• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Looking for a guitar for FUNK

#22
I slapped the POS together, it's essentially a strat style guitar. And yeah... it's what I'm looking for. This particular one kinda blows, so I'm going to explore my options with a better one.

The 1 and 2 positions nail the tone in my head, that "clickety-clackety" thing that I hear a lot in funk guitar lines.

Thanks for the wisdom, now on to practicing and writing on a guitar.
 
#23
you can get a good fender MIM strat for probably 200-250 on craigslist. Also a bit pricier but it is nicer you could get a MIA strat for 500ish.




Signature series are cool to! (I have a Jeff Beck Signature strat and I love it....although for anything grungier than 70's rock it fails :( oh wells I have an Ibanez for something)
 
#24
One more for the 'any guitar' - but it's better if you look cooler playing it. Have a load of fun.

IME Telecasters work great too.

'70s guitars (maple necks, ash bodies) are a great start. MusicMan guitars fit the period nicely.
 
#26
I'm usually a switch fiend for bass stuff and I always like the idea of getting a guitar to make 94 sounds out of it with 3 humbuckers, etc...

But this is a studio only situation. So function is key and the less I think about tone, the more I can concentrate on technique. The good thing is, I'll have overdubbing and retakes!

So single coils are my friend...
25-1/2" scale has more of the bite...
Get a wah and work out my right foot...

Good stuff!

The basses I'm likely to use will be my buddy's EBMM Sterling 4 or my Amdlx Jazz V with East pre. Leaning more towards the EBMM, as I've recorded with that before, with awesome tonal results.
 
#28
Hoover said:
I haven't read any of the replies in this thread yet, but I'm sure someone's already mentioned this:

What makes for a good funk guitar? A good funk guitarist. Period.

If you're funky you can play any guitar and it will work. Just look at all the classic funk tracks over the years & the disparate variety of guitars that were used on those tracks: Gibson Les Pauls, Gibson L-5s, Gibson ES-335s, Fender Strats, Fender Telecasters, Danelectros, I'm sure someone can name an old standby funk classic that was played on a Rickenbacker or a Vox (although off the top of my head I can't, so maybe avoid those two?)
Click to expand...


^^^^PERFECT ANSWER!!^^^^
OK everyone,nothin' to see,or say on this thread. Let's piss on the fire,kick the dog and get hell outta here. :p
 
#34
Actually on the rare occasion that I need to truly funk up some guitar parts, I don't use my Strat. I have an Epiphone Dot that the previous owner tried to make into a Gibson-from-the-front-row. He did some cosmetic surgery on it so it looks like a 335 from a few feet away.

Since it had already been adulterated, I saw nothing wrong with aggressively modding. I put in Seymour Duncan P-Rails and Triple Shots. So I now have a choice between humbucker with coils in parallel, humbucker with coils in series, rail single coil, and P-90 tones in each pickup.

Sounds pretty awesomely versatile, right?

Except once I could choose amongst all of those options, I ended up using the P-90 mode something like 90% of the time. I run it into a clean Hot Rod Deluxe with a wah pedal and nothing else.

A semi-hollowbody liek a Dot or a 335 with P-90's is the funkiest sounding guitar ever.

At least in my hands it is.
 
#35
Hoover said:
I'm sure someone can name an old standby funk classic that was played on a Rickenbacker or a Vox (although off the top of my head I can't, so maybe avoid those two?)
Click to expand...

well James Brown (right at the birth of funk) was a Vox endorsee, and Bootsys brother Catfish played a very funky [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] for some time in the band (and beyond)

Theres plenty of footage of the JBs with Vox guitars and basses

So, yes, any guitar will do, and NO NEED to avoid Vox. I don't know of any Rickenbacker funk guitarists, but with their ever so trebley sound, I would have thought they'd work well too.

Watch catfish getting down with his Vox

 
#38
Fly Guitars said:
well James Brown (right at the birth of funk) was a Vox endorsee, and Bootsys brother Catfish played a very funky [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] for some time in the band (and beyond)

Theres plenty of footage of the JBs with Vox guitars and basses

So, yes, any guitar will do, and NO NEED to avoid Vox. I don't know of any Rickenbacker funk guitarists, but with their ever so trebley sound, I would have thought they'd work well too.

Watch catfish getting down with his Vox

Click to expand...


this was a brief period, when JB had the notion that Vox gear would give the band some kind of Beatles mojo. He singed an endorsement deal with Vox and replaced all the band's touring equipment. The band veterans were uniformly disappointed with the decision, as the stateside Vox gear the company provided was (in their eyes) of inferior quality.

that said, CATFISH ROCKS R.I.P.
 
#40
I had an ASAT that was custom made in '94 (but GC thought it was a tribute and sold it to me for $399!). That was a great sounding and playing guitar and if I knew someone with one, I'd be all about using one of those again.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back