Metheny-ish tones from Joni era?

greiswig

Power User
Wondering if anyone has done presets that get the pitch detune, compression and tone right for what Pat Metheny used to do in the Shadows and Light era way back when? And no, I don't have a 175 or whatever he was using...I've got solidbody PRS's that will have to do.

When I hear whatever effect it was he was using, it isn't a chorus, but it sounds a little like one. That's what is making me think pitch block. But I can't seem to get it right.
 
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Wondering if anyone has done presets that get the pitch detune, compression and tone right for what Pat Metheny used to do in the Shadows and Light era way back when? And no, I don't have a 335 or whatever he was using...I've got solidbody PRS's that will have to do.

When I hear whatever effect it was he was using, it isn't a chorus, but it sounds a little like one. That's what is making me think pitch block. But I can't seem to get it right.

Good preset idea. I'm a huge Metheny fan, I'll try something like this. He famously used a blond Gibson ES-175 as his main axe.

TLDR: run into 2 lexicon prime-time digital delay lines, one on my left at 14 ms delay, one one my right at 26 ms delay. each delay has a very slight "pitch bend" controlled by the VCO (sine wave) inside the prime-time. this is what gives it the "chorused" thing

In the above link he describes using an Acoustic solid state amp. In an interview, Joni described getting a prototype Roland JC-120, which was immediately appropriated by Jaco. I imagine Pat would also have played through that at some point. The Jazz-120 (JC-120) Fractal amp model would be my starting point for a Metheny preset.

The 1980 Shadows and Light tour video is up on Youtube, maybe there is some footage of the amps and rack gear that might be informative.
 
OK, I tried something based on the input above. I'm not sure the Roland is the amp I'm going to end up with; it seems to require a lot more EQ and compression than I'd like. But see what you think.

Try Scene 1. Tone knob is up all the way, and tone gets rolled off by the MBC and the amp's tone controls. Pitch block is trying to recreate those delay lines.
 

Attachments

  • Joni.syx
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Thank you for sharing your take on it greiswig. I won't be able to play through today, and I can't find it at the moment, but there is another Q&A page, where PM talks about how he has 4x10s and a 1x15 spread out on stage to achieve the chorus sound. Probably not during the Joni era thought, but you might find it useful... I'll look again another time.
 
In an interview, Metheny famously said he uses very thin picks. He goes through an entire bag of hundreds of thin picks to find the ones he likes. He uses the shoulder of the pick and picks very lightly.
 
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Here's what I came up with. I kept it very simple. I didn't try to model the 3-amp setup he described. I just did this:
  • Filter: a lowpass filter at ~1500hz to mimic a rolled-off tone knob on the guitar. (Could probably go lower here)
  • Amp/Cab: Jazz120(Roland JC-120), a period-correct solid state amp. Dialed in with heavy midrange.
  • Pitch: As it turns out, the pitch block has a 'dual detune' L/R detuned delay option. Almost like someone designed it to do Metheny tones ;-)
  • Reverb: an 'ambient' reverb, or optionally a 'music hall' reverb.

I use output 1 with reduced level for monitoring, and output2 for recording to the DAW. I don't have an ES-175 (I wish...), but I have a Les Paul, so that will have to be close enough. Here's a demo I recorded I like the sound, and I think it does have the bright, midrangy presence of the early Metheny sound.

The main thing I wanted to try was the 14ms/26ms delay settings. He didn't mention whether the 'pitch bend' effect is actually a detune, or how much the detune would be, so I just guessed +12/-12 cents.
 

Attachments

  • GBD-Metheny.syx
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