Santana's guitar sound

Hi,

Has any one an idea of how to get the Carlos Santana's guitar sound? I now that it has to do with Santana playing itself, the guitar, etc, but I am most interested on the effect processing used for it. I mean: is a distortion? an overdrive? or what?. Has some one one a good starting point for this?

Thanks, John

While I'm sure his setup changes all the time, some years ago, Guitar Player magazine was giving away a complete Carlos Santana guitar rig that was supposed to be a duplicate of his own personal touring and recording rig. Judging from the amount of gear that was included in the give-away, I assumed they had done their homework. I think I might still actually have the magazine somewhere but it's many years old already and probably not representative of what he's using now.

Here's what I remember:

PRS - obviously
Mesa - there was a stereo power amp and Tri-Axis preamp in a rack
Chandler Echo unit
Hi-Watt 4/12 cabinets (two if I remember)
two (2) Fender Twin Reverb amps
I think there might have been another Mesa Boogie combo amp in there

There was some sort of switching device (obviously)
There were a couple of stomp boxes but I don't remember what.

So that's basically what I remember from some years ago. I think that creamy Santana distortion is the result of Mesa though. He's been a Mesa Boogie user since day one almost. I think the first few Santana albums he used a modified Fender Champ or something that the Mesa guys built for him (Mesa started out in a garage I think and they modified Fender amps). If I remember correctly. Anyone have more specifics chime in I'm a big Santana fan. One of my personal favs is Caravanserai

PS - sorry I see the link to his home page above with current amps and stuff. Very cool

For the do-it-yourselfer at home, the basic sound is a combination of humbucker pickups (Gibson Les Paul, PRS, etc.) and heavy pre-amp overdrive (crank the preamp up and turn down the master volume). Something like an MXR Dyna Comp pedal out front set for mucho sustain probably wouldn't hurt either. Oye Como VA!

BTW - I still remember seeing Carlos get wiggy with an old EchoPlex EP-3 at a New Year's Eve concert at San Francisco's Cow Palace back in 1976-77. I can truly say that nobody ever worked that thing quite like he did in creating a feedback loop that went up, up and away for a mind-blowing experience. Syke-a-delic, fer sure.

Now, what I'm describing above is how you might go about getting *that* sound at home, on the cheap. The way Carlos gets *that* sound, inasmuch as I read this in a GP interview with him, depends on a specific soundcheck technique, where he will crank up the volume on his amps, then walk around the stage/recording space until he finds the "sweet spot" where his guitar is right on the verge of feeding back. He then marks a cross on the floor with gaffer's tape, and when he gets down to performing/recording, he basically moves in a tight area around and on top of that "sweet spot" so he can milk the sustain as he needs to.

Unfortunately, this is usually hard to do at home without getting the cops called on you. I still think, for my money, a PRS or Les Paul played through a vintage Marshall JTM-45 amp with master volume modification would nail it. I've never been a Boogie fan, I'm afraid, as they're somewhat of a one-trick pony. YMMV

No PRS's were harmed in the making of this recording.. it was actually a Strat going through a Marshall 50 watt head into 2 4 speaker cabinets. I close mic'd a cone with a dynamic ( halfway between the edge and center.. about 30 degrees off axis ) and mid mic'd ( about 5 feet away ) with a Studio Projects C1 ( I love that mic ).. and a bunch of gobo's that I built

he went from the Strat to a yamaha effects box with a just a tad of delay then to a boss compresser...

had to play with the pickup selector and tone knob to get a nice round sound... .

believe it or not.. the hardest thing was not believing the sound you heard with your ears.... it seemed that when we had a good sound in the room.. the mics heard something totally different.....we kept having to turn the volume and drive levels down... until it was very clean sounding in the room.. but mics captured that nice round sound that you hear.

and it wasn't just for this song... we had to go through the same process for our other songs on the demo cd.. ( ranging from Rush to van halen to Buffet...)

I played a PRS Santana a few weeks ago at a local guitar shop in Dayton, Ohio. I played thru a couple different boutique tube amps. I was very surprised how close I could get to a Santana sound without pedals or fooling around with amp settings. The owner told me that the pickups had a lot to do with the sound (duh but more so on this guitar).

This guitar was hells-bells for single note solo work, but I must admit it sounded very muddy to me when I played chords. IMHO, the bottom line is I didn't like the PRS Santana because it is a 1 trick pony. I played a PRS Custom 22 with a tremolo bar that is very much on my mind right now.

