Bright Tone with Warmth

[NSC217]

So I've posted a lot of posts here getting a little bit closer to what i'm looking for each time.... I'm trying to get something similar to this tone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl2wQSd758k

A lot of it has too do with the dynamics of his setup (pickup height etc.) but wood contributes as well. It's very clean, yet has some warmth to it. It's not brittle or piercing bright sounding (like from a one piece maple), but more of a smooth brightness with rolled highs. 

Right now I have a rosewood/maple neck and it sounds too brittle piercing to my ears.
1. Would an ebony shaft with rosewood board give me a clean tone with rolled highs and some warmth or simply too bright?
2. What about a canary neck with rosewood board? Supposedly that has the tone of maple but warmer? Maybe that would give a clean tone, but not piercing... And I could always change my chinese pre-amp tubes with Russian to get a bit more bite....
3. I like clean but with warmth.... I don't want a muddy, dull tone! Thanks!  :headbang1:

 

[Superlizard]

What amp, stomp, speakers are you playing through?

Don't forget to factor in the whole chain of gear; it might not even be your guitar.

 

[NSC217]

All that's taken into consideration! I actually have the same amp and speakers as him! My last rosewood/maple neck had similar tone but the new one I got is too bright. So I want to take out the risk of getting another TOO bright maple/rosewood by not getting one!

 

[NSC217]

So out of curiosity, would people define the tone that Kenny is playing in this video as warm or bright??

 

[richship]

That seems like a nice bright tone to me. Good snap on the attack. I don't complain about too bright - I've got a tone knob if that's a problem. Harder to add that brightness if it isn't there.

 

[Superlizard]

All that's taken into consideration! I actually have the same amp and speakers as him! My last rosewood/maple neck had similar tone but the new one I got is too bright. So I want to take out the risk of getting another TOO bright maple/rosewood by not getting one!

What amp does he use?

Sounds like a typical chimey Stratty tone with a little rosewood fretboard smoothness added.

His tone isn't "bright", it's chimey.  There's a difference.

 

[NSC217]

Usually he uses a fender twin but I heard him do an interview before this that he switched to a fender deluxe vintage reissue or some fender vintage reissue with less wattage so that he could crank the amp all the way up to get the distorted sound he likes without being too loud (Doesn't sound like it's distorted though).

 

[NovasScootYa]

If you have a maple rosewood neck and Kenny Wayne has a maple rosewood neck, it may not be the neck. IMO, you're expectations may not be met with a different neck wood. It may be a laundry list of other factors involved, How well can you play? Have you heard your guitar being played by anyone else? What setup, etc. do you have? I.E. Bridge, Strings, nut, frets, fret board radius, neck profile, body wood, body finish, pickups, pots, cap, wiring, weight, etc. And how well is all that assembled and set up?
I know the Kenny Wayne Model Strat is MIM and has a bridge I would not use. However, the Strat he plays in the video may be and probably is Custom Shop. I'd be surprised if it were hecho in Mexico but Kenny Wayne is the kind of artist who could make a 2x4 sound good.
You may be better off finding an instrument that meets your expectations at a guitar show, etc.

 

[JamesL]

This is just my opinion.... But more than likely you're playing YOUR amp at a lower volume correct? His amp is most likely at a much higher volume, I think the way an amp/speaker sounds at different volumes is a lot different. In my experience anyway...

 

[Jusatele]

Very nice bright tone
It has been my experience that the brighter you like your tone, the more you need to work on your technique. Bright tones do not hide a thing, now about Kenny's Rig, get serious, He can afford what he wants, the best bet for clean clear bright tone with that kind of snap and dynamics is a high dollar tube amp with good speakers and a hall that is giving the natural chorus you hear in that clip.

 

[Jusatele]

BTW

his setup looks very simple in that video, almost like he is running strait into the amp and a lot of the sound you are hearing is the natural sounds of the hall as that is not miked stage recording but from inside the hall.

 

[ocguy106]

That tone is in Kenny's fingers plain and simple. Hand him any guitar you want and after about a week with it, it will pretty much sound just like that. That is just his tone. Give him a guitar that is too bright he will "tone" it down. If the magic was 100% in the tone woods that guitars are made up of then you could have any expert be able to pick out the tone woods in a blind test 100% of the time. The fact is I would say in a blind test a professional would have the same sucess rate as a 4 year old making guesses. The woods definatly play a roll in tone but in the end you can tweak that tone to fit your needs.

 

[Steve_Karl]

The less I rely on electronics ... amps etc. ... the more important the woods become.

