NOTE: I am aware that I mistakenly said Tomastik Strings are "made in Germany" when in fact they are made in Austria. I should know better after using them for so many years. Unfortunately, I sub-consciously blurted out "Germany" while doing the video due to the fact that for the longest time (in the US) many players refer to them as being German due to the name. No excuses here. I have received various emails regarding this. My sincere apologies to anyone I might have ticked off with this!
Hi Richie, the problem with any public platform is that it is open to criticism of one sort or another which will always include unfair and biased criticism. It is the job of anybody using the internet as a source of data to be able to sort these responses in order to achieve good data. This factor is probably the worst aspect of the internet as a resource device. A way round this problem while still using the internet, is to make the site concerned private where only those readers who register with you can comment on your articles. This has several distinct advantages to you the writer as follows: 1. It keeps you in control so that your readers do not read unfair criticism. 2. It means the comments which you decide should be published are relevant and valuable to your readers. 3. It promotes excellence. 4. It means you get to decide what is good feedabck and so allows you to steadily improve what you write. In effect your readers become valuable editors. That said I find it difficult to understand how anybody could be ticked off for the Germany/Austria error but it takes all sorts. Having listened to this video in detail I have to say I thought it was really excellent. Your six points are really good and cover the subject in detail. I was so impressed that I subscribed immediately, thinking, perhaps selfishly, what might Richie remind me of next? This leads me to two points I would like to add as serious comments: Despite the ridiculous price, I bought a Blue Chip pick about three years ago. You couldn't get it off me. I wouldn't lend it to you or sell it to you for any price as it's a game changer. I languished long and hard before buying as the price seemed so unreasonable, but with the Blue Chip agent in the UK saying, "once you get one of these you will never use anything else!!", I finally took the risk. So how are they different. I chose a Blue Chip TP-1R 50, it is triangular and has three different contours at the apexes of the trangle. I tend to use the softest profile for jazz for obvious reasons. What is unique about the pick is the material, because it does not wear, or wears so slowly that it really does not matter. This means that the strident, treble edge sounds, that a worn pick generates which is an anathema to the jazz guitarist does not exist or develop. So the pick simply works and works and works and works. If I am unluckyenough to lose my Blue Chip pick I will buy another immediately. Because of the value of your channel which I clearly see from your work so far, I would like to ask you to cover sound on stage as a subject and in particular the difficulties the jazz guitarist can face with acoustic problems. I'm elderly now and recently faced unexpected serious difficulties with sound. I'm still working on these and in the process have learnt masses of stuff that I was unaware of which matters so much. In the past I would turn up, plug in and play and if the sound wasn't ideal I would just get on with it. My sensitivity to such failings has increased with age however and this is no longer good enough. Recently, my son and I went to a Pat Metheny concert in Birmingham, England. To my astonishment, Pat's amazing work was totatally lost to the audience with the appalling sound produced. The simple truth is with all that's known about this subject, it should not have happened. So an article/video on how to manage sound in small/ medium and large auditoria with clear whys and wherefores would be worth it's weight in gold for all jazz guitarists, given the nature of the instrument, in my humble opinion. Thanks for the channel. I look ford to your next send, which I will certainly watch. With kind regards, Bob Hynes.
Thanks Bob for taking the time to share this valuable insight! I put in a lot of work to produce these videos and I get very little in terms of any compensation for my effort. So your comments made my day...again thanks! I must add that I really appreciate "constructive" criticism and welcome it, however I do get my fair share of "destructive" criticism from viewers who have nothing better to do and just want to criticize for no other reason than to be nasty...but like you said...that's You Tube. 🙂 I hear what you're saying about the sound incident with Pat Metheny and I have experienced it myself as well as watching others performing. I particularly remember 2 concerts from the 70's. One was the final Mahavishnu Orchestra opening for Jeff Beck with Jan Hammer. Mahavishnu's sound was disastrous in comparison to Jeff Beck's. And this was on the same stage with a 15 min intermission in between. Same thing happened on a concert where Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters opened for Chick Corea and Return to Forever. Herbie's sound was awful and then Chick came on and everything was crystal clear. I asked about this, and I was told that each artist was touring with their own sound engineer. So it isn't the equipment, nor the venue in these cases. It's the engineers knowledge and experience that makes a difference....I won't comment further because sound engineering is honestly not my area of expertise..
Hi Mister Zellon, Sorry but I just have seen you're clip. I just started to play jazz again, I have had some lessons in my teen years. I to use Tomastik strings on my Epiphone ES339, I like them a lot. And yes there from Austria. Hihi it was just a slip of the tongue . Please keep doing these videos, so I or we can learn from you a lot. Greetz Blue
@@RichieZellon Hi Richie. Ok, things like that are happening all the time. I am sure it was not made by intention and after all it's not that "great" mistake. I enjoy your video very much. It was vesy explanatory and to the point as I also liked the suggestions of equipment you make. They are higly appeciated. Thank you very much.
less than a minute in, and the video editing is so unhip that I can already tell this guy is focused more on the quality of content than the appearance of the video. This is a good sign.
Check out Ted Green and/or Tim Lerch. Heavy strings on low tuned telecasters. Single coil pickups, beautiful "jazz" tone. Green was the innovator, Lerch followed him and learned his techniques. Both are great imo.
You are my favorite teacher Richie. And I’m watching most of the popular jazz folks on CZcams for some time now. Thank you for sharing your talent and expertise with patience and kindness.
As a guy who is just getting into this style I was wondering why my tone wasn’t working with some jazz backing tracks. I watched this vid, made a few tweaks and walla..100% better!
Noodlerification - LOL! Me, too! But, I'm not paying 35 bucks and up, for one pick. That's just reefer-induced madness, when you're coming off a three-day speedball bender!
Another great jazz tone for 2 P90 pickups, Both pickups on, neck pickup Vol 8, Tone 4. Neck pickup Vol 1, Tone 10 (yes 10). Use the neck pickup VOLUME control to dial the treble in or out. be subtle.
I have a weird setup. I have a cheap Fender Sqiuire because I love the neck. I took out the pickups and replaced them with a Lollar Charlie Christian in the neck and a Lollar B.S. for the bridge. My strings are 48-12’s. Sadly, I don’t sound like the late, wonderful Ed Bickert who was a Tele guy. But, I would say that I have a jazz tone. Being a Torontonian of a certain vintage it was easy to see Ed Bickert and Lenny Breau who played very frequently in Toronto. Ed lived here and so did Lenny in the early- mid 60’s.
I ordered a blue chip jazz III pick because I couldn't believe the audacity of charging so much for a single pick. But after I got it I ordered 2 more in various sizes and thicknesses because they really are amazing. Makes the traditional jazz IIIs sound like plastic
Regarding the Blue Chip picks -- I have a TAD60. There's something about the material that sounds much like a tortoise shell but, of course, these are legal and nothing has to die before you get a few picks. The pick also kinda slides off the strings a bit easier which seems to make playing faster easier. And, probably most importantly, I've had mine for 10 years and it still looks new. No exaggeration. I bought it 12/06/2009, and you would be hard pressed to detect wear on the edges. They last about as long as you can keep up with them.
The blue chip pick is great because: PROS1. Hard material and will not leave pick dust. 2. Very smooth on the string. 3. Available in right or left hand, depending on your pick angle attack. 4. Great attack on strings producing a better tone. CONS: Easy to lose. Be sure and use a pick holster. I have 3. Use them for all guitar styles , buy don't play jazz without my BlueChip. Thanks for another wonderful video!
I’ve recently discovered the benefits of REMOVING a lot of the bass frequencies. This also helps the amp produce cleaner output as the bass frequencies will drive your amp more quickly into distortion. Use a 10-Band graphic or even better, a fully parametric EQ pedal or module in your modeler BEFORE the amp model. Start by removing several decibels below 300hz keep the ones between 400hz and 1Khz, and remove some of the highs from 1K up. Don’t kill ALL of the 5-20K so that you maintain some attack. By using a bass-cut circuit in your guitar (see several modification articles), or simply placing and EQ before your amp to cut the ultra-low frequencies, your sound will be much cleaner, clearer and still have the Jazz-Box warmth. 👍
You can bend 13 gauge strings, takes months to develop the hand strength, but I play blues fusion on a semi hollow telecaster strung and set up for 13's.
My understanding is that Stevie Ray Vaughn primarily used a GHS 13 to 58 set with a plain (unwound) 19 for the 3rd string. He had no trouble bending notes. That's almost as heavy as I use on my dobro! Of course he tuned down to Eb also. But that is a far cry from Billy Gibbons or Jeff Beck and 8s.
Bog-standard telecaster neck pickups are really nice for a jazz tone, because they tend towards a soft attack and can be nice and full. The low output can sound a bit thin, but folks who don't mind carrying a pedalboard with them (or who are using an all-in-one modeler like a Helix or what have you) can benefit from putting a clean boost in front of the amp to beef things up a bit. Picking near the neck pickup also makes a big difference, and finger-picking sounds great if you're into that sort of thing. It's (mostly) all about phrasing anyway.
Telecasters make great guitars for jazz. A Tele player not mentioned in the video who used one was Ted Green, to add another name to the list of jazz guitarists who prefer Telecasters. I'll bet Ted loved the sustain he could get from a solid-body since he played solo guitar so often. No troublesome hollow-body feedback to deal with, either - always a plus. If you have smaller or less well-conditioned hands, beware, though - because throwing a set of medium or heavy gauged flat-wounds on your Tele is going to take some hand strength to play because of the longer-scale in comparison to many arch-top guitars. The way around that is to tune down a half-step > from low to high, open strings E-Flat, A-Flat, D-Flat, G-Flat, B-Flat and E-Flat. an added benefit of doing this is that you have all of those nice open strings in tones/key centers common in jazz compositions. I have a nice arch-top which I love to play, and won't ever sell - it sounds like a dream - but I still like playing jazz on my Telecaster once in a while, and I take it on the road with me, too, as it is a great travel guitar.
Ed Bickert eventually did eventually replace the Tele nick pickup with a humbucker, as shown in this video; but on some jazz b-board not too long ago, someone said that he did this only because the original pickup was too noisy in a studio setting and even in some clubs.
er: this is in response to Tiege's post about Strats, but attribution got garbled somehow. Me too! I actually quite like the neck/middle blended position, with some tweaking of both tone knobs. The blend knocks off some high-end zing by its nature, and it doesn't hurt that it's noise-cancelling on most modern pickup sets. Don't tell any purists, but this can sound really good with a fuzz or a mid-heavy overdrive for a slightly dirtier early jazz guitar tone. Should work with a neon '80s shredder too, but you may need to pack some kind of cardboard archtop disguise if your jam is full of olds.
I've seen jazz players playing on a Strat at The Blue Note and a Telecaster is a classic jazz guitar for many players: Ed Bickert, Ted Greene, Tim Lerch, and Lenny Breau. And, evidently Pat Metheny plays with Fender lights. He rolls them around so the blunt end is hitting the strings. The reason is that he wants his hammered notes and picked notes to sound the same.
@@RichieZellon Newbie here - what is the "volume knob replacement"? Simply a larger knob, or is the pot (or other electronics) involved? I got an "American Performer" Tele, wanting to play some (in-tune) jazz-voiced rhythm with maybe an occasional timid foray into a few melodic notes. But i also want to have a little more timbral flexibility than a typical traditional jazz guitar (boring!) tone. Larger circumference volume knob sounds like a good idea. Any specific suggestions? Thanks!
Respectfully, I'm going to take a contrarian view on bending based on my personal experience. I've used D'Addario EJ21 12,16,24w,32,42,52 nickel round wound strings on guitars such as a Les Paul Deluxe, Guild CE100, Gibson ES-775, Gibson ES-225 and 275 for at minimum 30 years and you can indeed get a good jazz tone and incorporate bending using both TOM and wooden saddle bridges. Not as much bending as a set of 10s playing blues, and usually (but not always) limiting it to a half-tone, and the B, G and D strings, but you can train your hand to bend. In all that time I've broken just a couple of E and B strings (and admittedly, usually have a back-up guitar on stage to provide peace of mind). And for those who think "there's no bending in jazz guitar", someone should tell Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, Tal Farlow, George Barnes and Barney Kessel they're playing guitar wrong.
