ZZ Top

[samrsmiley]

Any good suggestions for ZZ Top tone from songs like Brown Sugar or Just got Paid Today?  I know mostly it's his touch and the guitar and amp he's using (I'm sure there are no pedals there).  So I think it might be a Marshall, but since I have no experience with them I don't know.  Any pedals-diy or conventional nail that sound with a AC30 or Fender Deluxe?  Thanks for any help! 

[Mike Burgundy]

Billy Gibbons is notoriously picky about his tone, and there are stories that he has several programmable graphic EQ's in his signal line to get just what he wants with any guitar. Other than that, for the old stuff, who knows. I think he always used a LOT of different guitars, and amps and cabs right up to a Demeter isolation cab.
I do think EQ has most impact as far as electronics go.
Sorry I couldn't be of any more help.

[DougH]

Any good suggestions for ZZ Top tone from songs like Brown Sugar or Just got Paid Today?  I know mostly it's his touch and the guitar and amp he's using (I'm sure there are no pedals there).  So I think it might be a Marshall, but since I have no experience with them I don't know.  Any pedals-diy or conventional nail that sound with a AC30 or Fender Deluxe?  Thanks for any help! 

Back in those days it was a cranked marshall amp, mainly. I would look at maybe a marshall guvnor or something like that. You need that marshall middy EQ along with the crunch IMO.

[tackleberry]

There have been several interviews with gibbons. And he uses all sorts of amps in the studio. They talk about his amp igloo, where he took probably 10 different small studio amps and made an igloo around a mic versus trying to mic 10 different amps. So his live rig and what he uses in the studio are gonna be very different. So not gonna be 1 pedal that does it all. Probably really hard to even come close to his studio tone.

[petemoore]

  I saw them 4th row at the Allen in Cleve.
 Speakers that noticably alter the shape of your body to such a degree as to cause serious hearing inability. Very physical trip, changes in blood flow regulation may be experienced etc., tests eardrum elasticity.
 If you ask, you can't get away with that. Choose to scale that down, that way it will take longer to destroy your [and others] sense of hearing.
 My guess is that the Radio Sound has something else on it, quite different from the supra-loud 'Live Band Covers ZZ' sound [abusively loud] when I saw them, one of my Top 2 rated concerts of all times.
 I've never read a peep about their studio methods, but the bands recent awards appearances seem to have a more toned-down approach to guitar tone than the RAGING SIGNATURE MARSHALL STAX method I saw.
 

[DougH]

There have been several interviews with gibbons. And he uses all sorts of amps in the studio. They talk about his amp igloo, where he took probably 10 different small studio amps and made an igloo around a mic versus trying to mic 10 different amps. So his live rig and what he uses in the studio are gonna be very different. So not gonna be 1 pedal that does it all. Probably really hard to even come close to his studio tone.

That may be how he gets his sound now but the OP was asking for help with Brown Sugar and Just Got Paid. Those are off the first two albums. His first 3 or 4 albums were mostly cranked amp. His sound has changed a lot over the years, especially since then.

[WGTP]

The Bixonics Expandora has been linked to the Reverend Gibons and more recently a "germanium wonder" fuzz I assume.  He probably has a huge number of pedals, like guitars. 

Probably best to find a distortion you really like and match that up with a good EQ, maybe one before and one after the distortion.  Also, he is famous for his Pearly Gates guitar and Pickups, both full size humbucker and single coil sized from the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop.   

[m-theory]

I've got a friend who knows the man very well, and has been with him in the studio several times.  He uses many different types of amps and pedals, and always seems to dial up his sound.  What he dials up and gets "his" tone from, however, isn't necessarily something that either you or I would probably find useable, and certainly not what you or I would produce his tone with.  Like all great and influential players, most of that magic comes from his fingers. 

That said, most of the old school tones can be found in the neighborhood of a cranked old school "Marshalley" (doesn't necessarily ahve to be Marshall, specifically) amp, sometimes with a fuzz. 

Funny thing about pickups...those pearly gates definitely do NOT work in every Lester.  They're real mid-heavy, to the point of sounding absurd in some guitars (namely, mine).  Same as everything else, I guess...there's more at play than just brand and model names/numbers.  I just shake my head in disbelief at the people who'll spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to buy up what they think are exact duplicates of SRV gear, for instance, and completely leave out the part where Ceasar heavily modified those old Fender amps that SRV was so well known for. 

[tcobretti]

Gibbons also was very evasive and occasionally downright dishonest about his gear, so your only real reference is your ear.  To me, the early rhythm tones sound like a LP into a Marshall that is turned up real loud.  Not very much gain so much as the sound of a guitar interacting with a very loud non-master volume amp.  The amp eq was set to be pretty bright because he'd use the different P/U settings on his guitar, and with a LP into a Marshall that can get real muddy real quick if you aren't careful.

The lead tones, however, vary quite a bit and it's anybody's guess as to what gear he used.  I am convinced that his classic nasty tone is a fuzz into a small solid state amp (much like the Brian May Deacy, but with fuzz instead of a treble booster).

