Mountain Leslie West - sounding fuzz

[Renegadrian]

A friend of mine would like to have a sound close to LW, like dream of milk and honey, blind man or mississipi queen. Some say the Astrotone/Sam Ash gets you close, other than that, which fuzz do you think that will give a similar sound?! thx for suggestions!!!

[Mark Hammer]

http://www.guitarplayer.com/artists/1013/leslie-west-decodes-his-mississippi-queen-tone/11715

[Renegadrian]

Mark i did a google research before posting obviously! There's not much...obviously i read that article but as you can easily understand its totally useless to me. My need is to get close to that tone with a pedal not getting to know how he did it!

[whoisalhedges]

Well, an LP Jr. into two Sunn PA amps, one slaving the other....

The Earthquaker Acapulco Gold is based on the Model T. That's a guitar amp, not a PA, but it should get you in the ballpark. Smash the crap out of the front end of your amp with that.

West did (anecdotally, on Analog.man's site) use a pair of Sam Ash/Astro Fuzz pedals later on.

Not sure you'll ever get all the way there without a P90 and some mad vibrato skills.

[Mark Hammer]

Not sure you'll ever get all the way there without a P90 and some mad vibrato skills.

There's certainly a lot to be said for the amplification, and whatever pedals were inserted.  But even so, much depends on the nature of the signal one feeds those subsequent elements in the chain.  There is a lot to be said for the distinctive qualities of a bridge P90 on a light, very resonant, mahogany-slab body with a mahogany set-neck.  Stand close enough to a loud-enough amp - of pretty much any kind - and the body and neck will resonate in a way that yields a very vocal-like tone.

[Renegadrian]

Again, which fuzz pedal do you think will get close to LW sound?! please try to stay IT and understand my need (which isn't about sunn amps on 11 or LP juniors or P90).

[Ben Lyman]

I'd probably try breadboarding a Fuzz Face with a tone control and see what your buddy thinks of it.
Maybe try a Big Muff tone stack, then try a RAT filter, both easy and probably get close enough.

I say Fuzz Face, because they are sensitive and dynamic enough to be almost like a tube amp.
I've always considered the Mississippi Queen sound to be more of a natural overdrive sound but with tons and tons of face melting volume. Then, slinky strings played with confidence and attitude, heavy handed with certain delicate accuracy.

Dare I say it?
A tubescreamer, set guitar and amp tone controls accordingly, turn the amp up all the way and make sure it has at least 100 watts 

[Quackzed]

my 2c listening to mississippi queen.  ok a disclaimer- this is gonna need tweeking. ok...
---the first thing that hits my ears is a sort of mild gatey ness. like a tonebender but much milder or even more like an od/dist overdriving a second od/dist. the tone has a synthy gatedness that reminds me of pushing a dirt pedal too hard. not so hard it gets farty, but just before that. so first stage bass needs tweeking to slam the second stage thing just so.   that being so you get that almost synthy character without the farty bassy character...
---the second thing that hits me is that the single note stuff is very middy and in your face. not flat. so something like a tube screamer might make a good first stage or possibly second stage...

conclusion, i'd try a ts into a bassy distortion pedal maybee a big muff or something similar or bm into ts : either or, pay attention to- the volume of the first pedal to drive the second juuust to the point of that synthy farty line -and also the bass content in to get the synthy without too much farty...
--these 2 pedals have way more gain than you'll need so one or the other will probably have a lowish gain setting but i'd guess you could get pretty close... big muff may be too much and a less scooped type flatish dist box may be better, and the ts might need to be second in line as overdriving a ts with a decent amount of gain/volume volume is my initial impression of this type of tone... try some different pedals with the intention of overloading a ts, tweek the ts tone cntrl and i bet you'll get close.

[Quackzed]

heres a vid of a bunch of 2 pedal stacked tones, maybee you can hear what i mean with the synthy / farty ragged edge thing, but figured there might be some inspiration in here , the ocd/ts at @ 14m in might be in the arena... or the ts/bd at 7min needs more bass but has that 'stacked' character...

[Renegadrian]

right, now we have some good advice...thx guys! As I already have a couple of Faces I think I'll follow Ben suggestion first, I once put the tone control on it and get a great result. maybe I can get close with that tone control and a trimmer on the second transistor (as I always have, btw)

[anotherjim]

Those Sunn amps had 4 independent pre-amp tubes and 500k input impedance from an input level pot. All mixed to single tube followed by a master volume. You can't jumper the channels Marshall style without a Y splitter.

