With one of these amps, you will be able to produce beautiful clean tones, and also crank the amp and push it to break up, but at lower volumes. Thankfully Fender have choices here that suit every budget. Some of my top recommendations are:. Derek Trucks uses almost no guitar pedals at all. In fact far from believing that pedals will improve his tone, Trucks feels that they are actually detrimental to his sound.
As he stated when talking about his set up:. You are always trying to find that connection between your hands, what you are hearing, and the amp, and for me, any time I plug into anything I hear it. Even through a tuner. It knocks it down. He uses this occasionally for specific delay sounds, but more frequently he uses it as a boost pedal.
A lot of guitarists used the original Maestro Echoplex Tape Delay in this way in the s and 70s. Bluesmen like Duane Allman , Jimmy Page and Gary Moore are just some of the notable players that used the Echoplex to add thickness and warmth to their sound. If you want to do the same, and are also looking for a delay pedal, then the Dunlop Echoplex EP Delay pedal would make a great addition to your rig.
Beyond that, a preamp boost pedal or a clean boost pedal would also make a great choice. Given the simplicity of his rig, Trucks makes to a lot of changes to his tone using the controls on his guitar. As he once stated:. Trucks treats 8 on both the volume control on his guitar and on his amp as his limit.
He believes that when it comes to volume, less is more. If you want to sound like Derek Trucks then, it is worth keeping these 2 ideas in mind. You want to develop a clear and precise guitar tone. Duane Allman famously used a glass Coricidin medicine bottle for his slide. As the story goes, Allman started playing slide when his brother Gregg gave him two presents for his birthday. The second was a bottle of Coricidin, because Allman had a cold. As a result of this, a lot of slide players have since adopted a similar approach, and Trucks is one of them.
Instead, he uses his own Derek Trucks Signature Slide. It is the same weight and is closed at the top. It also has the same indent at the bottom of the slide where the lid for the medicine bottle would have originally been. So if you are interested in authenticity, this would be my top choice.
If you are looking for a slide in a slightly lower price range though, then I would recommend either the Dunlop Blues Bottle or a standard Jim Dunlop Glass Slide. Whichever brand you go for though, just make sure you use a glass slide. Glass has a warmer and thicker tone, and that is what you need if you want to sound like Derek Trucks. Beyond that, the key factor is comfort.
You need to ensure the slide fits properly and that it gives your chosen finger a bit of breathing room. You should also pay attention to the weight. Conversely, you want something with enough weight to press down on the strings. Generally speaking, slide guitarists use very heavy strings and set a high action on their guitars. This allows them to apply pressure to their strings and move their slide up and down without it rattling against the frets. Comparatively speaking, Derek Trucks has quite a conservative set up for slide.
He uses a custom made set of DR Pure Blues strings in a 0. That might sound heavy, but by comparison, the slide guitarist Sonny Landreth uses 0. Trucks also sets his action as low as he possibly can, whilst still being able to play slide. This actually makes it more challenging for him to play slide. It requires him to use a lighter and more delicate touch. In addition, Trucks tightens his tailpiece down to the body on his SG, which he believes adds a feeling of stiffness to his strings that is conducive to slide playing.
Finally, Trucks almost exclusively plays in open E tuning. This means that when you play all of the open strings together, your guitar sounds an E chord. This tuning was first used by early Delta bluesmen, and is still one of the most popular tunings amongst slide guitarists. You can set the action really quite high and use heavy gauge strings.
This will make it easier to play slide, especially when you are starting out. You can apply more pressure to the strings without the risk of your slide rattling against the frets. This will allow you to play with a heavier and less precise touch, and still sound amazing. The drawback to this approach is that it will make your guitar much more difficult to play without your slide. The heavier your strings and higher your action, the more pressure you need to apply to play each note.
This makes it difficult to play chords and very difficult to bend the strings or apply vibrato. If you want a guitar that you can use for both slide and regular playing then, I would recommend adopting a more conservative approach like Trucks.
Raise your action to the lowest position you can whilst still being able to play slide guitar. Try playing without the slide and see how you get on. Do the same thing with your strings. Use the lightest gauge of string that you can whilst still being able to play slide. Keep experimenting with both your action and the gauge of your strings. Adjust your set up until you find the sweet spot where you can play slide, without making it too challenging to play your guitar when you take the slide off.
Derek Trucks has a very unforgiving guitar rig. He plays his guitar straight into his amp, and uses almost no effects. Adopting this approach has 2 significant implications. The first, is that Trucks has to play with absolute clarity and precision. So to get the best out of his rig, Trucks has to really focus on his playing style. And if he wants to adjust his tone, then he has to use either the controls on his guitar, or to change how he his playing. If you want to sound like Derek Trucks then, it is worth placing as much emphasis on this, as it is on the gear you use.
Firstly, you need to learn how to play finger style. Like a lot of slide players, Trucks never uses a pick and instead plays with his fingers.
Otherwise you get a lot of unwanted noise and buzz from the slide. Generally speaking, playing with your fingers produces a warmer and softer tone. It also gives you the option to snap and pull at the strings in a way that is impossible with a pick. Learning finger style is not easy, but it is crucial if you want to sound like Derek Trucks. Not only will it help you with slide playing, but you will be able to use your hands like Trucks to dig in and add bite and aggression to your sound, or to back off when you want your tone to clean up a bit.
You will be amazed at how much you can change your tone, just by altering your attack. They switch between different guitars, use a number of different amps, and have a plethora of different pedals. Trucks adopts the opposite approach, and he is very unusual in doing so. There are very few guitarists — especially in the modern era — that have such simplistic rigs.
That Trucks is able to produces a variety of beautiful blues tones with his set up really is testament to his musicianship. He has an amazing touch and feel, and is able to alter his tone through changes to his playing style and adjustments to the controls on his guitar. It really goes to show how much tone comes from the fingers. The gear you use and the way you set it up has a profound impact on your tone.
But rather it shows just how much you can achieve with a simple rig. Focus on getting the basics in place, and then work on mastering your craft. The learning curve can be a little bit steep. Then somebody hit me to the fact that sometimes with electric, glass is a little sweeter, not as sharp and grating on the ear.
Have I tried a knife or bottle? Oh yeah. All of that. Wine bottles. Steak bones. Butter knives. Bones from meat. Over the years, you try all of it, just to get a different sound. I remember, not long ago, playing with Billy Gibbons and thinking how great his tone was — then realising he plays the lightest strings humanly possible.
Before that, I was always of the mindset that the heavier the strings, the better the tone, period. Just over years of touring, you find what feels good. I do like a heavier string at the top. You can dig into it, be a little physical with it, without losing the tone. That happens. But when this stuff is really flying, it becomes second nature. I feel like the slide is that way, too. And I like that. Instead of doing that, you kinda fall off of it, which is I think what happens naturally when you sing or talk.
Have you analysed how your style differs from that of other players? I think growing up around that sound gave me a serious head start. So tell us more
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