I filled in for a friend (on extremely late notice) on a small club gig with a Jackson Rhoads 7 string with a Dimarzio Air Norton in the neck (X2N 7 in the bridge). I left from practice with a metal cover band. Used my Headrush board with the FRFR . Got a lot of compliments and looks of amazement that a V is getting a decent jazz tone. If I had time I absolutely would have gone home to get my 355. This video is right that with the right finagling you can get a usable tone out of just about everything. Shoddy technique will make you sound "less jazz" than any instrument will.
I've just discovered your channel in the last month and I'm really enjoying it. Your tips are truly helpful to an old (52) Aussie who's a classically trained lifelong guitar devotee, realising in the last three years or so that jazz is a different animal entirely. I can read the "dots" but as my jazz teacher said to me, on my first lesson, be prepared to sound BAD for a fair while he said like a Doctor delivering some terrible news - it actually made me laugh, especially in the ensuing weeks /months when I realised that he wasn't kidding. Basically, my longwinded point here is that I agree with your six points but have to say that no: 06 is absolute. Until that 'feel" gets you, or you get that feel, it doesn't matter as much what you're using - it just helps things a little. Getting yourself to be a jazz guitarist is the first, or at least MY first priority even though I do all those other things to help me sound better, it really is an internal matter of listening to the "greats", listening to myself and listening to those I'm playing with to try to find that elusive place where jazz guitarists' live. Thanks for your advice and help. At the very least watching a new release always seems to get that 175 in my hands and that's always a good thing.
Thanks for sharing! Your teacher is absolutely right...same thing I try to tell my new students. Sometimes I feel like their shrink though: "No don't give it up so fast...it's not just you....we all sound bad for years when first starting out in jazz...hang in there, do the work, and it'll get better gradually. Most important of all...LEARN TO ENJOY THE JOURNEY!"
Thank You Master ! You are so wisdom.... really ! and I can appreciatte your words... enyoy the journey ! Only enyoing We can grow up . Sorry for my english , I love your dedication, thank you and best regards to you !
Kent Armstrong makes some great jazz handwound pickups. He used to supply Benedetto Guitars with pickups until business increased for Benedetto. Kent runs a one man shop and I guess he couldn't keep up. But he still makes GREAT pickups.
I used to play my ES-335 but now I get the best jazz tone from my telecaster. Here is how: I use the single coil pickups but I have a 4-way that allows me to put the two pickups in series like a large humbucker. I use somewhat light strings starting at 11 on the high E but they are D’addario half wounds with a wound third string. I use a heavy pick and run it through an Ampeg Jet II or Fender Princeton. Volume knob is set down to 7 and tone knob to about 5. Heavy picks. I can still bend the strings so I can get rock a billy if I want in the same set up.
Good job! Some of these things, you think would be obvious but it’s the attention to detail that’s important. I’ve been playing since i was 14 and only recently have I really really started paying attention to tone a lot. But I am glad I did the way i did because I was just interested in technique and theory basically building the tone in my hands and head first. I think along with the pickup part is the height, I remember not being happy with a pickup bc I thought it was as too “hot” and just lowering it made all the difference. Thanks again!
Good info for a bass player with an itch for learning how to layout mellow jazz box tunes, riffs, and improvisations on a starter Ibby. Hopefully the old adage, "...it's never too late...", will apply to my new journey. 👑🎸🎵
Also my favorite pickup for jazz is the Gibson 57 Classic. I can tolerate most decent pickups though the 57 is just wonderful. I'll also settle for the Parson Street pickups that Stew Mac sells. For about half the price of the Gibson you can get yourself a wonderful pickup that sounds wonderful in jazz.
I dismounted the bridge single coil pickup from my telecaster, reamed the bridge pickup chamber so that a Seymour Duncan Jazz-Humbucker would fit, changed the tone capacitor and disabled the pickup switch - actually there is no pickup switch anymore on that guitar :) It is always in neck humbucker mode. Only the tone knob is a push-pull; it is possible to split the neck pickup. The strings are 0.11s these days and flatwounds also do the job, but I had to work on the nut a bit. The result is a warm jazz tone. Even with the tone knob on zero; you wouldn't have the heart to turn that knob up anyway. Everybody who sees this guitar is baffled by its tone and the "construction" of it: Only one Pickup, no switch and great tone.
Excellent video ; without watching this years before I did this on my metalhead - Charvell by Jackson model 4. I changed Neck Pickup to Seymour Duncan Jazz Humbucker and put on Tomastik 0.12 flat-wounds and of course I use hard pick. Now it's not an Archtop but the sound I get from it is night and day to the original set up on this guitar. This man Knows what he's talking about. Thumbs up man.
The easiest way to get a "Jazz guitar" tone is to switch to flatwound strings, some good ones too! I've done this with a Strat and it sounded great, not as smooth as an L-5 but you'll be really surprised. A word of caution - most jazz flatwounds are much heavier than the Super Slinkys some rockers are used to and a guitar technician might be needed to set the guitar up for a user-friendly action.
I am using Dunlop 208 Jazz picks, Dunlop Ultex 1.4M, Dunlop Jazz III's Used to use Dunlop Jazz vinyl picks..red or black but they would twist around in my fingers..the jazz III's have stamped letters on face which usually keeps pick from rotating on me I use 11/53"s on Les Paul Custom with Bigsby 12/52's or 14/56's on archtops..Johnny Smith, etc Thicker strings and picks are like low profile tires and stiff springs and anti sway bars on a high performance car..gives more control when picking fast, it takes time for string to come back to center.. I have found that I need to be able to pick 16th notes at 120-160 beats per minute hence my need for thicker strings and picks Thomastics have worked out to be the best and I have used up to two years or more without changing!
The classical & jazz guitarist under whom I started my studies used a Dunlop Big Stubby 3mm and taught me how to use them and get different plectrum voices on flat top and arch top steel strings by using grip firmness to get the desired voice. I know they are considered bass picks. However, the voice control through controlling grip firmness and the firmness range the dimples facilitate are just awesome. I'm pretty sure similar firmness and voice control could be done with the Jazz III pick or any hard pick that can be held securely with a varying grip firmness. Thanks for the informative video.
I've used Thomastik Infeld strings. Very nice strings with great harmonic content. Love their voice. Expensive, but, as you say, you get what you pay for. Any bowed instrument musician will vouch for them as a good string company. Thanks for sharing about them.
Thanks for the informative feedback! I've used the Big Stubby in the past. It's all relative and I personally find that it is partly a matter of how the player uses the pick. I've experimented for periods of time with different picks and they all have there individual characteristics. At some point several years back, I stopped worrying about the picks and decided to focus more on the music. Somehow this happened at a time I was using the Dunlap Jazz III and I just stuck with it. Lately I've been trying out different picks once again since there are now so many new choices in the market. The bottom line is that other than a very slight change in tone, my playing sounds like my playing no matter what pick I use. I believe that is the case for any player. However, I am about to fork out $30 for a Blue Chip since a couple of students swear by them...
@@RichieZellon Good luck with the $30 pick! I'm.starting jazz on a Godin 5th Avenue Kingpin. Discovered your favorite < $1000 jazz guitars shortly afterwards. My thought is to get the best phrasing and pick control up front and worry about pick material later. I suspect my hand has more effect than pick material. Again, thanks!
Integrate and wor on your git and amp. I have an esp horizon, supposedly a metal guitar, great sound for jazz ,but the prejudice of jazzers are amazing.. As for just humbuckers uhh tel Julian Lage and Bill Frisesll and all us teleguys
Skip the set up from the tech. If you are going to put 12's on a solid body, recut the nut so the string fits in it. A nut cut for a set of 9's wont hold 12's, hence the high action. Cut the nut slots a little bigger and then set up the rest of the guitar as you normally would.
Filtertron's give a slightly brighter tone with a mellow bass. I have a gretsch and a telecaster with filtertrons. It gets you away from the 'jazz no-tone' and towards a cooler (or brighter) tone, and slightly away from a 'warmer' (or 'darker) tone.
To anyone with a guitar that has the Seymour Duncan Nazgul/Sentient set, the neck pickup works fine for Jazz if you aren't willing to trade out pickups.
I’ve just been getting into jazz and blues for between 1 and 2 years - and my modelling amp wasn’t giving me a ‘jazz tone’ that I liked. I play a 70’s strat clone that I bought in 1978 - and recently bought a Vox Amplug 2 ‘Clean’. With some reverb on the ‘orange’ channel and fingerpicking off of the neck pickup, I now get a glorious jazz-style tone when I use the headphone amp and bypass the modelling on the big amp, via the aux-in. Maybe not everyone’s ‘cup-of-tea’ but it gives me what I’m looking for and I keep my 009’s for the blues - and when I want to try soloing - I have my homemade hardwood ‘small-jazz’ style picks (I do like bottlebrush, rimu and pohutakawa - they give me a lovely tone and I hate the sound of plastic pics now!).
I have a Telecaster with single pickups and my Thomastik Swing 11-47. By adjusting the tone knob to cut the treble, I get a very correct Jazz sound. My amp is a DV Mark LJ and an Orange 20 RT. I learned that the Jazz sound is in the fingers and the choice of the right chords !
I play a G&L ASAT Special through a little discontinued 20 watt single channel Mesa/Boogie called a "Subway Blues". The ASAT has Jumbo MFD single coils with exceptional clarity. The amp is fat and warm and has loud lows that aren't too muddy. I play almost exclusively fingerstyle without nails, with round wound 12s... I really dig my tone. I truly believe I can get a Wes-esque tone out of this set up.
I had a mesa boogie subway blues. Best amp I ever had. I still hate myself for selling it, but he offered me so much money I could not say no. now I understand why 🥺
@@theotherwillie They still go for 400-500 hundred pounds here in the uk. They pop up on ebay quite often. Worth rediscovering. I've tried so many reputed "jazz amps" that I really didn't like. Interestingly when I was shopping around for this amp I tried a blues junior, a roland blues cube, a princeton reverb reissue and a henriksen. I really disliked them all, but I tried a Fender bassbreaker and the mesa and thought they both sounded exceptionally nice with a jazz tone dialed in. I bought the subway blues from a used gear shop, and the guy who owned the shop seemed as if he thought he was ripping me off, but I love the amp. It's wonderfully clean but without any of that pointless scooped-mids quality that fender amps have. I think that's why I also liked the bassbreaker because it's a clone of a Marshall frequency profile and doesn't have the mid scoop, but set to low gain its lovely and clean.
Thanks for a great informative video. There are a few things I wish to add here: - 1) The type and quality of WOOD used in the guitar construction is very important. Even though it's a solid body guitar, the wood nevertheless resonates and makes a big difference - so even when you put a really good pickup on some guitars, you'll never get a satisfactory tone. Generally speaking, more expensive solid body guitars use better quality wood. Thus in general a Squier will not sound as good as a Fender, even when they are both equipped with top quality pickups... Many jazz players use Telecasters, and I personally like the current '72 Reissue Fender Thinline Tele (which has a chambered body with an F-hole) which has wide-ranging humbuckers fitted as standard. 2) STRINGS - I have found that some type of strings suit some guitars - you need to experiment to find what strings are best for a particular instrument. For example, half-rounds sometimes sound better than round-wounds, or flat-wounds. Whilst flat-wounds are a sheer delight to play on, they can sometimes be too indistinct in the bass, so either half-rounds or round-wound strings may sound better. I personally really like most strings by d'Addario. For a bright tone, NYXL's are good, semi-soft go for their half-rounds, or chromes for a more mellow tone. I agree that Thomastik Infeld are good strings. 3) Not all of us use a PLECTRUM (or 'pick' if you prefer). I have NEVER, and WILL NEVER use one. I find my fingers work pretty well... some other jazz players also don't use a pick (or don't usually use a pick) - Charlie Byrd, Lenny Breau, Martin Taylor, Pasquale Grasso, Egberto Gismonti, to name a few... so I feel I'm in good company here... 4) If your guitar has a TREMELO arm (or 'Whammy bar) - TAKE IT OFF..! This applies particularly to Strats, whereas Telecasters don't have them in the first place. Using heavier gauge strings with a tremelo means constant trouble - the guitar will go out of tune all the time. Once the whammy bar is removed, the bridge has to be screwed down so that it can no longer move... 5) Just so that you know, Joe Pass can be seen on You Tube playing 'The Song Is You' - NOT on a Jazzmaster, but the similar looking Fender Jaguar.
