Chris Isaak style/technique?

[tapeup]

Hello, I don't know if this is the right place to post this or not, if not, please advise me...

I've been digging out old Chris Isaak albums recently and was trying to play along. Love the sound of his stuff. Is it simple or complex to play? Can anybody chime in and point me in the right direction? I realize a nice Twin Reverb or similar amp with Rev/Trem and perhaps a nice hollow-body are recipies in his tone most likely, but other than that, as far as playing his type of stuff, any pointers? Much thanks!

[tapeup]

Thank you for the cool information! I just checked out the link, man he's cool. I didn't realize he was in The Avengers! That was one of my old friend's big influences/favorites back in the day...cool! I love his style and sound. It reminds me of the music in the movie "Don't Come Knocking." I watched that movie again last night just to try and get a feel for the music in it. I don't know who played on it. It may be by the actor as it shows him playing live with his band in the movie in a handful of spots. Don't know if anyone knows more about this? Bill Frisell and Hank Marvin are names I've heard for a while, but have never really checked out. I'll have to do so now. Does James play a Twin Reverb like Isaak, or something similar? Much thanks!

[Ken Ho]

I agree, Chris Isaak is one of those guys who doesn't get taken seriously cos he's a smooth singing pretty boy, but I dig his style and he has a great band.
I really enjoyed watching a thing in The Baja Sessions a while back, but have never been able to track down the CD.

[Lawn Jockey]

Jimmy's new album "El Dorado" is way cool. I've always dug his tone.

[tapeup]

Originally Posted by weleetkaoutlaws

Jimmy's new album "El Dorado" is way cool. I've always dug his tone.

Yeah, I was listening to the songs from that on his myspace page, and me likey for sure. Definitely gonna have to pick that album up.

[tapeup]

Originally Posted by henry_the_horse

He plays a white Gibson ES-335 but he was not the musician playing the lead parts on "Wicked Game" if you meant that sound. Those parts were played by James Calvin Wilsey on a Stratocaster with a digital delay and an Eventide Harmonizer in the signal. This was similar to the Hank Marvin sound. Mark Knopfler does a great imitation of this sound with a strat strung with 12s in his "Shangri-La" LP ("Don't Crash the Ambulance"). Bill Frisell sounds similar too but he plays a Telecaster strung with 10s and a Boss DD3. You need a delay, reverb and vibrato bar to get that sound. Frisell replaces the vibrato bar with neck vibrato.
If you like James Wilsey sound check his record of instrumentals in homage of the Shadows (Hank Marvin) called "El Dorado" in http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...endID=72766411

Regards

Like Wilsey, Hank Marvin played a Strat also, right? If I play a Strat like Wilsey and Marvin(?), are there any particular pickups that are better suited than others for this sound/style that I'm going for? I know there are a ton of Strat pickups out there, but I don't know if the pickups play an important role in the tone recipe or not for their style. Thanks again!

[tapeup]

Originally Posted by henry_the_horse

Just the vintage wired single coils I guess. Avoid those modern more distortion less hum types of active PUs, hot rails, humbucker in a single coil size with the sound of a single coil, or humbucker that gets a single coil sound with a tap switch. I mess with my fender and gibson guitar pickups only to upgrade them to what the original guitar model came with in the year the guitar model was designed. For example an ES-330 would sound close to what it was when it was first issued (1959) with a pair of Duncan Antiquity P-90, which are Alnico II and not the modern Alnico V of 1968 onwards. The same could be said of a Pre-CBS style Strat. Marvin used a late 1950s flamingo red strat, first with a maple fingerboard then with a rosewood one. I guess Duncan Antiquity II are recommended for the 1960s surf sound. Then you have Fender Vintage PUs.


Wilsey plays an pre-CBS olimpic white rosewood fingerboard strat, which looks pretty relic to me, so problably it is 1960s vintage. Mark Knopfler plays a fiesta red rosewood fingerboard strat for the Marvin sound.

Marvin and Knopfler play with a .012" gauge string set. I don't know what gauge does Wilsey play but he seems to nail that sound also.

Delay and reverb are also important as is using the vibrato bar to slightly bend a string after picking it so that it becomes out of tune with the delay or reverb thus creating a manual chorus sound. Pure nickel strings were the only available in those early 1960s years and Fender just had 2 gauge sets, normal which was .013" and light which was .012", and three models: flatwound, pure nickel round wound, and pure nickel smooth round wound (half-rounds). From the half of the sixties through the seventies Fender issued a Rock N' Roll Light set too which was round wound .010"-.038", but we are talking Marvin here so that wouldn't count, just late 1950s and early 1960s strings.
http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/images...Strings_01.jpg

Try 13s or 12s flats or rounds a hear what it sounds to you more akin to the Marvin sound. Fender guitars were shipped from the factory with .012" half-rounds.

