If I ever had any that is!
Johnny was my first guitar hero, I was obsessed with the Smiths when I was 15 and I wanted to play guitar and sound like Johnny. A friend of mine who could play tabbed out Heaven Knows for me and I'd never seen tab before - wow - there it was, exactly as played by JM. I couldn't get enough. I sat and listened again and again to all of the songs, working them out as best I could. I got pretty good at at in the end. There were no youtube tutorials back then so it was listen, repeat, listen, repeat. I couldn't work some out until, I realised the guitar must be tuned differently, so I fiddled around and discovered alternate tunings by ear. I had no idea you could do that before JM.
I saved up and bought myself a chorus pedal, then a copy rickenbacker (Tanglewood TW60) and eventually a Fender Performer amp. Pound shop Johnny but I didn't care. Then I met my future bandmate / guitar / writing partner who introduced me to something complettely different - Riffs! He had a dirty Marshal sound and one line riffs that made me think different. So I spent years trying to copy how he got such impact from so little intricacy. I was all figerpicked chord shapes and loads of reverb, he was straight up dirty one liners.
Then I got into Canterbury stuff, complex time signature changes and whimsical melody. Then folk and folk rock came along with songs in DADGAD and stabbing off beat chords.
I'm bored of all that now so I've been revisiting my original muse. So much on line content now compared to back then. You can watch JM himself teaching you how to play his riffs, read about his gear and all that. So I want to cut back a bit on all my pedals and boxes of tricks and synths and what not and go back to the picked out chord thing again. And here's where I want some help...
I've got a few options:
1. I've got a MESA Express amp, which has a decent clean sound but the reverb is a bit weak. I could run a reverb in the loop to get that Fender sound. But which reverb? I've got a Hardwire pedal which I can try out but is there a pedal that does Fender reverb that's worth trying?
2. A DR simulator pedal in front of the express. With / without the reverb pedal in the loop.
3. A JC22, I've still got the chorus pedal. Itr's a CE5 and can do stereo out. So express with a reverb pedal and stereo out of the CE5 into a JC22 to get the JM stereo thing. (it's not, it's a CH-1, it's been a long time in it's box!)
4 Buy a DR RI.
5. Buy a TM DR RI
Buy a twin and be done.
I know a lot of JM sound is in the way he plays it, I'm pretty happy with that side of things. But I crave that sound, the earlier Smiths sound which I know needs the stereo JC for the top end. But JM admits he didn't really like that.
Searching around on here, there are a few people saying an FRV-1 reverb might be worth investigating, or an FDR-1 (despite ICBM not liking the live use limitations!). Some think TM amps get you 90% of the way there and that could open up a twin option without breaking my back (not that I will be carrying it anywhere).
Thoughts?
Comments
Sounds like you've already got what you need gear wise to get close enough.
2. Dont try to create his sound… create YOURS !
Eqd Speaker Cranker clone
Monte Allums TR-2 Plus mod kit
Trading feedback: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/60602/
-Pedals out front going into a Diamond compressor set a little bit bright
-HX Stomp using the Deluxe preamp
-Stereo delay and stereo chorus
-Dual cabs Left and Right
-Dynamic Ambience at the end
Hours of fun tbh. Adam does a decent job.
I've been trying something similar with the Stomp XL:
compressor pedal going into Stomp and then a left path with a small splash of reverb and a right path with a small splash of delay. These combine into stereo chorus and suitable dual cabs and dynamic ambience.
Some really cool sounds come out. Keep the delay and reverb in the L/R paths about 20%, delay around 350ms, you get these little almost background sounds that weave around the notes. You can also get a lot of very Cocteaus-type sounds doing this.