Robert Cray sound - why not so common?

[reverbbb]

It is odd to me, that the sound that Robert Cray gets from his Strat (particularly in earlier recordings), is not very commonly imitated.

The reason I say that, is that every time I pick up my Strats, that seems to be the default character. Anything else is a skillful effort to depart from the default. I think you can hear this natural character on a lot more on older recordings from the 50's & 60's.

I am going to speculate, that this default sound seems lame to many guitarists. It has a natural compression and punch but no grit. It is very clean and revealing.

My opinion is that this natural character is so under used, that I think it is cool to work with this characteristic as a "new" sound to my tone pallet.

Again, this seems to be the tone that the Stratocaster was made for. Why does everyone try hard to deviate from it?

(As another point of reference, the clean hook chords used on "Free Ride" - Edgar Winter Group).

[BobbyC]

This is just my opinion, but the less effects you use the better guitar player you have to be to entertain an audience. I used to watch Roy Buchanan way back when he virtually had no effects (he played on one of my demos when I was 16); he had to create everything with his head and two hands. Needless to say; I have a pedalboard myself - I am just no where close to that level of talent.

[Jim Collins]

I'm not sure what you are saying, here. Robert has always seemed to prefer either of the two inbetween positions on his Strat -- either neck+middle or middle+bridge. Most of the time I see people playing a Strat, this is all they ever use.

Personally, I don't care for those inbetween sounds. My Strat has a three way switch, precisely so I don't get those sounds, accidentally. (I've done this to most of the Strats I've owned.)

I rarely play with effects, other than reverb, which I use sparingly, or not at all. When I was gigging, most of the time I wouldn't even bring pedals, and when I did, they were all true-bypass, and rarely kicked in. When I'm playing a Strat or Tele (a Tele is my true love), I like to play straight into an amp, just because I like that tone the best.

[reverbbb]

The 2 & 4 position do seem to be a big part of Robert's sound. But that is not the whole picture of the sound that I am referring. They clean use of his guitar just seems to bring out a very clear trademark sound for single coils on a Fender Strat. I just don't hear a lot of folks tapping into this sound very often.

Sort of a "choingk" sound (if that makes any sense) I think the springs on the back of the bridge brings out this tone as well.

[jack.plugg]

What a masterful word...

Quote:- "Sort of a "choingk" sound (if that makes any sense) I think the springs on the back of the bridge brings out this tone as well."

Bad news for Robert Cray Strat owners, (like me). My Robert Cray model is missing the springs, and the cavity to fit them in!

I'll have to try and get that "choingk" sound some other way!

[John R.]

Originally Posted by jack.plugg

What a masterful word...

Quote:- "Sort of a "choingk" sound (if that makes any sense) I think the springs on the back of the bridge brings out this tone as well."

Bad news for Robert Cray Strat owners, (like me). My Robert Cray model is missing the springs, and the cavity to fit them in!

I'll have to try and get that "choingk" sound some other way!

But, isn't Robert Cray playing a hardtail? Maybe the
"choingk" sound comes from the lack of springs and cavity?

[jack.plugg]

... the springs give more of a "Branggg".

[reverbbb]

Is Robert playing a hardtail on his forth album? His sound is noticable different on that album than his current stuff. It seems more like "pranngk" now.

Actually, I did a little research. It does appear that Robert is playing a hardtail on Strong Persuader (my reference album).

So, perhaps the springs aren't contributing to the "choingk". That would point me back towards the three single coil pups and way they interact on each other.

Still, I hear more effort towards playing through effects and distortion than that clean Strat sound (as a general rule). I'm a big fan of processed guitar, but why do so many of us avoid playing it straight and clean?

[Adam Waldron]

Well, I am a long time Cray fan, he is one of my biggest early influences. The sounds of Cray, Clapton and Knopfler are the original reasons I play a Strat. I steer clear of the neck pick-up most of the time, to me that has become the archetypal Strat tone in blues circles.....

When I play my Strat, its generally plugged straight into by Bassman, and I will be using positions '2' and '4' a LOT of the time. To me, it doesn't get much better than that combo of Strat and Bassman. Well, maybe when I grab the Tele 8)

The Cray sound is more than just the quack, its his attitude (Albert Collins a major influence on him) and right hand attack. He digs in big time!

Knopfler and Clapton, well known for their quack, don't sound the same tonally as Cray. Different approaches...

Listen to some more recent Cray, and he is searching beyond his signature tone. I hear the neck and the middle alone.

Cheers,

Adam

[Jim Collins]

This is interesting. I am a blues player, and I notice more players using the 2 and 4 positions than anything, including the neck. Many players I see won't use anything but those positions.

