B.B. King gear

The_Kid

The_Kid

Experienced
ok, so all talk about tone is in the fingers and you dont play with his exact rig and such...i understand all of that.

I have the 'Live in San Quinton' album, and think his tone is rather unique on this album. I tried searching his rig that he plays through, and all i got was a weak artible about him using two mics one close and one at a short distance.

Was curious if anyone knew what he played through regarding amps/pedals around this time. I dont really think its a tone that I would use live as I play more 'rock' type stuff, but I always like trying different artists setups to expand my thinking on different tones.

Anyone have any info that would help and have a good start to play around with this?
 
He's used Lab Series L5 combos for ages... I think if he doesn't have one available he uses a twin. Ty Tabor famously used one on all the older King's X cd's. I've offered to send mine to Cliff a few times. It's an awesome amp that doesn't sound like anything else, and it's solid state as well.
 
There are some players who can mimic others to a T and even play the original artists songs better than they artist. So saying it's all in the fingers has always made me laugh. What those people should really be saying is they can't play understand or don't have the skills to mimic others playing style. That does not make that guitarist any less of one, but some just have that added talent, most do not so of course that is how the majority seems to think.
 
Wrong. So Wrong! When folks say in the fingers , they mean head ,heart, fingers, toenails, etc-IOW it's the player getting that "certain" whatever. The rest of your statement is just about as wrong "better then the original? If it's the original then that's the way it's suppose to sound-So how do you play it better? Different maybe, not better. Jeeezzzz-.
 
is there anything in the Gen 1 Ultra I can play with that would give me a similar tone structure...

I understand duplicating his live tone through my black box may be harder to impossible...but again, just looking to try some different combinations. I sometimes have heard SRV have a similar type of gain structure/tone, but to me the difference is the guitars they are playing through. SRV obviously had that blues/strat sound, but BB had the sound of that great guitar Lucille. Just would be interesting to fire up and amp (& pedal) and play in that world a bit.
 
Lab Series amps didn't exist yet when that recording was made. Having said that, I have no idea what he used.
 
Oops. I was thinking about the Live at Cook County Jail album from 1971. My bad. How many jail records did he make, anyway? :) You're right, he likely used a Lab Series. I've played a couple of festivals he was on over the last couple of years and he's still using them.
 
The lab is very unique... especially the distortion tone... the secret is using the low input on channel 2. Very rich sustaining gain.
 
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