I’d argue the big difference between fender and squier is the electronics and pickup quality. Tonewoods are more relevant on true hollowbody guitars, but even those can literally have a plywood tone block and sound great (peerless). Tonewoods matter most for guitars without pickups involved. Solid body guitars can get some benefit, but it’s typically aesthetic or durability related over the tone they talk about. Just about everything else I agree with, but tonewoods are as expensive and effective as audiophile equipment
Other option : _ A good standard P90 ... the characteristic 60 cycle hum should be well under control with the tone rolled down and clean amp settings. _ Any good solid state amp built for Jazz with sufficient EQ to reach a nice clean Jazz tone, or a sufficiently powerful solid state amp with an additional good quality EQ pedal to fine shape your amp tone. _ Good set of heavy half wound or flat wound strings (check Richie's friendly advice). _ NICE TRICK : Cut a pick out of a THICK piece of leather, like a thick old plain leather belt, you'll have enough rigidity for precise picking and the softness of the leather surface will prevent any unwanted additional high frequency pick sounds. Shape the "pointy side" of that leather pick with a sharp cutter (and be careful not to cut your fingers), then apply a tiny bit of fretboard lemon oil on the "pointy side" that you nearly immediately wipe out, every once in a while.
I saw some comments from Blue Chip picks owners, but none explained why they cost so much. I have a few Blue Chip picks, and the reason why they are so expensive is because the material used is an engineering-grade plastic that is used in spaceships and other engineering situations that require extremely high resistance to wear and heat. The material is called Vespel SP1 by DuPont, and just one rod of it will cost several hundred to over a thousand dollars, and the equipment needed to cut and polish it will also be more expensive. Other comments mentioned how smoothly it glides on the strings, and this is due to the material's high resistance to wear and heat and its self-lubricating characteristic. So basically, a Blue Chip pick will probably last you a whole lifetime, as long as you don't lose the pick. BTW, Blue Chip is not even the most expensive pick out there. I have a Hufschmid Torlonn 10mm that cost $100 per pick.
Love it! Just one little addition to the pickup part. (I ran into this when looking to jazzify my strat) before you run out and buy a humbucker, check your pickup route. Not every strat has a neck humbucker route or swimming pool route.
No “e” in the kind of rout you are talking about. Unless you are talking about a way to get from point A to point B (route), a hole in a guitar is spelled “rout”. Not being weird, it’s just that I couldn’t figure out what you were talking about at first.
Neck pickup, low tone, 1mm or thicker pick will do it (use the rounded end). Also, a little compression and overdrive will thicken the tone of single coils.
I get great jazz sounds from my T.V. Jones DuoTron equipped semi-hollow tele-clone. Wonderfully versatile pickup.
Před 4 lety
My tip: Check out the PRS DGT, if you like to have a great solidbody guitar which basical tone is specially great for getting a wonderful jazzy tone...the pickups are extremly carefully created to nail the tone of David Grissoms 1959' ES 335 PAF-Humbuckers (Grissom is a highly respected US- Blues-Rock guitarist - the DGT is the PRS signature model that is strictly concepted from his individual specifications), the model is concepted for .011 gauge strings and the guitar is perfectly concepted for giving you a wonderful rich, deep and earthy tone! Not a cheap instrument, but - in my opinion - sounds fantastic, especially for Jazz! Try it out!
OMG, I found a Jazz Master, I learn 1 things from you today. As always I want to change to medium strings but my friend is keep telling me no no no Kevin. I will do it right after ID4 holiday for my F Start and G Les Paul. Thank you so much for very valued lesson today,
A trick I've found useful that I've not seen anyone else use is to use soft steel bars as "mutes" on the top four strings of the bridge humbucker, so it only picks up the fifth and sixth strings. I've also added a couple of fixed resistors into my Dean's internal wiring so that the tone knob primarily affects the neck pickup. I should perhaps record a better demo, but in my video of Misty chords at czcams.com/video/yHHw2x4p0To/video.html the amp actually has the treble at max and bass turned down, but the bass strings come out louder than the treble strings because the bridge humbucker only captures the bass strings. Incidentally, while I wouldn't say my rendition of the chords from Misty is the best I've heard (even not counting flubs) I think the alternative tuning I invented makes it much easier to play than anything that would sound anywhere near as good, and sounds better than anything that wouldn't be much harder to play. I'd be curious about your thoughts.
I had Chickenpicks...hawk picks...dunlop jazz pick...now I have BC Jazz 40 and BC LG 60 picks and they are worth their money. Great articulate sound, no string noise and very very durable!
I think I'll fast for a week to save money on groceries, and then I'll be able to buy a couple of them. ha, ha..but seriously, I hear good things about them!
Hi I have a Blue Chip Jazz Pick (BC JAZZ 100), before that I used JD JAZZ III and more recent the JD Stubby 3.0 mm and wouldn’t want to go back that. I tried on at my guitartech’s place. They are expensive!! But worth it: the pick is very smooth (Teflon-like)so it glides off the string(s), (but strangely you’ll need less grip to hold it. That made my picking hand more relaxed and there made me started softer picking. I play flat wounds and on all my guitars I’ve gone one gauge lighter. With no loss of tone. It’s sounds more round like picking with a thumb. They don’t wear out I have this on for over eight years and never lost it. I bought a thinner one a JAZZ 75, but that doesn’t work for me (tone gets harsher). This and a good professional setup are my best investments. I play sometimes on any amp that is available at rehearsal, gig or session, but I always get a good tone. His and a good professional setup are my best investments. I play sometimes on any amp that is available at rehearsal, gig or session, but I always get a good tone. So: good tone, lower musletonus at both hands, lighter strings. Only sometimes fear of losing the pick!
Bluechip picks are awesome: stick to your fingers like no other picks, glide on the strings, great tone. Best picks I've ever had, by a landslide, and I play both jazz and bluegrass. I have 4 BC picks and I make sure that I don't lose them. 35 usd for a single pick may seem expensive, but they last forever, so what's 35$ when your whole rig cost several 1000s (guitars, amps, pedals etc)? your pick is the only thing that your hand constantly touches when playing the guitar with a pick (your left hand doesn't always touch the strings). Picks are not to be neglected, and BC picks are the best, period.
Many years ago, back in 1990's, I saw Ed Bickert play in a small club, and at the break when he was standing around drinking a glass of water I walked up and asked him about why he chose to play a telecaster for jazz when most players use a hollow body. He said he never really thought about it, he just found that it was easier to travel with with a thin solid body and he couldn't imagine lugging around a big case that he would need for a hollowbody. I don't think I totally believe him, I think there was probably more to the decision than that, but hey, that was his answer.
Fender Stratocasters from the fifties have been delivered with heavy flatwound strings with a wound G-string, not plain steel. Therefore the pickups have staggered pole pieces. I once tried flatwounds out on a 50s - style strat to get that Buddy Holly rock'n' roll sound and it worked! So check it out. However that required a total new setup especially for the tremolo.
Excellent thorough discussion of tone factors etc. Just getting back into learning some jazz scales/arpeggios/chords etc with my old "rock/blues/country" Peavey Falcon strat style guitar, although it does have custom pickups. But had somewhat forgotten about string gauges, flatwound vs roundwound etc. Not to mention of course amp settings, phrasing, practice, on and on. Fortunately it can be fun too!
My Squier Strat sounds pretty good. I even use light strings. I keep the tone control on the guitar at about zero or one, and a "scooped" sound on the amp, with highs and lows accentuated but mids reduced. The result is a velvety, fat sound with a little bit of an airy touch in the high end. There are videos of Joe Pass from the 1960's with a Fender Mustang or Jaguar. His sound was very good, and arguably better than some of the recordings he did on ES-175.
Interesting. I'm getting a pretty good sound with my Squire Strat into a Joyo American sound and then into a Peavey Bandit 112. I don't scoop but I have the bass up high and the treble and mid at medium. I keep playing around and I'd like to do better but for now it's a comfortable sound.
I don't remember if I read this or heard this on a video, that Stevie Ray Vaughan used heavier gauge strings than most blues and rock players. I heard that he used what would be medium gauge strings on his Fender Strat. He also had one of his pick-ups changed to a more bass sound. He did bend strings and must of had powerful hands and fingers. He did have an aggressive way of playing and more tone then other rock and blues players.
I put some Gibson L-5 strings on a Strat (these are 12 - 56 guage) and it sounded great. Not only for jazz, but it made it a good all-round guitar. But as he said, bending strings pretty much came to an end for it.
I gave up the hollow-bodies and semi-hollows (well I still have one PRS) for Telecasters decades ago. A Telecaster can do anything. Combine your Telecaster with some Bill Lawrence pickups and you will have the most articulate Jazz machine on the block. Bill Lawrence was a genius, his pickups are full spectrum instead of sculpted like the pickups you recommended. You should check them out, once you put Bill Lawrence pickups in you will never again even consider a Seymour or a Dimarzio or any of the way overpriced boutique winders.
One guitar amplifier that total surprised me is my new Acoustic G35FX, and I got it at Musicians Friend / or Guitar Center on the Internet for $89 on sale. It's usually only $119. It's a Chinese made solid state Guitar amplifier with 2 channel, 35 watts and a 12" speaker with effects (that is very deep in tone-good for jazz). I have 16 different amplifiers currently and I was looking for a medium wattage S.S. Guitar amplifier with a 12" speaker that also has reverb. This amp also has a delay and a chorus and a Distortion channel and its own separate gain knob. The clean channel is perfect for Jazz and it has a 3 band EQ section. Try one I am positive you will find it to be a very good Jazz amp and at a ridiculously inexpensive price. Believe me, I had low expectations from an amp that I paid $89 for brand new. Now it's my most often used amp. Remember I have a selection of 16 amplifiers to choose from, so using the G35FX most often is really saying something positive about how good this amp is. I would say it fits the very definition of a "Sleeper" amplifier. The biggest surprise is the speaker and how good the tone is. It can get loud if you want. -Peter
What's said here is very important information. I would also like to respectfully add: in addition to rolling back the tone knob, rolling back the volume knob helps as well. Especially with guitars with hum buckers: they often have a 500K potentiometer and turning both the volume and tone knob to 10 can make the guitar more likely to clip. Its a harder "loud" for your amp and may not sound as warm. I personally like to turn the volume to 5 and the tone to 6 on my main hollow body. I then set the amp a bit louder and feel like the guitar sounds more appropriate. I would also highly recommend against turning the tone knob all the way off. Sometimes it can sound good, though it's a bit of a trap and doesn't always sound good when playing with a second guitar player. Better to force the ear to handle a bit of highs so that you're getting your "jazz" sound not just from tone, but feel and note selection. One more thing: I recommend making sure you have a linear potentiometer for volume on all guitars. Many guitars will have a linear volume (500KB) pot and an audio (500KA) pot for tone. The linear pot keeps a consistent high frequency range for the entire sweep and is great for musicians who keep their volume at around 5 or rockers who like to turn up to 10 for solos and turn down to clean up. Unfortunately many guitars have audio (A) pots in all positions which I think isn't as versatile. You'll get a muddy sound when you turn down and not in the "jazz" way that we like. I say it's better to have a clear constant sweep from 1 - 10 and roll the tone off if you need than have the volume pot cutting highs until it's turned up too loud. Anyway, just my respectful views. Thank you for posting this video.