[lerxst88]

Well as far as pedals go I know he was famous for using 6 Expandoras all in series from the guitar to the amp. if you have the means, set all the distortions relatively low so you get six stages of cascading gain .

what always had a gibbons kind of sound to me was a late 70's mxr Distortion +. theyre like $50 on ebay

[jimbeaux]

To me - these two sound samples of the "Red Fuzz" at generalguitargadgets are pretty close to Gibbons' sound on the albums you're talking about - (and a really simple build)

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/sounds/redfzzle.mp3

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/sounds/redfzzsi.mp3

Page Link is http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=90&Itemid=26

[ayayay!]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned he picks with a peso. 

[samrsmiley]

To me - these two sound samples of the "Red Fuzz" at generalguitargadgets are pretty close to Gibbons' sound on the albums you're talking about - (and a really simple build)

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/sounds/redfzzle.mp3

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/sounds/redfzzsi.mp3

Page Link is http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=90&Itemid=26

Silicon sounds closer to me.  I think you guys are right on with the marshall with low gain-I'm wondering if there's a pedal that's similar to that.  I kind of was thinking it was an explorer??  Little more mids right?  I'm really looking for the tone on Brown Sugar mostly.  Man it's sweet!  Definitely in the hands and impossible to recreate-just like how I could never get SRV with a 808, 50s strat, and 50s bassman.  But you'd be a lot closer than with a Sparkle drive, prs, and bogner...

[Johan]

in the songs refered to, I'm with Doug..Marshall..probably JTM-45 or "bluesbreaker"-combo, so any pedal that is supposed to give that sound..and a good Les Paul..(..and Billy's fingers)

j

[samrsmiley]

in the songs refered to, I'm with Doug..Marshall..probably JTM-45 or "bluesbreaker"-combo, so any pedal that is supposed to give that sound..and a good Les Paul..(..and Billy's fingers)

j

Blues breaker combo that 18 watt one?

[Mark Hammer]

Now I won'y claim that I cop his tone flawlessly, but in my juvenile fantasy moments, I find that some resonant boost applied in the right spots BEFORE the overdrive of your choice can do a nice job of it.  NOTE: This is not the same as a %^&*ed wah because the entire spectrum is represented....just a little more of some parts than others.

Why does this hold promise?  Because the Very Reverend G often uses smaller amps where the small-sized cab and speaker can often impart resonances that larger amps will not.  Did he use it on the tunes mentioned?  Don't know, but I'm listening to Just Got Paid as I write this, and my first instinct is to push an overdrive with the right EQ, and then trim back the top end post-clip.

A parametric or semi-parametric EQ is very useful for this.

[petemoore]

  If you can get most of the work done by the amp and speaker, the distorting part seems to fall into place, a few different effect boxes and tweeking, HB pickups may help.
  The speaker...has a sweet zone of volume level.
  The amp becomes a different dynamic when it's about powerful enough, no more.
  The boxes get the whole shebang pushed to or past parameters which tend to produce the sweeter distortions.
  These settings can be sensative, attempting to increase or decrease volume beyond a certain %age upsets the balance [the output no longer is as involved in the distortion characteristic or distorts+Fails to provide sufficient volume level].
  Only with the 'right' volume and settings levels, which isn't all that variable with a given system, and the shapes/sizes/texture of containment surfaces of the air and other masses it is intended to wiggle:
  The speaker is pushed by current / constrained by air and suspension which provides compression, other 'odd' frequency / gain curves.
  The amplifier output tubes odd behaviour when producing the frequency band content is easily found or lost when the input voltage is sufficient or less than what causes the 'distortion'. iow...when the front end is hit with sufficient signal input, the tubes go non-linear.
  Preamp can be just simple and mostly clean, what happens before that in the chain is so many multiplications below what the speaker puts out, PU, wood, metal, that most of the products we use here [gain stages, tone control/voicings, clipping] can easily be used as a way to augment the other non-linearities.
  Some of the hardware can be eliminated, the speaker and amplifier are needed for the source to be heard, some non-linearities may occur. 
 
   

[mikemaddux]

Diaz texas square face

pm me if you cant find it.

[Solidhex]

Yo

  Brown Sugar and Just Got Paid.... I've listened to ZZ Top's first and Rio Grande a bunch. Although I would assume he was just playing a Les Paul into a Marshall around then but I have a feeling he's playing something lower wattage in the studio possibly. It has that whole power amp distortion sort of compression in the lows and that woody crunch that a speaker adds but it seems to have a sweeter sound than you'd expect from a cranked 100 watt Marshall. I get like a little Fender cranked up feeling.

--Brad

[Caferacernoc]

Yo

  Brown Sugar and Just Got Paid.... I've listened to ZZ Top's first and Rio Grande a bunch. Although I would assume he was just playing a Les Paul into a Marshall around then but I have a feeling he's playing something lower wattage in the studio possibly. It has that whole power amp distortion sort of compression in the lows and that woody crunch that a speaker adds but it seems to have a sweeter sound than you'd expect from a cranked 100 watt Marshall. I get like a little Fender cranked up feeling.

--Brad

That's what I always hear. Sounds like a Fender Deluxe to me. If it's a Marshall I'd guess it's an open back combo. And a whole load of mids. Texas blues eq over British '60's blues.