Voicing Settings requested.

Thought it might be a good place to have a thread for people to request and swap settings for specific needs.  I'll use this first post as an index of the ones that get discussed later on and edit them in as they appear. That way we can easily see what is available without going through it all.

I will flag them as Requested when first posted and Suggested when someone responds.

1)  LP Trad, GM36 - ZZTop Rough Boy tone - Requested

Me first! What do other people use when playing ZZTop numbers like Rough Boy? I have a 2010 LP Trad with I think Classic 57 and Classic 57 Plus, a 1967 SG Standard with original (?) pickups, and a 2005 LPJS with P90s to choose from.

Despite the fact that it is a high gain tone, every setting I seem to try seems to be just a bit more harsh than the original.

Have you googled what he was using at the time he recorded those songs? Could it also be that he has played .008's too? That can change your tone dramatically.

I don't know when Rough Boy was recorded (1986). Was he playing a Strat then? Sorry I don't know that much about Billy.

Hi Hwy.  I couldn't find anything direct about Rough Boy equipment but I had looked at a few YT vids with BG playing this live.  He seems to use a number of guitars for it.  Pearly Gates of course, but he also seems to use his custom painted SG too.  I think this guitar is a '61/'62, it's sometimes confusing as he released a Gibson '61 SG reissue and people aren't too clear as to which they mean, the original or the reissue.  I should be able to get reasonably close to that with my own SG from the same era, (it's 4 or 5 years younger).

Assuming I'm laying down the baseline as Gibson, maybe SG but preferably LP, I wondered about how people set up their GMs to give the heavy overdriven but creamy tone and easy access to the pinch harmonics.  Also are there any pedals people feel are essential.  There is a degree of chorus in there, but I can't help but notice that Gibbons is listed as having 6 series Bixonic Expandora overdrives in his rig, all on at the same time, (yes 6)!

And, as you pointed out, there is the issue of the 8s of course.  He must have fingers as light as a fairy, (no insult there to anyone, I mean the winged kind).  With my bunch of bananas I play with 10s.  Can't even get on with 9s, I'm so ham fisted the pitch drifts as I fret notes.  I would have thought that the 8s would give him a thinner tone rather than something as creamy and sustained as he gets, but hey, what do I know!