Why not Rivera?

Brewce said:
Thinking of Jay Graydon's heavy use of great pinched harmonics, it immediately makes me wonder if this may be one of the special things on Rivera amps/mods...?
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That story about pinched harmonics related to the gear is completely wrong. It’s all about technique. When you know how to do them, you do it with whatever guitar, amp, pickups … I read this a lot and … the gain help a little bit to make it sound “good” , but yeah no matter the guitar , even with single coils you can do pantera’s pinch harmonics
 
My name is mud said:
That story about pinched harmonics related to the gear is completely wrong. It’s all about technique. When you know how to do them, you do it with whatever guitar, amp, pickups … I read this a lot and … the gain help a little bit to make it sound “good” , but yeah no matter the guitar , even with single coils you can do pantera’s pinch harmonics
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How you do them, sure, but how they come out should be co-dependent on other things too, no? I haven't compared lately, but Jay's always stood out as "clean" and "powerful," which I do still suspect is possibly related to his use of a compressor, tons of mids, maybe the EQ-ing he does in studio (he has a tut on that, IIRC), ... If he requires great mids to come from the amp and doesn't want to add them on the board, it might be another factor. But that's just my way less experienced opinion — I have to leave room for different factors until someone proves it has nothing to do with it.

Do you think it's easy to make his kind of lead sound in a preset? I don't think I've ever heard one, but I've been away a while... Maybe the focused Holdsworth leads are a good place to start.

Hm, I'm kinda contradicting myself on the EQ, but not nececessarily... I think his tut is more about fitting a sound in the mix — but that he wants the amp to have great mids already is said in the first vid.

I haven't played with these harmonics since the 90ies so to speak ;) If I do, I may quickly discover you are right... ;)
 
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My name is mud said:
I don’t know the guitarist you are talking about, but I play many things with this technique, and seriously, when you know how to do it, you need no help from any effects or this and that
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Yeah, I have no problems making these in general. I just think Jay's are recognizable and "trademark" — maybe the good mids alone is what makes his stand out (and again, the compressor — I do think he used that on leads too).

The only time I will hear a similar sound is when they have to emulate him. You can see some of that in the Al Jarreau live videos, for example, on the Raging Waters tune. Buzzy Feiten and some others have done that. I might be surprised how easy it is with the right sound, and OTOH wondering why just a few people are doing it so well in this "exact" way...

Jay Graydon may be in the Top 5 of most-recorded guitar players ever (and one of Lukather's big influences/friends) and is gearing up to start a YouTube channel soon, to share tricks and stories. That's gonna be great. He's also known for being a perfectionist and the awesome production of 4 and a half Al Jarreau masterpiece albums, writing great songs, etc. A living legend that I hope to enjoy for some time, as he already had cancer once...

Many of his solos are very recognizable too (the great taste, jazzy influence, the elements Luke took, the mids, the harmonics, the "wire choir" leads, ...) The amount of records he played on is ridiculous :D www.jaygraydon.com/disctxt.htm

Weird how he's slipping through the cracks and I never see anyone into him... (besides Richard Watson's LA cats focused YT channel)
Any Luke fan should be into Jay too.
 
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My name is mud said:
@Brewce dont hesitate to share a song and the part where he does it
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I already did in the first post :) (2 examples, feat. Raging Waters)

Al Jarreau - Raging Waters (Studio, live) [1984]



I'm not the dancing type, but I can't stand still with this one on a good volume playing air guitar harmonics... ;)
(That guy doesn't look like Jay, but who knows...)

Also see...

Guitar Play For The Planet - Guitar Solo Technique



Jay Graydon’s Best Guitar Solos (Part 1)



Jay Graydon’s Best Guitar Solos (Part 2)



He's also "famous" for having played the Peg solo (Steely Dan).



He's showing the old compressor in this one ^ (JHS sells a clone of it)
In another vid he mentioned he often used a short room reverb preset on an Alesis unit (for leads, AFAIK).
 
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I might be a little biased here because I own 2 actual rivera amps (a KR-7 Mick Thompson and an early nineties Knucklehead K100).

I'm not particularly into the slipknot sound but both the amps sound wonderful clean (fender side) and pushed (Marshall side)......and yes, I'm going to say it.....to my ears they have something UNIQUE. They're almost like an emphasised "caricature" of the amps they're based on.

Rivera are quite unusual (as far as I know) because they design the tone stacks for each side differently as opposed to just having the same shared tone stack for both channels....


Anyway, the point wanted to make is that I can get more "Liquid" sounding fenderey tones and more "Dry" sounding Marshall tones from both those amps than on any Fender or Marshall I've played.

Do we need it modelled ? I don't know, but if we can modify any current amps to have the "Rivera Mods" in these amps then I'd be very happy....

One point to note is that these amps aren't "set everything on 6 and just play" style amps......you really need to spend some time dialing them in, especially channel 2 (the Fender side).

Also, they weigh a TONNE because of the oversized transformers (that may be part of the unique tone?).......so my back would much prefer to have that tone in my FM3...
 
My name is mud said:
@Brewce I confused with artificial harmonics for a minute 🤣🤦. Yes compressor and reverb very 80’s
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Now you're confusing me too... :p
Anyway, some of his solos sound like he has continuous harmonics mixed in @ 3% :D

I found back some text I was remembering tidbits from...:


For recording guitar, Jay uses a Massenburg EQ and a Massenburg limiter... and two Shure SM57 mics.

How do you create that special warm sustaining kind of “hanging” tone of your guitar?

Jay Graydon: “My sustaining warm tone” is most fun. The key is that the guitar and amp must like each other, which they do. It is easier to get “consistent sustain” in the studio on solos because the amp speakers are isolated in another room. I can crank up the amp as high as I want without “screech” feedback from the pickups. [kind of interesting he doesn't want the interaction? I guess it prevents unexpected feedback in studio situations where time is money]

Playing live is more difficult since every night is in a different venue and has different acoustics. I learn each venue, meaning that I will move the guitar at different angles to control the feedback in a friendly manner. This is not always that easy to do. The volume pedal is the key to controlling unwanted “screech.”

I use a Vintage Orange Squeezer and an Ernie Ball volume pedal. That is all that goes to the amp.

In the studio, I add an Eventide Harmonizer (set to .005) and a delay line set to 45 ms from bus sends off the console amp signal and blend in with the straight guitar. Sometimes I may use a short room reverb to tape as well [would/could be an Alesis, he mentioned in some vid].

I also compress the amp with a GML Limiter, but only a few dB of compression on “peaks” so the sound will not get too “squashed.”

One more thought on this. If you have a compressor in the “guitar amp loop,” this is not good in my book, since the compressor will “brick wall” the guitar signal. As you increase the guitar gain to the amp, it will not get louder and will just get smaller and “squashed.” The Orange Squeezer in front of the amp only compresses the guitar and not the overall volume.

http://jaygraydon.com/guitatxt.htm
 
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damienmcgauley said:
[...] Also, they weigh a TONNE because of the oversized transformers (that may be part of the unique tone?)......
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Thanks, and yes, IIRC, in a vid I put here earlier Paul mentions he used "special sauce" (so to speak) for some transformers. Of course, this might be a very simple tweak in a Fractal — if you know the what and how...

Paul Rivera: “[The Stage IV] has a very unusual sound. The output transformer reacts to the inductance of the speaker in a peculiar way. There’s just a magic that occurs with the increased gain, fatter tone, and less ripple in the power supply.”
 
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