Joe Bonamassa's Gibson Les Paul tone tips guitar lesson 

Absolutely, whether you use just fingers, a pic, or a combination of both (my preference or I end up losing the pic). So much flexibility!

obviously he used his thumb for wes tone

Tone is ALL in your hands

​@@mr.smithgnrsmith7808 no lol

Good point, i agree.

Michael Guido and an expensive reverb pedal which he fails to mention 😳

Michael Guido ok guido

@@sijoy1969 You don't need a reverb pedal in a room like that.

simon joint thats a channel switcher, you can tell its natural reverb since his voice is reverberated

Anyone can be a beast on guitar, just gotta devote yourself and be consistent

Bill Ducas Exactly, and that is the entire point of the video. It’s all about learning the instrument and amp. It doesn’t take expensive equipment to get a difference in the sound by moving the knobs on the guitar, they all work, some sound different than others but they still work. Picking location and attack also affect the sound. Cheap tube amps don’t sound like expensive ones but they still distort when turned up. Used off-brand old amps often are surprisingly good sounding. Either way it’s about learning the sounds available. People want instant gratification and don’t want to do the work so they buy pedals, and Bonamassa is just trying to get them to think first and then experiment. Looking at other comments to the video it’s obvious too many missed the point and want to make excuses why it wouldn’t work for them. The majority of the time I don’t use pedals, it’s just me and the guitar and the amp. It’s much more fun.

And this is somehow a new idea or some kind of realization one day strumming your mucky, flat sounding Gibson? Gibson, really like the SG when used by Derek Trucks, and thosr.old southern rock guys, Marshall Tucker, Alman Brother and Skynyrd had no option, a.strat wont work for them. But for everyone else, there's something better than a Les Paul for you.

@@8sigregyou do realize that Joe is playing a $12,000 les Paul in this video right?

same. i feel like he has so much admiration for the players before him its cool to watch him go

The sound of a LP : tribute to Gary Moore ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WgbFKGNfYR0.html

He is old school, true. But it's not like he is always a "straight into the amp" kinda guy. Idk what his current rig looks like but I've seen him with massive pedal boards in the past. He just likes to experiment a lot.

He is playing both a very pricey amp and guitar. It’s pedals that are cheap.

Nick V Empty room - Natural reverb

+Nick V Technically, guitars are a furniture. :)

I jam with a friend who's wife's picky about what gets set on furniture... I had set down my AAAA maple flame topped LP on the couch for a moment while we stepped outside for him to have a smoke, when we came back my LP was leaning against a brick fireplace. AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!! Fortunately no scratches, but I was none too pleased. Have since learned she feels only peoples bottoms should go in furniture. I guess I wasn't supposed to put furniture in furniture. LOL!!

That's kinda like someone sittin' on a man's Harley without askin' - could, in some environs, result in immediate need of medical attention ---- P.S. Would probably be my last time there --- Snortin' Morton

+Keith Murray I woulda leaned her somewhere else if she'd done that to any guitar of mine! LOL

that's what I tell my girlfriend

That´s what she said.

Coil splitting is nice, then you can get close to Tele and Strat tones with a Les Paul. I love Jimmy Page’s wiring mod (the one utilizing the push/pull tone and volume pots more so than the one hidden under one of his Les Paul’s pickguard), it’s “‘50s wiring” so distortion cleans up as you roll the volume back plus you can put the pickups out of phase or activate them both at the same time in series in addition to coil splitting.

Nano B that's natural church reverb damn

Thanks for a great video!

And a never-aging, horny, Bettie Page type waitress bringing me super dry Arthur Bach Martinis every 15 minutes.

"The acoustics in here are....aaaammaaazinnggg"

You didn't know about your guitar's tone knobs?

killthedead23 Agreed! I didn't know that such a great twang could come out of a Les Paul, nor did I know that JB had that style honed in so well...ridiculous!

that's really a Jerry Reed'.lick...from a song called ..'THE CLAW..

He was taught from a young age in that style by Danny Gatton

And without a thumb pick, no less! Maybe there is hope for the rest of us!

Christopher Brown Take Faith, be positive, there is always hope. I, for instance have great faith and I am positively convinced that not very many of us, no matter how hopeful will ever possess that kinda tone and talents in our own finger tips. For the few that do..... May I buy you a drink?