Darryl

I've never been a Boogie fan, I'm afraid, as they're somewhat of a one-trick pony. YMMV

I disagree with you. Mesa's are very versatile. Even the amp known for its great metal tones, the Rectifier series amps, can go to a sparkling clean tone or pushed tone with no problem at all.

I've been duplicating Carlos' guitar sound for about 20 years. I've owned two Mesa-Boogies, a Yamaha SG 2000, and a PRS. I use D'Addario strings. I've even used Carlos' personal picks. I actually stumbled across a keyboard magazine in the '80's (I forget which one), where they interviewed Carlos and he actually told them how he set up his amps. Right now I use a Mesa-Boogie F-30 and a Roland Micro-Cube, and it is quite easy to get Carlos' sound out of a Micro-Cube. The guitar has to be a neck-through body mahogany (the maple top helps, but it's not absolutely necessary), with serious pickups. Santana has used Seymour Duncan '59s in his Yamahas in in his first PRSs, and PRS Santana IIIs in his newer PRSs. I used Seymour Duncan 59s in a Les Paul copy with a Mesa-Boogie Studio 22. In my Yahama SG-2000 I used two EMG 81s and a PA2 preamp, and in my PRS Santana SE I use 3 EMG 89s, and Afterburner, and three 3-way mini-toggle switches. The D'addarios Santana uses are .009s, and the pick he uses, made by Dunlop, is basically a large Fender triangle pick. Having used the man's picks myself, I are Mike Bloomfield, from whom Carlos learnedwould say it would be unwise to underestimate his picks in the process of trying to achieve his sound: they have a rounder tip than regular and teardrop picks and thus have virtually no pick attack. I use a Dunlop white nylon .30 pick. I actually found it difficult to play with them--the characteristic tone comes from holding the pick in the middle. It's a medium-gauge soft material. Basically, Santana tries to get the distortion as smooth as possible, to make the guitar sing instead of scream. He runs both the gain and the volume controls at 6 or 7. The important thing is not the amount of distortion; it's the fact that the controls are set in the same place. The amp has to sound almost clean. You can even get that sound on 2. On a Mesa-Boogie get just enough to make it sing and fill the room, and then in performance if you turn it up a little you will find that you get feedback, which if you hop on right away--you can hear it coming--and add vibrato, will give you endless sustain, especially facing the amp. You may have to compensate somewhat for the brightness or depth of the sound of your guitar by changing the tone settings on your amp. The guitar will also sound different when the tone control is set at 7 instead of 10 and when the volume is at 5 instead of 10. If you watch Santana on video you'll see he's always twiddling the knobs, especially the volume knob. Here are the amp settings, from Carlos himself; gain--6; volume--6; treble--7; midrange--5; bass--2; reverb--7; and presence is completely unnecessary. If you add more distortion or more reverb it doesn't sound right. I would recommend using the bridge humbucker full up and turning the tone control to 7 to get the "Supernatural" sound. The "Caravanserai" sound would be more like the volume on 5 and the tone all the way up. You'll have to experiment. And you must also bear in mind that two of the greatest all-time masters of the subtleties of the use of the pick are Mike Bloomfield, from whom Carlos learned, and the undeniable all-time master--Carlos himself. So the amp and the guitar are just tools. But when you hear people say that Carlos' sound is in his hands--believe it, because it's true. Those crazy wide bends, that subtle whispering pick attack, that crying vibrato, the slides and pulls, and that wailing sound that define him most all of all--aren't coming from the amp. They're coming from his hands, and from nowhere else.

Very cool thread here. I am a big Santana fan from ay back. While a lot of the technical information is cool to read, I would have to agree with Mully about the most important part of getting the sound is in the man's hands. I think it's important to have a setup that gets decent sustain with a "clean" distortion. I think the bottom is is that you have to work on his techniques for getting the feeling and expression from the notes.

I will say that his "sound" has evolved over the years - from his early Gibson SG days to his current PRS set up. My favorite Santana sound era is from the late 70's (Moonflower) era when he was using those Yamaha guitars. Man, he got some amazing sustain.

In Santana's studio, on the shelf?

Just kidding - here y'go;

http://rock.mididb.com/santana/

One thing I read about Carlos (in Guitar Player Mag), I believe at the time he was playing a Yamaha through a boogie.....he had a large solid block of steel milled and routed into the guitar's body directly below the bridge to increase the mass of the guitar and thereby the sustain.

