Favorite patches for classic guitar rock covers

[mythias]

I am in a 4-piece band with a lead guitarist, bass, drums and myself on keyboards. We do modern blues and classic rock covers, stuff like Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Allman Brothers, Hendrix, etc. My go-to instruments are organ, piano and electric piano on pretty much every song. Songs with keys parts on them already are easy enough to cover but what do you tend to do when you need to learn a song that only has guitars in the original recordings? Organ sounds great along with Hendrix and SRV and ZZ Top kind of stuff.

 

My best example is Cinnamon Girl. We want to do this song with the same rock feel as the original. My first instinct is to try to replicate an amplified guitar style sound with a distorted electric piano.

 

What would other people tend to use when accompanying a lead guitar on Cinnamon Girl or similar guitar only song? Would you try to replicate a guitar with a percussive piano-style instrument or do something completely different that fits in a different way?

[KuruPrionz]

That is an interesting choice. Neil Young can tell you who is playing almost instantly, a very distinctive tone and style.

His vocals are also distinctive.

 

He is using a tuning on his guitar, drop D I think (never tackled it). Usually he has gotten the amp tone he uses by turning an old Fender Tweed amp up loud, where it starts to sort of "cave in" and start snarling. He also plays with force and intention, probably the cause of considerable distortion is relentless pummeling.

 

I think going for a distorted amp tone with a piano would be a great thing to try. If you nail it, it will be scary good. If you don't have one, take a look at a Tech 21 SansAmp Para Driver DI - the second version with the Mid Shift control.

You'll get good use of that, it's a great clean DI and there are tons of tones on tap if you dig in and play around. A keeper around here, great on anything live or studio if you tweak it.

[Iconoclast]

Ahh. I have recently had to cover a lot of ZZ top in a similar sitch. I find that a slightly old dirty wurly patch does a good job of covering that part of the spectrum if you spread the voicings out. Root in the L hand and 5th and 3rd in the R or something like that that that fits a traditional guitar voicing that makes the harmonies kind of naturally grind. Keep your R hand in the vicinity of middle C, maybe no higher than G3 typically. Had to cover a lot of Cream Songs in a similar configuration and I think this serves pretty nicely for some songs without sounding contrived. I also do Wind Cries Mary like this and I think it sounds great and authentic.

[Stokely]

I have often been in the same boat with my band--partly because I took a semi-hiatus when we got too busy for my family life and they added songs they could do without keyboards. Organ is my typical go-to, it really does blend with guitar well and can be a 2nd "rhythm guitar". Electric piano as noted also works well. Piano, if it feels appropriate I'll add it.

 

For heavier rock stuff from the 90s or 00s that we occasionally do, I tend to do the "orchestral version" that many of these bands themselves did (Metallica, Alter Bridge played with an orchestra live etc). I find the classic rock go-tos don't fit with these songs to my ear so I'll do a strings thing where I'll pick and choose parts....often starting soft and building up toward the end. Examples: Shine, Higher.

 

Then again, on 90s tunes like Stone Temple Pilots or the song Gel, organ seems ok to me. Maybe because those are a bit more "classic rock" than heavy rock.

 

Once I got my Summit, I started playing around with crunchy poly or mono synth sounds that can blend as well as an organ. I don't necessarily want to make the tune "synthy" but something that add some beef to the tune.

 

One way to get ideas if stumped is to seek out live versions...sometimes you'll find some where the band had a keyboardist (hopefully not tracks) and you can see how that sounds. Sometimes they have a keyboardist and they are so buried in the mix that you figure they probably didn't really want keys on that song after all

[BbAltered]

What would other people tend to use when accompanying a lead guitar on Cinnamon Girl or similar guitar only song? Would you try to replicate a guitar with a percussive piano-style instrument or do something completely different that fits in a different way?

 

When taking on a rock guitar song recorded without keys, I have been using a Wurlie sound with varying amounts of distortion to accompany. It seems to work out to my ear..

