was seen scribbling this:
>
> >I'd be willing to bet that you could give B.B. King a Mexican Strat and a
> >Gorilla amp and he'd still get his sound.
>
> Well, my bet is it would sound like B.B. King jamming on some kind of
> Strat through a cheap practice amp. I challenge B.B. King to get a
> Mexican Strat and a Gorilla amp to sound like a Gibson hollow body
> through a silverface Twin Reverb.
>
> I learned fairly early on that the tone comes from your hands and
> technique, but that didn't stop me from spending copious amounts of
> cash over the years trying to find gear that suited my hands in a way
> that pleased my ears.
>
> I agree with your premise, but where some folks place way too much
> emphasis on the gear, I think just entirely discounting the equipment
> altogether is pretty generalistic, as well.
>
> Thanks for the enjoyable insights to the old days.
goldtop,
Perhaps I am getting too old for this (I hope not), but I've been around long
enough to have seen a lot of great players and heard them live and up close.
Please forgive me for what I'm about to say (since it's going to sound like
name dropping), but maybe some famous examples will help clear the air:
Case in point: I was in TTG studios in L.A., showing Jimi Hendrix some of the
neat things he could do with his four new Acoustic amplifiers and I unpacked
my guitar to plug in because I was more faniliar with it than a Strat. (I
wasn't even too thrilled about putting on a guitar with him in the room let
alone him watching me.) He took one look at my guitar (a left-handed model of
the guitar I had designed for Acoustic) and said, "Gimme." That guitar had
far more in common with a Les Paul than a Strat, but within 5 minutes or less,
he had his sound. Not the sound of an Acoustic brand guitar going through a
wall of Acoustic amps, but "his sound".
He kept my guitar, ordered a second guitar on the spot, and gave me one of his
"Burns" white Strats to use, since I protested, Hey I'm in a band, too - what
am I gonna use? Our band played Phoenix, AZ a few months later and we were
forced to use all our big Acoustic amps as the PA system. Bill Fry, the local
dealer opened his store and loaned us enough equipment to do the gig. I wound
up using a double Marshall stack that night. One of the songs we did near the
end of the set called for massive amounts of feedback at the end of the song.
About 1/2 way through the song, it dawns on me , "Hey, I've got Hendix's very
own guitar in my hands and a double Marshall stack in back of me - I'm bad!!!"
Comes time for the feedback solo, I get very intimate with the front of the
stack, with every knob set at 11+ and I crank that Strat for all it's worth
and ram the end of the Strat into the corner of the cabinet for direct
contact... and nothing!!! I mean NOTHING. I didn't realize that Jimi usually
chained two Fuzzfaces together to get that feeback. I ran into him in Oakland
and gave him back his Strat a few weeks before he died.
Another case: I've heard Albert King play through a Twin (my all time favorite
amp) and his beloved Acoustic 260 and to my ears, the 260 worked better for
him. But it never sounded "like Albert King playing through a Twin" - it was
just Albert King.
Finally B.B. King: He played, at various times, through a Twin, an Acoustic
amp, and a Lab Series Gibson amp. His sound didn't change very much. But
you're right about the equipment creating a feel and an environment conducive
to great feeling.
As far as your challenge, I think you're wrong. It won't sound like B.B. King
playing a Strat through a Gorilla amp. He'll always find his sound (or pretty
damn close to it) and you'll hear pure B.B. King. Lucille and a Twin may
polish it a little more, but as someone once said, "It's all in the wrist," or
in the case of the great players, "It's all in the heart."
Like a great carpenter, the tools don't make you great - they just let you
work faster and easier. A bad carpenter with great tools doesn't stand a
chance against a great carpenter, even with bad tools.
--
Harvey Gerst
Indian Trail Recording Studio
http://users.aol.com/harvgerst/records/studio.html
Indian Trail Records
http://users.aol.com/harvgerst/records/records.html
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