What's up with Stevies tone here?

[Fretz]

Any know what's up with Stevies tone in this video?
Definitely not as good as usual!

[Commodore 64***]

LOL @ the bassists fallen, flock of seagulls flip hairdo!

I know I'm going to get crucified for this, but, I can't stand SRV. He's a great player, but I just get tired of his playing after about 30 seconds. I've seen some vids too of him doing crazy dumb stuff like standing on his guitar and holding it by the whammy bar, crouching in front of the amp gesticulating and shivering like he was having a grand mal seizure.


I'll take his brother's playing style any day of the week though.

[Tone2TheBone]

Where do people like you come from. Let me find my cross.

[sumitomo]

LOL @ the bassists fallen, flock of seagulls flip hairdo!

I know I'm going to get crucified for this, but, I can't stand SRV. He's a great player, but I just get tired of his playing after about 30 seconds. I've seen some vids too of him doing crazy dumb stuff like standing on his guitar and holding it by the whammy bar, crouching in front of the amp gesticulating and shivering like he was having a grand mal seizure.


I'll take his brother's playing style any day of the week though.

I have to go with ya Commodore.I like SRV's playing but tire quickly and really like Jimmy's playing(try following along with him sometime,it's not as easy as it sound's)Sumi away from the tomato throwing!!!LOL! Missed me

[Eric***]

I know I'm going to get crucified for this, but, I can't stand SRV. He's a great player, but I just get tired of his playing after about 30 seconds. I've seen some vids too of him doing crazy dumb stuff like standing on his guitar and holding it by the whammy bar, crouching in front of the amp gesticulating and shivering like he was having a grand mal seizure.

I've stated before in that music-you-don't-get thread that I don't really get SRV. I'm sure lots of music I dig is scorned by many people, but so be it. I guess there's no accounting for taste.

[Retro Hound]

A bunch o' heretics! I love SRV, and his outlandish playing, but that love started many years ago before I ever began playing guitar. I don't know if that will change as I get better or not. (Assuming I get better.)

[ZMAN]

He is using too much vibe on it univibe pedal. It almost sounds like a Leslie cabinet. That is all. I am pretty sure he used a Vox Univibe, and the TS9s.
On this song he has always uese "some" vibe.

[marnold***]

I think ZMAN might be on to something. The audio quality of that video is not the best. I know there was a thread Robert started some time ago about a track on the Austin City Limits DVD (I think) where he's got the blown speaker sound goin'. Honestly, I didn't notice it until he pointed it out. That's the difficulty of saying "I want SRV's tone." Which one do you want? Tightrope? Tin Pan Alley? Pipeline? Voodoo Chile?

And you can laugh at Will Lee's haircut all you want, but he's still a powerfully righteous bass player.

As far as the other comments go, it's perfectly all right if you don't like SRV, as long as you admit that you are wrong

[duhvoodooman***]

As far as the other comments go, it's perfectly all right if you don't like SRV, as long as you admit that you are wrong

Now, there's a comment I can fully support!

Seriously, I agree--his tone is definitely not up to snuff there. Compare it to this performance on ACL from the same basic time period:



Same guitar, prolly the same pedal set-up (pretty sure he's kicking in a TS808 or two for the solo, or maybe a Fuzz Face). Almost certainly playing through a Vibratone cab for that Leslie tone, like he used on "Cold Shot". I'm guessing that for the Letterman performance, he was plugged into whatever amp they had available or maybe more likely, just couldn't crank up his own amp(s) as he liked to do (he was notorious for playing LOUD). Anyway, it has a much dryer, thinner tone than the ACL performance.

[Commodore 64***]

Geez, I'm glad I didn't answer the question "What's up with Stevies tone here?" like I wanted to....




"He never had any to begin with."

[sumitomo]

Commodore come on now brother play nice! Sumi

[Tig***]

Wow, it was 20 years ago today that we lost Stevie.

As I've said before, you haven't heard SRV until you've heard him live. I no longer listen to the studio stuff. If studio recording are all you have been exposed to, then I understand.

[otaypanky***]

I think he sounds terrific.
He's not with his trio, they fly him to NY and stick him on a tv set with musicians he's probably never played with. He plays through who knows what for an amp, it's somebody's YouTube posting recorded by who on what, and we are critiquing his tone?