Thanx for a nice lesson. I played with a big band last night and, no Trumpism intended, I got applause from the band after a solo on the gig & played a Korean D'Angelico Lol. Haven't had applause since playing at the "KMPC Show of the World" at the Forum years ago. Thanx for all you do! Nice jazz sound though.
I usually play a strat through a fender deluxe reverb but I also had an ampeg bass amp. I plugged the stat into the amp which was eq’ed for my jazz bass and I got a super cool jazz tone that really surprised me. The amp was a BA 210 450w and I barely had it around 3 or 4 but I was a great combo with a strat neck pickup with the tone rolled to about 5
I also use Thomastik-Infeld Flat Wound .012”-.050” Jazz Swing on my Epiphone Joe Pass Guitar and I like them very much, I buy them for Sweetwater, expensive but very good. I may use a set for one of my 2 Telecasters ( I have an Elite Thinline and a solid-chambered “rarities”) or maybe both, planning to buy a Gibson Hollowbody Jazz Guitar when I can afford a good one.I also use Thomastik-Infeld Flat Wound .010”-.044 Jazz Swing on my Gibson 335 and sometimes alternate or change the low strings for TI Flat Wound from my other sets. Great strings but costs almost $30. Thank you for another video.
I like your channel. I would like to say there are guitarists that used lightish guitar gauge strings and bent them. Most notably I believe Ted Green and Kenny Burrel would do stuff like that. I’m sure there are others. I think the goal of JazzGuitar is to get the guitar to have somewhat of either a soft vocal sound, or more of a vibes/piano sound. Guitar is a unique instrument because I know that the twangy tone is in there but metal and jazz folk don’t like that tone
I absolutely adore my Joe Barden Gatton Tele pickups. The neck pick up is absolutely divine. It's closer to a humbucker sound than the bridge, which has a lot more of that classic Tele twang. It's full, fat, and is wonderful for jazz, and is a great option for people who don't want to mod their single coil guitar with routing, new pick guards, or want something with a bit more clarity than many humbuckers offer, at the cost of a thinner sound.
While it takes strong hands, many players use 13-56 gauge strings, but still bend the heck out of 'em! Bob Margolin and Josh Smith are two, but there are many others..!
Great Neck pickup on a budget---GFS Fat Pat. Medium output, very round and full tone, with just enough treble. Street price $29.95 Have them on an SX ISIS (PRS clone) now, with a Gotoh 510 wraparound bridge, and they sound great.
I use a ibanez q 54 and the alter switch that connects both single pickups from the neck with the tone at 5/6 and mid sounds great, best part is that i can switch those settings to fit other music genres, and for strings the heavy slinky work good for me, 0.10s on the higher strings but heavier on the low strings. And for the pic the gator grip jazz iii are my favorite, i use the tip with a light fretting hand grip and it gives me like a snapping feeling when i pluck the strings and it feels easy to play fast while sounding great. For the amp settings i followed your advice and it does sound better, great video
Blue chip picks will not wear out. They produce an excellent tone and as an extra, the produce no pick dust. I have 3 of them they are great and hard to get now. Great video. I will use it for my students in a rep class.
Right on all six! I wanted a light travel guitar that sounds like a jazz guitar. I bought an acoustic Washburn Rover, which has a tiny body and not much sound but a good neck. I installed a Kent Armstrong jazz pickup and Thomastick flatwound strings., George Benson model, and added a tiny Gretch lap steel gig bag. It sounds convincingly jazzy and weighs almost nothing. Properly set up, very nice for anyone who finds a solid body guitar or big jazz guitar too heavy. With an Effectuator gadget from Amazon that plugs into the guitar and has Bluetooth for playing band trax from my iPod and a set of earplugs plugged not that, I can play silently anywhere and take it onto airplanes with ease.
Hi, it's no problem to use 0.009 string set (p.e. D'Addario EHR320 half round) and have a jazzy tone. If you like modern technique, You can use a Roland hex pickup and a GR-55 or GP-10 and a Jazz guitar modeling. Also, you can use massive eqing with every amp or a guitar effect box. If you use a product like Kemper Profiling Amp, you can experiment with the best amps used by many famous artists in one little box and give the output to a PA to profit from much better directivity and less coloration of the box concerning different hearing positions. Of course you can adjust your pickup (which is a ridiculously primitive construction) with condensers, search for "Varitone", this is simple physics. BUT a really important point is: you need a solidbody with a good dynamic range. A good jazz guitar has a BIG dynamic range, and most solidbodies don't. Without this, you don't have this "explosiveness" a good jazz guitar produces. Buy a solid which is really loud - this is a good indicator. Also, it should sound really good played smooth.
Can't go away from my 10-46 gauge strings because here in MX you *must* keep things versatile. That said, placing a dark-ish booster first in my pedal chain do MAGIC. Sometimes a blues breaker with close to none breakup does the trick (try the Mooer Blues Crab). That and some really thick Dunlop Jazztone picks. And, of course, tweaking your tone knob just a little bit if needed (my Strat S1 system helps a lot in this).
I know this is an older video, but I play with a Blue Chip BC JAZZ 80. It cost me $50 when I bought it a year ago. Before that, I used gemstone picks. The difference in my tone, dynamic articulation, and playability changed tremendously from both plastic and stone picks. The pick is 2mm's thick, but it still feels comfortable in my fingers. I carry it in a wooden box, along with my other picks. Was it worth it? To me, definitely. I play my archtop unplugged at home (so I don't wake my kiddo) and plugged in when I do jam sessions around LA. The sound of my guitar comes through tenfold acoustically and electrically. I have no idea what it's made from, but I like it. Julian Lage also plays with Blue Chips, as well as Chris Thile. I really dig your playing, especially your lessons on phrasing. However, I also see that you play really nice archtops. If you are going to spend the money on Thomastik strings, a boutique amp, and a luthier built guitar (my dream, one day)--why not spend the money on quality picks. Look at sax players, they spend good money on reeds and ligatures because that is the first point of contact in developing a sound on the instrument. If you play with a pick, that is your first point of contact with the guitar. Before anyone calls Blue Chips "snake oil", why not give them a try?
Light or heavy gauge? The difference in not the thinner or thicker sound but the attack and decay. This can be measured with the waveform analyser on most digital recording DAW. The thick string will have a higher output giving it more attack and a relatively faster decay from the peak, the thin string, lower output, less attack and a longer relative decay. The string gauge should be chosen to best suit that guitar. With the action sorted and the pickups adjusted, 15s become playable but then 12s can be made to sound like 14s. If you want a short thud then heavies, if you want more sustain then lighter. Likewise most jazzbox want flats but some sound best with round wound. We have to experiment. The bridge saddle material can have a big affect on this. Beginners will find heavy strings a nightmare, out of the shop the action is always far to high. If you cannot sort the action yourself, and it is a skilled job, then the full set up is a moderately expensive job for the luthier.
Great video Richie. I saw your video on jazz guitar amps too. Highly recommended ! I also love the Jazz III picks. They are small enough to be easy to hold, have a nice grip, a useful pointy edge and a very handy thick edge too. Regarding pickups, I got a GREAT jazz tone from a Seymour Duncan ‘59, believe it or not, in a walnut and alder semi acoustic I built. I’m using flatwound 11s (perhaps I’ll upgrade to 12 on your advice!) which I think are a huge part of the tone. Everyone should have at least one guitar with flat wounds on it. I also have a tele-style guitar I built that is heavily chambered- almost hollow - and has a neck humbucker with 11s on it which is also great for jazz. One thing that can help get a more plummy tone is wiring the neck humbucker in series with the bridge pickup. It really warms it up a lot. And now for amps - I’ve noticed that bass turned up too high makes the bottom strings too boomy and I lose definition. Runs on lower strings just turn to mush, so sometimes I even turn down the bass to keep things clearer. The bass knob shouldn’t affect the top strings too much anyhow. Looking forward to your next video, Richie!
Hey great video I liked everything you said regarding Jazz tone from a solid body guitar , I don’t like endorsing products on anyone’s channel or platform but I bought a Chinese amp called Stage right or Mono price and it’s all tube and can actually get a decent Jazz tone , it’s only 15 watts but it is very cheap $ So if any of your other subscribers are looking for a good entry level amp , I’d highly recommend this little amp ! Cheers
Thank you very much Sir, for those precious advice and info. Thank you also for the pleasure we get from playing some jazz on our instruments, whatever they are ! As for me, I'm one of those who decided to get off the beaten tracks, and I discovered that the association of the small Fender Frontman 15G with the AL-40 Sterling is an absolutely pure delight and jazz satisfactory ! The neck pickup of the Sterling has great presence and resonance. But after a while I noticed some unpleasant hum on the amp, maybe i should change it for some Roland... (I use a Microcube sometimes). I would like to grab the opportunity, if I may, to say a few more words on settings : in the begening I felt I had to play at low volume because of the neighbours (volume 2 or 3 on the guitar, with amp volume at 6-7) ... and following this rule led me to discover that the lower the sound, the more we can play (hi volumes everyday drains our energy)... and the purer and more musical the notes are.
Seymour Duncan’s, SH-2 Jazz PAF and Antiquity PAF are all great choices. As well as his Antiquity P90; Install them halfway between the bridge and neck to cop that Grant Green tone...flat wounds are a must...
Nice . . . appreciate the information and presentation thereof. Though not a "Jazz" musician, I believe that a good mid rich tone is the best starting point for anyone who plays a variety of genre. I'll be investigating some strings heavier than my typical 10's. ( and bet I can bend them too ) 🤣
NOTE: I am aware that I mistakenly said Tomastik Strings are "made in Germany" when in fact they are made in Austria. I should know better after using them for so many years. Unfortunately, I sub-consciously blurted out "Germany" while doing the video due to the fact that for the longest time (in the US) many players refer to them as being German due to the name. No excuses here. I have received various emails regarding this. My sincere apologies to anyone I might have ticked off with this!
Hi Richie,
the problem with any public platform is that it is open to criticism of one sort or another which will always include unfair and biased criticism. It is the job of anybody using the internet as a source of data to be able to sort these responses in order to achieve good data. This factor is probably the worst aspect of the internet as a resource device. A way round this problem while still using the internet, is to make the site concerned private where only those readers who register with you can comment on your articles. This has several distinct advantages to you the writer as follows:
1. It keeps you in control so that your readers do not read unfair criticism.
2. It means the comments which you decide should be published are relevant and valuable to your readers.
3. It promotes excellence.
4. It means you get to decide what is good feedabck and so allows you to steadily improve what you write. In effect your readers become valuable editors.
That said I find it difficult to understand how anybody could be ticked off for the Germany/Austria error but it takes all sorts.
Having listened to this video in detail I have to say I thought it was really excellent. Your six points are really good and cover the subject in detail. I was so impressed that I subscribed immediately, thinking, perhaps selfishly, what might Richie remind me of next?
This leads me to two points I would like to add as serious comments:
Despite the ridiculous price, I bought a Blue Chip pick about three years ago. You couldn't get it off me. I wouldn't lend it to you or sell it to you for any price as it's a game changer. I languished long and hard before buying as the price seemed so unreasonable, but with the Blue Chip agent in the UK saying, "once you get one of these you will never use anything else!!", I finally took the risk. So how are they different.
I chose a Blue Chip TP-1R 50, it is triangular and has three different contours at the apexes of the trangle. I tend to use the softest profile for jazz for obvious reasons.
What is unique about the pick is the material, because it does not wear, or wears so slowly that it really does not matter. This means that the strident, treble edge sounds, that a worn pick generates which is an anathema to the jazz guitarist does not exist or develop. So the pick simply works and works and works and works. If I am unluckyenough to lose my Blue Chip pick I will buy another immediately.
