Profile for swing guitar in the style of Freddie Green

  • Hello everyone.
    I'm looking for a profile or hints to tweak, what is suitable for a Big Band Swing Guitar made famous by Freddie Green. (I know his 3 to 4 string technique)
    I would prefer if I could use my Strat or Tele, our next New Year's Concert.
    We have some rocking songs, where I play a solo. (Für this I'd like SC)
    I want to take only one guitar with me.
    The motto is "Hits with big band sound". This includes Swing, Pop, some ballads and rock songs (eg Santana, Brian Setzer)
    The Kemper world is full of great sound and sound examples for solo guitar from vintage to modern high gain shredding, but for rhythm guitar in jazz and oldies I have found less.
    For most songs of the program I found reasonable profiles..
    Only my sound for the traditional swing guitar is still not satisfactory for me, where I suspect the Kemper can more.
    It would help me if I get a competent advices, what kind of basic sound I should take and what parameters will be important.


    As with any Amarteur Big Band rehearsal time is not so lush dimensioned than the ambitions. ;)
    My KPA is currently at warranty repair, so I'm afraid I'm going in the next rehearsals with not having time to experiment with the sound. (Hopefully I get back my KPA this year)



    keep rockin' Harry

  • Hi Harry,


    I'm using one of Michael Britt's 'Polytone Minibrute' profiles (very round/woody/smooth sounding with great response to break-up sounds) for jazzy sounds with the neck SC pup and rolling off the tone control to your liking might do the trick ...


    Cheers,
    Wolf

  • You may import Factory Rig Pack


    Thank you, I found and downloaded already. :thumbup:


    All hints I get now will be inserted in a "To Do List" and will be treated, when I get my Kemper back.


    On thing is a point of interest for me. Are there generally tips and tricks for tweaking to get a good result for this application.
    Of couse I will ask my ears, but as far as I remenbered to last concert - I didn't found a really good result with a normal tube amp (H&K). Well the audience did not care - but me!!
    I don't think that the Amp was guilty ;)


    keep rockin' Harry

  • obviously, use a hollow body archtop guitar. a semi hollow can get you there, but a 'real' hollow body is preferrable. to me, this is a crucial part that cannot be compensated for with any tweaking.
    use the right guitar


    As I've secretly feared, one can not argue against it. :(
    But now serious.
    I have two archtop guitars for the standard big band repertoire. (Ibanez Artcore Jazz guitar and a Höfner from the late 50ies.)
    This time the archtop fits for me only for 2 songs. For Strat I allready found matching rigs for the rest.


    Well, if I use a additional archtop now, are there matching profiles or hints and tips to tweak KPA. As I wrote, I'm afraid time runs off.


    thanks for trying to help - Harry

  • I'm using one of Michael Britt's 'Polytone Minibrute' profiles (very round/woody/smooth sounding with great response to break-up sounds) for jazzy sounds with the neck SC pup and rolling off the tone control to your liking might do the trick


    Hi Wolf.


    Oops almost I missed to say thanks.
    Is this profile in the rig exchange?


    Freddy Green created percussive style (or let's say he perfected it) in the 30ies, when electrical amplification was not so common.
    Freddie was rhythm guitarist of count basie for almost 5 decades. He didn't like to play electric.
    Nowadays it's not possible to play without amplification.
    Maybe a round smoothly sound will not match the need for this style.


    But any way- thank you Harry

  • Hi Harry,
    No, it's a commercial profile from M Britt's Vintage profile pack.


    Though - IMHO - well worth buying - tons of great vintage amp profiles ... but for what you are looking for with a Strat these Minibrute profiles (with the help of a slightly rolled-off tone control) may do the trick ...


    Cheers,
    Wolf

  • but for what you are looking for with a Strat these Minibrute profiles


    Hi Wolf,


    I visit Mbritprofies.com and found the Vintage Pack1, but I don't understand what you mean with Minibrute Profiles, and what means roll-off tone. (I am not a native Speaker)


    so long, Harry

  • Hi Harry,
    One of the amps Michael profiled in his Vintage pack was a Polytone Mini Brute Mark 3 ...


    http://www.polytoneamps.com/catalog5.html


    This amp was/is used by a lot of Jazz guitarists (George Benson, Joe Pass amongst others) due to its round, smooth and woody sound.
    With the 'rolled-off' tone knob I meant slightly cutting the treble of the neck pup of your Strat by dialling back the tone knob for the pup.

  • Though - IMHO - well worth buying - tons of great vintage amp profiles ... but for what you are looking for with a Strat these Minibrute profiles (with the help of a slightly rolled-off tone control) may do the trick ...

    Freddy Green's tone is much more acoustic and percussive, than what today is understood to be the quintessential 'jazz-tone' (Joe Pass etc.).


