The setting are Rate = 14 (so you can’t really hear an obvious movement in the Phaser), the Depth = 26 (again a fairly subtle setting) and Resonance = 36. It’s not overly obvious but it does give the tone a certain type of ‘movement’ and ‘liquid’ character (guitarist use the strangest words to describe sound!). The part of the solo that I featured has a Phaser effect on it. This will thin out your thick humbucker tone to give you that biting tone of a Tele. If you have a Humbucker in the Bridge position you might want to use the ‘Hum-Single’ converter feature in the COMP/FX1 section of the ME-80. I’ve used a strat and selected the single coil in the bridge position, so the tone is close enough to a Telecaster to work. Do this before adding the Phaser and timed Delay Effects. Joe also uses a Roland Micro-Cube amp backstage in his dressing room.Īs i mentioned earlier, you may need to use effects to allow for your specific guitar and pickup tone.
His guitar collection looked like a museum, and his No less than nine BOSS pedals are in Joe’s current Eagles rig, plus five BOSS pedals onstage for Glen Frey and another five for Stu Smith (see photos below). It’s pretty much every effect I used on the records.’ * I could add more stuff, but for what the Eagles do, I’ve got everything I need. ‘One of the reasons I like BOSS is because I can set it, and where I put it is what it is and it’s there, and it works. Joe Walsh’s live pedalboard resembled a page from the BOSS catalog and he uses 9 different BOSS pedals on The Eagles tours. On the surface, this might seem a little strange but hey, it’s music – there are no rules! 4. However, in this case, due to the way to was recorded (mic placement, room characteristics) and the post production effects (EQ, compression etc) the amp doesn’t sound like a typical Fender Tweed Champ. I ended up using the ‘STACK” amp setting to get a closer tone to the recording. Put the gain up to about a quarter to half a turn so you can hear the gain character.įor the Hotel California guitar solo, Joe Walsh used a Fender Tweed Champ amplifier, so normally that is what I would be trying to emulate. For this particular tone we can leave the EQ at these settings. This gives you a neutral starting point so that the EQ isn’t colouring the tone. Set the EQ “flat” (all settings at the half way point or 12 o’clock).
Remember any multi-FX / amp simulator like the BOSS ME-80 is simulating a room full of gear, so think about it like that – you wouldn’t walk into a room full of amps and FX and start by turning everything ON would you? You would plug into an amp, get a good basic tone, then turn on any effects one at a time and build up your sound…. The AmpĪlways start with everything off – I can’t stress this enough! Find the OFF button for everything in the signal chain so all you can hear is your dry guitar sound coming through. On a 2-humbucker guitar like a Les Paul, select the bridge pickup, you can compensate for the tonal differences later in the EQ, Compressor and FX sections. If you don’t own a guitar with a singe-coil pickup in the bridge position, use the closest approximation on your guitar. I’m using a strat so the bridge single coil will be pretty close tonally. To get that really biting tone, he used the bridge (or rear) single coil pickup selection. There is a bit of speculation about whether it had been modified or not, but from my point of view, it doesn’t really matter, I’m just trying to get a start on designing the tone. The Guitarįor the Hotel California guitar solo, Joe Walsh used his classic ’70’s Fender Telecaster. In an earlier blog article, I spoke about the best way to approach a tone is to consider the 4 Elements of Guitar Tone and using those principles, we have: 1. Since I used the BOSS ME-80 on my Classic Patches Medley video, I’m going to go through how I approached the ‘Hotel California’ tone on it, but essentially the process would be same on any of the BOSS multi effects units. He used a Fender Telecaster for that sharp biting tone into a Fender Tweed Champ, with a nice Phaser for some movement and timed delay matching the tempo of the song. The Eagles new direction paid off and the Hotel California album won ‘Record of the Year’ at the 20th Grammy awards in 1978.įor the medley I picked one of the classic phrases. Joe Walsh joined the Eagles just prior to Hotel California and, along with Don Felder, is credited for ‘toughening’ up their laid back country music sound.
Most guitarists I know could literally sing the whole thing. The Eagles ‘Hotel California’ has one of the most recognisable guitar solos of all time and it featured the dueling guitars of Don Felder and Jo Walsh.
Contributed by Josh Munday – Tone Designer