Because of the value of your channel which I clearly see from your work so far, I would like to ask you to cover sound on stage as a subject and in particular the difficulties the jazz guitarist can face with acoustic problems. I'm elderly now and recently faced unexpected serious difficulties with sound. I'm still working on these and in the process have learnt masses of stuff that I was unaware of which matters so much. In the past I would turn up, plug in and play and if the sound wasn't ideal I would just get on with it. My sensitivity to such failings has increased with age however and this is no longer good enough. Recently, my son and I went to a Pat Metheny concert in Birmingham, England. To my astonishment, Pat's amazing work was totatally lost to the audience with the appalling sound produced. The simple truth is with all that's known about this subject, it should not have happened. So an article/video on how to manage sound in small/ medium and large auditoria with clear whys and wherefores would be worth it's weight in gold for all jazz guitarists, given the nature of the instrument, in my humble opinion.
Thanks for the channel. I look ford to your next send, which I will certainly watch.
With kind regards,
Bob Hynes.
Thanks Bob for taking the time to share this valuable insight! I put in a lot of work to produce these videos and I get very little in terms of any compensation for my effort. So your comments made my day...again thanks! I must add that I really appreciate "constructive" criticism and welcome it, however I do get my fair share of "destructive" criticism from viewers who have nothing better to do and just want to criticize for no other reason than to be nasty...but like you said...that's You Tube. 🙂 I hear what you're saying about the sound incident with Pat Metheny and I have experienced it myself as well as watching others performing. I particularly remember 2 concerts from the 70's. One was the final Mahavishnu Orchestra opening for Jeff Beck with Jan Hammer. Mahavishnu's sound was disastrous in comparison to Jeff Beck's. And this was on the same stage with a 15 min intermission in between. Same thing happened on a concert where Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters opened for Chick Corea and Return to Forever. Herbie's sound was awful and then Chick came on and everything was crystal clear. I asked about this, and I was told that each artist was touring with their own sound engineer. So it isn't the equipment, nor the venue in these cases. It's the engineers knowledge and experience that makes a difference....I won't comment further because sound engineering is honestly not my area of expertise..
Hi Mister Zellon,
Sorry but I just have seen you're clip. I just started to play jazz again, I have had some lessons in my teen years.
I to use Tomastik strings on my Epiphone ES339, I like them a lot. And yes there from Austria.
Hihi it was just a slip of the tongue .
Please keep doing these videos, so I or we can learn from you a lot.
Greetz Blue
You can call them whatever you want. It's a free country.
@@RichieZellon Hi Richie.
Ok, things like that are happening all the time. I am sure it was not made by intention and after all it's not that "great" mistake.
I enjoy your video very much. It was vesy explanatory and to the point as I also liked the suggestions of equipment you make. They are higly appeciated. Thank you very much.
less than a minute in, and the video editing is so unhip that I can already tell this guy is focused more on the quality of content than the appearance of the video. This is a good sign.
Are you trying to indirectly say "ok boomer"?
Yes in heard all those nasty ass lipsmacks
Its so unhip its all the way back into hip. It has a very heavy vaporwave aesthetic its amazing.
not gonna lie, this is pretty great for my ADHD brain... all the animations are great to keep my brain from wondering off
This guy is a blowhard. Taking ages to say submerging that could be said in three minutes.
Ahhh, relief. Finally you blinked at 11:52. Amazing. Nice video and info.
Check out Ted Green and/or Tim Lerch. Heavy strings on low tuned telecasters. Single coil pickups, beautiful "jazz" tone. Green was the innovator, Lerch followed him and learned his techniques. Both are great imo.
Tim Lerch tunes down by 1/2 to 1+1/2 tones sometimes, depending upon what he's playing. He likes the tone and the feel.
Lerch is a master! Such a brilliant player!
Ed Bickert
I also like that Tim Lerch talks about using the bridge pickup on the Tele.
A P90 in the neck, with .012 flatwounds, gives a wonderful tone.
You are my favorite teacher Richie. And I’m watching most of the popular jazz folks on CZcams for some time now. Thank you for sharing your talent and expertise with patience and kindness.
Thank you kindly...much appreciated!
As a guy who is just getting into this style I was wondering why my tone wasn’t working with some jazz backing tracks. I watched this vid, made a few tweaks and walla..100% better!
voila
Isn't the point of jazz is that it's subjective & experimental, open to self-expression & free?
voila
I'm not stoned but feel like I am, watching this. So entertaining :-) Subscribed
Noodlerification - LOL! Me, too! But, I'm not paying 35 bucks and up, for one pick. That's just reefer-induced madness, when you're coming off a three-day speedball bender!
I am stoned and I feel completely understood while watching this video
Just watch at 1.25 for a more sober speed.
cool daddio, cool cat cool! (waiving my arms in the air, double finger snap)
i am lol
I love your videos. I suck at playing jazz but your videos make me feel like I can get there one day. Thank you.
Wes Montgomery got one of the best and most distinctive of all jazz tones without using a pick; Wes used his thumb to great effect.
Another great jazz tone for 2 P90 pickups, Both pickups on, neck pickup Vol 8, Tone 4. Neck pickup Vol 1, Tone 10 (yes 10). Use the neck pickup VOLUME control to dial the treble in or out. be subtle.
I have a weird setup. I have a cheap Fender Sqiuire because I love the neck. I took out the pickups and replaced them with a Lollar Charlie Christian in the neck and a Lollar B.S. for the bridge. My strings are 48-12’s. Sadly, I don’t sound like the late, wonderful Ed Bickert who was a Tele guy. But, I would say that I have a jazz tone.
Being a Torontonian of a certain vintage it was easy to see Ed Bickert and Lenny Breau who played very frequently in Toronto. Ed lived here and so did Lenny in the early- mid 60’s.
I ordered a blue chip jazz III pick because I couldn't believe the audacity of charging so much for a single pick. But after I got it I ordered 2 more in various sizes and thicknesses because they really are amazing. Makes the traditional jazz IIIs sound like plastic
Regarding the Blue Chip picks -- I have a TAD60. There's something about the material that sounds much like a tortoise shell but, of course, these are legal and nothing has to die before you get a few picks. The pick also kinda slides off the strings a bit easier which seems to make playing faster easier. And, probably most importantly, I've had mine for 10 years and it still looks new. No exaggeration. I bought it 12/06/2009, and you would be hard pressed to detect wear on the edges. They last about as long as you can keep up with them.
Jordan best money I’ve spent on guitar gear(besides my Suhr😍) was my Blue Chip pick.
What if you lose it?
The blue chip pick is great because: PROS1. Hard material and will not leave pick dust. 2. Very smooth on the string. 3. Available in right or left hand, depending on your pick angle attack. 4. Great attack on strings producing a better tone. CONS: Easy to lose. Be sure and use a pick holster.
I have 3. Use them for all guitar styles , buy don't play jazz without my BlueChip.
Thanks for another wonderful video!
I’ve recently discovered the benefits of REMOVING a lot of the bass frequencies. This also helps the amp produce cleaner output as the bass frequencies will drive your amp more quickly into distortion. Use a 10-Band graphic or even better, a fully parametric EQ pedal or module in your modeler BEFORE the amp model. Start by removing several decibels below 300hz keep the ones between 400hz and 1Khz, and remove some of the highs from 1K up. Don’t kill ALL of the 5-20K so that you maintain some attack. By using a bass-cut circuit in your guitar (see several modification articles), or simply placing and EQ before your amp to cut the ultra-low frequencies, your sound will be much cleaner, clearer and still have the Jazz-Box warmth. 👍
You can bend 13 gauge strings, takes months to develop the hand strength, but I play blues fusion on a semi hollow telecaster strung and set up for 13's.
My understanding is that Stevie Ray Vaughn primarily used a GHS 13 to 58 set with a plain (unwound) 19 for the 3rd string. He had no trouble bending notes. That's almost as heavy as I use on my dobro! Of course he tuned down to Eb also. But that is a far cry from Billy Gibbons or Jeff Beck and 8s.
This guy never blinks!!!
He blinks when YOU blink.
Bog-standard telecaster neck pickups are really nice for a jazz tone, because they tend towards a soft attack and can be nice and full. The low output can sound a bit thin, but folks who don't mind carrying a pedalboard with them (or who are using an all-in-one modeler like a Helix or what have you) can benefit from putting a clean boost in front of the amp to beef things up a bit. Picking near the neck pickup also makes a big difference, and finger-picking sounds great if you're into that sort of thing. It's (mostly) all about phrasing anyway.
Telecasters make great guitars for jazz. A Tele player not mentioned in the video who used one was Ted Green, to add another name to the list of jazz guitarists who prefer Telecasters. I'll bet Ted loved the sustain he could get from a solid-body since he played solo guitar so often. No troublesome hollow-body feedback to deal with, either - always a plus. If you have smaller or less well-conditioned hands, beware, though - because throwing a set of medium or heavy gauged flat-wounds on your Tele is going to take some hand strength to play because of the longer-scale in comparison to many arch-top guitars. The way around that is to tune down a half-step > from low to high, open strings E-Flat, A-Flat, D-Flat, G-Flat, B-Flat and E-Flat. an added benefit of doing this is that you have all of those nice open strings in tones/key centers common in jazz compositions. I have a nice arch-top which I love to play, and won't ever sell - it sounds like a dream - but I still like playing jazz on my Telecaster once in a while, and I take it on the road with me, too, as it is a great travel guitar.
martincrowe81 I actually enjoy playing strats for jazz too!
Ed Bickert eventually did eventually replace the Tele nick pickup with a humbucker, as shown in this video; but on some jazz b-board not too long ago, someone said that he did this only because the original pickup was too noisy in a studio setting and even in some clubs.
er: this is in response to Tiege's post about Strats, but attribution got garbled somehow.
Me too! I actually quite like the neck/middle blended position, with some tweaking of both tone knobs. The blend knocks off some high-end zing by its nature, and it doesn't hurt that it's noise-cancelling on most modern pickup sets. Don't tell any purists, but this can sound really good with a fuzz or a mid-heavy overdrive for a slightly dirtier early jazz guitar tone. Should work with a neon '80s shredder too, but you may need to pack some kind of cardboard archtop disguise if your jam is full of olds.
@@martincrowe81 you we
I've seen jazz players playing on a Strat at The Blue Note and a Telecaster is a classic jazz guitar for many players: Ed Bickert, Ted Greene, Tim Lerch, and Lenny Breau.
And, evidently Pat Metheny plays with Fender lights. He rolls them around so the blunt end is hitting the strings. The reason is that he wants his hammered notes and picked notes to sound the same.
I get a great jazz tone out of a Stratocaster using the neck pickup and the center pickup together
Hmm. Tone knob, yes, but something that players sometime miss, is that especially with passive pickups, the volume knob placement is critical.
Absolutely!
@@RichieZellon Newbie here - what is the "volume knob replacement"? Simply a larger knob, or is the pot (or other electronics) involved? I got an "American Performer" Tele, wanting to play some (in-tune) jazz-voiced rhythm with maybe an occasional timid foray into a few melodic notes. But i also want to have a little more timbral flexibility than a typical traditional jazz guitar (boring!) tone. Larger circumference volume knob sounds like a good idea. Any specific suggestions? Thanks!
Nvm! I see you actually said "placement" not "re-placement!" My bad.
Respectfully, I'm going to take a contrarian view on bending based on my personal experience. I've used D'Addario EJ21 12,16,24w,32,42,52 nickel round wound strings on guitars such as a Les Paul Deluxe, Guild CE100, Gibson ES-775, Gibson ES-225 and 275 for at minimum 30 years and you can indeed get a good jazz tone and incorporate bending using both TOM and wooden saddle bridges. Not as much bending as a set of 10s playing blues, and usually (but not always) limiting it to a half-tone, and the B, G and D strings, but you can train your hand to bend. In all that time I've broken just a couple of E and B strings (and admittedly, usually have a back-up guitar on stage to provide peace of mind). And for those who think "there's no bending in jazz guitar", someone should tell Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, Tal Farlow, George Barnes and Barney Kessel they're playing guitar wrong.
