Satch and His JVM Tone

[SavageRiffer]

Joe Satriani is one of my all-time favorite players, and I love his Chickenfoot stuff too, but I'm not digging his tone as much since he switched to the JVM platform. Don't get me wrong, I love the JVM sound, but to me it has a voicing that just seems best for metal. For more classic tones, I much prefer the DSL100 or any of the reissues. I liked Satch's old Marshall tone, and I loved his JSX tone up until he started getting real fuzzy with it, but the JVM tone has kind of a boldness to it that takes a tiny bit away from Joe's style.

I have played the Satch JVM and think it sounds Amazing, but still a bit bold and a prominent kind of lower mids or something. Professor Satchafunkalicious (however you spell it), is a fantastic album. I like it better than most of his stuff afterwards, but I noticed his tone on that album sounding a bit fuzzier or something. Still, I think that tone was better than what he gets now. Does anyone notice the same thing? I'm not saying he doesn't have a great sound because he really does, it's just that something about it doesn't seem quite settled. I hear it a lot in the Chickenfoot album, but his solo albums after seemed to have smoothed out a bit. Not sure what it is exactly. What do you think?

 

[godgrinder]

Dosen't he just run a DS-1 into the clean channel most of the times?

 

[SavageRiffer]

Dosen't he just run a DS-1 into the clean channel most of the times?

20 years ago. He got a few signature Vox pedals many years ago, and now he uses them with his 4 channel signature JVM, and I think most of the time he uses his Ice9 pedal as a boost only. I really don't follow his gear that closely. I was just commenting on his change in tone since after Professor Satchafunkilus.

 

[VH4_BigRig]

I dunno, I think his tone on Shockwave is the best tone he's ever had, or recorded...especially when you compare it to when he was just starting out! Solid state, ugh....if he sticks with it I'm ok with that!

 

[JamesPeters]

Saw him in concert a few years ago when he still used his JSX amps, but also had the Vox pedal. 99% of the time it was the DS-1 into the clean channel (easy to see due to the JSX's lights indicating what channel they were all on--always the clean channel for the whole concert--and the telltale DS-1 was hard to miss from where I was sitting), and the other 1% of the time he used the Vox pedal to fuzz things up. I paid attention to it because my friend who was with me didn't believe it.

I can't speak for what he does now, but I suspect he still does use the DS-1 into the clean channel for the majority of his sound.

 

[godgrinder]

He got a few signature Vox pedals many years ago

The Satchurator is basically a clone of MIJ DS-1.