In Search of the "classic" Pat Metheny tone

    hi everybody on my favourite forum,


    i have to confess one thing first: i am a rocker through and thru. but i want to play
    (cross the) heartland of pat metheny's legendary recording "american garage".
    just for the fun of it and to prove to my best friend (a bass player and JAZZER through and through)
    that rockers can play ...
    i don't have a big problem playing it, although it is quite fast, but what really sucks is: i sound TERRIBLE.
    while this may sound hilarious to many of you, i do not have ANY idea how to sound like early metheny.
    if u want to sound like angus give me a PM and i'll tell ya :D , but pat ????
    take a clean sound, add a little bit of chorus here and some delay there, finito?
    TERRIBLE! not that easy.
    listen: i won't tell you his name, but the guitarist of my bassplayer's group sounds TERRIBLE when he plays
    "the power of love" by huey lewis. so maybe it is a question of how you were raised or what you listen to.
    i do not know. so please give me some suggestions (or a complete jazz rig??). i know that some of you
    play fusion and jazz.


    thank you very much



    PS: i have three guitars < a charvel HB only | fender squire SC only and | a tokai strat SC only

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    Hey..
    well I cant tell you how to get that sound, but Ive produced a few jazz players in my time...so here is what I know.
    Jazz guitar is dark and wooden for the best part, but with zero attack, also quite dry, thats focus! and use your HB guitar.


    A lot of folk who dont know jazz (im perhaps one of those too) - but they think, ahh just turn the bass up.. far from the truth.. bass is rolled off dramatically withjazz tones, and trebble with mids floating high. (upper mids)


    Use a vitange chorus effect, and find the crossover value at a high freq, that will give you the high end to the jazz tone, but dial it in so its not an effect.
    a HB guitar would be best suited for the job, and a heavy one at that!.


    Thats all I know.. I can build you a jazz tone if you have no success, based on my limited knowledge, but Ive gotton a few good results previosuly.


    Also.. Ive recently profiled a Fender Delux amp thats been modified with jazz player in mind :) - Fender=bright normall. but this is as dark as they come.. wondefull!


    Anwyay.. not sure what im talkin gabout anymore as jazz aint my strong point. but thought i'd at least chip in to offer a pinch of help, im sure there are jazz folks on here that know a damm site more than me :)


    Wish you well!
    A


    p.s.. A rock god can play 3 chords to 3000 people..... A jazz god plays 3000 chords to 3 people!..

    thanks and44 for all your input. i appreciate this a lot. sincerely.
    i'll give it a try. unfortunately, i am not as intelligent as i look ;(
    you speak of high mids and low mids and use of a HB guitar. right?
    sounds complicated to me, because i am exactly as lazy as i look. :D
    maybe there is some kind of a "jazz amp" to start with??
    but thanks anyway

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    use a neck pickup, a low output humbucker would be best, a P90 or SC is fine
    turn the tone pot down, not fully, leave some attack
    a solid body guitar isn´t ideal, but will work.


    metheny uses two or even three clean amps, with a delay of a few ms on one and some more ms on the next. that´s how he creates that natural chorus, for which he´s famous.
    He plays incredibly loud! With his excellent technique he is able control the dynamics from pp to fff ;)