I filled in for a friend (on extremely late notice) on a small club gig with a Jackson Rhoads 7 string with a Dimarzio Air Norton in the neck (X2N 7 in the bridge).
I left from practice with a metal cover band. Used my Headrush board with the FRFR .
Got a lot of compliments and looks of amazement that a V is getting a decent jazz tone. If I had time I absolutely would have gone home to get my 355.
This video is right that with the right finagling you can get a usable tone out of just about everything.
Shoddy technique will make you sound "less jazz" than any instrument will.
I've just discovered your channel in the last month and I'm really enjoying it. Your tips are truly helpful to an old (52) Aussie who's a classically trained lifelong guitar devotee, realising in the last three years or so that jazz is a different animal entirely. I can read the "dots" but as my jazz teacher said to me, on my first lesson, be prepared to sound BAD for a fair while he said like a Doctor delivering some terrible news - it actually made me laugh, especially in the ensuing weeks /months when I realised that he wasn't kidding. Basically, my longwinded point here is that I agree with your six points but have to say that no: 06 is absolute. Until that 'feel" gets you, or you get that feel, it doesn't matter as much what you're using - it just helps things a little.
Getting yourself to be a jazz guitarist is the first, or at least MY first priority even though I do all those other things to help me sound better, it really is an internal matter of listening to the "greats", listening to myself and listening to those I'm playing with to try to find that elusive place where jazz guitarists' live.
Thanks for your advice and help. At the very least watching a new release always seems to get that 175 in my hands and that's always a good thing.
Thanks for sharing! Your teacher is absolutely right...same thing I try to tell my new students. Sometimes I feel like their shrink though: "No don't give it up so fast...it's not just you....we all sound bad for years when first starting out in jazz...hang in there, do the work, and it'll get better gradually. Most important of all...LEARN TO ENJOY THE JOURNEY!"
Thanks, and that's the wonderful thing about music - the journey is never ending.
Thank You Master ! You are so wisdom.... really ! and I can appreciatte your words... enyoy the journey ! Only enyoing We can grow up . Sorry for my english , I love your dedication, thank you and best regards to you !
Kent Armstrong makes some great jazz handwound pickups. He used to supply Benedetto Guitars with pickups until business increased for Benedetto. Kent runs a one man shop and I guess he couldn't keep up. But he still makes GREAT pickups.
I used to play my ES-335 but now I get the best jazz tone from my telecaster. Here is how: I use the single coil pickups but I have a 4-way that allows me to put the two pickups in series like a large humbucker. I use somewhat light strings starting at 11 on the high E but they are D’addario half wounds with a wound third string. I use a heavy pick and run it through an Ampeg Jet II or Fender Princeton. Volume knob is set down to 7 and tone knob to about 5. Heavy picks. I can still bend the strings so I can get rock a billy if I want in the same set up.
Good job! Some of these things, you think would be obvious but it’s the attention to detail that’s important. I’ve been playing since i was 14 and only recently have I really really started paying attention to tone a lot. But I am glad I did the way i did because I was just interested in technique and theory basically building the tone in my hands and head first. I think along with the pickup part is the height, I remember not being happy with a pickup bc I thought it was as too “hot” and just lowering it made all the difference. Thanks again!
Thanks for the sensible, comprehensive suggestions.
Good info for a bass player with an itch for learning how to layout mellow jazz box tunes, riffs, and improvisations on a starter Ibby. Hopefully the old adage, "...it's never too late...", will apply to my new journey. 👑🎸🎵
Also my favorite pickup for jazz is the Gibson 57 Classic. I can tolerate most decent pickups though the 57 is just wonderful. I'll also settle for the Parson Street pickups that Stew Mac sells. For about half the price of the Gibson you can get yourself a wonderful pickup that sounds wonderful in jazz.
I dismounted the bridge single coil pickup from my telecaster, reamed the bridge pickup chamber so that a Seymour Duncan Jazz-Humbucker would fit, changed the tone capacitor and disabled the pickup switch - actually there is no pickup switch anymore on that guitar :) It is always in neck humbucker mode. Only the tone knob is a push-pull; it is possible to split the neck pickup. The strings are 0.11s these days and flatwounds also do the job, but I had to work on the nut a bit. The result is a warm jazz tone. Even with the tone knob on zero; you wouldn't have the heart to turn that knob up anyway. Everybody who sees this guitar is baffled by its tone and the "construction" of it: Only one Pickup, no switch and great tone.
Excellent video ; without watching this years before I did this on my metalhead - Charvell by Jackson model 4.
I changed Neck Pickup to Seymour Duncan Jazz Humbucker and put on Tomastik 0.12 flat-wounds and of course I use hard pick. Now it's not an Archtop but the sound I get from it is night and day to the original set up on this guitar. This man Knows what he's talking about. Thumbs up man.
The easiest way to get a "Jazz guitar" tone is to switch to flatwound strings, some good ones too! I've done this with a Strat and it sounded great, not as smooth as an L-5 but you'll be really surprised.
A word of caution - most jazz flatwounds are much heavier than the Super Slinkys some rockers are used to and a guitar technician might be needed to set the guitar up for a user-friendly action.
Play this at 1.5 speed
1.25
1.25 is perfect
As a french listener, english isn't my native language and this speed is quite perfect for me. Many thanks for speaking slowly. I love those videos...
nope, 0.25 is beautiful
Thank you
Gibson SG 61 reissue + DV Mark Jazz amp, sounds awesome... SGs are the best solid body for jazz imo, they bring something unique to the table.
I am using Dunlop 208 Jazz picks, Dunlop Ultex 1.4M, Dunlop Jazz III's
Used to use Dunlop Jazz vinyl picks..red or black but they would twist around in my fingers..the jazz III's have stamped letters on face which usually keeps pick from rotating on me
I use 11/53"s on Les Paul Custom with Bigsby 12/52's or 14/56's on archtops..Johnny Smith, etc
Thicker strings and picks are like low profile tires and stiff springs and anti sway bars on a high performance car..gives more control
when picking fast, it takes time for string to come back to center..
I have found that I need to be able to pick 16th notes at 120-160 beats per minute
hence my need for thicker strings and picks
Thomastics have worked out to be the best and I have used up to two years or more without changing!
The classical & jazz guitarist under whom I started my studies used a Dunlop Big Stubby 3mm and taught me how to use them and get different plectrum voices on flat top and arch top steel strings by using grip firmness to get the desired voice. I know they are considered bass picks. However, the voice control through controlling grip firmness and the firmness range the dimples facilitate are just awesome. I'm pretty sure similar firmness and voice control could be done with the Jazz III pick or any hard pick that can be held securely with a varying grip firmness. Thanks for the informative video.
I've used Thomastik Infeld strings. Very nice strings with great harmonic content. Love their voice. Expensive, but, as you say, you get what you pay for. Any bowed instrument musician will vouch for them as a good string company. Thanks for sharing about them.
Thanks for the informative feedback! I've used the Big Stubby in the past. It's all relative and I personally find that it is partly a matter of how the player uses the pick. I've experimented for periods of time with different picks and they all have there individual characteristics. At some point several years back, I stopped worrying about the picks and decided to focus more on the music. Somehow this happened at a time I was using the Dunlap Jazz III and I just stuck with it. Lately I've been trying out different picks once again since there are now so many new choices in the market. The bottom line is that other than a very slight change in tone, my playing sounds like my playing no matter what pick I use. I believe that is the case for any player. However, I am about to fork out $30 for a Blue Chip since a couple of students swear by them...
@@RichieZellon Good luck with the $30 pick! I'm.starting jazz on a Godin 5th Avenue Kingpin. Discovered your favorite < $1000 jazz guitars shortly afterwards. My thought is to get the best phrasing and pick control up front and worry about pick material later. I suspect my hand has more effect than pick material. Again, thanks!
Integrate and wor on your git and amp. I have an esp horizon, supposedly a metal guitar, great sound for jazz ,but the prejudice of jazzers are amazing.. As for just humbuckers uhh tel Julian Lage and Bill Frisesll and all us teleguys
Skip the set up from the tech. If you are going to put 12's on a solid body, recut the nut so the string fits in it. A nut cut for a set of 9's wont hold 12's, hence the high action. Cut the nut slots a little bigger and then set up the rest of the guitar as you normally would.
Filtertron's give a slightly brighter tone with a mellow bass. I have a gretsch and a telecaster with filtertrons. It gets you away from the 'jazz no-tone' and towards a cooler (or brighter) tone, and slightly away from a 'warmer' (or 'darker) tone.
To anyone with a guitar that has the Seymour Duncan Nazgul/Sentient set, the neck pickup works fine for Jazz if you aren't willing to trade out pickups.
I’ve just been getting into jazz and blues for between 1 and 2 years - and my modelling amp wasn’t giving me a ‘jazz tone’ that I liked. I play a 70’s strat clone that I bought in 1978 - and recently bought a Vox Amplug 2 ‘Clean’. With some reverb on the ‘orange’ channel and fingerpicking off of the neck pickup, I now get a glorious jazz-style tone when I use the headphone amp and bypass the modelling on the big amp, via the aux-in. Maybe not everyone’s ‘cup-of-tea’ but it gives me what I’m looking for and I keep my 009’s for the blues - and when I want to try soloing - I have my homemade hardwood ‘small-jazz’ style picks (I do like bottlebrush, rimu and pohutakawa - they give me a lovely tone and I hate the sound of plastic pics now!).
I have a Telecaster with single pickups and my Thomastik Swing 11-47. By adjusting the tone knob to cut the treble, I get a very correct Jazz sound. My amp is a DV Mark LJ and an Orange 20 RT.
I learned that the Jazz sound is in the fingers and the choice of the right chords !
I play a G&L ASAT Special through a little discontinued 20 watt single channel Mesa/Boogie called a "Subway Blues". The ASAT has Jumbo MFD single coils with exceptional clarity. The amp is fat and warm and has loud lows that aren't too muddy. I play almost exclusively fingerstyle without nails, with round wound 12s... I really dig my tone. I truly believe I can get a Wes-esque tone out of this set up.
I had a mesa boogie subway blues. Best amp I ever had. I still hate myself for selling it, but he offered me so much money I could not say no.
now I understand why 🥺
@@theotherwillie They still go for 400-500 hundred pounds here in the uk. They pop up on ebay quite often. Worth rediscovering. I've tried so many reputed "jazz amps" that I really didn't like. Interestingly when I was shopping around for this amp I tried a blues junior, a roland blues cube, a princeton reverb reissue and a henriksen. I really disliked them all, but I tried a Fender bassbreaker and the mesa and thought they both sounded exceptionally nice with a jazz tone dialed in. I bought the subway blues from a used gear shop, and the guy who owned the shop seemed as if he thought he was ripping me off, but I love the amp. It's wonderfully clean but without any of that pointless scooped-mids quality that fender amps have. I think that's why I also liked the bassbreaker because it's a clone of a Marshall frequency profile and doesn't have the mid scoop, but set to low gain its lovely and clean.
Thanks for a great informative video. There are a few things I wish to add here: -
1) The type and quality of WOOD used in the guitar construction is very important. Even though it's a solid body guitar, the wood nevertheless resonates and makes a big difference - so even when you put a really good pickup on some guitars, you'll never get a satisfactory tone. Generally speaking, more expensive solid body guitars use better quality wood. Thus in general a Squier will not sound as good as a Fender, even when they are both equipped with top quality pickups... Many jazz players use Telecasters, and I personally like the current '72 Reissue Fender Thinline Tele (which has a chambered body with an F-hole) which has wide-ranging humbuckers fitted as standard.
2) STRINGS - I have found that some type of strings suit some guitars - you need to experiment to find what strings are best for a particular instrument. For example, half-rounds sometimes sound better than round-wounds, or flat-wounds. Whilst flat-wounds are a sheer delight to play on, they can sometimes be too indistinct in the bass, so either half-rounds or round-wound strings may sound better. I personally really like most strings by d'Addario. For a bright tone, NYXL's are good, semi-soft go for their half-rounds, or chromes for a more mellow tone. I agree that Thomastik Infeld are good strings.
