Sound Analysis – Deluxe1|Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top)

Photo by Violeta Alvarez – https://www.houstonpress.com/music/billy-gibbons-gets-some-cuban-satisfaction-with-the-bfgs-7975402

Today we are going to talk about Billy Gibbons. He’s known for using Marshall JCM 900 Dual Reverb, Marshall Bluesbreaker but also some Fender amplifiers like Tweed Deluxe.

We’ll try to replicate his sound by using Deluxe1 and some cool distortion pedals like Proco Rat and Marshall ShredMaster (vintage model). He uses a lot of different guitars, from Fender guitars to Gibson guitars (sometimes very strange looking guitars), so we are going to use a Fender Telecaster.

In the following track we’ll listen to physical pedals through Deluxe1 to see how the amplifier reacts to analog pedals. This time we tried to boost a little bit of gain, so let see how it sounds!

The guitar used, a Fender Telecaster, plays trought Deluxe1, with 57-Neutral microphone.

• The rhythm guitar‘s tone comes from Deluxe1 with also a little bit of gain using a Proco Rat
• For the 1st lead guitar we used a Proco Rat pedal

Proco Rat Settings : Distortion 11 | Filter 3 | Volume 3

• For the 2nd lead guitar we used a Marshall ShredMaster pedal

Marshall ShredMaster Settings : Gain 3 | Bass 2 | Contour 7 | Treble 2 | Volume 3

The Proco Rat and the Marshall ShredMaster have a very similar construction and components, so you can hear better how physical pedals sounds through Deluxe1. The rhythm part was recorded two times, you can hear one track on the left speaker and the other track on the right speaker. As always, we used Motortown for the drum track.

We have taken reference to the song ”La Grange”, one of the most popular song by ZZ Top.