[CowboyNQ]

Similar to everyone above - I tend to go for organ or Wurli sounds for covering songs without keys. Very rarely I"ll dial in a guitar patch and play rhythm.

 

And if I don"t feel I can add any value I"m happy to sit out.

[NosPup]

I play in these situations pretty regularly. I like organ the best, but sometimes it sounds "too bluesy". In those cases I either go with distorted wurli or rhodes like most people have mentioned. Occasionally I can use the clav which can be tons of fun. We have done ZZ Top's Just Got Paid and its great with clav! I have accidentally punched up a regular piano sound with the distortion engaged, and didnt really like the sound. Its very harsh. Th wurli or rhodes seem to fit much better.

[cphollis]

The band I'm in plays covers, but we try very hard to make them sound fresh and reimagined. Like above, it's wurli/rhodes/clav/hammond power chords most of the time. I bet you didn't know that the Who's Pinball Wizard has a keyboard part? Or Heart Full of Soul, or Venus, or ... I've found lots of room on many all-guitar songs, with only a few exceptions. And it can make them fresh and interesting to listen to again.

 

I'm also starting to use big, gnarly wall-of-sound pads as well, as they can fill a lot of space. What didn't work well was "guitar" patches, as they sounded like they were trying to be a real guitar and failing, vs trying to be a keyboard and succeeding.

[The Real MC]

Pretty much all of the above. I play guitar as a 2nd instrument - I was never happy with guitar samples and I could never dial in a patch on an analog synth that emulated the dynamic crunch of a guitar. Either play on a Wurly or Clav or piano, play a Hammond, or creative use of synth patches.

 

I have discovered that the Oberheim SVF filter of the OBX (it *is* the SVF albeit fixed to lowpass only) is very effective for doubling guitar riffs. I copied some OBX patches into my Andromeda (which does a very good OBX clone) and with the extended modulation offered by the Andromeda I came up with some effective patches that coexist with guitars nicely.

[Stokely]

I've only used guitar patches successfully on a couple tunes...one in Everlong, I hit a huge distorted patch that fades, this is in the beginning while our real guitarist plays the main riff. The other is on Let's Go by the cars, I play a bit of muted electric when I'm not doing the actual keys parts. It's pretty subtle and does sound like a guitar and frees up the real guitar a bit.

 

I forgot about clav, certainly that can sound like a guitar if need be! Cases in point, John Medeski, Snarky Puppy's tiny desk concert, and Lachy Doley doing Voodoo Child (which was outstanding).

[mythias]

Thanks so much for all the replies. My first instinct was amplified / distorted Rhodes / Wurli so I think that is what I am going to go for. I love the way it sounds. When you dig into those low notes they really growl and you can back off and clean it right up. My Yamaha MO8 has a passable amped wurli sound in it that I can tweak to taste. I appreciated the tips about voicings.

[Bob L]

I've used distorted Wurly for songs like "Highway to Hell" (play the second guitar part). Hammond is a go to. Another approach is to say "what if the band had a keyboard player" and instead of providing background with Hammond or playing a guitar part add some rock and roll piano. My cover band does "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" by Jet, and I add rock piano that fits but has nothing to do with what either guitar player did. I also find that playing guitar leads that are harmonized with the guitarists in a band can sound very cool (your ear "wants" to hear it as a second guitar). We do that with "Burning for You", "Reeling in the Years", and "Are You Gonna Go My Way" ... my cover band has only one guitar player so this technique can be quite effective. Playing "synth guitar" tends to sound better in lower registers in my view (though that may be due to my patch selection).

 

You've already gotten a lot of great advice on this thread! Enjoy!

[Bill H.]

What would other people tend to use when accompanying a lead guitar on Cinnamon Girl or similar guitar only song? Would you try to replicate a guitar with a percussive piano-style instrument or do something completely different that fits in a different way?

 

For Cinnamon Girl I used to play overdriven Hammond for the hook and piano for the verses when things lighten up a bit. It was a good contrast.