Regards

Awesome information henry the horse, much thanks to you!!! From the amps you mention Wilsey playing, they all have great built in reverb, so I'm guessing he gets his reverb from the amps? If that assumption is correct, the reverb seems to me like it would be turned up pretty high. Is this correct? I have some Fender amps with reverb (also tremolo) built in: Twin, Super, Deluxe, and Dual Showman Reverbs, so I'm guessing any of those would be great candidates to get me off on the right foot tone-pallete-wise? The reverb on these would be more beneficial, than say the digital reverb on my Boss RV-3 Digital Reverb/Delay pedal? I do have an old Boss DD-2 so that may cover the DD-3 territory that Frissell aquires, as well as an aproximation of Wilsey's sound?

Hank played AC30's right? What did he do about reverb then? Was it all done in the studio with echo chambers, tape delay, etc.?

Great information on the string guages/types too. Thanks for that!

[Stratofuzz]

Originally Posted by henry_the_horse

You are most welcome.

There is a misconception with spaghetti western and james bond movies music, Shadows, etc., that reverb is what makes the gutiar sound like that. Although reverb is used for ambience, the reverb control on your amp shouldn't be over 3 (on a Twin Reverb or any Hammond/Acutronics spring reverb tank). Obviously the lenght of the springs and the size of the tank have influence on the length of the reverb, but the effect control could be on 2 or 3, no more.
The effect for getting this sound is Delay and vibrato bar. Marvin used a disc-echo made by Binson, Meazzi, Watkins (WEM) and Vox. Echoplexes, Roland Space Echo and other tape echo devices may get close too. Analog delay pedals or Boss DD2/DD3 (same circuit) could also be of use. Mark Knopfler used a MXR Delay (the green one with the AC cable) in the early days. David Gilmour used a Binson Echorec disc-echo.

Set the delay time between 250ms and 500s, feedback at 30% (Frisell set it at 60%until 1997), effect control at 30%. That's all you need, plus the heavy strings gauge. You could use some reverb but if you are playing live that's really no necessary.

If you want to play surf music then a spring reverb or tube reverb is obligatory and the delay/echo is not that necessary, but that's a completely different story. As I said in a previous post and it states in the Mix Magazine article, for "Wicked Game" Wilsey used a 1964 Fender Deluxe amp, that means it has no reverb tank. Had it been a Deluxe amp with reverb it would have been listed as "Deluxe Reverb" amp.

Marvin played different Vox amps, starting with an AC-15, then an AC-30 with no top boost, then one with top boost, then he upgraded to AC-50, but those were not the years of the Shadow's chart dominance but the Beatles'.

Frisell plays Fender amps onstage but the amp reverb is not engaged. He uses a stereo reverb from a Lexicon rack unit.

Other guitarists that get the Marvin sound are Adam Levy (Norah Jones, the Yellowjackets) and Jim Campilongo (more surf and Chet Atkins than Marvin).

Regards.

Thank you-
Very informative. I need to get an echo, but an outboard Fender reverb tank has created a nice lush sound so far. (I'm playing a mix of Shadows and Ventures instrumentals)
I just want to be clear that the delay "percentages" (effect control at 30%) is a ratio of dry sound to echo. Is this right?

[dhdfoster]

You've been given great info! I'm a huge fan of James Wilsey and the early Chris Isaak stuff.

I just saw James Wilsey at Deke Dickerson's Guitar Geek Festival a few months ago. He sounded great.

Also, he posts over at the TDPRI Telecaster forum under the name WickedGtr, or something like that. He's answered a lot of questions about his tone, so there's a lot of info there. Great sense of humor, too. Doesn't like red guitars.

[tapeup]

Originally Posted by dhdfoster

You've been given great info! I'm a huge fan of James Wilsey and the early Chris Isaak stuff.

I just saw James Wilsey at Deke Dickerson's Guitar Geek Festival a few months ago. He sounded great.

Also, he posts over at the TDPRI Telecaster forum under the name WickedGtr, or something like that. He's answered a lot of questions about his tone, so there's a lot of info there. Great sense of humor, too. Doesn't like red guitars.

Indeed, I/we have been given great information here...and I'm super appreciate of it!!! Thanks for the information on Wilsey dhdfoster. I'll go check out that forum to see what I can find. Kinda funny he's a member of the Telecaster forum. Doesn't he kinda exclusively play Strats for the most part? Also, I was watching my old Chris Isaak video collection DVD tonight, and is James Wilsey in those old videos? Is he the young looking guy and also the guy in the more recent videos with the goatee-type chin piece?

................. ................ ..................
Well, I retract the Telecaster statement/question, as I just shot on over to his Myspace link again, and there's video footage on there of him playing "Insomnia" live, and in that he is playing a sparkle Telecaster with a B-bender on it. Cool! Do you know if he uses B-benders a lot?

[dhdfoster]

Originally Posted by tapeup

Indeed, I/we have been given great information here...and I'm super appreciate of it!!! Thanks for the information on Wilsey dhdfoster. I'll go check out that forum to see what I can find. Kinda funny he's a member of the Telecaster forum. Doesn't he kinda exclusively play Strats for the most part? Also, I was watching my old Chris Isaak video collection DVD tonight, and is James Wilsey in those old videos? Is he the young looking guy and also the guy in the more recent videos with the goatee-type chin piece?

