Help with Sykes' Sizzle?

Vede

Vede

Member
Hi gang,

John Sykes has one of my all-time favorite guitar tones, and I want to steal it from him. Help!

One of its key characteristics is that crazy-yet-fairly-subtle "sizzle" John gets, which is particularly audible in solos like "Is This Love". Old solid state Randall amps used to pull-off that particular sound really well, but I'm having a heck of a time recreating it in the Axe.

I already know a lot about what amps Sykes played and the effects he used during his Whitesnake and Blue Murder days, but no matter how close I get to the core of his tone, it's always missing that top-end rawness. What I get is too smooth.

I play through a Matrix power amp and Mesa oversized recto cab, and I realize that cab is probably smoothing out the top end quite a bit. But, even so, I don't think I've ever heard an AxeFX recording where that specific type of rawness was fully recreated.

Suggestions on amps/effects/settings?

Thanks in advance!
 
Well, You have a Recto Cab and You're halfway there dude, John used Mesa Boogie amps for much of his carreer, and 1987 is no exception:

"For much of the Whitesnake '87 album and first Blue Murder album John used 2 Mesa Boogie Coliseum heads. These amps have a Mark III pre-amp section but use six 6L6 power tubes--giving the amps180 watts each! John also owns several Mesa Boogie Mark IIC+'s, Mark III's and some rack mounted Mesa Dual Recto heads. Other Mesa Boogie equipment includes a Tri-Axis preamp and a Strategy 500 Power Amp."

Straight from his website. :)

Just pick the Mark IIC+ or the Mark IV on the Axe, put the classic V Curve (Mids where veery much scooped, but it was double tracked and maybe more).
An addiotional chorus pedal would be pretty good too, and of course some reverb.
 
Try the Cameron amp. Sykes played Jose modded jcm800 on bad boy live so the Cameron will be very close. Jose mod had a LED clipping gain stage which is probably the source of that sizzle.

I know he played mk3 colosseum on 1987 but I hear a more Marshall tone in his playing and wouldnt go the Mesa route for his tone.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, guys!

I've messed around with a lot of the Mesa models and couldn't get the top-end I was after. I'm also a HUGE fan of Mark Day's presets, but they're usually built on HB & HBE models, which I love, but I've found to be a little too smooth for this particular exercise.

After experimenting with a lot of amps and settings, I've (for the moment) settled on a seemingly unlikely amp - the ANGEL SEVERE 1 (based on the ENGL Savage) - which provides both the thickness of a multi-tracked guitar and the buzz-saw top end I was looking for, which I'm accentuating by bumping up the eq at 8k and adding a touch of chorus.
 
Sounds great, Moke! I've been running an Axe through a cab for years, but I keep thinking about experimenting with FRFR. I'm sure it would making nailing a lot of wildly different tones much easier. My recto cab is amazing, but it definitely colors the sound, no doubt about that.
 
Vede said:
Sounds great, Moke! I've been running an Axe through a cab for years, but I keep thinking about experimenting with FRFR. I'm sure it would making nailing a lot of wildly different tones much easier. My recto cab is amazing, but it definitely colors the sound, no doubt about that.
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I'll bet Sykes could get the Sykes tone through a Recto Cab. ;) There IS a trade off w/ a real cab but I think a lot of people go FRFR too quick; in a real cab rig (RCR) you essentially have a 248 Channel preamp (f*ck!) with an insane amount of EQ and filtering power, the options in an RCR are almost limitless with all the physical amp in the room feel... I'm glad I have both options on hand; sometimes there's no substitute for the room experience. Anyway back to the discussion. ;)
 
zenaxe said:
I'll bet Sykes could get the Sykes tone through a Recto Cab. ;) There IS a trade off w/ a real cab but I think a lot of people go FRFR too quick; in a real cab rig (RCR) you essentially have a 248 Channel preamp (f*ck!) with an insane amount of EQ and filtering power, the options in an RCR are almost limitless with all the physical amp in the room feel... I'm glad I have both options on hand; sometimes there's no substitute for the room experience. Anyway back to the discussion. ;)
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Ha! No question. Honestly, I'm not trying to sound exactly like him - that would be both silly and impossible. But I really want that high-end sizzle. I'm a lot closer now than I've been in the past, but I can't help but wonder if FRFR, and the ability to experiment with different cabs and mics, would get me that last 5-10%. Of course, having never tried FRFR, it's pure speculation on my part. All I know is that my recto cab tends to have a smooth top end, so coaxing a raspy sizzle out of it has been tricky, at least for me, as someone who is anything but an audio engineer.

One of these days, I'll try some studio monitors or perhaps rent a PA for a day and see what I think. Alternatively, if there's anyone with a sweet FRFR setup in the SF bay area who wants to invite me over for a tweaking session... ;-)

As a side note, it's pretty hilarious how there seem to be tons of threads started by people asking how they can get get rid of sizzle, and here I am on the hunt for it! Different strokes and all that. But it strongly suggests to me that the sizzle IS in here somewhere, and that the problem is me. Or possibly my cab. But probably me. :)
 
Once you mic your cab you may discover that you might have more sizzle than you think already?............The 'Sykes sound' that you have been hearing all of this time is from a mic'd guitar cab;)..........just a thought...
 
Often in Sykes solos I can hear use of wah pedal, delay and reverb. It all starts with a sizzle high gain distortion and a pristine clean with chorus, reverb.
 
Moke said:
Once you mic your cab you may discover that you might have more sizzle than you think already?............The 'Sykes sound' that you have been hearing all of this time is from a mic'd guitar cab;)..........just a thought...
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Totally. That's why I'm thinking about trying FRFR, because I want to hear that sound when I play, not just play back.

By the way, I just tried danhazer's "Lay it Down" patch, which he posted in a thread a few down from this one, and despite his own recording of it sounding SUPER hairy, through my cab it's extremely smooth. So, yeah, the recto cab is great and I love it for a lot of different rock and metal tones, but the sizzle is sizzlacking. :-/
 
Here is a screenshot of the 'Drive' block in the 'Solo' scene of my 'Still of the Night' preset. The low-mid boost and the 'Treble' cut is similar (but less intense) to a parked 'Wah' pedal.

Sykes Drive.png
 
Vede said:
Hi gang,

John Sykes has one of my all-time favorite guitar tones, and I want to steal it from him. Help!

One of its key characteristics is that crazy-yet-fairly-subtle "sizzle" John gets, which is particularly audible in solos like "Is This Love". Old solid state Randall amps used to pull-off that particular sound really well, but I'm having a heck of a time recreating it in the Axe.

I already know a lot about what amps Sykes played and the effects he used during his Whitesnake and Blue Murder days, but no matter how close I get to the core of his tone, it's always missing that top-end rawness. What I get is too smooth.

I play through a Matrix power amp and Mesa oversized recto cab, and I realize that cab is probably smoothing out the top end quite a bit. But, even so, I don't think I've ever heard an AxeFX recording where that specific type of rawness was fully recreated.

Suggestions on amps/effects/settings?

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Hey man! I'm a huge John Sykes fan, here I uploaded two videos, check it out if you want, I hope you help :)
 
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