Stephen — or Stevie was best knows as a guitarist, singer-songwriter and a founding member of Double Trouble, which he formed together with drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shanno.
He was so much more than just a blues guitarist—he played damn well any kind of guitar he wanted. Stevie was killed in a helicopter crash on August 27, in in East Troy, Wisconsin, just after performing with his band. The guitar was built using a Stratocaster body and a neck, even though Stevie believed it was a Stratocaster. The reason for that was that he once took the pickups off and realized that they were made in , so he made a conclusion from that. It was not until that Rene Martinez took the whole guitar apart and saw the year stamped in the body and on the neck.
The fingerboard radius was originally 7. This was a consequence of countless refret jobs done by Rene Martinez, who mostly used Dunlop fretwire. The headstock was fitted Fender Schaller Elite Gold tuner pegs.
After that, Number One had a new Fender neck until after Stevie died, when the original Number One neck was re-installed on it. The second is as an overdrive pedal. In this instance, you need to turn both the overdrive and the levels up. Turning the pedal on in this case will increase the volume of your guitar, and push your amp into overdrive. He set the drive around 3 or 4 and then cranked the volume up to 8 or 9. The key to creating that sound is to make sure that you are pushing your amp to the point where it is starting to break up.
When you put the Tube Screamer in front of an amp like that, it will cause your amp to start overdriving. And that will go a long way in helping you to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan. In addition to his Ibanez Tube Screamer, Vaughan also used a number of further pedals and effects.
This included a wah pedal, a chorus effect, an Octavia pedal, and a fuzz pedal. Unlike the Ibanez Tube Screamer, Vaughan used these effects more sparingly. Typically he used them to create a specific sound on a particular song. But having said that, these effects — and particularly fuzz and wah — have been put to use very effectively by a number of blues guitarists over the years.
As such, either of those pedals would make a great addition to your rig. Having said that, if you are looking for a vintage sounding wah pedal, then I would recommend opting for a Vox.
If you are interested in authenticity, the Vox V Wah would be my top choice. Not only was this the pedal that Vaughan used the most; it was also the wah that Hendrix used at Woodstock. In fact, so the story goes, the specific pedal that Vaughan used had previously belonged to Hendrix, who had given it to Jimmie Vaughan after they played a gig together in Fort Worth. Finally, in a slightly lower price range, the Vox V Wah Pedal could also work well.
This gave his tone added depth and thickness without adding too much modulaton. The original chorus rack that Vaughan used is no longer in production.
That price tag, combined with the size of the Roland SDD, makes it a less than ideal choice for most. Instead, I would recommend adding a simple chorus pedal to your rig. There are a huge range of these available, but some of my top choices are as follows:. The key with these pedals is to use them sparingly.
This will help you to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan without overly modulating your sound. If you are interested in authenticity, then the good news is that Dunlop have produced a reissue of the pedal — Jim Dunlop Arbiter Dallas Fuzz Face. They have also introduced a whole range of different vintage fuzz face pedals.
Some great choices are:. The final effect that Vaughan used on occasion was an octave pedal. He then switched a number of years later to using a Tycobrahe Octavia Pedal. The Tycobrahe Octavia Pedal that Vaughan started using later in his career is no longer in production.
Some of my top choices here are:. If you want to save space on your pedalboard, you also have the option to buy an Octafuzz pedal, which performs the role of both a fuzz and an octave pedal. Well there we have it — everything that you need to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan. Although Vaughan did not use a whole range of different pedals or effects, his set-up is surprisingly complex. It also presents a number of challenges for non-professional guitarists. Some of these are financial.
But many of them are practical. Like so many of the great blues guitarists out there, Vaughan played very loudly. And this volume played a key part in his sound. For most players, playing at a similar volume is not an option. Of course, you need similar gear to replicate his sound.
Beyond that, work on your technique and playing style. In this article here I outline some points to help. Combine them with the information outlined here, as well as passion and intensity, and you will be well on your way to recreating the tones of one of the best blues guitarists of all time.
Good luck! Let me know how you get on and if you have any thoughts or questions, just post them in the comments! Many of the links embedded in this article are affiliate links.
As such, if you buy one of the pieces of gear I recommend, or an item from the same store after clicking one of these links, I will earn a small commission. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me on [email protected].
If you take some of the main constituent elements — the Strat type guitar, boutique American style amp and some choice guitar pedals — then you can approximate their tone whilst putting your own spin on it. You can reach me here or on [email protected]. Thanks so much! He is has used it in other concerts too but you can reference that video to ID it. Hi Dan, thanks very much for taking the comment and apologies for the delay getting back to you on this.
However my understanding is that Vaughan is using a Sennheiser MD This was a popular vintage mic, which Pink Floyd also used when recording. The MD is no longer in production, and whilst you can still buy them second hand on sites like Reverb , they tend to be both rare and expensive.
