The Black Sabbath Tone and the Simple Effect Behind It | Reverb Tone Report
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- Опубликовано: 29 окт 2019
- Many think Black Sabbath guitarist Tommy Iommi was using a fuzz pedal or an array of dirt boxes to craft his gigantic tone, but they're dead wrong. Andy enlightens us and finds modern pedals to emulate Iommi's classic sound.
Read more on Reverb: bit.ly/2WtiLyx
Andy's Setup:
Amp: Victory Sheriff 22
Guitar: Hagstrom Super Swede, Gray Guitars Grayling
Recording Gear: Universal Audio Apollo 8 QUAD, Royer R-121
Strings: Ernie Ball 2720 Slinky Cobalt .010 - .046
No picks
Photos: Black Sabbath (1970). Photo by: Michael Ochs Archives / Stringer. Getty Images. 
Развлечения
Still captivated by the sorcery of the invisible pick.
His thumb must be made of concrete, got dang.
I'm a bass player, and am pretty terrible at using a flat pick. When I play guitar, I generally shape my right hand like I'm using a pick, but use the callused tip of my index finger (I don't have protruding nails) to approximate one. Usually sounds pretty good for bluesy or funky, fusiony electric or old-time or campfire acoustic, plus makes for instant fingerstyle switcheroos. Mandolin kinda wants a sharper attack, and I've found that the Herco thumb picks that are shaped like a flat pick are pretty easy for me to use and control, a flat pick will almost always either get driven back in my fingers til it's useless or fly out of my grasp unless I pinch it too hard to be able to get any kind of dynamics or dexterity out of it. I don't know how you guys do it.
I'm a very amateur electric guitar player, have a little experience on classical so the pick is very foreign to me. If I do not have my right hand on the strings I feel very disconnected from the guitar. Robby Krieger, Lindsey Buckingham, Mark Knopfler and Andy too are very excellent guitarists, so I try to learn from them. Picks just hate me. 🖐🎸🎶
I play bass and usually use my index finger as a pick when I play like that. I find fingernails give a nicer top end than a pick, and I can easily transition between any right hand technique.
A pick is nicer on guitar because of the tighter spacing, but it doesn't really hurt to play without one.
@@iunnox666 Yeah my brother can play without a pick on an electric due to being a bass player, in fact he even has an upright bass he plays in the band he is in.
The secret to Tony Iommi's tone is largely Geezer Butler.
Black Sabbath us such a complete band. The drums are amazing, the guitar is amazing, and the bass provides a great base but it also has a lot of independence which is what makes it great
I remember hearing stories of Geezer Butler mowing his own lawn and this was after he bacame famous. His bass playing style was one of a kind.
A lot of people don’t realize Tony Iommi plays on 8 gauge strings. String Tension is almost nonexistent on 8 gauge strings, then tune it down by a step and a half and I am surprised his guitar is even playable.
@@xnetpc Plus it's an SG - it doesn't have the longest scale length either
@@xnetpc same thing with Brian may, 8s on a scale length shorter than Gibson's, plus he plays with a coin, it's amazing he doesn't break strings constantly
Tony Iommi is just an endless factory of killer riffs.
Indeed.
Praise Iommi
He ran out of great riffs around 1996. Reunion was horrible and there were just a handful good ones later. 13 and End were pure crap.
@@ColtraneTaylorThank you for your contribution.
@@ColtraneTaylorpariah and loner still hits pretty hard
@@ColtraneTaylorThe Devil You Know was a great album
The only riff to open with!
... Lord of this World...
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath... he’s not playing a guitar, it’s a chainsaw with strings.
What song is this riff from? I don't normally listen to Black Sabbath, so I'd never heard it before, but it's killer.