My main guitar is a Telecaster, and I get little use out of the middle position on a Tele, as well. Most of my work is done on the bridge pickup. A reasonable amount is done with the neck (a standard Tele neck pickup), and very little with both. I just don't much care for the sound of two single coils in parallel. Two humbuckers in parallel is a different story, provided the guitar has a volume and tone per pickup. I get significant mileage out of that, when I play a humbucker guitar.

[Adam Waldron]

Jim, I guess its where you play!

Around my parts, quack is almost *my* tone as others avoid it!

Anyone for neck pick-up and a Toobscreemer?!

When it comes to the Tele, I use the bridge a lot!

Cheers,

Adam

[Mickey]

there's a duet on BB King's greatest hits album with Cray, it's tone heaven. Cray's got the single coil sting, BB's got the cleanish Gibson sting, they're totally different, totally fab. The cut's called 'Playing with my friends". I don't know where it appeared originally.

[weelie]

I LOVE his sound, and it's the strat sound I'm trying to cop on my strat... if any. Broad and full but still sparkly! Heavy strings, and played hard... but clean!

I just never could understand all the talk about SRV or Hendrix tone and all. Not my kinda thing. Magic Sam, Ike Turner or Robert Ward... now that's more like it! :d

My fave position on my strat seems to be neck+bridge though. After that, it's either bridge+middle or even bridge alone, but neck alone is not for me, cept for jazz comping with tone at 5.

[stantheman]

Robert Ward, yeah Weelie...gotta have The Magnatone to do him right.
One thing about Robert Cray's Tone that might have been overlooked is the NECK; on the original Strong Persuader Strat it's practically an "Early Beck" with a normal Nut....that Neck is one BIG MUTHA....in positions
1 thru 5 that's gonna make a difference PLUS Robert
used to do a lot of "snapping" with pick AND fingers.
I'll bet he set his Super much the same way Albert Collins set his Quad too.

[cft3]

Reverbb, my brutha, could it be that RC's sound is partly his rig and partly (gasp!) his fingers? - I agree, I think part of the reason he's not more emulated is because he plays clean, when the trend seems to be toward a more effected sound. Jimmy Vaughn, with his resolutely minimalist approach, suffers the same fate.

I also agree that effects can be used to make up for any deficit in ability. I can't (anymore) pitch the equation "fewer effects = more talent". Let's just say that the artful person will use effects artfully.

P.S. As a blues player myself, and a recent convert to a Powerhouse Strat (my drug of choice is usually my tele with the Gibson humbucker in the neck), I find myself using all the Strat pickup settings throughout the set. You can't do early Buddy Guy without cranking on the Strat bridge pickup!

P.P.S. I used to look down on Robert Cray myself. Recently I was watching the tape of the SRV tribute on Austin City Limits. When RC played it was like I heard him for the first time. "Dang", I thought, "this guy really is playing some stuff!" And I repented (for the moment) of my snobby attitude...

[Scotland]

He attacks that strings extremely hard, you can hear it clearly as it spanks that fingerboard. That is, I believe, how he gets that sound. I love to hear him get it, it's "his" sound but I hate when I get it, I tend to attack too firmly.

[NYC Bluesman]

I think that what a lot of people are not realizing is this: It's not just Robert Cray's guitar setup (strat and amps, etc) but the majority of his sound is coming from COMPRESSION. Robert Cray does not play direct-to-amp. He goes through a ton of compression. I play a lot of Cray's material and have pretty much nailed his tone—he picks with his fingers less than you think. I use a very small amount of overdrive (I use all Marshall pedals and find the Guv'nor Plus to be the best for OD) and the Marshall Edward the Compressor ED-1 pedal for my compression. It is a world of difference.

[klasaine]

Yeah, he has his own tone (I'll 2nd the compression analysis). It's one of the ways he's successfully distinguished himself the rest of blues pack. The other way is that he writes really well and sings great. He's also a really confident player. He'd probably sound essentially the same on a 175.

Interestingly, Clapton played pretty clean and 'Stratty' in the 70's, wrote cool tunes and became a better singer. Hmmmmm - maybe there's something to this 'clean strat and singing thing'?

[Astro1176]

I remember listening to Robert Cray in the 80s, at the time (and still) I admired his talent, but found the sound of his guitar too clinical for me to properly get in to. Sure it was expressive and all, but the sound and maybe the playing too lacked some sort of rawness and off-the-cuffness that I love about earlier blues and rock. I think Robert Cray's sound is the main thing that put me off the idea of ever owning a Strat for 25 years.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think its a bad sound, its just one that really isn't to my taste.

[Jim Sams]

As a long time strat player, I don't like Robert Cray's tone. I also don't use the "notch" positions much at all. Neck and middle pup mostly, and now and the the bridge pup since Chris Klein's "P-90" pup (sounds more fate tele than soapbar IMHO - a very good thing) has arrived.

