Our hero has had many guitar colorings over the years: Clean lead 335 sound on early recordings, a little grittier for Beggars Banquest and LIB; much crunchier for the SF/Exile period (my personal favorite), etc. Likewise his live sound was big and crunchy in 69 (those Ampegs!), kind of a more gimmicky overdriven distortion in 75-76 (didn't like that one), twangier in '78.

Which is your favorite period of Richards guitar (sound-wise) and why?

Well I love the SF/Exile sound obviously. It's PERFECT in all regards. As far as live stuff goes, I actually love his tone from the Bridges tour. Clean, bright, and gritty all at once. His sound on "JJFlash" from the St. Louis 1997 show is one of my all time favorite sounds the man has ever put out.

Least favorite tone would have to be the Tattoo You tour. Never cared for his sound during that era at all.

My fav Keith tone is when he's stern. Like "Hey you kids, get out of my pool!" or "get your hands off my daughter fool!"

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J.J.Flash
My fav Keith tone is when he's stern. Like "Hey you kids, get out of my pool!" or "get your hands off my daughter fool!"

Hey, no humor allowed here!

sorry lol

Hmmm, a good question Tele. I would have to say the guitar tone Keith got during the '76 tour was the ultimate for me. So thick and emotional and his playing was top drawer to boot.

Live sounds from Voodoo Lounge tour. I loved the sound from the Gibson Les Paul Junior, and of course from the Teles

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B-Flat
Live sounds from Voodoo Lounge tour. I loved the sound from the Gibson Les Paul Junior, and of course from the Teles

I think the 89-95 period (with the Stones, anyway) had Keith's wimpiest guitar tones. Didn't care for them at all.

I'm with whoever said '97. Perfection. I never cared much for the phaser from 75-82, I think he used that in excess.

For live work, his best tone is from 1978, the Boogie through an Ampeg.
In the studio, he seemed to experiment a lot up until Some Girls/ER.
Now, I love the sound on SG/ER/TY/Undercover but it seems he just set the amp up
and switched on the phase shifter for a few numbers.
He got great tones out of those Vox amps on Buttons, Satanic, Banquet.
People tend to think nowadays if you get an old Fender amp all your problems
will be solved.
I don't care too much for his live sound nowadays nor his studio sound,
but maybe that should partly be blamed on Don Was.
Their next producer should tell him to ditch the open-G.
ANd the Berry influence is totally gone, which I think is the real shame.

Keith's greatest tone ever was heard at the El Mocambo gig 1977. Not far behind is his Winos 88' tour sound.

I also want to point out that it is very hard and very unlikely to hear at home what actually happened live onstage. The closest I ever got to the stage was in 97 at the orange bowl in Miami, right in front of Keith's amps and I tell ya, I never heard that tone on a tape or cd or dvd in my life... awesome. So who knows for sure?

I like Keith through the boogie, period!

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B-Flat
Live sounds from Voodoo Lounge tour. I loved the sound from the Gibson Les Paul Junior, and of course from the Teles

My two favorite guitars!

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Loudei
Keith's greatest tone ever was heard at the El Mocambo gig 1977. Not far behind is his Winos 88' tour sound.

I also want to point out that it is very hard and very unlikely to hear at home what actually happened live onstage. The closest I ever got to the stage was in 97 at the orange bowl in Miami, right in front of Keith's amps and I tell ya, I never heard that tone on a tape or cd or dvd in my life... awesome. So who knows for sure?

I like Keith through the boogie, period!

THe El Mocambo gig is the first Mesa-Ampeg show.
Also a thing to remember is that from, say, 1969 to 1982,
the guitars (including Jagger's and Wyman's bass) were coming from the same type of amps,which give a relly unique tone to the band, or any band.
We all loved seeing those rows of Ampegs or Voxs in the early days.

I like Keith in the studio 69-72. I also love the sound he produced on Slave that is one of the nastiest rythym tracks of all time!

Live I like 69 but will agree and I remember commenting how good Keith sounded on the Bridges to Babylon tour he was right on for the entire tour. Great sound.

<< THe El Mocambo gig is the first Mesa-Ampeg show. >>

That's right! It sounded so good that I was mad that the other three sides of LYL didn't sound that way!