'Gotta love the passion he played with. You can learn licks all day, you can't fake the soul.
Just a monster ~ RIP

[deeaa*]

I have the live in mocambo dvd but I dont like his music much.

[SuperSwede]

Where do people like you come from. Let me find my cross.

[LeadedEL84]

I can't believe this thread. I can respect that people like different things, have different favorites in style and players. Some of these comments though, I just can't believe. I am a fan of both Jimmy V and SRV. But if any comparison was made SRV could play circles around his brother. You think Stevie couldn't play note for note what Jimmy plays? He could have copied him to a T if he wanted. Why would he? He played better. I can't be any nicer than that on this subject so I will say no more.

As far as his tone in this video goes, I would have to say that it is mostly the youtube compression that sounds bad. The recording sounds bad. It is not even coming close to reproducing his tone. It was rare for Stevie to have a bad night but he WAS human. Bad nights did happen. Especially when he was jamming with new people with strange equipment. Any experienced player has been in that situation a time or two.

[deeaa*]

Apropos, I have an old Guitar Player issue where they interview Vaughn's guitar technician...and he revealed that actually the amp was set up so that it didn't give the sound that was dialed in.

He explained that Stevie had a fixation to set his amp always to same settings, he'd dial it in for a while but always end up with the same settings, no matter how bad it sounded, and what the tech did was remove the knobs, set the amp to sound like *he* liked it, and then put the dials back showing the position Stevie seemed to like so much. And lo and behold, that worked and they both were happy :-)

[Commodore 64***]

I can't believe this thread. I can respect that people like different things, have different favorites in style and players. Some of these comments though, I just can't believe. I am a fan of both Jimmy V and SRV. But if any comparison was made SRV could play circles around his brother. You think Stevie couldn't play note for note what Jimmy plays? He could have copied him to a T if he wanted. Why would he? He played better. I can't be any nicer than that on this subject so I will say no more.

Relax. I will concede that for the sake of stimulating discussion in this thread, I threw out an opinion that I knew was antithetical to the thread topic. However, I think your expectations affected your perception of what I wrote. First of all, I never said Stevie couldn't play or that Jimmy was a more talented player. In fact I said that I preferred Jimmie's "style" to Stevie's specifically because I didn't want to get into this argument of who is a "better" player.

If you are as big of a fan of both as you seem to be, you know that Stevie ALWAYS claimed that Jimmie was a great player and could play anything that he (Stevie) could. Now, we know that probably isn't true, because technical chops don't = style, and Stevie had a different "soul" to his music.

Style and Tone are subjective preference's to each listener. Aside from my tongue and cheek post further on, I think I took care not to dis Stevie's talent or abilities. (just his gesticulations )

[ZMAN]

I can't believe this thread. I can respect that people like different things, have different favorites in style and players. Some of these comments though, I just can't believe. I am a fan of both Jimmy V and SRV. But if any comparison was made SRV could play circles around his brother. You think Stevie couldn't play note for note what Jimmy plays? He could have copied him to a T if he wanted. Why would he? He played better. I can't be any nicer than that on this subject so I will say no more.

As far as his tone in this video goes, I would have to say that it is mostly the youtube compression that sounds bad. The recording sounds bad. It is not even coming close to reproducing his tone. It was rare for Stevie to have a bad night but he WAS human. Bad nights did happen. Especially when he was jamming with new people with strange equipment. Any experienced player has been in that situation a time or two.

A couple of things. Stevie was a master of copying. He copied Albert King to a T and never denied it. His forte was that he could make more notes on one position on a guitar than anyone I have ever seen. In the album Family Style you can hear the drastic difference between Jimi and Stevie Ray. Jimi is nowhere near Stevie. Even Clapton was amazed at how Stevie could just go to another level with his solos, and not run out of riffs.
I really don't think there is anything wrong with the recording. Fellow Cannuck Paul Schaffer's organ is drowning out Stevie (as usual). If you see Paul backing anyone on Letterman he tends to do this. It is a poorly mixed version and not Stevie's band. I have all of Stevie's recordings and several of his DVDs. He was a true showman, and a true player. Remember he did all this with a Fender amp, and couple of pedals and his talented fingers.