If you are looking for a cheaper alternative then I believe the Sennheiser E would be a good option. Having said that, these types of microphones are typically used for recording guitars and other instruments, rather than vocals. So if you are looking for a vocal mic, I would suggest looking at something like the Sennheiser E I hope that helps but if you do have any more questions, just send me an email.
You can reach me on [email protected] and I am always around and happy to help! Thanks very much Shane for the kind words and for bringing these to my attention. Funnily enough, a few months ago I attended an online tone seminar with a South African guitarist called Dan Patlansky.
Patlansky is a killer player and has a beautiful SRV tone. You can see him playing them in this clip here. Thanks again! Great article, thanks! Cheers, Nick. Thanks so much for the kind words Nick, and glad you found the article helpful! It definitely helps with sustain and alters the sound of the guitar, but it also can make it a lot trickier to play.
Great article. You explained details and gave good advice. Thanks very much. Thanks so much for the kind words Alejandro, I really appreciate it. Squier Affinity Stratocaster. Squier Bullet Stratocaster. Fender Deluxe Roadhouse Stratocaster. Fender Player Stratocaster. Fender American Ultra Stratocaster. Fender Stevie Ray Vaughan Stratocaster. Fender Custom Heavy Relic Stratocaster. Fender Guitar Jack Plate Gold.
Fender Locking Tuners. Fender Blues Junior IV. Fender Pro Junior IV. Morgan PR5. Morgan PR Tone King Falcon Grande. Vox V Wah-Wah pedal. Stevie carried this guitar on tours between and The guitar is from , and had a green finish on the inside, and was supposedly one of that had that interior finish.
It is the rarer twin pickup version and has a mother of pearl block fingerboard inlay. Stevie decided to give the Rickenbacker and a Westberry amp to Hubert as a kind of reverse birthday present, though it was stolen soon thereafter.
Amazingly, when Stevie found out the guitar had been stolen from Sumlin, he set out to find it and ended up recovering it. Stevie used this guitar on MTV Unplugged. This guitar was given to Stevie by his brother Jimmy around and is inscribed "Jimbo" on the back of the body. The guitar is actually historically significant for two reasons and even without the fact it was Stevie's, it is worth a lot.
In Fender launched a new guitar, called the Broadcaster. It quickly became apparent that there was already a guitar on the market called a Broadcaster, so Fender had to stop uising the name. Unfortunately they'd already made a lot of these guitars, so while they were deciding on a new name, these existing ones were sent to guitar stores, without a logo on the headstock.
Fender soon decided on the replacement name of Telecaster and went with that. The guitars that were shipped without a logo became colloqially known as the "Nocaster" and are collectors' items because they were only available for a few months.
It wasn't until the mids that the guitar was recognized for what it was, by a man called Loni Specter, a songwriter, photographer, and head of the Los Angeles Amp Show, who happened to see a session musician playing it. Stevie's National has been rumored to once being belonged to Blind Boy Fuller. By most credible accounts, this was one of Stevie's prized posessions. Stevie was first spotted playing the red and white, semi hollow body Epiphone Riviera live on 14th January, , in the band Pecos.
Over the years, it was photographed live in various states with and without the original pickguard. This guitar was purchased by Stevie in , just before the show at the Harriet Island Riverfest on 11th July Fender made 4 prototypes for a guitar that they hoped to put into production. According to one source Fender could not get clearance from Hendrix's Estate, so the project was abandoned. However according to Mark Page, who worked for Fender, 25 of these guitars were made as a special run, for sale by guitar dealers in Texas.
Stevie's prototype was the second of 4 made. A popular guess is that Stevie bought the guitar while on tour, as he would often pick up guitars in the towns that he visited. Outside of the cover, few — if any — photographs of Stevie playing this guitar live or in private are known to exist. With that said, there is a "live" photo of the Texas Flood guitar in Hopkins' book from , so it appears that he did use it live up until a year before Texas Flood was released.
Craig Hopkins posits that an endorsement deal was being explored at the time, and five Tokai guitars plus a of couple basses were negotiated as a goodwill offering toward Stevie signing with the brand.
Stevie was known to have been infuriated by the marketing. This guitar that sold also appears to be one of the guitars Stevie is photographed playing in the infamous Tokai poster.
All of this together points to the free promotional guitars given to Stevie as being the introduced ASTs instead of his earlier Springy Sound models.
Another SRV move that definitely adds both bite and a nice bluesy tension to a solo is to bend certain notes just a tad so they end up sitting right between two notes. As you can see, the second-to-last note you play, the C note at the 5th fret on the G string, is bent up a quarter step so that it sits right between C and C. Being able to shake a note in a way that compliments both the song and the mood of the solo is a highly expressive art that Stevie Ray Vaughan definitely perfected.
I especially love his vibrato because it is so damned wide and muscular.
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