................. ................ ..................
Well, I retract the Telecaster statement/question, as I just shot on over to his Myspace link again, and there's video footage on there of him playing "Insomnia" live, and in that he is playing a sparkle Telecaster with a B-bender on it. Cool! Do you know if he uses B-benders a lot?

Also, he was really into a 60s pink Tele with a Bigsby when he joined TDPRI, I think.

I think the guy you've seen in the videos is Hershel(sp), his replacement. JW is only on the first three, or so, Chris Isaak CDs.

I played for a few months with a female singer/songwriter and I "borrowed" a lot of ideas from JW.

[tapeup]

Originally Posted by dhdfoster

Also, he was really into a 60s pink Tele with a Bigsby when he joined TDPRI, I think.

I think the guy you've seen in the videos is Hershel(sp), his replacement. JW is only on the first three, or so, Chris Isaak CDs.

I played for a few months with a female singer/songwriter and I "borrowed" a lot of ideas from JW.

Is TDPRI the Telecaster forum? I need to check that out, I always forget about it. What does TDPRI stand for anyways? I wonder how many other professional musicians like JW are members of TDPRI? Hmmm.....

Ain't nothin' like borrowin' some licks from our inspirations huh!?!

[iaresee]

Hey tapeup!

Originally Posted by tapeup

Is TDPRI the Telecaster forum? I need to check that out, I always forget about it. What does TDPRI stand for anyways?

Telecaster Discussion Page Reissue - I think.

I wonder how many other professional musicians like JW are members of TDPRI? Hmmm.....

Like TGP they come and go. It's never "like it used to be".

You still rockin' that blue Tele? I had a moment of stupidity and toyed with selling the LPS. I pulled it. What was I thinking?!?!

I'm a big Isaak fan. Not too up on Wisely but I know a bit about Hershel Yatovitz the guy that's played with him for the last few albums. After trying to cop his smooth vibrato bar work on my Schecter strat with much frustration I stumbled across Skyway -- he's supposedly using their vib assembly and it looks pretty slick (although their site is kind of messed up).

Definitely a fun band to catch live. They fly under the radar so the shows, at least up North here, tend to be in smaller, nicer places.

[tapeup]

Originally Posted by iaresee

Hey tapeup!


Telecaster Discussion Page Reissue - I think.


Like TGP they come and go. It's never "like it used to be".

You still rockin' that blue Tele? I had a moment of stupidity and toyed with selling the LPS. I pulled it. What was I thinking?!?!

I'm a big Isaak fan. Not too up on Wisely but I know a bit about Hershel Yatovitz the guy that's played with him for the last few albums. After trying to cop his smooth vibrato bar work on my Schecter strat with much frustration I stumbled across Skyway -- he's supposedly using their vib assembly and it looks pretty slick (although their site is kind of messed up).

Definitely a fun band to catch live. They fly under the radar so the shows, at least up North here, tend to be in smaller, nicer places.

Hey Ian!! Good to hear from you! I was actually wondering if you were still playin' the LPS. Yeah I'm still rockin the blue Tele, I've been lovin it

I'm glad you decided to pull the listing...I mean do what you want to do, but I believe that was a cool one as far as LPS's are concerned! ...and sometimes I miss it...but I'm glad I got the Tele...Is that neck size good for you? I remember you mentioning before that a comfortable neck is sometimes hard to find for your hands, and that is one of the reasons you were parting with the Tele.

Thanks for the Skyway info...I had never heard of those. I checked out the site, and you're right, there are some funny issues with the site, but I emailed them to find out more info on the bridges...I'd like to try one if they aren't super pricey. We'll see what they say.

BTW, congratulations on being in the list of "custom pedalboards" in the May issue of Guitar Player!!:BEER

Yeah thumbs up on the Chris Isaak and Wilsey/Yatovitz! :AOK
I wish they would come to the southeast!

[iaresee]

Originally Posted by tapeup

Hey Ian!! Good to hear from you! I was actually wondering if you were still playin' the LPS. Yeah I'm still rockin the blue Tele, I've been lovin it

I'm glad you decided to pull the listing...I mean do what you want to do, but I believe that was a cool one as far as LPS's are concerned! ...and sometimes I miss it...but I'm glad I got the Tele...Is that neck size good for you? I remember you mentioning before that a comfortable neck is sometimes hard to find for your hands, and that is one of the reasons you were parting with the Tele.

It's just a little on the big size for me. Damn these small hands. But the short scale and the P-90s I put in it make just plain fun to play. I'd describe it as scrappy.

Thanks for the Skyway info...I had never heard of those. I checked out the site, and you're right, there are some funny issues with the site, but I emailed them to find out more info on the bridges...I'd like to try one if they aren't super pricey. We'll see what they say.

Let me know if they get back to you with a price. I'm building a parts Strat and was considering a Skyway bridge. I'm curious to see if they sell direct or what. I can't find them here in Canada and my emails have gone unanswered.

BTW, congratulations on being in the list of "custom pedalboards" in the May issue of Guitar Player!!:BEER

Thanks! That was an unexpected and ultra-pleasant surprise.