[collinsman]

Robert played the #4 position mostly on his Strat, also Clapton uses that position frequently. Robert usually plays it clean and many don't like that quack sound, not nasty enough for blues - but I say whatever works, and really, who cares what I think.:)

[tjalla]

I've posted this before, but live he seems to go for the bridge PU more than on record. And while I can't say what goes on in the studio, the compression I hear has to do with 'maxing out' his strings with his right hand attack, rather than outboard gear.

[fretbuzzard]

He really does attack those strings! His playing is far more staccato than most players--where others would simply pull off or hammer on, Cray seems to pick damn near every note he plays! I like Cray as a breath of fresh air.

[TelZilla]

Originally Posted by klasaine

Yeah, he has his own tone (I'll 2nd the compression analysis). It's one of the ways he's successfully distinguished himself the rest of blues pack.

+1. I think he got lumped into the crew of "young blues guys" in the mid 1980s, particularly after Strong Persuader.

I can remember sometime in high school (1986?) seeing Cray, SRV, and George Thouroughgood on stage together at the grammys or something.

I really think Cray is a soul singer who can play guitar. But in the Eighties it was sort of like, hey, this guy plays guitar, but he doesn't tap, his headstock isn't pointy, and he's not old and British- Blues player!

[ibobunot]

Originally Posted by Astro1176

Sure it was expressive and all, but the sound and maybe the playing too lacked some sort of rawness and off-the-cuffness that I love about earlier blues and rock.

He's more urban not gutbucket, he's not from the delta and doesn't pretend to be...

[maxsmith]

Robert Cray models are hardtail strats, and the Mexican version is the only (Fender) hardtail strat you can get for under a $1000 - and there aren't that many Fender branded hardtail strats at any price range.

I have owned a Robert Cray strat for about three years and it has become my favorite workingman's guitar. The lack of a tremolo is a bonus for me beacuse I am a freak for always being in tune and I am not as much a fan of the strat "sproing" as I am of the Tele "skronk" and punch.

I was a Tele player for over three decades - and most of my teles ended up being modded with a middle pickup so I could get those two classic strat sounds - with the RC Strat, it's already there, plus the Strat is a more comfortable body style for me - and I get that fat, bluesy strat neck pickup tone, which I prefer to the Tele neck tone.

The bridge is like the one on the two humbucker Tele Deluxe (strat style saddles/through the body).

All the bridge pickup needed was a $10 steel plate I got from Callahan and epoxied to the bottom and it spanks like nobody's business.

This makes the RC Strat (mexican) the ultimate workingman's axe (for me) - solid, punchy always-in-tune rhythm guitar with lots of tonal choices and most of the classic lead tones you'd get from a Strat AND a Tele.

And if a halfstack fell over on this thing and totalled it, I could have another for less than $800.

Max

[GuitarJonz]

I usually don't like the overused strat notch tones so much, but it fits Cray's clean style well, and I like his use of it. To me, it sounds like....

[backalleyblues]

In the 80's, it was his '64 strat (his ugly silver one) straight into a BFSR set up about halfway, just enough to get a little breakup and compression if you dug in (which he obviously did!) his strings then were .011s tuned standard, and he used a 1mm Tortex pick (the blue ones). No effects otherwise, and I loved every minute of it when I saw him live-it was all in his hands, totally old-school playing and sound.

Saw him at the Tampa Bay Blues Festival last year, and it was all toys everywhere, but you could still tell it was Robert on guitar, his touch was clearly in evidence. Liked him better in the 80's though...

Franc Robert

[Del Pickup]

Apart from some EC and Dire Straits 'classics' which have used predominantly clean strat tones, I think the clean tones achievable by both strats and teles are not considered to be 'rock' enough for the general public.

Players who favour clean tones tend to be exceptionally talented players cos they've few effects to hide behind and sometimes I get the feeling that their abilities and musical styles aren't in yer face enough for many people so they tend to get ignored.

I also think that younger people (players and public alike) have always favoured overdriven tones - probably because it's more anarchic and less polite - and older more mature people gravitate towards clean tones.

That's a gross generalisation, I know, but possibly true to a greater extent.

[russv]

Originally Posted by fretbuzzard

He really does attack those strings! His playing is far more staccato than most players--where others would simply pull off or hammer on, Cray seems to pick damn near every note he plays! I like Cray as a breath of fresh air.

