[maskofduality]

all tone rolled off is the way i've learned to think of it... but when you switch between straight jazz and metal parts, i've needed to have a bit more tone to make the distortion stay alive (i've only got a master tone and master volume on my guitar) so i just keep it at half nowadays.

[distressed_romeo]

Just out of interest, does anyone use flatwound strings? I use them on my fretless (a Thomastik-Infeld 12-50 set) and they sound great. I know they're apparently a big part of the classic jazz sound, and I've been tempted to try them on a fretted guitar occasionally...

[Jongpil Yun]

Neck into a Roland Jazz Chorus, tone on about 5, EQ'd with average bass, large mid spike, and treble rolled off a bit.

That, and Vai's Tender Surrender style tone.

[dpm]

For clean jazz tone I just roll off the treble on my VC50 clean channel as I don't have a tone control on my guitars. Usually I roll off the guitar volume and use the neck pickup on my usual metal sound, but it's not a clean sound then.
I'd say that my approach is like yours, jazz influenced metal player. I love playing complex chord progressions with a tight metal kind of vibe, and I've just discovered a bit of light compression and peak limiting before the amp works wonders for that. The compression only just happens when you play several notes at once, single strings don't have enough level to get it happening.

[distressed_romeo]

Originally Posted by dpm

For clean jazz tone I just roll off the treble on my VC50 clean channel as I don't have a tone control on my guitars. Usually I roll off the guitar volume and use the neck pickup on my usual metal sound, but it's not a clean sound then.
I'd say that my approach is like yours, jazz influenced metal player. I love playing complex chord progressions with a tight metal kind of vibe, and I've just discovered a bit of light compression and peak limiting before the amp works wonders for that. The compression only just happens when you play several notes at once, single strings don't have enough level to get it happening.

Hmmm...the only thing I've ever used my compressor for is to add a little punch to touch-style playing. I might experiment with it more when I get back on the electric.

Interestingly, there was a bit on the Q and A section of Pat Metheny's old website where he was asked what role compression plays in his tone, and he said he's never used it for anything, even though all the patches on effects units that claim to model his tone seem to feature it...

[dpm]

Does he use the tone control on his guitars much? I'm not that familiar with Metheny's playing. IME rolling off the tone kind of acts as a compression, as the peaks and attack tend to be in that treble zone. Maybe they're trying to emulate that? Or maybe he just has extremely consistent pick attack?

That peak limiting on the distorted sounds helps clarity by stopping things distorting too much as the level hitting the amp doesn't increase like it normally does when you hit a chord.

[distressed_romeo]

Originally Posted by dpm

Does he use the tone control on his guitars much? I'm not that familiar with Metheny's playing. IME rolling off the tone kind of acts as a compression, as the peaks and attack tend to be in that treble zone. Maybe they're trying to emulate that? Or maybe he just has extremely consistent pick attack?

That peak limiting on the distorted sounds helps clarity by stopping things distorting too much as the level hitting the amp doesn't increase like it normally does when you hit a chord.

He rolls the tone almost completely off, and he picks with the round end of the pick (using a fairly light one as well) which is probably a big part of it. You're right that his picking attack is extremely consistent...he's an incredibly smooth, controlled player.

[jim777]

I don't generally like tube amps for straight jazz, unless they are the uber clean style 60's Fender types played uber clean. Or something like an X-100B Even so, I use tubes for solidbodies and transistor amps for hollowbodies for straight up old school jazzy playing.