Boogie...what an amp....I agree that it is a very versatile amp. I have the Studio 22. I bought it when the 22 first came out and have had it ever since. Several players wanted to buy it but it's not on the market.

I also believe that a Kay guitar with a Kustom amp in the hands of Carlos would still sound like Carlos...maybe that's a slight exageration......but....A good player can make a cheap rig sound good and conversely.....a good rig with an poor guitarist will sound like crap.

ORIGINAL: davidchristopher

ORIGINAL: Mesa Boogie
The trick was to get all the high power electronics, big transformers and a JBL twelve built reliably inside a package that was intended to house a ten inch speaker and produce twelve watts! But it was worth the effort. The quote from one of the hottest local guitar slingers, Carlos Santana was,
"Man, that little thing really Boogies!" Thus the name was born. Over two hundred of those Princeton Boogies were built between 1967 and 1970 up a dirt path in a mountain workshop that I converted from a dog kennel built for racing greyhounds. Today, most of those "pre-Boogies" are still around, alive and treasured by their owners.

Hi, davidchristopher,

Wow, what a great quote. In the late '80's-early '90's I used to regularly sit in with a blues band in which the front man/guitarist had one of those "pre-Boogie" Princetons. To this day, I can't remember having heard a more amazing amplifier. And it still looked like a stock Fender Princeton, which was a real mind blower. I agree with Carlos: Those "Princetons" really did "boogie". I tried to buy that amp from the guy every time I played with him but, needless to say, he wasn't going to let go of that incredible tone machine.

Best regards,
Bill

Cromberger....

More on the Boogie 22.

I bought mine new back in the late 80's I think....hard to remember exactly. I had used Ampeg (to heavy and underpowered), several Carvins, good amps but the 2nd one was a Carvin takeoff of a Boogie....12" spkr 100w and to be honest....just to much power, to get the right tone at a respectable volume. I had played in a band that was 3 piece (rock & country) so we tended to be loud anyway. But I was in a house band (6 piece) using the 100w Carvin and it was just to much.

When I played the Boogie in the store the amp was "only" 22 watts....I'm thinking this will never work..live. I bought it with a 30 day money back. The sales guy said take it and try it....With only 22 watts, I was amazed when I used it live...I was holding my own against the other guitarist with a 50w Marshall/strat combo. With only one 12" spkr the sound was just a bit weak. The tone was 100% right! I had two 4x12 Lab Series cabinets and a spare Carvin DCA-800 stereo power amp sitting around collecting dust....so... I placed one cab on each side of the stage, powered them with the DCA-800 and sent the Boogie direct out into both channels. Using the volume control for the DCA-800 channels allowed me to dial up the fullness level I needed without blasting the first 10 rows, and it also allowed the other guitarist to select his optimum level of my guitar on his side of the stage. everybody was happy!

Playing with that rig was so sweet. It was the first time someone from the audience actually walked up to me and complimented me on the tone of my guitar. When that band broke up, I sold quite a bit of my equipment, all the PA stuff I owned the 2 lab series cabs, but not the Boogie or the DCA-800. I recently bought a used Marshall 4x12, because a few of the musicians I play with at church are talking about putting a band together....the boogie/DCA-800/marshall combo smokes...I can't wait to hear it in action again.

BTW....I do not use any effects pedals at all. Just a quality cord so that nothing changes that sweet 69 Gibson SG/Boogie tone.

I was listening to a documentary where he was talking and playing a bit, and he was using a crazy amount of amp reverb. Not sure if he does on the stage or not. But it was like, stop playing, wait a few seconds for the reverb to die down enough to talk, then start talking again.

you also might look into getting a hold of some Vintage Altec 417 8H Series II speakers ( 12's)
its a well know fact that Santana has considered them to be a fave of his ....
btw .....I have been using them since 79 in my Marshall Mark II 50 watt 212 combo ..........

(If this was mentioned above, I missed it. Sorry). But in his earlier days at least, and maybe even now, I understood that he used a Wah-Wah pedal to achieve some of his sound. He would find a sweet spot on the pedal and leave it there. Well, at least that is what I read somewhere once, and from his earlier sounds I would not doubt it. I toy around with that mid-range Wah sound quite a bit myself. Not sure what he is up to today.