@Ajit Adonis Manilal Supernaught, the all time killer riff. In sixth grade (around 1971) when ever it was raining at recess we stayed inside and played records on this little record player. We had Vol.4, Paranoid and a Steppenwolf album. We lived for Black Sabbath.😎
@68 Rumble Bee Thanks man. That's a monster riff. Can't believe I'd never heard it before.
hearing Electric Funeral was amazing, no one talks about how awesome that riff is
I find that song fascinating despite being musically really simple, also hand of doom has that great sound and feel
José Cerda maybe it’s just because i love the groove of music, but those two are easily up there for my favourite Sabbath songs
And Andy used 10-46 for the C# standard tuning here and it sounds great. People using 12-54 strings and other nonsense are just derping hard :)
Every tone in this video is delicious. I love it when Andy goes off on a stoner rock trip now and then. He always nails those tones.
This Halloween is the 50 year anniversary of metal being invented
Exactly!
Black Sabbath's first album was recorded in a single day, more specifically on 16 October 1969.
Can you guys believe it? Another proof of their amazing level of musicianship.
Those guys were truly ahead of their time!
I wonder what Tom Allom (their sound engineer for the first three records, who also played the piano part on "Planet Caravan") must have thought when he heard them play for the first time!
It must have been a totally mind-blowing trip.
Great record, great guitar tones and great performances!
Honestly, the birth of Metal couldn't have had a better start! 🍺
Serious "Thank You!" for this reminder, friend. Happy Heavyween then!
Black Sabbath was released on Friday the 13 also.
Rangemaster: cuts out low end.
Tony Iommi: hmm, C# tuning it is then.
(Yes, I know all about the real reason why he turned down... always watch your fingers around heavy machinery kids.)
Joe R M
Also the amplifier had a lot of heavy bottom.
@@supermorsa I've heard the opposite, that he actually turned down the bass knob on his amp all the way down?
@Smokeanaut I've heard everything on 10, bass on 0
@@wea69420 Those were his settings on Paranoid (the album)
You can do it all in 10, bass in 0, neck pick up, guitar tone roll down to 0. With an overdriven tube amp.
I believe Iommi didn't tune down to C# until Master of Reality.
73challenger5031 master of reality is where doom metal spawned from
@@hrodber648 Yes it did!!! It has always been my favorite Sabbath album because of that!!!
Yes he did it, cause Iommi suffered his accident when was 17 and after that he tune down to C# to continue his incipient musical career
Early Sabbath is normal tuning. Listen to Paranoid. Don't know when he started to do down tuning, but not on those early albums. And he uses thin strings. 008 if I'm not mistaken
He didn’t tune down at all. They’d just tune to whatever Geezer’s bass was that day.
Thanks for mentioning the importance of Laney amps to Iommi's tone, Andy. One of the main distinctions of these amps (later emulated by Marshall) was the alternation of extremely warm-biased pre-amp stages with very cold-biased (large resistor, no bypass cap) stages to thicken the tone; worked like a charm...
Dude that playing at the start gave me chills. Great job.
I haven’t seen anyone mention he played a riff from Lord of This World and it was great!
SDBXR such a great song.
I mean, they usually go for early Sabbath songs, so not surprising. Almost cliche, really.
One of my favorites
Sick tones Andy! That treble booster is unreal through that Victory with humbuckers!
dude I have seen you off and on over the years demo-ing so many guitars...you are just the best...
Everybody loves the way you play, Andy . . . that's why we really come here.🔊🔊
Been building a clone of the Catalinbread Sabbra Cadabra so I could fiddle with the tone stack and this just gave me the boost to want to finish it . 'appy 'alloween
@High priest of the church of tea Nope, Uriah Heep/Mick Box fan lol
Maybe now if the reference is seen ,will prompt Andy to toss in a riff from one the the first few LPs. One can hope
@High priest of the church of tea Just appreciative affectation on my part. Mick is from north London I believe .He definitely talks that way sometimes.The first LP was titled Very 'Eavy ...Very 'Umble, but us Yanks wouldn't know what the fuck that meant lol, so it was just Uriah Heep here lol.We did have the better LP cover though
@High priest of the church of tea but then y'all go on and overenunciate "heych" for the letter's name, lol
how does it sound?..I've made a few of these and had to do a few things to get it to sound right!..i will say ive found the tone stack isn't what gives it its tone,its the bc184 that seems to give it the "right" sound,even fet choice didn't seem to make as much difference.. I used j201.,I had to change the layout to bias some of them right even though the circuit design is supposed to take care of that doing so gave me more usable gain and really stopped that gated and flappy thing it does.
