Why am I unable to reproduce Kossoff's tone? What is the voodoo here?

[LPman]

This is the tone I have in my mind when I think of the ultimate Les Paul & Marshall tone. It's incredible to me how different it sounds to anything today or when you watch someone on YT trying to sound old-school with a cranked Plexi and a Les Paul. The tone of Kossoff has some voodoo I can't figure out (the insane vibrato technique is a part of it for sure). His tone has a musical ring, a rich harmonic content that I'm unable to reproduce. The chords have a powerful attack, they come in kicking like a jackhammer. The guitar track has an organic, metallic quality, it almost sounds like his tone is coming from a big box made out of metal. The sustained notes in the solo sound like a violin (solo starts from 2:10)



How is this tone possible? I've been trying to capture this tone and I'm unable to do it. I crank my '69 JMP 50 with my '74 cab, plug my R9 straight into it and I get a generic tone like this. It's a typical cranked plexi tone that I hear on great YT channels but it's nothing like the original recording. On it's own I'm thinking it's nice and I got the tone I've always wanted, than I listen to the original track and reality slaps me in the face.

Does anyone have any idea why the original track, which is "just" a cranked Marshall and a Les Paul sound so different? The missing element of course is the original Burst and the original PAFs. What if Kossoff would have recorded the original track with an R9? Would the iconic song sound totally different? Or is there a trick in that recording that makes it so hard to reproduce? I really want to solve this mystery.

 

[PelliX]

How is this tone possible? I've been trying to capture this tone and I'm unable to do it. I crank my '69 JMP 50 with my '74 cab, plug my R9 straight into it and I get a generic tone like this. It's a typical cranked plexi tone that I hear on great YT channels but it's nothing like the original recording. On it's own I'm thinking it's nice and I got the tone I've always wanted, than I listen to the original track and reality slaps me in the face.

Uhm, you're on track, I think. A bit of EQ'ing (he may have used different speakers, different valves, strings, etc - there may be some minor differences there) would get it closer. The main takeaway though is that he's double tracked and very much in stereo there. The harmonics you're hearing are in part a result of two (or more, but I hear two) takes panned fairly hard L/R.

EDIT: Maybe the EQ'ing could be substituted with a bit of mic positioning. perhaps a little closer to the edge? Maybe try a bit of a clean boost to really, really push the front, too.

 

[10kDA]

Are you referring to the solo or including the rhythm tracks in your question? What is the source of the isolated track(s) here - were they extracted using a filtering process or are these the individual as EQ'ed tracks as used in the original recording? Just asking for clarity's sake on my part before I make any comments.

 

[paul-e-mann]

This is the tone I have in my mind when I think of the ultimate Les Paul & Marshall tone. It's incredible to me how different it sounds to anything today or when you watch someone on YT trying to sound old-school with a cranked Plexi and a Les Paul. The tone of Kossoff has some voodoo I can't figure out (the insane vibrato technique is a part of it for sure). His tone has a musical ring, a rich harmonic content that I'm unable to reproduce. The chords have a powerful attack, they come in kicking like a jackhammer. The guitar track has an organic, metallic quality, it almost sounds like his tone is coming from a big box made out of metal. The sustained notes in the solo sound like a violin (solo starts from 2:10)



How is this tone possible? I've been trying to capture this tone and I'm unable to do it. I crank my '69 JMP 50 with my '74 cab, plug my R9 straight into it and I get a generic tone like this. It's a typical cranked plexi tone that I hear on great YT channels but it's nothing like the original recording. On it's own I'm thinking it's nice and I got the tone I've always wanted, than I listen to the original track and reality slaps me in the face.

Does anyone have any idea why the original track, which is "just" a cranked Marshall and a Les Paul sound so different? The missing element of course is the original Burst and the original PAFs. What if Kossoff would have recorded the original track with an R9? Would the iconic song sound totally different? Or is there a trick in that recording that makes it so hard to reproduce? I really want to solve this mystery.

Youre almost there, turn your presence down and some reverb on your solo.

 

[playloud]

There's some nice reverb on those leads. Could be a plate or just a great room (it was recorded at Trident I believe). There's clearly some distance to the mic'ing, which your recordings don't have, and the tape will be adding some artifacts also.

As for the rhythm track, they're double tracking in stereo and there are plenty of timing/playing variations between the takes to thicken the sound (may not even be intentional, but this is something you don't get so much on modern recordings!) See also: 'Brown Sugar' (or pretty much the whole Stones oeuvre).

Edit: also roll off the low end and turn down the gain on your amp. But adding distance is the main thing.

 

[mark123]

You can hear the room in the original but not in your version. It’s down to the microphone type and placement.

Edit - I didn’t see @playloud already mentioned it before I posted.