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  • Hey Harry, to roll off tone is to reduce treble using the guitar's tone control. EDIT: Seems I was slow to respond.


    Why not search the RE (and your Kemper when you get it back) for Fender Bassman profiles? You said you wanted warm and round sound, and for me the Bassman has always delivered, with a nice bluesy break-up (slight distortion for non-natives LOL) if you need it.


    The thing is too, that these amps can take that full jazz-chord played harder without shitting themselves - they'll only break up more if you set them to do so (drive / gain knob or whatever). Perhaps that's why some folks used them for bass guitar too.


    I'm no expert, but this is the impression I get from the rigs I've tried and all those modellers (mainly Line6) that I used over the years.

  • Why not search the RE (and your Kemper when you get it back) for Fender Bassman profiles? You said you wanted warm and round sound,


    Hi, the Bassman is one Profile of my choice.
    I will use it for so called warm sounds especially for ballads, where I need not to play straight rhythm guitar.
    One of my ideas is using an acoustic simulation Profile, which is also available in RE. I guess this could work with a single coil.
    I once had a Boss AC3 which works with SC at the best.
    But I expect either the sound could be to sharp wether the sound is not acoustic anymore by reducing treble. We will see.


    Thanks Don for an example to show what I need.


    Bye Harry

  • I know it's not what you want to hear, Harry, but:


    A Line6 JTV could be a solution for you:


    1) You want to be able to use only 1 guitar. Solved.
    2) You want (ideally) to be able to choose a hollow-bodied or semi-hollow-bodied axe for jazz. Solved.
    3) You'd ideally like a better acoustic sound than a single coil into an "acoustic" rig (Kemper amp), and the L6 JTV guitars (there're 3 of them - a strat-styled one, an LP-type and a shred-oriented "super-strat") will offer far superior acoustic sims (5 I think, including a couple of 12-string guitars) to your KPA as well as your old AC3.


    As a bonus, there's a bunch of other jazz-ready guitars built in like various Gibsons, along with sitar, resonator, banjo, strat, tele and at least a couple of LPs.


    Just putting it out there, mate. For what you get, these things are a bargain. You can power the guitar via an $80 footswitch which provides switchable (stomp on it) TRS / XLR outs, so when you switch to an acoustic model you could go straight to FOH if you prefer.


    A rechargeable battery is included (big rectangular thing), so if you're putting everything including your acoustic sims through the KPA you could just as easily go with that; from memory you get at least 4+ hours from a single charge, plenty for a gig... usually! I suspect there's more juice than that 'though as I haven't checked the charge life since the old Variax guitars 10 years ago. The newer JTV ones saw James Tyler get involved in the design, which produced a decent step up in playability and tuning stability, and the L6 team hugely upgraded the guitar models, most of which sound amazingly good now, IMHO. It's just not a Gibson or a Suhr or whatever; the guitar itself generally requires a little setup work. It took me about a week to really dial my JTV69 in and it chimes like Big Ben now, always in tune (floating term with locking tuners). Plays like butter for what it is too; the Tyler necks are a huge improvement.


    Rant over. As I said, Harry, not boutique-quality hardware, but more than adequate as an all-in-one gigging solution, methinks.

  • A Line6 JTV could be a solution for you


    I still have a JVT69 (Tyler) and used it in former bands with POD XT Live.


    In the rock band I play now also it was believed, it sounds too synthetic. I actually had to agree.
    I found at the end only one of the 12 string models which for me is usefull for strumming chords in the background.
    The other sounds convinced me not really after some time.
    So mainly I played with the normal pickup. In this case to play with my strat or my tele was the better solution.


    Would it not be so hard to separate me from guitars, I would already have sold it. :/


    Maybe I will give another chance with the kemper but I do not expect that the basic sound of a guitar Kemper substantially improved.
    .
    keep rockin' Harry

    Edited 2 times, last by Sharry ().

  • Hello Harry, I've given a listen to the Vid provided by Don, And I think I've got something close in my upcoming hollow-body pack.


    I'm referring to the 'acoustic' profiles I've done on my tube preamp, without any cab sim or KPA CAB, that's just hollow guitar straight to preamp.


    These profiles are great to display the acoustic tone of hollow-bodies , but that's right : you'll need the real stuff , the variax may be OK, but not as good.


    Anyway, if you want to be part of the 'hollow beta task force' , I'll provide them for free to you, for test purposes.

  • I'll provide them for free to you, for test purposes.


    Thank you for the generous offer. :)


    It could help me to save time when my Kemper come back. Still I do not have any delivery date :(


    Bye - Harry


    Edit: If I can use it for GIGs I will pay it.