassplayer for Sly & the Family Stone, Graham Central Station and Prince

with his first P-WAH in prototype-chassis, on April 14th.`96 at the "E-WERK" in Erlangen.

[Jason Stout]

For those that don't know.... That’s Puretube's box in Larry Graham's hands!

[RDV]

I got the funk by osmosis, playing in a band for two years where I was the only 'pale' member. On the one gentlemen, on the one. Learn "Superbad" by James Brown. On the one.

Heyy!!! Huh!! uhn!!

RDV

[bwanasonic]

Learn "Superbad" by James Brown.

Hell, study the S out of as much James Brown as you can. I used to play along with "Let Yourself Go" on the late 60's "Live At The Apollo" for HOURS. One of the really valuable lessons I learned was how the classic funk guitar sound was often two guitars playing interlocking parts.  Guitar Player has run a pretty informative article on Funk guitar that may be available online.

Kerry M

[puretube]

Athin: RDV got the F*NK! He knows the ONE  
(Get down, baby bubba!)

BOOTSY Collins (left) taught me the "one":


"On the One, Ev`rybuttaye"

[bwanasonic]

Yabba- Dabba - Doozle ! Wind me up- ah!

Learning * The One* from Bootzilla, is like Jedi training from Yoda - BaddAss!

Kerry M

[Athin]

ah... that ONE.... in that case t(h)ank you.

[primalphunk]

Learn "Superbad" by James Brown.

Hell, study the S out of as much James Brown as you can. I used to play along with "Let Yourself Go" on the late 60's "Live At The Apollo" for HOURS. One of the really valuable lessons I learned was how the classic funk guitar sound was often two guitars playing interlocking parts.  Guitar Player has run a pretty informative article on Funk guitar that may be available online.

Kerry M

I'm gonna say it again because it bears repeating.  Listen to James Brown all the time!  When you do this lots of the time you're gonna be listening to Jimmy Nolen...He knows what the one is...He can learn ya...

If you want to be a little more academic about things check out Funk:The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of The One by Rickey Vincent.  I bet you could buy it at amazon.

When bwanasonic talks about really developing serious muting technique he is also right on the money.  

Effects...it's mostly in the fingers but get or build a REALLY good wah pedal(say a nice picture wah) and a neutron filter can also be a great addition.  You can also bet that Mark is right about the aural exciter...I've never used one myself but he really knows what he's talking about.

Mark>>
Do you actually use the woody circuit for funk or some modification of it?

peace,
James

[The Tone God]

The ONE is soooo right. I was hanging out this weekend with a bassist who used to play with Parliment and gave Bootsy inspiration for his sound to do The ONE. Funny stuff listening to him talk.

Andrew

[Mark Hammer]

"Do you actually use the woody circuit for funk or some modification of it?"

No, but not because it is inappropriate.  A number of years ago, I made Jules Ryckebusch's "Harmonic Sweetener" (from Electronic Musician) because I was quite fond of guys like Nile Rodgers and their "scratchy" sounding rhythm scraping, (well, that and the way Les Paul would make his own rhythm playing sound when he speeded it up).  Aspects of the HS were adapted for the Woody when it occurred to me that the "scrapiness" was an element of what made things *sound* acoustic.  I suspect that the Woody could be used or adapted for a funk-friendly rhythm tone.

I think it is also important to note that non-overwound pickups are also helpful.  It's not just whether they are HB or SC but how much top end they preserve.  If you can sound like Robert Cray, tone-wise, and you know where "the ONE" resides, that helps too.  Those accustomed to rock and especially metallic forms thereof, prefer to have muscle in their tone, and while fat and muscle is not always *wrong* in soul/funk playing, it also welcomes thin, wimpy guitar equivalents to vocal "falsetto".  Here, a lot of the African guitarists provide great examples.