I am not a fan of sides one, two and four of LYL. I have stated many times on this board that I just don't like Mick's singing on the 75-76 tours.

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71Tele

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B-Flat
Live sounds from Voodoo Lounge tour. I loved the sound from the Gibson Les Paul Junior, and of course from the Teles

My two favorite guitars!

My two favorite guitars as well. They're like the Stones and the Beatles in way - coming from the same place, but both making a distinctive sound. And as pedestrian as it may be to default to these two guitars, well, they're a perfect yin and yang. The tele and les paul. The Clash used that set up, as did the Pixies. Not a bad pedigree. I believe the Stones employed this set-up from time to time.

Bigger Bang tour - the most dense fat and rich sound - if he`s cranking volume pot in his guitar to the max.

The sound he had on Brown Sugar, Bitch, Can't You Hear Me Knocking

Studio: 1976-1981
Live: 1978-1982

In the studio I prefer his 60s guitar sounds, all of them. Live, nothing can compare to the 1969 ampeg sound, the heaviness of guitar on ya yas has never been beaten in my view. The Hyde Pk sound was also good (what amps were used..marshalls into hiwatt speakers?). I believe he may have used ampegs during the 70s, but the sound was never the same....very distorted but at the same time a much weaker thinner sound, this continued through to Love You Live...the same very distoted sound that's also a bit thin sounding.

I just wonder how the 1969 ampeg sound sunded so good and has never been repeated...perhaps it was also in the recording process (Wally Heider mobile recording set up?).

Keith's early 70s sound in the studio was pretty good, thinking of Luxury and Dance Little Sister, CYHMK. I also like the clean twang of the tele played on Torn And Frayed...a classic Keith riff.

By the end of 70s the guitars sounded too sanitised...distorted a times but still the overall feel is a sanitised Stones.

Does anyone else get a very different feel and sound from the 75 leg of tour, vs the 76 portion? I thought in 76 Jagger's growling, choppy vocals got way more pronounced. He cut lyric lines even more. What was that stuff in "Hot Stuff"? And while 76 had the new material, and LYL features a lot of European tracks, I still get more dynamics from the US sets.
It could be me, but I don't feel much dynamics in the 76 tracks. I am not crazy about the Mesa Boogie guitar sound; it feels flat to me; one dimensional. The LYL tracks were heavily reworked, we are told. And it sounds that way. The songs from Toronto sound bigger than Paris and London.
I hear it mainly in all the boots though; how the guitars sound have lost that boominess from the Ampegs, how they used to float more. The 76 sound is clean, the drums and percussion cuts through well; the guitars are sharp, but like I said maybe all on the same level plane; and 76 brings it even more than 75.

In the studio I love Gimme Shelter and Monkey Man and other recordings from 68-73, live I think the Babylon tour was fantastic.

Honky Tonk Women, Monkey Man, Brown Sugar, Can´t You Hear Me Knocking

Live sound from the El Mocambo 1977 till 1982 tour,and including studio albums Some Girls,Emotional Rescue and Tattoo You

The first Boogies you know....


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Shattered !!!
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i love the fender twang tone

The intro and outro guitar lines on Satisfaction on the '69 tour.

Having said that Keith's worse tone is always something superb, today's live slightly cranked 335 - Twin combination is something else! In studio, I change my mind every day. For sure the Let Me Go tone is an all time favourite. Other great ones are Start Me Up, IORR (the Berry licks), Neighbours, Before they Make me run ...

C

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windmelody
In the studio I love Gimme Shelter and Monkey Man and other recordings from 68-73, live I think the Babylon tour was fantastic.

I'm with you there WM. I also think the BtoB album has some great Keith tone. Too Tight and Low Down are archetypal.

Best tone is the straight Boogie Mk 1 with Altec Lansing speaker as used at the El Mocambo, then the Boogie/Ampeg combination of the 1978 tour, then the Boogie IIB Coliseum of the '81 tour - just listen to his sound at Hampton, and on Going to a Go Go and Imagination from Still Life!

Worst sound was the Voodoo Lounge tour -did he even play? His live sound these days when playing in open G is good, but the rest -including all studio recordings since Steel Wheels sucks big time. That's not his fault, but I just don't like the production work of Don Was.

Mathijs

She's So Cold