Love this tone

  • Thread starter Thread starter Darzy
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Darzy

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Hi! Recenty I found this video on Instagram by Al Di Meola...this Is the best Guitar tone I've ever Heard! Now I'm trying to figure out how can i chase this tone with my rig. I own the same Guitar he uses in the video (also the colour!) and a Mesa Lonestar and I thought that boosting the drive Channel of It with a pedal would get me close to his tone. What pedal do you recommend me? I thought about the Xotic Soul driven but I'm worried about that the tone could get too muddy. Any thoughts? *Sorry for my english, I'm Italian :)
The video:
 
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I agree with Exo here, while the tone is by no means bad, it isn’t leaping off the speakers memorable. I think it the beautiful phrasing, note selection and control that Al commands that really makes what the listener is hearing. medium plus gain with the highs/presence rolled back - almost has a neck pickup quality? Killer clip.
 
I gave this some thought, this might actually work.
 
It's tough to tell exactly what's going on there because of the recording quality, but it sounds very Santana-like, so I'd guess it's maybe something like a Mesa Mark series amp with the mids boosted.

edit: I googled and Al is on Mesa's website pictured with a Mesa Mark V, so it could be that amp.

You could probably get close with something like a JHS AT+ pedal. That is Andy Timmons' signature amp-in-a-box pedal, and he also uses it with a Mesa Lonestar. It's a high gain pedal with a very smooth kind of tone like the tone in the video that could get pretty close.

You could also try a Friedman BE-OD pedal into the Clean channel of your amp with the Treble and Presence dialed down, and the Tight knob set to your liking. It's a more "standard" sounding modern amp-in-a-box pedal but it has very flexible EQ controls, and the Tight control is super useful as well, and could get you the "squish" feel in the distortion you seem to be looking for.

Nice guitar, btw.
 
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I really like the JHS AT+ but I'm looking for a mid boost pedal (TS style or something similar) go get me closer to this tone boosting the drive Channel of my Lonestar. Which pedal do you recommend me?
 
I’ve told this story before and I’ll briefly rehash it. When Mr Dimeola had a clinic for us; all the staff were bitching about him because he was late (as usual). I get traffic in L.A. but apparently he was sunbathing at the hotel and the car and crew were waiting on him while he just laid in the sun all passive aggressive and what not. This was his Modus Operandi according to the staff. When he came in to give his clinic; he was all Tropicana oiled up and shit, acting douchy to the students. Maybe he has changed since 1990. I guess I’m like a girl and can’t forgive and forget. Thus, I’d rather sound like Mick Mars than listen to him. Sorry for the rant.
 
Recording is terrible quality... I'm surprised you used this as an example for a good tone. Just my .02
 
Kinda sounds like something easily achievable with a driven Fender or Mark 1 type thing
 
Darzy said:
Can you give me an exaple of a good tone? Just for curiosità.
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Good tone is a totally subjective topic. Personally some of my examples would be EVH, Lynch, Sykes.. that type of stuff. If you're using DiMeola as an example, I assume you like cleaner tones than me; nothing wrong with that. If you had used Eric Johnson, John Mayer, or someone like that, I would say, yep... I get it. Just never heard anyone really rave about DiMeola's tone. No disrespect... we like what we like.
 
Darzy said:
I really like the JHS AT+ but I'm looking for a mid boost pedal (TS style or something similar) go get me closer to this tone boosting the drive Channel of my Lonestar. Which pedal do you recommend me?
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Sounds to me like you've already decided you want a tubescreamer.

If that doesn't work, try an EQ pedal and boost the mids how you want instead of whatever pre-determined way some pedal will boost them for you.
 
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