Tone/Amp Help

[McJagger]

Hello,

I'm currently having a bit of trouble in terms of sorting out the tone of my guitar. I have a Roland Micro Cube and have spent the last hour messing with the effects and gains etc, but I can't seem to achieve the 'Keith Richards tone'. I'm trying to learn Brown Sugar, I have the chords right and stuff, it's just the actual tone that's letting me down.

Could anyone offer any help?

Thanks in advance,

(:

[dogbite]

Keith Richards often plays his tele tuned to open G.
he uses a bit of overdrive, a warm breakup of the signal. it results in a nice vintage tone.
the open G tuning. could have an effect on tone. I notice it, as I have my tele tuned like Keiths.
I play a few of his songs and come close to his sound.
I use a Tubescreamer with slight Drive and alot of right hand attitude.

[Vic Lewis VL]

Looking through my old notes.....

I used to have a cube 30 and kept a list of all the settings I used for various songs/bands. For songs like Brown Sugar and Start Me Up (which are both in open G, as Dogbite mentioned) I used the Brit Combo or Black Panel setting; kept the volume pretty low, about 2-3, gain up to about 7, bass down to about 4, mids down to about 2, treble up to about 7, reverb about 6-7. The tricky bit was finding the "sweet spot" on the Telecaster volume control - there's a point where it's still fairly clean, but just a touch higher and it starts to distort - you've got to find that spot just in between.

Never had a micro cube but I believe it's got quite a few of the features of the Cube 30 - just had a quick look at a picture. Try the Black Panel setting, but you may have to turn the gain down just a touch from my original estimate - I think the 7 setting was for the "Brit Combo."

Hope this is useful.



Vic

(Funnily enough, just as I was writing this, "Jumping Jack Flash" was on the radio....."

[greybeard]

Don't forget that KR only uses 5 strings - the low E is missing.

[cantankerousd]

"I've always enjoyed the five-string tuning. (...) It's five strings, three notes, two fingers and one a$$hole!" - Keith Richards

I can't help but love me some Keef!
I play a few stones tunes and, IMO the attitude is almost as important as the tone! Keep Rockin!

[Honeyboy]

Keith is such a unique player AND a unique person. I just wish he would do something new that was as good as any of his old stuff. I haven't had an urge to learn any new Keith licks in a while. Still I love everything he does.

[McJagger]

Thanks so much for all of your help guys! Vic, thank you for your detailed explanation, definitely going to try this set-up later on, thank you!