I need recommendations on this specfic tone i've had in my head....

[DanielWong]

I've had this idea of a soloing tone, i kinda got it from hearing this frank zappa solo

http://media.putfile.com/Zappa---Lets-Move-to-Cleveland
(the solo is in the middle part)

I envision something like a thick and creamy distortion, kind of like a warm fuzz effect, with some sort of slow modulation, maybe a chorus or phaser...only the tone is really touch sensitive, like, really touch sensitive. As in, you can hear the fingers on the strings and every get all the little dynamics....nothing you'd get from a fuzz/modulation combo.

[mnordbye]

At least, Zappa is known to use a chorus effect with his guitar. About the dynamic overdrive of his, i believe that he just used the amps distortions (think i saw it in a video some time), but others may know Frank better than me of course.

When it comes to this solo you linked, it's just like what i imagined it would be like. But i can't directly give you any suggestions, other than a chorus effect, and that his guitar and the way he played it is something you don't see everyday. 

Magnus N

[DanielWong]

thanks, that cleared things up a bit, do you have anymore suggestions, like what kind of chorus i could get to replicate that or settings I could use?(alas, I don't know much about using effects or dialing tone) And wpuld a phaser work the same way?

What kind of amp do you think I could use to get that "touchy" feel? It almost sounds as if it's played completely clean but with more meat. Do you think that's what he does?

[dap9]

He also had that crazy SG w/ all those switches on it.  I don't know what they were all for, but I'd imagine things like splitting humbuckers, in phase/out of phase etc.

[DanielWong]

Yer,
really, I don't know why anyone would even like out of phase switching. It sounds so terrible, like someone poked nails in your spealers

[DougH]

That's the sound of his piezo pickup mounted on the neck of his guitar, I believe. Don't know if he's using a chorus on it or not- maybe, maybe not. The neck-mounted piezo has a sound all its own. I believe it was mixed with the sound of his conventional pickups in some way. Do some googling on Zappa. I'm sure there are more details out there about how it was set up.
FWIW, his overall guitar tone there is pretty clean.

Yeah, "The best band you never heard in your life" is a great performance, probably my favorite of the Zappa canon. One of my favorite distorted guitar sounds of his is on the same release- check out "Heavy Duty Judy". Great meaty tone there.

[DanielWong]

yeah man, I have that cd and it's such a killer a album! That's got to be my favorite Frank Zappa tone there, much better then the AM radio sound on Apostrophe.

Thanks for the clarification, can you explain a little more what a piezo is?

[Mark Hammer]

If memory serves, it was a Barcus-Berry "Hot Dot" embedded IN the neck to sense vibrations in the neck itself.  A piezo pickup is simply a pressure-sensitive crystal pickup, such as you find on amplified acoustic instruments.  The Barcus Berry was a rather small one, and is long since out of production as far as know.

Frank made excellent use of his Wasatch flanger ( http://filters.muziq.be/model/wms/900a ), controlling it with the envelope of his guitar for what he described as a "pillowy" sound.  Though you weren't far off thinking it might have been a chorus, "good" flangers with a wide sweep range are capable of producing those sounds.  You can see here - http://files.muziq.be/thumbs/wms_900-a_001.jpg - that the Wasatch could nail a 20ms delay, which certainly covers not only flanger sounds but chorus range as well.

[DanielWong]

thanks for the information, Mark!

Are there any flangers that I could get a hold of nowadays that would work the same way, and get similar sounds?
Also, what do you mean "envelope" of his guitar?

[DougH]

I feel like I'm tag-teaming with Mark here. (slap) Okay Doug! You're up! 

The Line 6 Liqui-Flange has a number of modes that allow for controlling the flanger sweep interactively with the guitar. There are a couple options that will respond to the envelope of the guitar signal.

These links will help you understand what a signal envelope is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envelope_%28mathematics%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envelope_detector

I don't know how close the Liqui-Flange comes to emulating this sound. There are some similarities due the dynamic way it responds to what you are playing. Might be a fun exercise to see if I could get the "Zappa sound" with it. Hmmm....

[petemoore]

What kind of amp do you think I could use to get that "touchy" feel?
  http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/guitars-frank-zappa/jul-06/21622 
    This stock, mid-'70s 100-watt Marshall JMP head was a mainstay in Zappa's setup from 1974 on through the 1979-84 tours.
  Interesting read...a Pignose couldn't escape being modified...used for nasty tones. Pignose is a small SS amp, but I'd go for the 'mainstay' sound first, even if doing studio stuff where a 'nasty SS' amp might come in handy for leads/cameo roles.
  For *that...a tube amp of the proper scale. 100w JMP won't sound nearly as much like a cranked 100w JMP when turned down...
  As a smaller scale tube amp will when cranked up.
  *cranked tube amp tone...really can't be heard right [IME/IMO] without the right scale tube amp doing the work...too small and it's drowned out, too big and it can't be cranked.
  Then we'll get into attenuators and emulators and digital processors [not, I hope]...the long road around to the simple analog goodness in this context.