Some of the stuff google found suggested they suffered from severe power sag when hit with strong/continuous input. I used to own a solid state Sunn PA that had the same problem, but they were only expected to be used for vocals. A kick drum in one channel would gate everything else out!

So I guess you want something gatey, but not low input impedance. Maybe a FF after a BD? I mean one of those FF variations with a voltage sag pot  - I don't know a specific scheme.

[Ben N]

Tough one. I'm with Mark & Ben--this is not really a challenge that can be solved with a pedal. To my ear, that sound is similar to Townshend's Live at Leeds tone, or Clapton's live sound with Cream, and it is based on things like huge bass response and moving lots of air in close proximity to strings. Sure, you can get the distortion with a pedal, but the rest of the chain is of equal or greater importance.

[wavley]

Tough one. I'm with Mark & Ben--this is not really a challenge that can be solved with a pedal. To my ear, that sound is similar to Townshend's Live at Leeds tone, or Clapton's live sound with Cream, and it is based on things like huge bass response and moving lots of air in close proximity to strings. Sure, you can get the distortion with a pedal, but the rest of the chain is of equal or greater importance.

I tend to agree, look at this live footage, he is quite definitely plugged straight into a wall of Sunn amps and is only standing a few feet from them.

I floated this idea a while back that everything that you hear in a recording is through the lens of the recording signal path and things back then weren't very transparent sounding.  I had an idea that part of the saturated sound that we hear is actually those cranked Sunn amps punishing the tiny input transformers of a Shure M67 as this picture shows Bill Hanley using to do sound at Woodstock.



When I originally floated the idea I didn't own one yet, I now own two M67s and two M267s and I can without a doubt confirm that they contribute to the tone of anything (particularly loud things) that you run through them.  The M267s are the cornerstone of my drum sound because of the fattening from the transformers and limiter and I regularly use M67s to fatten guitar and bass, they sound really fantastic pushed a bit hard and can actually make a great fuzz pedal if you hit them hard with a loud source and no attenuator in front of them (they were designed for vocal mic levels)



Not saying that you can't get all of these things with a pedal, but what I am saying is that in that footage of him in Cincinnati, he sounds like Leslie West and he's running straight into an amp.  So the guitar choice, amps, sound pressure level, and recording signal path are all part of the equation.  So we need to ask ourselves "How can I make a pedal that can imitate all of the most important aspects of these things without having to play a LP Jr. into a wall of Sunn amps and distorting a PA system?"

edit: added the schematic for the input stage of a Shure M67 which will easily turn into a fuzzbox

[Derringer]

I feel that a tweaked, non-octaving, fox tone machine might get you there

[thermionix]

I've never messed with a BSIAB pedal, but maybe one of those variations with the gain down somewhat will get you in the ballpark.  Maybe, just a thought.

[Renegadrian]

So we need to ask ourselves "How can I make a pedal that can imitate all of the most important aspects of these things without having to play a LP Jr. into a wall of Sunn amps and distorting a PA system?"

yes, that's the main question - there are two paths, one involves a study of the original, and this is "quite" easy but may be not enough. yeah you can purchase a Sunn, a LP junior with P90, that would be the right rig, but to get the same result you have to play like him.
The other path is somehow more difficult, it starts with that particular sound in mind, which can be recreated (or you can get close to) with other devices, may be them fuzz boxes, amp emulators, digital stuff and so on. LW with a Kemper?! who knows...
Back to the question, I think a fuzz can give a similar sound, sure it must have a tailored tone section/control.
thx to thermionix and Derringer for the suggestions! think I'm gonna try fuzz face with tone, or foxx

[Derringer]

let us know how it turns out man!

I want to hear a "never in my life" demo

[Derringer]

Gaaaaaahhhh

if only it came with a P-90

http://fool-audio.com/Fool_Audio_Research/Junior_G-Man.html

[Cozybuilder]

I have one of these Junior G-Mans- its a nice player. At that price point, you can afford to put in a different pickup.

[CommGuy107]

...My need is to get close to that tone with a pedal not getting to know how he did it!

Ain't that always the case? 
Pedals don't add to a player's ability, they simply add to our options. Technique trumps technology.