Getting a Les Paul tone from my tele...

Running your tele through a dark Silvertone 1482 works pretty nice in the direction of Pages Supro. Platefire

 

I can't add much to the great advice already given, but I just wanted to say that after watching that clip (and so many others over the years) that I secretly think Phil X isn't really into this whole rock 'n roll thing and instead wants to be the guitarist in a funk/R&B band -- his lifelong dream: backing up Stevie Wonder.

 

I don't see the Tonemaster on that video. But I see tweed! I think it's a tweed bassman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvSm...xt=C38b9375UAOEgsToPDskIazpYgMnPxkGhV6rJaCVDl

You just need a 5E3 tweed deluxe and you have all the fat tele tone you ever dreamed.
It plays loud. really loud!

 

no, phil x does play the tonemaster (or now the evil robot) for his dirty tones and in videos uses a vox ac30 for clean

 

You might do some internet and youtube searching for Billy Gibbons rig. I remember seeing a youtube rundown with his tech from back stage. They use eq and boosters to make the variety of guitars he plays have a similar sound to his favorite Pearly Gates.

 

Besides the really good playing, i love the sound he's getting from that strat.

 

Also, dont forget the sound your hearing in Phil X's video is due to the fact that some of those blackgaurds had pickups that were overwound alot. Mark Knopfler testifies to this in the Telecaster documentary: "my 54 Tele has a bridge pickup like a hamburger".

 

This guy gets the tone (as far as I'm concerned); ask him

 

Do this! It works.

 

+1

If you distort a banjo enough it will sound like a les paul too!

 

I believe in that session that the '52 Tele was done in, he was using a Marshall Studio 15 combo. I know one of the vids from that session they zoom out enough that you can see it. The Fender tweed amp is not being used, there's nothing plugged into it.

But I'd say most of Phil's tone is in those fingers.

 

Exactly. The tele bridge can flat out rock.

 

Consider this >

http://www.tdpri.com/telephoto/showphoto.php/photo/23874/cat/1192

 

that sounds like a tele with distortion to me , you need a les paul to get a les paul sound

 

What exactly do you consider "Les Paul tone"?

I have 3 electrics, a Tokai Love Rock with P90s, a Gibson Les Paul with Humbuckers and a Telecaster '62 Custom RI. While they sound different, when I play them, they all sound bright and clear. Is bright and clear Les Paul tone?

I wonder.

P.

 

I Agee - tone is in the guitar not the fingers

 

All about fiddling with amp n axe knobs....but getting an LP tone from a Tele, or Strat....I think that's why people (like me) get GAS and get one of each....turning down the tone makes all of them sound good, but oh so deliciously unique and different!

 

Or you could watch this and get a clue as to how Rev. G does it himself.

Of course, that seems to involve a wall of equipment.

For those who don't want to watch, they ahve some fancy EQ and try to make all the guitars sound the same by using different profiles.

 

Phil X uses a relatively moderately priced ESP LTD Viper 301 as his main axe and does everything with it and gets some of the best guitar tones I have heard since Stevie Ray Vaughan. That guy can play a cheap guitar or a $100,000 dollar one of a kind vintage from Fretted Americana and sound equally good. When he plays you instantly know its him and that's what a great lead guitar player shoots for.

I got a Gibson tone from my Teles with darker pickups. One '78 I had was outfitted with Seymour Duncan 1/4 pounders and they had almost all the bass and midrange of a Gibson humbucker. They certainly had all the sustain. Later on, after the appearance of metal and hard rock into the pop airwaves, guitar companies were into beefing up their guitar output and the American Standard Telecaster (mine a 1990) got a big, fat, almost humbucker tone. It was a departure from the twangy tele tones but people liked power then and that modernized, hotter tele sound has stuck in that series for Fender. It certainly didn't have twang like most of my old teles and with a proper amp setting you can get a very Les Paul tone with a stock Am. Std. tele.

Sometimes the best way to get a Gibson sound while I was playing any single coil equipped guitar was to use my transistor amp instead of my tube amp. Usually I found that cheap transistor amps don't get that many highs and have a compressed sound like a compressed sound of a humbucker. With distortion, an American Standard tele with distortion through a small transistor amp sounds a lot like my Les Paul through a tube amp. The volume level is different, of course, but the result is the same.

If you can stand to crank it up, roll back on tone and volume knob on tele, and crank up amp way up. The tone produced will cut highs, compress the tone a lot approaching a PAF, and make almost any tele sound like it has a humbucker in it. The basic effect you get from rolling both knobs back is that of a wide magnetic field vs. the tighter and snappier tone of a single coil.