ZZ Top. How do they get that SOUND?Sharp dressed Man

[Dwight Lewis]

I am in search of that ZZtop sound. I know someone hear has to know how they do it. What effects are they using? In most of their songs, like sharp dressed man,Velcro fly,She's got legs, etc That clear distortion type harmonics, and I stress clear tone. How do they do it?
ijaash@yahoo.com

[richard burton]

If you mean Billy Gibbon's sound, I think it is mostly pinched harmonics.

[Pete Burak]

What song are you trying to emulate?
LeGrange is slide guitar, not Pedal Steel.
Are you talking about this ZZ Top song with Pedal Steel?:
http://popup.lala.com/popup/360569462352738123

[Kenny Davis]

Get an old BossTone!

[John Groover McDuffie]

I think it's mostly a combination of talent, vision, experience and budget!

[Kevin Hatton]

I think its in the beards. Anyone see any wires?

[Ray Minich]

Do you mean the way Billy Gibbons says "yeah..."?

[Richard Park]

The most wonderful thing about ZZ Top is that the guy without the beard's last name is Beard.

[Dick Wood]

It's from many years of drinking lots of beer and a few doobies just before the show and some of those little white pills.

I don't have a clue how Billy does it though.

What was the question again?

[Leslie Ehrlich]

Which album? Which song?

Billy Gibbons used a lot of different amps over the years.

For example:

On 'La Grange' he used a cranked up old Marshall half stack.

On songs like 'Gimme All Your Lovin'' and 'Sharp Dressed Man' he used a Legend Rock 'n' Roll 50 combo (no longer in production).

On the video version of 'Legs' he used a Rockman headphone amp.

On 'My Head's In Mississippi' he used a little Marshall Lead 12 1x10 practice combo.

[Dwight Lewis]

I talking , Sharp Dressed man, She's got leggs, Rough boy, especially Sharp dressed Man.That clear fuzzy, distorted , string separated tone . How do they do it. I want it on the Pedal steel.

[Jeff Garden]

For that sound on electric guitar, you can't beat the Gibson guitar/Marshall Plexi amp combination. A heavy sustaining axe with humbucking pickups like Billy's favorite "Pearly Gates", a '59 Les Paul will give you a good start, then maybe add some overdrive, etc. Also like Richard said, Billy uses a lot of pinch harmonics (he calls them "zingers") for his classic sound.

[Joey Ace]

Worth mentioning...

When the Carter Starter was first released, they posted a video of Billy Phelps playing LaGrange at a NAMM show.

http://www.cartersteelguitars.com/cspla ... grange.wmv

[Tom Higgins]

Billy used a slide on La Grange?

[Jay Jessup]

Check out some of the Sacred Steel guys like Dan Tyack and others that will get you headed that direction but----you are never going to get "that sound" with high output steel guitar pickups and the thin stings of normal E9 steel guitar---certainly a Boss Tone through a clean solid state amp (Peavey) will never get you there!!

[Dwight Lewis]

So you guys are saying I need something like an old tube amp setup and BL910 type pup? Speaking of strings, us Sacred Steelers step up the string guages on our setup due to the thin sound. of the E9th.We want the steel whailing and hollering instead of singing and crying. I am getting close. I have an unusual PV NV1000 that is almost tubish in warmth.I just got to get my string guages correct,(can't seem to get that high G# with 38 guage wire) , but I am trying

[Jerry Overstreet]

I'm interested as well Dwight. So what is the effect used on Legs? The staccato effect that drives through the entire song? Kind of like a delay, but more like a doubling thing. I'd doubt BG would be doing that himself in real time.

I understand there was a bit of studio gimmickry on the Eliminator LP...anyone know what was used on this particular cut....what did he use for live performances to get this effect?

[Steinar Gregertsen]

There is lots of sequenced synth stuff on the Eliminator album, the fast pumping sound on Legs is a synth. They use the same sequenced sound live, probably triggered by the drummer. Fat 80s style stereo chorus/flanger on the guitars.

Here's a live version of Legs from their live DVD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH85zttgbGg

[Rich Peterson]

Frank Beard doesn't get noticed much with Billy and Dusty out front, but he is a real solid drummer.

To get a "meatier" sound out of your PSG, put on heavier strings and tune down to D9. Or lower?

[Jon Moen]

The REP Forum has contributors that actually worked on these songs. The making of Legs is described by Terry Manning (he is not joking) part way down page 3 of this thread:

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index. ... 849/0/0/0/

[Ron Whitfield]

Get an old bakelite Ricky, tune it to E, and watch the bikers go wild.