3) Not all of us use a PLECTRUM (or 'pick' if you prefer). I have NEVER, and WILL NEVER use one. I find my fingers work pretty well... some other jazz players also don't use a pick (or don't usually use a pick) - Charlie Byrd, Lenny Breau, Martin Taylor, Pasquale Grasso, Egberto Gismonti, to name a few... so I feel I'm in good company here...
4) If your guitar has a TREMELO arm (or 'Whammy bar) - TAKE IT OFF..! This applies particularly to Strats, whereas Telecasters don't have them in the first place. Using heavier gauge strings with a tremelo means constant trouble - the guitar will go out of tune all the time. Once the whammy bar is removed, the bridge has to be screwed down so that it can no longer move...
5) Just so that you know, Joe Pass can be seen on You Tube playing 'The Song Is You' - NOT on a Jazzmaster, but the similar looking Fender Jaguar.
Man, tonewood just a myth, guitas pickup made of magnet, and magnet never pickup wood vibrations,
I’d argue the big difference between fender and squier is the electronics and pickup quality. Tonewoods are more relevant on true hollowbody guitars, but even those can literally have a plywood tone block and sound great (peerless).
Tonewoods matter most for guitars without pickups involved. Solid body guitars can get some benefit, but it’s typically aesthetic or durability related over the tone they talk about.
Just about everything else I agree with, but tonewoods are as expensive and effective as audiophile equipment
Other option :
_ A good standard P90 ... the characteristic 60 cycle hum should be well under control with the tone rolled down and clean amp settings.
_ Any good solid state amp built for Jazz with sufficient EQ to reach a nice clean Jazz tone, or a sufficiently powerful solid state amp with an additional good quality EQ pedal to fine shape your amp tone.
_ Good set of heavy half wound or flat wound strings (check Richie's friendly advice).
_ NICE TRICK : Cut a pick out of a THICK piece of leather, like a thick old plain leather belt, you'll have enough rigidity for precise picking and the softness of the leather surface will prevent any unwanted additional high frequency pick sounds. Shape the "pointy side" of that leather pick with a sharp cutter (and be careful not to cut your fingers), then apply a tiny bit of fretboard lemon oil on the "pointy side" that you nearly immediately wipe out, every once in a while.
I saw some comments from Blue Chip picks owners, but none explained why they cost so much. I have a few Blue Chip picks, and the reason why they are so expensive is because the material used is an engineering-grade plastic that is used in spaceships and other engineering situations that require extremely high resistance to wear and heat. The material is called Vespel SP1 by DuPont, and just one rod of it will cost several hundred to over a thousand dollars, and the equipment needed to cut and polish it will also be more expensive. Other comments mentioned how smoothly it glides on the strings, and this is due to the material's high resistance to wear and heat and its self-lubricating characteristic. So basically, a Blue Chip pick will probably last you a whole lifetime, as long as you don't lose the pick.
BTW, Blue Chip is not even the most expensive pick out there. I have a Hufschmid Torlonn 10mm that cost $100 per pick.
Love it! Just one little addition to the pickup part. (I ran into this when looking to jazzify my strat) before you run out and buy a humbucker, check your pickup route. Not every strat has a neck humbucker route or swimming pool route.
No “e” in the kind of rout you are talking about. Unless you are talking about a way to get from point A to point B (route), a hole in a guitar is spelled “rout”. Not being weird, it’s just that I couldn’t figure out what you were talking about at first.
Neck pickup, low tone, 1mm or thicker pick will do it (use the rounded end). Also, a little compression and overdrive will thicken the tone of single coils.
One of the best CZcams presenters
Clear
Expert
Realistic
Practical
(mitigates the headgear 😅)
:) Thanks!
I have always had good luck with Bill and Becky Lawrence L-500c pickup in the neck and L-500L Bridge
11/49 on a Tele sounds great for Jazz i reckon + you still can bend :-) , heavier gauge might be hard to handle ... Nice Channel :-)
I get great jazz sounds from my T.V. Jones DuoTron equipped semi-hollow tele-clone. Wonderfully versatile pickup.
My tip: Check out the PRS DGT, if you like to have a great solidbody guitar which basical tone is specially great for getting a wonderful jazzy tone...the pickups are extremly carefully created to nail the tone of David Grissoms 1959' ES 335 PAF-Humbuckers (Grissom is a highly respected US- Blues-Rock guitarist - the DGT is the PRS signature model that is strictly concepted from his individual specifications), the model is concepted for .011 gauge strings and the guitar is perfectly concepted for giving you a wonderful rich, deep and earthy tone! Not a cheap instrument, but - in my opinion - sounds fantastic, especially for Jazz! Try it out!
OMG, I found a Jazz Master, I learn 1 things from you today. As always I want to change to medium strings but my friend is keep telling me no no no Kevin. I will do it right after ID4 holiday for my F Start and G Les Paul. Thank you so much for very valued lesson today,
A trick I've found useful that I've not seen anyone else use is to use soft steel bars as "mutes" on the top four strings of the bridge humbucker, so it only picks up the fifth and sixth strings. I've also added a couple of fixed resistors into my Dean's internal wiring so that the tone knob primarily affects the neck pickup. I should perhaps record a better demo, but in my video of Misty chords at czcams.com/video/yHHw2x4p0To/video.html the amp actually has the treble at max and bass turned down, but the bass strings come out louder than the treble strings because the bridge humbucker only captures the bass strings. Incidentally, while I wouldn't say my rendition of the chords from Misty is the best I've heard (even not counting flubs) I think the alternative tuning I invented makes it much easier to play than anything that would sound anywhere near as good, and sounds better than anything that wouldn't be much harder to play. I'd be curious about your thoughts.
I had Chickenpicks...hawk picks...dunlop jazz pick...now I have BC Jazz 40 and BC LG 60 picks and they are worth their money. Great articulate sound, no string noise and very very durable!
I think I'll fast for a week to save money on groceries, and then I'll be able to buy a couple of them. ha, ha..but seriously, I hear good things about them!
@@RichieZellon Trust me....they are worth it! For gigs I would probably use Dunlop Jazz's. Cheers!!
Hi I have a Blue Chip Jazz Pick (BC JAZZ 100),
before that I used JD JAZZ III and more
recent the JD Stubby 3.0 mm and wouldn’t
want to go back that. I tried on at my guitartech’s place. They are expensive!!
But worth it: the pick is very smooth (Teflon-like)so it glides off the
string(s), (but strangely you’ll need less grip to hold it. That made my
picking hand more relaxed and there made me started softer picking. I play flat
wounds and on all my guitars I’ve gone
one gauge lighter. With no loss of tone. It’s sounds more round like picking with a
thumb. They don’t wear out I have this on for over eight years and never lost
it. I bought a thinner one a JAZZ 75, but that doesn’t work for me (tone gets
harsher). This and a good professional setup are my best investments. I play sometimes
on any amp that is available at rehearsal, gig or session, but I always get a
good tone. His and a good professional setup are my best investments. I play sometimes
on any amp that is available at rehearsal, gig or session, but I always get a
good tone. So: good tone, lower musletonus at both hands, lighter strings. Only
sometimes fear of losing the pick!
Great advice and excellent information for all serious students of jazz.
Bluechip picks are awesome: stick to your fingers like no other picks, glide on the strings, great tone. Best picks I've ever had, by a landslide, and I play both jazz and bluegrass. I have 4 BC picks and I make sure that I don't lose them. 35 usd for a single pick may seem expensive, but they last forever, so what's 35$ when your whole rig cost several 1000s (guitars, amps, pedals etc)? your pick is the only thing that your hand constantly touches when playing the guitar with a pick (your left hand doesn't always touch the strings). Picks are not to be neglected, and BC picks are the best, period.
I get some really nice jazzy tone with p90's in my semi acoustic PRS.
I believe the best choice for a jazz neck pickup is the GIBSON P90 Wes and Joe pass played guitars with it
Many years ago, back in 1990's, I saw Ed Bickert play in a small club, and at the break when he was standing around drinking a glass of water I walked up and asked him about why he chose to play a telecaster for jazz when most players use a hollow body. He said he never really thought about it, he just found that it was easier to travel with with a thin solid body and he couldn't imagine lugging around a big case that he would need for a hollowbody. I don't think I totally believe him, I think there was probably more to the decision than that, but hey, that was his answer.
Great anecdote, thanks for sharing!
Fender Stratocasters from the fifties have been delivered with heavy flatwound strings with a wound G-string, not plain steel. Therefore the pickups have staggered pole pieces.
I once tried flatwounds out on a 50s - style strat to get that Buddy Holly rock'n' roll sound and it worked! So check it out. However that required a total new setup especially for the tremolo.
Much as I love my archtop, my go-to is a Tele - just how it has worked out
Yes the tele neck pickup gets great jazz tone similar to a jazzbox
Excellent thorough discussion of tone factors etc. Just getting back into learning some jazz scales/arpeggios/chords etc with my old "rock/blues/country" Peavey Falcon strat style guitar, although it does have custom pickups. But had somewhat forgotten about string gauges, flatwound vs roundwound etc. Not to mention of course amp settings, phrasing, practice, on and on. Fortunately it can be fun too!
My Squier Strat sounds pretty good. I even use light strings. I keep the tone control on the guitar at about zero or one, and a "scooped" sound on the amp, with highs and lows accentuated but mids reduced. The result is a velvety, fat sound with a little bit of an airy touch in the high end. There are videos of Joe Pass from the 1960's with a Fender Mustang or Jaguar. His sound was very good, and arguably better than some of the recordings he did on ES-175.
Interesting. I'm getting a pretty good sound with my Squire Strat into a Joyo American sound and then into a Peavey Bandit 112. I don't scoop but I have the bass up high and the treble and mid at medium. I keep playing around and I'd like to do better but for now it's a comfortable sound.
I don't remember if I read this or heard this on a video, that Stevie Ray Vaughan used heavier gauge strings than most blues and rock players. I heard that he used what would be medium gauge strings on his Fender Strat. He also had one of his pick-ups changed to a more bass sound. He did bend strings and must of had powerful hands and fingers. He did have an aggressive way of playing and more tone then other rock and blues players.
Louis Accardi he also tuned down which lightens force needed for bending
I put some Gibson L-5 strings on a Strat (these are 12 - 56 guage) and it sounded great. Not only for jazz, but it made it a good all-round guitar. But as he said, bending strings pretty much came to an end for it.
I gave up the hollow-bodies and semi-hollows (well I still have one PRS) for Telecasters decades ago. A Telecaster can do anything. Combine your Telecaster with some Bill Lawrence pickups and you will have the most articulate Jazz machine on the block. Bill Lawrence was a genius, his pickups are full spectrum instead of sculpted like the pickups you recommended. You should check them out, once you put Bill Lawrence pickups in you will never again even consider a Seymour or a Dimarzio or any of the way overpriced boutique winders.
One guitar amplifier that total surprised me is my new Acoustic G35FX, and I got it at Musicians Friend / or Guitar Center on the Internet for $89 on sale. It's usually only $119. It's a Chinese made solid state Guitar amplifier with 2 channel, 35 watts and a 12" speaker with effects (that is very deep in tone-good for jazz). I have 16 different amplifiers currently and I was looking for a medium wattage S.S. Guitar amplifier with a 12" speaker that also has reverb. This amp also has a delay and a chorus and a Distortion channel and its own separate gain knob. The clean channel is perfect for Jazz and it has a 3 band EQ section. Try one I am positive you will find it to be a very good Jazz amp and at a ridiculously inexpensive price. Believe me, I had low expectations from an amp that I paid $89 for brand new. Now it's my most often used amp. Remember I have a selection of 16 amplifiers to choose from, so using the G35FX most often is really saying something positive about how good this amp is. I would say it fits the very definition of a "Sleeper" amplifier. The biggest surprise is the speaker and how good the tone is. It can get loud if you want.
