What do you mean when you say something sounds "creamy"?

[SecretSquirrel]

"Creamy" fuzz guitar and I think of the lead guitar sounds in Guess Who's "American Woman" and Savoy Brown's "I'm Tired" as creamy — a smooth fuzz, and as ndcaster noted,

not jagged, harsh, or brittle

Old fuzz boxes often emphasized a square wave sound, buzzy and "jagged"—think "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by the Stones—or had a mode switch usually corresponding to a more "buzzy" sound and a more "creamy sound.

So here's "creamy" to me:

creamy starts at about 0:15, longer solo at 1:35:



creamy goodness at 2:00:

 

[RLee77]

I agree, American Woman is a great example of creamy.

 

[-Hawk-]

Santana is good example. First minute of this song is full of what I'd consider "creamy".



Definitely a neck pickup thing in my mind.

 

[moosie]

I don't say 'creamy' much (but I say 'criminy jeez' quite a bit these days). When I do, it means I think something sounds compressed to smoothness. Not my favorite sound.

 

[moosie]

OK, how about "chewy"? What's that mean? I have this sound in my head, sorta 5e3-ish, but "larger chunks". It's the chewy tone I shoot for, and rarely find (with my gear at least).

 

[gpasq]

Overdriven, compressed attack, saturated, sustained. Round. And fat.

 

[telemnemonics]

I consider "creamy" to mean distorted sustain that's not gritty, grindy or fizzy.
Along with Santana I'd say Gilmour is known for creamy lead tones.

The Santana Put Your Lights on vid above is IMO creamy 'till 1:27 when it turns a little more snarly and gritty. Still creamy but less so, and that to me is the line that defines creamy- singing sustain with minimal grit or snarl.
I had a '67 Plexi 100 that went from creamy to snarly with pick dynamics. Mmmm.
Same amp as the early EVH recordings where he would go back and forth between the snarl and the cream.

 

[Larry F]

I think of tone in the time domain. For me, a creamy sound also has a thick, non-diminishing lifespan throughout the sounding of a note. The extreme, for me, is the Guess Who guitar sound of Randy Bachmann. Next level would be the early Cream studio recordings, especially the sessions in New York for Atlanta on Disraeli Gears.

I like having a little sustain, but I want to work for it, by keeping a note alive with vibrato (slooowww). To me, this does not fall into the creamy category. But I have to be careful with how I dial in overdrive so that the top strings sing, but the bottom ones die away quicker. I'm potentially OK with amps that can co-produce a creamy sound, as it is then a matter of dialing the OD back. This produces more of a skim milk sound, which is where I like it.

EDIT: I posted without reading all of the comments, which I now see also reference The Guess Who.

In my youth, I tried a lot of things to get a sustained sound, even if just to experiment and see if I liked it. Sometimes I would plug into a movie projector audio amplifier, or a reel-to-reel recorder, and jam up the needles. I would get something like what I later heard Randy Bachmann doing. Speaking of Randys, I could say the same for Randy California's sound on the Spirit records. I loved his musicality, but could not abide by that endless sustain.

 

[BareBones]

There is a never ending list of tonal descriptions in music.
I don't hang with any musicians...
When I read these words...
My little thought baloon goes...
Uh-Huh
Or
OK....

 

[SecretSquirrel]

The Santana Put Your Lights on vid above is IMO creamy 'till 1:27 when it turns a little more snarly and gritty.

Snarly is a great word for that.

I have given this much thought. My fuzz lexicon ultimately boils down to "creamy" and "buzzy": "snarly" might or might not have "fuzz," but definitely snarls. Same with "juicy," when "plump" notes seem to "squirt" juicy overtones, more of an amp overdrive thing but juicy all-out fuzz is feasible and often desirable.

I mostly play pretty "clean" these days but ten years ago I was mainly going for "snarly" (a word I used constantly then LOL) which for me is a bridge* pickup sound with juicy bite and growly snarl (more on growly later).

More lately for pop-tune solos I often use the fuzz pedal & neck pickup for "creamy."

For "Mission Impossible" (an apt title for our band's attempts at it so far) my part is all fuzz all the time, I go from creamy (flute part) to snarly double-stops (horns blasting) and back. If there isn't time to switch pickups (still not good at doing it quickly) I try to get snarly with picking technique, closer to the bridge etc.

My electronics wiz friend has a term for thick, warm, wet, creamy fuzz tone, but I can't quite say it here on this family website.


* Edit: "bridge"...at first I wrote "neck" but meant bridge.

 

[hemingway]

I find questions like this strange. I have no more trouble imagining what creamy sounds like than do imagining what people mean by harsh, bright, middly, muddy, woody, or ice-pick. It's just a case of using your imagination.

On the other hand, there are limits. I might have trouble imagining what someone meant if they described a guitar as sounding nutty, or citrusy, or soluble.

Hmm, now I think about it, though, I can kind of see it . . .

 

[songtalk]

Love the "creamy lead" surprised there has been no mention of Dickey/Duane/Derek Trucks. But yeah, Santana/Cream/The Guess Who definitely got it too. To my ears its totally a neck pickup + fuzz + tone rolled off a good bit through a cranked amp.

 

[3-Chord-Genius]

People have posted videos here to illustrate what a "creamy" tone sounds like, but one of them sounds leafy to me and another one sounds gluey or papery. I didn't even watch the third one.

 

[Coach56]

Not a lot to add, on a Strat I can get into that territory with the neck pickup, treble rolled off to somewhere between 2 and 3, hitting a compressor set mid-level, and the amp really pumping. The P90 soapbars on the Blueshawk gets it done in either position, but again with the tone rolled most of the way off, middling compression, and all the volumes cranked. Pick attack provides the final component and for me the balance between the right amount of compression and the pick attack is the most difficult part to get right.

As mentioned, Clapton's Woman Tone, to me is the epitome of creamy tone. ( again being really subjective here )

 

[roknfnrol]

I think this SG through my Alamo Model 3 sounds creamy.

 

[Brian Wright]

Creamy is somewhere between glassy and crunchy, not chimey or sparkly, but more of a warm sag with thick grind.

Just like this. I think of creamy as a Les Paul through a Marshall Plexi. Perfect even tone with less wild character than a single coil.

 

[Henry Mars]

... basically I think all of these terms like "creamy" are useless. I prefer more basic descriptions ... like "it sounds good" or "it sounds bad". I think players do better when they use terms like "practice" or "read music". Tone is subjective and you can experiment until you find a tone you think is "creamy" or "crunchy" or "compressed". MY advice learn how to play first and find your own sound. I have tried hundreds of amp/guitar combinations in the last 56 years and have found it usually comes down to the player. I don't know maybe the world passed me by. You could have the "creamiest" or "crunchiest" sounding amp on the face of the earth and a marginal player will still make it sound like crap. Rant over.

 

[t guitar floyd]

I think of creamy as Eric Clapton's woman tone on the "Blue Moon" solo in "Sunshine of Your Love".

 

[cboutilier]

I think of creamy as that Cream tone. Lots of amp break up, natural amp compression, neck pixkup, tone rolled off. It's a fat, warm, crunch. The exact opposite of a Tele bridge pickup hitting a hard driven Deluxe Reverb.

 

[Guitarteach]

Fat, thick and saturated. Just like cream.

My boogie lead channel is dense and creamy - like a gain stage into the beyond.

My 18watters and plexis are like a chilli. Sharp and biting.