Stephen Morgan anyone who says that has zero experience with Les Pauls or Gibsons for that matter, or even with manipulating their guitar’s controls to influence their sound. Of course if you run any guitar through loads of pedals and never touch the controls on the guitar itself it is going to be a one-trick pony. Players these days have gotten accustomed to tap dancing on stomp boxes rather than manipulating their tone with their guitar’s knobs the way literally EVERY great player did in the old days, which gives you infinitely better control over your instrument.

LPs are being played in literally all genres of music.

@@Corvette.Ronnie Finally. The word "literally" being used correctly on an internet comment section.

Did you know the Les Paul was originally supposed to be a jazz guitar? That's how versatile it is.

@@Dagger_323 i don't own a Gibson or epiphone but I have played them and I completely agree

Erik Braga yeah, gear can only get you so far, the player has to go the rest of the way

Not amazing. A great guitar + a great amp + a great player = great music

Do you know If he has treble bleed on his guitar? Bucause when he Rolls back the volume knob the clean sound is very briliant/ bright. In fact he is getting a very bright clean sound with his Gibson, which I assume is mostly because of the amp, is it??

@@matheusleao2035 It's hard to pin-point, but in my experience, it only takes a little volume-knob roll off to clean up a signal into an overdriven amp. I don't lose too much tone either, but my tone usually starts out a bit darker, anyway. I know Fender tweed amps are more mid-boosty and have rolled off trebles compared to their blackface counterparts, so it does make for an interesting observation that he retains his highs.

@@mott1992 I see. I Said that because I play my LP through a Laney LC50, and I totaly loose highs when I roll back my volume knob, even in a clean config. So That's why I assume he has treble bleed on his Gibson.

Well yeah but still he’s just playing the guitar through the amp and using the volume and tone controls on the guitar. that’s a good place to start kids.

Matheus Leão I have some guitars w treble bleed circuits and some without. What I learned is that the treble bleed and “normal” wiring are almost indistinguishable when an amp is in its sweet spot. That being said, if you’re playing at bedroom levels and pushing the preamp/gain on your amp for grit with the master/level down, treble bleed is more necessary.

John 5 cracks me up the most. Dudes outfits would throw most people off. But he could walk into any country bar. Play for 5 mins and have them country boys buying him a beer in no time LOL.

A Les Paul is basically a slab Tele, it just has different pickups and a fixed neck. Listen to very early Les Pauls into a clean amp and they were bright and twangy. Early PAFs were brighter than the current sound from Gibson. A Tele can sound amazingly ballsy too if plugged into a Marshall or a tweed amp that’s cranked.

Joe did learn from Danny Gatton as a kid, but whatever...

not a surprise really. Jerry Reed played a LP just as often as he played a Tele and got basically the same tone from both. Jimmy Page played a Tele on the first Zeppelin album and got the same tone that he did from a LP.

To me it sounds warmer, the tele has a very distinct voice even playing this same lick imo...

Practise his ass off, all day, every day, for years

Its actually not as hard as it looks with hammer ons and pulloffs

@@JohnWilliamsFromBluff many many years I’d know it’s been many years for me and I still can’t master it. Les Paul kills me ☺️

You can do the same thing on a Made in Mexico Telecaster used for $275. It will sound like you playing a Telecaster rather than Joe Bonamassa playing a LP, but the principles he's showing work just the same.

no way, you got it all wrong. any beginner can sit down and get those tones right away. it's got nothing to do with technique or any of that. babies can do it. no for real, stop laughin'. go get a random baby and see for yourself. thy're tone junkies. everybody knows that.

! wrong on both counts, ha-ha! i'm neither intelligent, nor an insurance salesman!

It's also the relationship between the guitar and an amp (tube or SS). I tend to notice tube amps are more reactive to certain pickups and player dynamics. Rolling the volume off makes it clean up quite well while running it wide open drives the amp hard. When you play through a solid state or one of those cheaper computer units, when you turn the volume down...well the volume just goes down but it's still distorted lol.

***** Boys, boys, stop fighting. The cartoons are about ready to start.

Middle position FTW.