-Peter
What's said here is very important information. I would also like to respectfully add: in addition to rolling back the tone knob, rolling back the volume knob helps as well. Especially with guitars with hum buckers: they often have a 500K potentiometer and turning both the volume and tone knob to 10 can make the guitar more likely to clip. Its a harder "loud" for your amp and may not sound as warm. I personally like to turn the volume to 5 and the tone to 6 on my main hollow body. I then set the amp a bit louder and feel like the guitar sounds more appropriate. I would also highly recommend against turning the tone knob all the way off. Sometimes it can sound good, though it's a bit of a trap and doesn't always sound good when playing with a second guitar player. Better to force the ear to handle a bit of highs so that you're getting your "jazz" sound not just from tone, but feel and note selection. One more thing: I recommend making sure you have a linear potentiometer for volume on all guitars. Many guitars will have a linear volume (500KB) pot and an audio (500KA) pot for tone. The linear pot keeps a consistent high frequency range for the entire sweep and is great for musicians who keep their volume at around 5 or rockers who like to turn up to 10 for solos and turn down to clean up. Unfortunately many guitars have audio (A) pots in all positions which I think isn't as versatile. You'll get a muddy sound when you turn down and not in the "jazz" way that we like. I say it's better to have a clear constant sweep from 1 - 10 and roll the tone off if you need than have the volume pot cutting highs until it's turned up too loud. Anyway, just my respectful views. Thank you for posting this video.
Well my friend, you covered it well, thanks for that great session.
Thanx for a nice lesson. I played with a big band last night and, no Trumpism intended, I got applause from the band after a solo on the gig & played a Korean D'Angelico Lol. Haven't had applause since playing at the "KMPC Show of the World" at the Forum years ago. Thanx for all you do! Nice jazz sound though.
Thanks for sharing!
I have a Korean-made Excel and I think they're just great! Good quality and tone as well.
I usually play a strat through a fender deluxe reverb but I also had an ampeg bass amp. I plugged the stat into the amp which was eq’ed for my jazz bass and I got a super cool jazz tone that really surprised me. The amp was a BA 210 450w and I barely had it around 3 or 4 but I was a great combo with a strat neck pickup with the tone rolled to about 5
I've got a Strat and was considering the very thing you mentioned. Thanks!!!
I also use Thomastik-Infeld Flat Wound .012”-.050” Jazz Swing on my Epiphone Joe Pass Guitar and I like them very much, I buy them for Sweetwater, expensive but very good. I may use a set for one of my 2 Telecasters ( I have an Elite Thinline and a solid-chambered “rarities”) or maybe both, planning to buy a Gibson Hollowbody Jazz Guitar when I can afford a good one.I also use Thomastik-Infeld Flat Wound .010”-.044 Jazz Swing on my Gibson 335 and sometimes alternate or change the low strings for TI Flat Wound from my other sets. Great strings but costs almost $30. Thank you for another video.
That's why Diango Reinhard and John McLauglin are so great Jazz guitarists!!!!
I like your channel. I would like to say there are guitarists that used lightish guitar gauge strings and bent them. Most notably I believe Ted Green and Kenny Burrel would do stuff like that. I’m sure there are others. I think the goal of JazzGuitar is to get the guitar to have somewhat of either a soft vocal sound, or more of a vibes/piano sound. Guitar is a unique instrument because I know that the twangy tone is in there but metal and jazz folk don’t like that tone
P90 is the best jazz pickup with flatwound strings
Dunlop Jazz III XL. I just like the larger size.
I absolutely adore my Joe Barden Gatton Tele pickups. The neck pick up is absolutely divine. It's closer to a humbucker sound than the bridge, which has a lot more of that classic Tele twang. It's full, fat, and is wonderful for jazz, and is a great option for people who don't want to mod their single coil guitar with routing, new pick guards, or want something with a bit more clarity than many humbuckers offer, at the cost of a thinner sound.
While it takes strong hands, many players use 13-56 gauge strings, but still bend the heck out of 'em! Bob Margolin and Josh Smith are two, but there are many others..!
Great Neck pickup on a budget---GFS Fat Pat. Medium output, very round and full tone, with just enough treble. Street price $29.95 Have them on an SX ISIS (PRS clone) now, with a Gotoh 510 wraparound bridge, and they sound great.
I use a ibanez q 54 and the alter switch that connects both single pickups from the neck with the tone at 5/6 and mid sounds great, best part is that i can switch those settings to fit other music genres, and for strings the heavy slinky work good for me, 0.10s on the higher strings but heavier on the low strings. And for the pic the gator grip jazz iii are my favorite, i use the tip with a light fretting hand grip and it gives me like a snapping feeling when i pluck the strings and it feels easy to play fast while sounding great. For the amp settings i followed your advice and it does sound better, great video
Blue chip picks will not wear out. They produce an excellent tone and as an extra, the produce no pick dust. I have 3 of them they are great and hard to get now. Great video. I will use it for my students in a rep class.
Right on all six! I wanted a light travel guitar that sounds like a jazz guitar. I bought an acoustic Washburn Rover, which has a tiny body and not much sound but a good neck. I installed a Kent Armstrong jazz pickup and Thomastick flatwound strings., George Benson model, and added a tiny Gretch lap steel gig bag. It sounds convincingly jazzy and weighs almost nothing. Properly set up, very nice for anyone who finds a solid body guitar or big jazz guitar too heavy. With an Effectuator gadget from Amazon that plugs into the guitar and has Bluetooth for playing band trax from my iPod and a set of earplugs plugged not that, I can play silently anywhere and take it onto airplanes with ease.
Interesting..which brings to mind... I have to research the new wave of travel guitars and see if there is anything good.
Hi, it's no problem to use 0.009 string set (p.e. D'Addario EHR320 half round) and have a jazzy tone. If you like modern technique, You can use a Roland hex pickup and a GR-55 or GP-10 and a Jazz guitar modeling. Also, you can use massive eqing with every amp or a guitar effect box. If you use a product like Kemper Profiling Amp, you can experiment with the best amps used by many famous artists in one little box and give the output to a PA to profit from much better directivity and less coloration of the box concerning different hearing positions. Of course you can adjust your pickup (which is a ridiculously primitive construction) with condensers, search for "Varitone", this is simple physics. BUT a really important point is: you need a solidbody with a good dynamic range. A good jazz guitar has a BIG dynamic range, and most solidbodies don't. Without this, you don't have this "explosiveness" a good jazz guitar produces. Buy a solid which is really loud - this is a good indicator. Also, it should sound really good played smooth.
Can't go away from my 10-46 gauge strings because here in MX you *must* keep things versatile. That said, placing a dark-ish booster first in my pedal chain do MAGIC. Sometimes a blues breaker with close to none breakup does the trick (try the Mooer Blues Crab).
That and some really thick Dunlop Jazztone picks. And, of course, tweaking your tone knob just a little bit if needed (my Strat S1 system helps a lot in this).
GREAT channel. Just what we jazz guitarists need for an open exchange of experiences and ideas. Keep up the good work., Mr. Zellon.
Thanks David...much appreciated!
Very helpful information.
I know this is an older video, but I play with a Blue Chip BC JAZZ 80. It cost me $50 when I bought it a year ago. Before that, I used gemstone picks. The difference in my tone, dynamic articulation, and playability changed tremendously from both plastic and stone picks. The pick is 2mm's thick, but it still feels comfortable in my fingers. I carry it in a wooden box, along with my other picks. Was it worth it? To me, definitely. I play my archtop unplugged at home (so I don't wake my kiddo) and plugged in when I do jam sessions around LA. The sound of my guitar comes through tenfold acoustically and electrically. I have no idea what it's made from, but I like it. Julian Lage also plays with Blue Chips, as well as Chris Thile.
I really dig your playing, especially your lessons on phrasing. However, I also see that you play really nice archtops. If you are going to spend the money on Thomastik strings, a boutique amp, and a luthier built guitar (my dream, one day)--why not spend the money on quality picks. Look at sax players, they spend good money on reeds and ligatures because that is the first point of contact in developing a sound on the instrument. If you play with a pick, that is your first point of contact with the guitar.
Before anyone calls Blue Chips "snake oil", why not give them a try?
Thanks for your feedback. You have a good point! I will give the Blue Chip picks a try...
Great advice. Everything you said conforms to all the sruff that took me years to learn as a professional guitar player whose focus is jazz.
Thanks for sharing Monty!
Light or heavy gauge? The difference in not the thinner or thicker sound but the attack and decay. This can be measured with the waveform analyser on most digital recording DAW. The thick string will have a higher output giving it more attack and a relatively faster decay from the peak, the thin string, lower output, less attack and a longer relative decay. The string gauge should be chosen to best suit that guitar. With the action sorted and the pickups adjusted, 15s become playable but then 12s can be made to sound like 14s. If you want a short thud then heavies, if you want more sustain then lighter. Likewise most jazzbox want flats but some sound best with round wound. We have to experiment. The bridge saddle material can have a big affect on this.
Beginners will find heavy strings a nightmare, out of the shop the action is always far to high. If you cannot sort the action yourself, and it is a skilled job, then the full set up is a moderately expensive job for the luthier.
Great video Richie. I saw your video on jazz guitar amps too. Highly recommended !
I also love the Jazz III picks. They are small enough to be easy to hold, have a nice grip, a useful pointy edge and a very handy thick edge too.
Regarding pickups, I got a GREAT jazz tone from a Seymour Duncan ‘59, believe it or not, in a walnut and alder semi acoustic I built. I’m using flatwound 11s (perhaps I’ll upgrade to 12 on your advice!) which I think are a huge part of the tone. Everyone should have at least one guitar with flat wounds on it. I also have a tele-style guitar I built that is heavily chambered- almost hollow - and has a neck humbucker with 11s on it which is also great for jazz.
One thing that can help get a more plummy tone is wiring the neck humbucker in series with the bridge pickup. It really warms it up a lot.
And now for amps - I’ve noticed that bass turned up too high makes the bottom strings too boomy and I lose definition. Runs on lower strings just turn to mush, so sometimes I even turn down the bass to keep things clearer. The bass knob shouldn’t affect the top strings too much anyhow.
Looking forward to your next video, Richie!
Hey great video I liked everything you said regarding Jazz tone from a solid body guitar , I don’t like endorsing products on anyone’s channel or platform but I bought a Chinese amp called Stage right or
Mono price and it’s all tube and can actually get a decent Jazz tone , it’s only 15 watts but it is very cheap $
So if any of your other subscribers are looking for a good entry level amp , I’d highly recommend this little amp ! Cheers
Thank you very much Sir, for those precious advice and info. Thank you also for the pleasure we get from playing some jazz on our instruments, whatever they are ! As for me, I'm one of those who decided to get off the beaten tracks, and I discovered that the association of the small Fender Frontman 15G with the AL-40 Sterling is an absolutely pure delight and jazz satisfactory ! The neck pickup of the Sterling has great presence and resonance. But after a while I noticed some unpleasant hum on the amp, maybe i should change it for some Roland... (I use a Microcube sometimes).
I would like to grab the opportunity, if I may, to say a few more words on settings : in the begening I felt I had to play at low volume because of the neighbours (volume 2 or 3 on the guitar, with amp volume at 6-7) ... and following this rule led me to discover that the lower the sound, the more we can play (hi volumes everyday drains our energy)... and the purer and more musical the notes are.
Seymour Duncan’s, SH-2 Jazz PAF and Antiquity PAF are all great choices. As well as his Antiquity P90; Install them halfway between the bridge and neck to cop that Grant Green tone...flat wounds are a must...
Plectrum choice is important. The best I have played with is the David Grissman plectrum. It makes a wonderful warm tone.
Nice . . . appreciate the information and presentation thereof.
Though not a "Jazz" musician, I believe that a good mid rich tone is the best starting point for anyone who plays a variety of genre.
I'll be investigating some strings heavier than my typical 10's.
( and bet I can bend them too ) 🤣