Some of my favorite RUclips content is Andy playing Sabbath! 🦇❤🦇
If you own a Dunlop Crybaby, or probably any other Wah pedal, you can get a very close approximation of Iommi's tone combining your favorite overdrive pedal with the Crybaby set half-cocked, or thereabouts. Experiment with the Wah to get the darkest of tones.
Eh...it’s tough to do and that’s why I’m here honestly. The cocked wah takes away some volume and it’s unfortunately not the same, but it is close
creative, i like it
Well shit. Now I'm gonna have to spend all day listening to their first three records. again.
Do what I done the other day and listen to the first 5😄👌👊
A notch further, I listen to the first 6 very often these days. Very good riffs on Sabotage. I’m on a mad Sabbath journey! But won’t make the jump to the 7th tho.
Andy playing Sabbath. Made my day.
This sounds killer, thanks Andy for this. Such a killer jam in the beginning.
This is amazing! Thanks for the demo
That opening riff to Rat Salad is nothing without Geezers growling bass
Good to see a Hagstrom, I love mine, most versatile axe I've ever owned.
How about a cosmic fuzz mixture with the Omnitron A-30 cartdrige set?
Awesome job Andy!
Not intentionally trying to stroke your ego or anything, but I'm sure you could play a cigar box guitar, strung with rubber bands, going into a DOD American Metal distortion box, into a Gorilla GG-10 and *_STILL_* sound like a legend!
Andy's Sabbath is pretty darn close. Vibrato, bend and nuances are really nice!
Now that you said it, gotta do a Rory Gallagher video.
Cool vid and playing. It sounds the part. Not all the material was tuned down -- it became more of a thing during and then after Master of Reality. He also used the rhythm pickup for rhythm and switched to the treble pick up the leads. Plus, he used very light strings and a lot of the riffing was on the lower strings. He played power chords off the low E strings as far up as the 15th fret which had a bassier timbre than playing if off the string root. By the late 70s he was using heavily overwound humbucker pickups that were up in the 20k range although all the early stuff was singles. One of the greats and completely unique.
Great job Andy!
Wow! Sounding perfect, man!!
Dude, I haven't seen a Hagstrom in like forever!!!
Loved this video
I dig the black & orange vibe... even an orange amp lol
Love that you started with Into the void🤘🏼
Good tone inspiration! Well done. Now I have to go listen to Sabbath.
Seriously thought that was a pile of coke in the thumbnail.
That did become quite a key to his live playing!
@@jackiedaytona9625 I was about to say the same 😂😂
Good video! The riffs tell me it's Iommi more than the pedal, but the pedal is close. Certainly worth a try if that's what you're going for.
*Glen Tipton and KK Downing used to use Rangemaster Treble Boosters on the early Judas Priest albums and tours as well, plugging them into the "Normal" jacks of their Marshall heads...*
Great video!
I enjoy your covers.
I just got one of these pedals and it's GREAT
I recently bought this pedal and it is solid! Tone beast!
Great demo and playing, thank you.
Awesome sounds!
Is it possible, to create a Brian May tone with the "laney tony iommi boost" as well?
That would be great!
great playing
SWEET VIDEO!!!!! Have to go listen to some Sabbbath now!!!! \m/
I’m a amp builder. The Laney Super Group amps were pretty close copies of Marshall plexi amps. I believe Iommi would do something weird with his EQ. As I recall he put his bass on zero and his mids and treble on 10, and then used a treble booster. He began tuning down by the Master of Reality album because of his fingers, but on Paranoid and the first album he was tuned standard and used an Orange amp and a Fender blackface amp in the studio on some of his leads (particularly on the first album).