For those who wish to explore funkier styles of playing, self-restraint is often your biggest ally.  For both funk and soul styles, the rhythm needs to be implied much moreso than it would be for blues or rock.  Personally, I think that stems from the way that jazz evolved in 19th century Louisiana, but that's a lecture for another time.  Those wishing to play funkier can learn a great deal from the spartan rhythm work of the great reggae guitarists like Ernest Ranglin or soul guys like Steve Cropper, and from the unbelieveable self-restraint of all the great funk horn-players, who you just know could wail but who were happy just to punch in and out with little 3-note inserts here and there.  Again, what is characteristic of funk and soul is everybody in the band being familiar with the song *underneath* whatever it is you're playing, and everyone playing veiled references to that song (okay, okay, part of the "lecture" is that this goes back to the way that dixieland musicians would all play around a melody and song structure they had a common, but not identical, memory of).  Of course, the less you play, the more you are *referring* or alluding to the song underneath, and the less you are actually playing it.  Indeed, the "ONE" is that common shared understanding of the song underneath.  The more it stays in the domain of a wink-wink secret shared by the musicians themselves, rather than laid out like a piece of sheet music, the funkier it is.

[puretube]

speaking of horn players:
Fred Wesley (right), the funkiest trombonist around...

he was JB`s bandleader at his hi-times,
mastermind of the Horny Horns
with Parliament/Bootsy`s Rubber Band,
and a real fx-lover!

[bwanasonic]

Aspects of the HS were adapted for the Woody when it occurred to me that the "scrapiness" was an element of what made things *sound* acoustic.  I suspect that the Woody could be used or adapted for a funk-friendly rhythm tone.

I think it is also important to note that non-overwound pickups are also helpful.  It's not just whether they are HB or SC but how much top end they preserve.  If you can sound like Robert Cray, tone-wise, and you know where "the ONE" resides, that helps too.  Those accustomed to rock and especially metallic forms thereof, prefer to have muscle in their tone, and while fat and muscle is not always *wrong* in soul/funk playing, it also welcomes thin, wimpy guitar equivalents to vocal "falsetto".  Here, a lot of the African guitarists provide great examples.

I used to use a DIY Piezo pickup puttied to my headstock, and mix that in with the *in-between* pickup sound from my Strat for a funky *Icepick-In-The-Forehead* sound. You can hear a 20-year-old example of it by checking out "Icepick Graffiti" here:

http://www.garageband.com/artist/BwanaSonic

Kerry M

[primalphunk]

Single coils that are not too terribly hot...Lindy Fralin real 54s seem to fit that bill pretty well.  They sound pretty good in my MIM roland ready strat.  Now with every basic wah sound that I use I prefer to use the strat.  If there's no wah...then...  

The funny thing for me is  that I first started playing funk on a Martin electric(EM18) with two humbuckers.  I still prefer this tone using the bridge humbucker plus a split humbucker at the neck.  I prefer the clean tone of my Martin to that of my strat when it comes to totally unprocessed tone.  That guitar is made of a laminated maple and walnut body plus a mahogany neck with a Leo Quann badass bridge.  The pickups that came stock on it are old early 80s Dimarzios.  PAF neck and Super Distortion at the bridge for some fairly high gain stuff but if you can keep your amp from breaking up too soon...the cleans are very nice.  I think there is something about this pickup and wood combination that makes the sound very balanced...warm but still spanky.  

"Do you actually use the woody circuit for funk or some modification of it?"

No, but not because it is inappropriate.  A number of years ago, I made Jules Ryckebusch's "Harmonic Sweetener" (from Electronic Musician) because I was quite fond of guys like Nile Rodgers and their "scratchy" sounding rhythm scraping, (well, that and the way Les Paul would make his own rhythm playing sound when he speeded it up).  Aspects of the HS were adapted for the Woody when it occurred to me that the "scrapiness" was an element of what made things *sound* acoustic.  I suspect that the Woody could be used or adapted for a funk-friendly rhythm tone.

I think it is also important to note that non-overwound pickups are also helpful.  It's not just whether they are HB or SC but how much top end they preserve.  If you can sound like Robert Cray, tone-wise, and you know where "the ONE" resides, that helps too.  Those accustomed to rock and especially metallic forms thereof, prefer to have muscle in their tone, and while fat and muscle is not always *wrong* in soul/funk playing, it also welcomes thin, wimpy guitar equivalents to vocal "falsetto".  Here, a lot of the African guitarists provide great examples.
[snip]