 

[XTRXTR]

In addition to what has been said you also don't know what post recording production was done.

I would roll off my tone knob to get less high end pick tone, more amp less volume knob, except the solo he may have turned up the volume knob there for more sustain/feedback from the amp. I'm sure the solo was done later.

That's how I used to play it. Old school use of volume and tone knobs and the amp.

 

[Purgasound]

Pure nickel strings as well. The steel content in today's standard string set wasn't available back then. D'Addario sells them.

 

[FleshOnGear]

Some great suggestions here. You’re like 90% there. I think a little less gain and different mic and/or mic placement would get you closer. But take my word with a grain of salt, as I have little real world experience with these things.

 

[faerdi]

https://solodallas.com/frees-allright-now-unreleased-version-solodallas-cover

Maybe solodallas can provide further details regarding this topic. And maybe, I honestly don‘t know and you should check this, the Schaffer Replica is/was part of Kossoff‘s sound.

 

[Alter]

The difference is in the way the guitar is recorded and processed. You can try double tracking the guitars, or just bounching them on a second channel and panning them right and left, then doing different eq/reverb on them. Maybe a few milliseconds of delay to create that slight modulation/phase sound the original has.

 

[neikeel]

Not an expert but I hear too bright an attack from strings and amp during the intro. You are not hearing the lower mids as the mic is picking up the high end preferentially.
The leads need the guitar to be in the zone coupling the resonance of speakers and guitar strings, helped by great vibrato technique.
I confess that the few times that I’ve managed to do that (live on big stage where you find ‘the place’) it is quite magical.
You are getting close.

 

[Tatzmann]

Is your preamp still wired 2204 style?

 

[V-man]

AFAIC you have your answer above.

Get his room
get his speakers
get his mic
I am sure you sourced similar pickups..

Can’t do anything about post-production but guess. Regardless those 4 will get as close as reasonably possible.

 

[10kDA]

The leads need the guitar to be in the zone coupling the resonance of speakers and guitar strings, helped by great vibrato technique.

This is very apparent in the recording of the lead parts, plus a bit of studio compression. Old school studio compression often took off some of the high end and I think that's what is going on here to a degree. I doubt if you can get that from a pedal, it is not in the signal chain between the guitar and amp. Some plugins are out there which claim to emulate studio compression hardware like Fairchild etc and though I have not tried them personally, a friend says they are pretty close. Personally I wouldn't be able to tell but my friend would so it seems legit.

The physical zone where the guitar is interacting with the signal from the speakers is probably most important. Stand with the speakers directly facing the guitar, maybe about 4 feet away, with your guitar at the volume setting you want to record at. Hands off the strings; if within a second or two you start getting some feedback that stops when you damp the strings with your hand, you're pretty close. Move closer or further from the amp as appropriate. String feedback, not pickup feedback. Play facing the amp whe you record the track.

Personally I think your gain settings would work pretty well if you were performing "All Right Now" on stage. For recording, I would back off the gain and treble before the zone-finding exercise above.

 

[playloud]

Honestly you can ape some of the distance with the right plugins. I just slapped some reverb, tape emulation and EQ on your recording (at least the lead part) and it already sounds a lot closer:

 

[Marcomel79]

Turn the presence down. Your recording is very aggressive compared to the original.

 

[FutureProf88]

I tend to agree with the sentiments above. A lot of this sounds like it is the microphone and the room it was recorded in. You're also working with the fact that on the rhythm parts of the original song you're hearing a doubled track, which is going to make it sound beefier.

Kossoff's tone is really clean. I'd agree with turning down the presence and maybe the rest of the EQ (especially treble) to get a little bit less of the preamp in the signal, or try turning your guitar tone knob down. The solo tone is really a woman tone -esque guitar sound. In a lot of instances I find that turning the guitar tone control down gives a warmer tone while preserving the dynamics you're getting from the amp.

FWIW, as much as I like Paul Kossoff and Free, I like your tone in your clip a bit better as a rock and roll tone. It sounds great.

 

[jeffb]

50 Watters are always brighter and crunchy compared to the 100watts. Koss use 50 watters?

What speakers in your 74 cab? General thought is paul used h25 bass cones..very hard to come by and sound different than the 30 Watters. If you are using speakers from 74, they sound way different-much brighter/toppy.

And to top it off , it's a nearly 60 year old recording. Stuff of today sounds different. Old bursts and pafs sound very different than the best of today's reproductions. Metals have all changed. Different sourced woods with drastically different harvesting methods and age. If you ever get a chance to play an old burst/gt you will understand. Recording gear is more precise and hi-fi.

All that said, I think you've got a great tone as is. Chasing studio magic is futile- ask all the EVH and Slash tone guys.

 

[BygoneTones]

All in the fingers.