Elusive "Duane-Tone"

[Carl_Tone]

Love that tone and slide...is your action high?

[philipag]

Thanks - Action is just a little higher than factory set-up. I'm using the same guitar for both clips - strings are .010s - pretty standard. Open E tuning on the slide - I do prefer the heavier Dunlop pyrex slide (open ended) to the closed end Coricidin bottle that Duane and Derek Trucks use(d). Seems to add some nice sustain and I can apply less pressure on the strings and get the tone I want.

[Jim Moulton]

not bad at all, needed a little more something, but quite good!!!

[philipag]

Thanks, Jim. I think what's missing is a bit more gain. Duane usually dimed out his amps - my Tweed Twin was at about 2.5 on each channel, so not nearly as much gain and tube distortion. Of course, more DUANE wouldn't hurt either - but that's much harder to find!

[Jim Moulton]

No, it was quite good!!!

[Scott Auld]

How'd I miss this? I love me some Duane and you pretty much nailed it.

[philipag]

Thanks, Scott. A little Brother Duane makes any day a bit better, yes? The power and impact of his playing is pretty remarkable and just my way of saying thanks for all the joy and inspiration his music continues to provide.

[philipag]

Finally got a chance to really crank it up. Playing around with "Don't Keep Me Wondering"

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8608577

[Franklin]

Nice, once again! What amps was Duane getting that "zipper" type fuzz with? I can get it if I crank my Deluxe Reverb and boost it a little. On it's own, the DR needs to be dimed to get that zipper sound, but doesn't sound a fraction as good as old Duane got.

I remember a studio recording where I was looking to get that type of tone and I nailed it. I used a FD2 with the comp cut, low gain and cranked amps. I wasn't getting the tone I wanted unless I was in the same room with the amp when tracking.

[philipag]

[QUOTE=Franklin;7519950]Nice, once again! What amps was Duane getting that "zipper" type fuzz with? I can get it if I crank my Deluxe Reverb and boost it a little. On it's own, the DR needs to be dimed to get that zipper sound, but doesn't sound a fraction as good as old Duane got.

Thanks, Franklin. Not sure what you mean by "zipper" sound - maybe you can give me an example of a song where Duane has that tone?

[Marble]

nice tribute, what better artist to pay tribute to! To be honest I feel you're a bit off the mark tonally. But your slide playing is definitely going somewhere, keep it up. You can never cop enough Duane, no one does it nearly enough as they should!

[philipag]

Originally Posted by Marble

nice tribute, what better artist to pay tribute to! To be honest I feel you're a bit off the mark tonally. But your slide playing is definitely going somewhere, keep it up. You can never cop enough Duane, no one does it nearly enough as they should!

Thanks, Marble. I've checked out some of your slide playing, and really enjoyed it - keep up the good work. That's cool about the tone - since this was a tribute I was trying to get as close as i could - but at the end of the day I want a tone that suggests Duane, but is still my own.

[Marble]

Thanks. That's most important thing, is to have it still be your own. I would love to have a tone just like Duane, but why would I want to? Another fun tone to mess with is Derek Trucks, I think you can basically get there by cranking the amp to power tube distortion, turn treble as high as it goes on the amp and roll back the tone knob on the neck pickup so that its not harsh, but still clear. I like the snarling Duane tone a bit more myself though.

Personally I like p90s for getting into Duane-tone territory. Obviously its not what Duane used but paired with power tube distortion and a Fender amp, the p90's mid hump makes up for that Marshall overdrive tone. There's lots of cool variations possible, while still making it clear where home base is, like what you did.

[philipag]

Yeah - p90's are great for slide! I've been thinking of making a Warmoth slide dedicated guitar with one HB and 1 or 2 p90's and 24 frets.

[Franklin]

By "zipper" I mean a shaper edged fuzz sound when he played double stops or dug into a note but on the clean side when he laid back. It's a really fuzz like tone, I originally thought he was using a fuzz. I'm thinking of his live tone on a couple of specific tunes -when I find/remember an example I'll post it.