 

[ocguy106]

The less I rely on electronics ... amps etc. ... the more important the woods become.

In lew of what I wrote above I completely agree with this statement.

 

[NSC217]

Thanks all! i definetly disagree with everyone who says tone comes from feel. feel comes from feel. tone is a result of noise waves. i also dont think kenny is creating his tone by feel. i play very well and the tone from my previous neck was in my opinion 10x better than kennys tone here. the tone on my new neck is 10x worse than kennys tone here which upsets me. my new neck has a dark rosewood fingerboard as compared to my previous. maybe thats messing up the tone. it also has a vintage radius instead of thd 10 inch like my previous neck but no way ill get new neck thats not vintage radius... too comfy

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Is it possible to be bright and warm?  I tend to think "brightness" comes from guitars and "warmth" comes from amps.  To straight up answer, I would say it's on the bright side, but it sounds like a Strat to me.  I think the brightness was toned down, and I don't think it begins and ends with the fretboard.

 

[JamesL]

Thanks all! i definetly disagree with everyone who says tone comes from feel. feel comes from feel. tone is a result of noise waves. i also dont think kenny is creating his tone by feel.

Yea, and no, I mean, the thing about it is a guitar is a stringed instrument but it's also VERY percussive at the same time and that's something that makes it very unique. A light or heavy picking style/fingerpicking is greatly going to effect the way it sounds, same reason why different pick materials sound different. So in that sense "feel" does have a lot to do with the "tone" of a guitar.

 

[Jusatele]

Thanks all! i definetly disagree with everyone who says tone comes from feel. feel comes from feel. tone is a result of noise waves. i also dont think kenny is creating his tone by feel. i play very well and the tone from my previous neck was in my opinion 10x better than kennys tone here. the tone on my new neck is 10x worse than kennys tone here which upsets me. my new neck has a dark rosewood fingerboard as compared to my previous. maybe thats messing up the tone. it also has a vintage radius instead of thd 10 inch like my previous neck but no way ill get new neck thats not vintage radius... too comfy

I will agree and strongly disagree with you here

yes, if we were to take you and Kenny on the same rig and in the same room and asked you both to strum the guitars open fretted it would be the same.
but as soon as you had to manipulate that tone and control it with your playing style, there would be miles of difference. Kenny has the miles and ear to be able to get what he wants out of the same rig you do.

Look at it like this, take a new player and give him a rig that has no distortion, mid distortion and one with mega distortion, At first he will play the mega distorted outfit by choice, it hides so much, and as he improves he will reach for the mid distortion unit because he can let more of him come through. Finally he will go out and start playing clean, and start to learn how to manipulate that sound more and more. It becomes more of his own Tone, Not that it is different than anyone else.s base tone, but it is how how how he can manipulate the tone.

we call them both tone, but truly only the base rig is the tone produce, what part of that you let through is your ability, and trust me a lot needs to be left behind, a bright tone is the hardest to make sound good there is, it hides absolutely nothing.

a warmer tone has more of a rounded blended sound and is easier to use, you do not have to learn how to manipulate so much. plus it will blend the edges together instead of separating them. That is why Humbuckers are so popular over single coils, it is not the hum canceling, it is the fatness of the sound.

 

[NSC217]

I understand what you are saying. First of all, you don't know how well I play!  But I define smoothing out the notes with feel or adding edge with feel to manipulate the tone as still feel and it is still just that, manipulating the tone that is already there. I could tell if Jimi Hendrix was playing a strat or a flying V or his les paul and that's because each produces a different tone.

I am very, Very picky... perhaps more than you can imagine and I want the tone to be a certain way. Kenny says all the time that he needs to crank his amps all the way up to get that distorted tone that he loves even though it is much louder than he wants but according to him, he has no choice. What would you say to Kenny about that? I saw Kenny live and I heard him play different strats and some were brighter than others. How could I hear that if he could play every guitar to get the same tone he wants? Why does he bother playing vintage instruments? Why does he play strats instead of les pauls?

 

[tangent]

one way i use to achieve that kind of sound (bright yet rich, warm) is to use neck pickup with a TBX tone control which allows to cut the low frequencies and brighten the sound, as opposed to the traditional tone pot which only cuts high frequencies

the amp setup is obviously important also but i find TBX makes it easier to get that kind of sound in general

obviously tube amps need to be cranked into overdrive in order to sound their best, thats why amp modeling software is good, you can get rich tube style distortion at any volume level..