He used Laney LA60BL Supergroup amps across the entire recording of the first album.
In my next life I want to play just like Andy. Incluiding the invisible pick !!
That tomorrow’s dream sounded spot on
Wicked World is always been one of my favs nice...
I actually got really close sabbath tone with a fuzz face and bugera 1960 on my channel
Aaaaaaand you just sold me on trying a treble booster
Tony’s tone is hard to replicate when you still have your finger tips. It’s all in the hands. Tony’s tone is monstrous imo geezer’s as well
Sabbath Forever 🔮🔥
Andy proves over and over the secret to the tone is in the fingers!
Thanks for The Black Goosebumps!
Great Video... Thx...
What was the pickup selector on the second to last session of riffs?
Going to use D'Addario XL Nickel wound, 12,16,20,34,46,60 strings soon and will try this out.
Thank you!
haven't binged on Sabbath for 3 days now. well, back to work...
I remember thinking for so long that the tuning and treble booster was the key, until laney/black country customs brought out those amps again, with any booster and standard tuning those thing have this low mid richness that is so Sabbath.
NIGEL in Canada🇨🇦
I enjoyed the video
I might buy a "treble booster" after having seen this
thanks 🌍🌎🎧
I love the Halloween theme ad the pumpkin lookin guitar ;) very cool. Perfect for Black Sabbath
This is cool. What is the effect Toni Iommi used on the solo for "Paranoid"? Was it a ring modulator?
It sounds like the solo might have been double tracked, and one guitar has a octave fuzz or something on it
@@strazburg I found that the effect is indeed a ring modulator in this article: tonefiend.com/guitar/ring_modulation/ plus, in a quote from Tony Iommi he mentions it here: forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/tony-iommi-paranoid-solo.234038/ . He says it was some kind of sound modulator: "The unusual distorted guitar solo was recorded straight and then processed during mixing "through a sound modulator of some sort," recalls Iommi, most likely one of the many assorted effects boxes producer, Rodger Bain collected at the time."
the laney and the old Hag close enough for rock n roll 😎
I think the key aspect of his tone from the first 6 albums are p90 pickups
it's definitely an influencing factor
I think it's the C# tuning more than anything, especially from Vol 4 onwards up until the Dio years.
@@UnchainedEruption well the first two albums didnt use c# tuning and technical ecstasy and never say die rarely used it
Even if Iommi doesn't use fuzz, *would* it still be possible to get close to it with something like a Big Muff? I'm on an extremely low budget/still learning, and the Muff is the only pedal I own at the moment.
Sure, why not? Dime all the controls and run it into a dirty amp. The tone stack of a Big Muff will act a bit like a treble booster, albeit one with less presence.
@@burninglcd You probably wouldn't have to dime the sustain though. Some muffs with max sustain will take you to sludgy doom metal territory, a step beyond Sabbath. Extremely distorted. Combined with the tone control set to max treble, and you'd be getting brash noise pop guitar tones.
You're fine. The muff is a great pedal. And you'll never, no matter how good you get, sound EXACTLY like Toni Iommi, so just find a sound that you like and make that work for you. It can totally be done with just a big muff.
Nice to see somebody else who plays without a pick! My nails are naturally thick so it's easy for me.
is that a real huntsman on the reverb R light in the back ground? thought it was a baby one on my screen to start with.
I've been looking for a way to get that screech from the paranoid solo where it almost sounds like theres another solo playing but with a lot of gain... any ideas, pedals or tips?
He owned a boss oc2 I believe. If you set it to play an octave below it seems to be exactly how he got the tone. I have a boss oc5 (which is just a newer version that also includes a knob for an octave above.) I could send you a clip of the solo using the pedal if you’d like.
@@spurgemcfurdje1650 hell yeah dude, appreciate it.
Would these pedals produce a similar tone with a Vox AC15 amp?
Houdini Pick - they aren’t very rare but no one can find theirs so they are hard to get. I have been searching all over Reverb for one at a decent price.
