'Running on Empty'/'Mercury Blues' Lindley Tone Quest

[stratcat62]

I wanted to post this topic I started on TGP. Thought it might interest some here at The Amp Garage.

Like many here I've been questing after that raw, singing, early Dumble tone that David Lindley gets. I'd been discouraged for a long time until I heard the clips of Lance Keltner's Bludotone and really got excited about it again. A few nights ago I tried a whole new signal path and ended up, in my honest opinion, 'getting there'. I'm going: Guitar (Strat) -> ART Tube Mic Pre -> Ethos Clean Channel as a tone stack -> Deluxe Reverb. The main advantage of this set up is that it's got awesome harmonically rich drive, but very flexible volume-wise, which was very important for me. It's not cake-y or thick sounding like every pedal I've tried, but raw and gritty with a lot of harmonics. Very 'fragile' sounding with great string and note definition if that makes any sense. It really just sounds great.

I don't play lap steel. Mostly I play regular guitar and some slide, though much more as of late. I play slide on the Strat typically on the middle pickup, standard tuning. To my ears, I'm getting about 99% there for 'Running on Empty' tone (especially on the bridge pickup) and with a few tone control twists definitely 100% there for 'Mercury Blues' tone, especially the 'live 1987' example on YouTube. Turning the gain down a bit gives me that Lowell George slide tone from 'I Can't Stand the Rain'. I can't really say what the standard guitar tone reminds me of, but it doesn't sound like anything I'm very familiar with. Great rock tones playing on the middle and bridge pickups, especially playing chords.

All in all, I've never been so excited about my tone before. I'm trying to get some clips recorded. I've got three gigs this week, so hopefully I can convince a friend to come out and get some video or audio. Just wanted to share my tone quest with all those here who, like me, have had those tones on their mind since you first heard them.