What makes this sound? (Slide or lap steel?)

JB Bobbitt · Post by **JB Bobbitt** » 29 Sep 2018 1:14 pm

Hi again. With my first build a want to come out with a guitar that sounds like Ronnie Wood's on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYwzUakW2i8 (~5 mins in)

The credits for the album only say "bottleneck guitar" but I've seen then play it on a steel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Wo ... -12-13.jpg

Any idea as too pickups, etc.?

Thanks a heap again
-jbb

Noah Miller · Post by **Noah Miller** » 29 Sep 2018 1:44 pm

At that point, Ronnie was mainly playing a custom Zemaitis guitar - it certainly sounds like it in that recording. I believe Zemaitis made his own pickups, and I also believe behind that metal front is a mahogany body, but I am not certain on either point.

A hot PAF-type pickup (like an early Gibson humbucker, but wound to have more output) with a long scale (for a lap steel) of around 25" should get you in the ball park.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 29 Sep 2018 7:26 pm

Sounds like slide guitar me. Both the tone and the fact that I hear what sounds like a slide hitting the frets in spots. Song is in D, could be done pretty straightforwardly in either Dropped D or Vestapol (Open D - D A D F# A D). The move at 5:57-5:58 sounds more like Dropped D to me, but I think one could get there with either one.

I also think he's playing quite a bit of fretted guitar too, sounds like the same basic tone. Again, one can do this kind of fretted stuff either in Dropped D or Vestapol. I know I saw Rod and Faces back in 1970 or 71 - I think it was one of these shows in 1970 - http://concerts.wikia.com/wiki/March_26 ... Boston,_MA) - definitely was slide guitar, not a steel anywhere in sight. Might have been a Zemaitis, might have been a Les Paul Custom, I can't remember. Not sure I would have really recognized the difference at the time.

As far as guitar tone goes, Woody could have been playing pretty much anything and sound like himself. Here he is in '93 playing the whole song, including slide parts, on a Gibson J-200N flat top - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIbfI2LAftk - looking from 4:52 onward, looks like Dropped D to me, box-pattern stuff centered around the 7th fret. And around 4:12 I see standard fretted open-chord D-chord stuff.

JB Bobbitt · Post by **JB Bobbitt** » 29 Sep 2018 7:52 pm

Noah, Dave... Thank you both. That's exactly the kind of info I need. Dave, I've been a huge Woodsie fan since "First Step". I saw them in ~1971-72 at the Hollywood Bowl. Fine venue. They had the crowd in a frenzy. Stewart was handed a note, read it, then proclaimed: "The people at the Hollywood Bowl just asked me to tell you to stay in your seats and not rush the front section...... Know what? bleep THE PEOPLE AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL, c'mon down". Then they broke into "Had Me a Real Good Time". Good times, good times ....

JB Bobbitt · Post by **JB Bobbitt** » 1 Oct 2018 2:38 pm

Noah, thanks again. You mentioned a "Hot PAF type pickup... with higher output". Sorry be such a noob, but what does "hot" and higher output' mean? What measurements are used to describe such qualities?

JB Bobbitt · Post by **JB Bobbitt** » 1 Oct 2018 10:15 pm

If you're a Ronnie Wood fan:

https://www.videomuzic.eu/watch-ron-woo ... n/?lang=en

Lots of guitars.

-jbb