I think Robert displays some 60's Buddy Guy influence. Buddy used to have a very clean tone and play with a lot of attack. On the link below it sounds like the neck pickup (and very nice too) but he often used the 'out-of-phase' Strat tone on record.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XUAg1_A7IE

[Al Watsky]

RC kills.
One of the very best,IMO.
Plays what he feels.
Sings like nobody's business.
I guess most players like an
overdriven sound more, but
when you listen to Cray your mighty tempted to go with 36 Black Face Fender
watts and leave it at that.

[bgood]

Playing that clean takes some work. I like RC's playing alot, always have. I'm going to clean up my act and force myself to use my hands and attack more - that said, I play through a Tweed Deluxe so I can't get too clean and OD is just a small volume pot twist away if I need to abandon ship.

Good thread. Thanks

[Tonemaster]

Playing clean separates the men from the boys.

T.

[russv]

I always practice unplugged. Badly played notes are very noticeable and it doesn't disturb anyone else.

[romo]

Originally Posted by weelie

I LOVE his sound, and it's the strat sound I'm trying to cop on my strat... if any. Broad and full but still sparkly! Heavy strings, and played hard... but clean!

I just never could understand all the talk about SRV or Hendrix tone and all. Not my kinda thing.

I also love Cray's tone but I've got the exact opposite feelings than you. When I am playing a strat I am taking my tone more in the direction of SRV, Gilmour, Hendrix than Cray. I like a good clean sound as much as anyone but Cray is almost too clean for my tastes.

I am not a fan of the in between sounds either. For me it is neck or neck + bridge with a blender. Occasionally the middle, rarely the bridge alone.

[NYC Bluesman]

Originally Posted by Mickey

there's a duet on BB King's greatest hits album with Cray, it's tone heaven. Cray's got the single coil sting, BB's got the cleanish Gibson sting, they're totally different, totally fab. The cut's called 'Playing with my friends". I don't know where it appeared originally.

"Playin' With My Friends" is from B.B. King's "Blues Summit" cd (1993)

[NYC Bluesman]

Originally Posted by tjalla

I've posted this before, but live he seems to go for the bridge PU more than on record. And while I can't say what goes on in the studio, the compression I hear has to do with 'maxing out' his strings with his right hand attack, rather than outboard gear.

His compression is coming from effects not his hands. You can actually HEAR the compression which is why I was surprised that nobody picked up on it.

If you fool around with the following settings you can get an almost exact effect: Set the Emphasis to Hi, Compression to Full, and Attack to 9 O'Clock.

I use a Guv'nor OD pedal with the gain set to 8 O'Clock (if "0" is at 7 O'Clock). This just gives a little boost and you can't tell that it's not a clean tone.

You have to attack the strings with mostly downstrokes. I use 12 guage strings and can even get this tone on my Les Paul.

I find Cray's sound refreshing and am tired of the "woman tone" and other overdriven sounds—other than SRV.

BTW: Buddy Guy also plays with a lot of compression which you can't really "hear" on his fully overdriven guitar. But one way to hear it is to see his performance during the Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan. He plays "Long Way Home" and hits a note (barely) with his pinky (no picking) and the note really snaps! You can tell that he got that effect from the compression set to Emphasis HI because that's exactly what that feature does. And since he barely touches the string—and his volume is way down—you can hear the compression. It's a great effect to have if you are playing funk/R&B.

If you check out Cray's bio at the American Federation of Musicians web site you can verify that he doesn't play direct-to-amp. As I stated earlier, he plays less with his fingers and more with a pick (you can actually hear the pick attack on "Our Last Time" [I Was Warmed cd] and "I'm Walkin" [Twenty]) than you think.

[Roli]

Originally Posted by NYC Bluesman

His compression is coming from effects not his hands. You can actually HEAR the compression...

I actually can't. I find his notes rather percussive, not sustaining like compressed notes.

[NYC Bluesman]

Originally Posted by Roli

I actually can't. I find his notes rather percussive, not sustaining like compressed notes.

His notes sustain in the treble—in the E, B, and G strings—which is setting the Emphasis to HI. But it also depends on how much ATTACK his compression is set. The percussion on the upper strings is definitely a result of the compression. There is part of the first solo in "One More Time" where you can hear that. It's not unlike a palm mute.

When I set the Attack on my compressor, I set it to about 2 O'clock. That usually gives me the same amount of sustain. But Robert really attacks his strings very hard. If you listen to him on headphones you can hear the pick attack (not finger picking, but pick hits) on the strings and on the pickups.

[SnidelyWhiplash]

Originally Posted by fretbuzzard

He really does attack those strings! His playing is far more staccato than most players--where others would simply pull off or hammer on, Cray seems to pick damn near every note he plays! I like Cray as a breath of fresh air.

I love RC. He is a fantastic player,a great singer. He has just as much R'nB
& Soul influences as Blues. A great Strat sound. A lot of blues players don't
really care for him,which i don't understand at all.