I'll send you one in the mail, keep an eye out for it.
Shit, I can't find it. Sorry!
It's interesting that boosts were such a staple for Black Sabbath.
Nice!
It sounds like a fuzz though right? Which is weird ‘cos fuzz normally comes from boosting - not cutting bass - prior to clipping?
That Hagstrom is gorgeous. Does anybody know what pickups he has in there?
Railhammer pickups
@@Adamnme01 Thanks
Question. If your going to do a review on Tony Iommi pedal for the Black Sabbath sound. Then why wouldnt you use a pick instead of your fingers. The attack and tone are not the same when you use your fingers verses a pick. The demo sounds a bit muted and is lacking with out the use of a pick.
I have the BCC Iommi pedal, excellent. Put it in front of a tubescreamer for mega sustain 💪🏻
the keeley java boost is a good one too!
Thanks for enhancing the halloween vibe!
does anybody know the riff at 3:30? honestly a list of all of them would be sick
GIve andy more videos pls
Even though guitar is the focus of this video, the bass in the demo is pretty damn juicy
McTwish von Noodles exactly what I was thinking
The stuff he's playing before 4:00 doesn't sound very Iommi in tone, but it's really awesome tone all the same.
Actually I think it is, sorta sounds like what Iommi & Co. were doin' on Technical Ecstasy.
1) are those the original pickups on the Super Swede, 2) is the Super Swede pre-80?
no, it has been modded with Railhammer pick-ups
Hagstrom (Super?) Swede. So cool.
Super Swede. You can tell because it doesn't have the filter toggle the regular Swede has.
With Railhammers, no less.
@@thenewmedic what a combo!
Dallas range master creates fuzz though. You don’t need a pedal with the words fuzz on it in order to create the fuzzy sound which you can hear in songs like War Pigs, Paranoid, and Wizard.
Too spooky Andy!
Black Country Customs all the way! Killer treble booster and reasonably priced!
i just saw a video with Tonys guitar guy who sets up his guitars when he plays. he uses a slapback delay and chorus only . maybe that's now because of the amp change from the 70's
The TI Boost is the best pedal I own.
Was thinking of getting one. Do you use it for Sabbath or is it just good overall? Do you have any settings to get the best Sabbath sound out of it?
@@michaelpekala1494 I’ve used it for Sabbath before and it’s legit. Andy’s settings in the video were pretty much spot on. It’s also great as an alternative to a tube screamer into a high gain amp (I play OSDM and it’s so much more interesting than the tube screamer). However, my favorite use is using it as a pseudo preamp/tone shaper before a Dumble style overdrive to get that clean tone then stack the two for some wonderful sounds.
@@legoharry100 Nice! I plan on keeping my TS but having the treble booster on there as well. This pedal looks awesome
I thought Iommi got his sound from the Catalinbread "Sabbra Caddabra"... 😉
YES!!!
Cool. You and Phil X should get together and cover some Sabbath tunes.
Righteous brother ;)
Ive had the sabbra cadabra and the ti boost pedal. Sold em both. In terms of that " sabbath sound " i wouldnt score either higher than 7 /10. Best thing ive bought is the gibson usa iommi pick ups. Not sure if they still make them. No distortion can kill them. I got mine form one of the epiphone iommi tributes that came out a few years ago and put em in a gibson sg.
You can always buy a Jaydee humbucker from reverb, wich is what Iommi himself uses, i bought one for only 70 bucks from jaydee.
whats the name of the song he starts playing at 3:30??
wonder the same thing
Tomorrow's dream
Make one of John Cipollina tones.
It’s volume that matters. The more air you move the better the tone until about 100w then you should just add more amps
Why play humbuckers if going for Tony's early sound?
Who the feck is Tommy Iommi? Haha might want to edit that description guys!
Great work by Andy again though 🙌
Dude this sounds AMAZING! I LOVE your playling sooo much! But it sounds nothing like Sabbath though. Not even close. But it sounds great 👍