Early ZZ Top tone?

Playing around a little with the Plexi models as well as the Tweed Deluxe.

Any advice on settings is welcome.
 
Rev Willy has always claimed that he "dimed out" his Marshall (everything to ten) and having played with that it gets you in the ballpark pretty quickly. Guitar matters as well since Pearly had PAF pups which didn't have the output levels of more modern humbuckers.
 
barhrecords said:
The basic dimed plexi:

Dime the Bass, Mid, Treble and Master.

Presence 0.

Drive to taste. Usually 6 to 10.
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Also, I find that the bright cap setting/value is very important when using the Plexi models. IMO, values lower than the default(s) yield better results.
 
I think you're right on track with using a plexi and tweed deluxe. I tend to use the typical cabs for those two models and just dial things to taste. I'm lazy about trying to get things perfect, so I ball park it and turn things up. I do prefer the Plexi 100 so far, and I also like cranking treble, mids and bass full up and then using high pass to tame the lows (usually in the cab).

Like VegasGuitar mentioned, the guitar makes a difference, but that depends on what tune you're going for. My Nocaster does a pretty convincing job on some of the Les Paul tracks of theirs. My '58 RI Les Paul nails them to the wall. A good strat for quite a few of the tracks..

Like some of the more obscure tunes where he would plug straight into the recording desk.. I never get tired of early ZZ Top.
 
barhrecords said:
Can anything get any better than the intro to Brown Sugar off their first record!!! Holy Grail tone to me.
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No doubt! Love the tones on the first album.

And the tip above about using the Plexi 100 normal with the bass, mids and treble turned all the way up really gets you there. I never would have thought to try dialing it in that way.
 
Lkdog said:
Thanks guys.
And Brown Sugar is the tone I am shooting for.
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That is an iconic tone.

I think it would be a challenge to get that with a vintage Marshall head and cab. The head and cab for that record is just so in the sweet spot.

I have no idea what mixing desk was used to record that record but it has that "big iron" sound; like an old Neve board. Those old dark transformers that add a certain beef to the recordings.
 
barhrecords said:
That is an iconic tone.

I think it would be a challenge to get that with a vintage Marshall head and cab. The head and cab for that record is just so in the sweet spot.

I have no idea what mixing desk was used to record that record but it has that "big iron" sound; like an old Neve board. Those old dark transformers that add a certain beef to the recordings.
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Do we know for sure what he used on that track?
You sound like a recording engineer/expert guy?
So much info out there on his gear and rigs.

Billy Gibbons is somebody we will never see the likes of again.

Saw them in 1977 when I was an usher for concerts at my college.
One of best concerts I ever saw.
 
Lkdog said:
Do we know for sure what he used on that track?
You sound like a recording engineer/expert guy?
So much info out there on his gear and rigs.

Billy Gibbons is somebody we will never see the likes of again.

Saw them in 1977 when I was an usher for concerts at my college.
One of best concerts I ever saw.
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I might have seen that same tour.

I saw them at the Nashville motor speedway around that time. It was Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top and Ted Nugent. All three bands were raw and hungry back then.

Saw them around 2008 at Oak Mountain in Alabama. They covered some Hendrix and were amazing. The wife and I were on the second row. The monitor engineer played rhythm guitar a lot. Was pretty cool. We could see him off stage left, playing guitar.

Billy was playing his Gretsch BillyBo and a Telecaster. Smokin' tone. It looked liked Marshall JMP-1 preamps in his rack off stage and some Summit (?) tube compressors in there too.
 
Not meaning to sound unappreciative, but that tone match does not sound very good IMO... Sounds like there are some phasing issues? I have seem several threads discussing problem with TM in v10. Maybe this is related?
 
ethomas1013 said:
Not meaning to sound unappreciative, but that tone match does not sound very good IMO... Sounds like there are some phasing issues? I have seem several threads discussing problem with TM in v10. Maybe this is related?
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thanks for the feedback! Yeah I am not sure what the issue is. Maybe my reference clip is not long enough. Guitar i used is similar to a les paul style.

I also tried something else since the original track is stereo, I split to mono and ran tone match on each side creating 2 IR's I mixed the IR's to one and what I posted is the end result.

made sense to me :)

any way I posted the individual IR's here as well
 
That could be the source of the phasing was hearing. I listened to the original and it seems like the main guitar is panned to one side. So, I would try just tone matching one side. But it's been a LONG time since I tried tone matching anything, and I'm working on some big projects that are taking up all my time. Maybe I'll give it a shot in a couple weeks when my schedule lightens up.
 
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