[Tony Kotula]

i read a lengthy article/interview with billy in an old guitar player mag. i still have. he uses an arsenal of amps in the studio. he even used a cable set on the midrange control of an old vox amp i believe for a tune off of an early album. he also said back then that his effects were run offstage by an engineer and not him. and what they are is anybody's guess! and custom made for him.
as were some amps too.
i did see him a pair of what looked like boutique combo amps. you put a mike on that...and the p.a. does the rest!
billy is all tone! it's his legacy! lowdown and bluesy!
try an all tube amp with a FAT tone for starters. it does't have to be loud for tone... but when you can duplicate that tone on stage... you'll know it!!!

[Bill Hatcher]

Didn't he play using a Mexican coin as a pick?

[Dave Mudgett]

Yes - Billy has long talked about using a Mexican peso. The reeded (grooved) edge is good for generating pick harmonics.

Terry Manning laid out the equipment details for the Eliminator LP on the second page of the link Jon Moen posted earlier - http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index. ... 49/0/16/0/

The amp used, almost exclusively, on Eliminator was a Legend. This was about a 50 watt hybrid unit, employing a tube/valve preamp, and a transistor power amp. This is the amp which has a finished wood case, and a rattan-type cane grill. It has one 12" Celestion speaker. Legend were later bought by, or at least distributed by, Gibson, but they were independent when we started using them. I still have this amp; it is almost new. A couple of years ago I plugged one of the Eliminator guitars into it, just to see...there was the sound!

The guitars were custom built by Dean. Dean were out of Chicago, and were trying to break into the high end (a la Jackson, PRS) market. They were very nice, albeit different, instruments. Subsequently however, they got a contract with Sears to make guitars, so they opted for the big bucks, Korean manufactured, low end market instead. But the ones we used were very nicely made. There were two which we employed. One was somewhat like a cross between a Flying-V and a Moderne shape, very long "ears," and the other was a sort of a warped, pointy Stratocaster-y shape. Both guitars had a single DiMarzio Super Distortion high output pickup, and almost no controls. I don't think there is even a tone control...what would you need one for? They have big, heavy, brass bridge/tail pieces bolted into the body. These guitars were very live, very resonant, and would verge on resonant feedback at all times; they were also very hard to keep in tune because of this. But they were always alive. Billy has the first one mentioned, and he gave me the latter, which I still have.

So it was some early Dean guitars with a single Dimarzio Super Distortion pickup through a 50-watt Legend amp with a tube preamp and solid-state output section. That makes sense - it's a different sound than his earlier material, which revolved heavily around his '59 Les Paul "Pearly Gates" and some old Strats into old tweed amps and modified Marshalls.

I've played some Legend amps - they were going for a Boogie type of sound and look, right down to the hardwood cabinets and wicker grills - pretty gnarly but the sound held together pretty well. I believe they started getting a rep for some reliability problems, but the ones I played sounded pretty good for that kind of thing.

I think the Dimarzio Super Distortions are important for that kind of sound also - they're ceramic magnets, wound pretty hot, but have a pretty smooth sound. There weren't a lot of choices for high-output humbuckers then, and so were heavily used on a lot of 70s and 80s hard rock - http://www.dimarzio.com/site/#/pickups/ ... istortion/ - click "Humbuckers", "High Output", and then "Super Distortion". There's a clip on "Sounds" called "Brighter Days" by Patrick Drony that gives a pretty good idea what the bridge pickup sounds like in a Les Paul through a high-gain amp. That's mostly single-note stuff - chords give a pretty smooth distortion sound with a lot of high-midrange presence.

Of course, there may have been some effects used, but to me the essence of that sound is the guitar/pickup combination into the seriously cranked up amp. To try to get in the ballpark of this type of sound on steel, I'd probably dig out a Boogie or maybe my Laney AOR-50, set it heavy crunch, maybe use my Zum U12 with Lawrence 912 or Emmons SKH with Lawrence 705, and then adjust the amp controls to suit and pick pretty hard to get some pick harmonics.

BTW - that thread on the REP forum with Terry Manning is great, thanks Jon. If you want to learn from a master about how to get those kinds of sounds, it's a must-read, IMO.

[Leslie Ehrlich]

I remember the Legend amps. They had the hardwood cabinets and wicker grilles like a Mesa Boogie but the sound was a lot closer to a Marshall.

One other thing to note about the tone on 'Sharp Dressed Man' is the chorus effect. If you can find a Legend amp and a decent chorus, you'll have the sound.