Seems every guitar is based off a Gibson, or fender platform

Les Paul in my eyes is a telecaster on steroids lol

Lazy J, think it's a 40w

Blues Deluxe maybe?

It's nice to have nice equipment :-) and he definitely has more money than you and me put together, but ...you can do this with an Epiphone LP and a good small tube amp. No doubt.

Yeah. The comment is not as bitter as it may sound. I certainly don't begrudge Joe the things that I know he has worked hard for and deserves. You're right. I have some guitars and other gear that is better than stuff that costs twice as much.

dETROITfUNK It in no way takes expensive or vintage gear to get the tonal variations he demonstrated in the video. Yes, the quality of the tone might not compare, but that's not the point of the demo. The point is using the controls on the guitar to get a variety of tones. Roll off the tone knob: woman tone. Roll back the volume, the grit cleans up. Switch pickups, it gets brighter or darker. It all works pretty much in the same way. It's as much about the amp as it is the guitar. And what he didn't mention is that it takes setting up the amp to respond in that way -- right on the edge of breaking up. People love that cheap little 5 watt Epiphone head for this very reason -- it sounds good at a volume that's tolerable at a price that won't break the bank. Yeah, some amps sound better than others, but it is a marketing myth that only if one buys expensive gear will they sound good. I'm quite sure Bonamassa could replicate this demo with a Cort and a Valve Junior, and so could people whose budgets limit their choices to a Cort and a Valve Junior. So take heart: there's hope for the blues yet :-)

***** I have a gibson les paul, epiphone les paul, some bc rich's. my gibson has the best tonal range, but the epi is ok at it, it has emg's so it's not really built for it. The volume pots on my b.c rich's are like on/off switches. Really isn't hard to tell the difference between pots. some nice cts 500k pots would improve the bc rich's, but it's a metal guitar so I only use it for that anyway.

And me

It does take practice but came natural for me over time. I'd suggest practicing with the same amp so that you can get used to how it responds to knob adjustments. Each amp responds uniquely. As far as the amp goes, I use non-master volume amps. These are often (usually?) more sensitive to guitar control adjustments. And regarding volume, I have to use an attenuator most the time to control the volume of the amp.

Dustin Chapman It's a new Lazy J.

And to be Joe Bonamassa it really helps to steal licks, especially from Eric Johnson.

And I have an 800 dollar Les Paul and a Fender Frontman 2-12 and can get very much the same affect, the cost isn't everything. Hell I used to do this on my old Epiphone and a little on my Tele through an old Princeton.

Tommy Murphy It is however way more noticeable with the tube amps. You have to play with it more if you're using solid states much less fine movements.

Tommy Murphy Agreed. You don't have to use expensive gear to get great tone. I just think it would have been a lot more impressive and practical with more pedestrian gear. And I love solid state amps too BTW - I use a Quilter Aviator - great amp!

I see where you're coming from, and agree it would be more relatable had he used some more obtainable gear, but if I owned that beauty I'd probably never put it down. Also great amp!! Though currently I have fallen over to the Line 6 side, I play a lot of different styles with different groups and I like the one amp versatility I get out of it. Still waiting on that Tube Marshall though....one day....one day...

Richard Webner The point of the video is to show you how to utilize the tone and volume controls on a Les Paul style instrument. The level and price of the equipment doesn't matter- it's about learning to use the instrument to get the sounds you want instead of relying on external gear to do it for you. He's using a $10k professional setup, but the concept applies to home practice rigs and up. In fact, JB demonstrates here that a simple rig is all you need to get a huge variety of sounds so your budget can go even further. No need for pedals and walls of guitars and amp heads to get tones when you can invest in a great guitar and amp that really speak to you. Also in regards to his complex live rig, he has mastered the fundamentals of tonal coloring with just his instrument and graduated to the setup he uses today. He could probably dispense of the other amps and some of the boost pedals in his chain, but he still uses the changes in volume and tone on his instruments to change the color of his sound.

Start with his Royal Albert Hall live album. It's gorgeous.

imlostinthewoods 50s tweed amp. all control's dimed

all eq's at noon. just a little reverb

Synyster Gates Same for me !

Fred Patte-Brasseur me too

I saw this video a little while ago, but i came back and liked because of fluff!

Synyster Gates what video is it that fluff talks about joe ??? pls help

Would be Fluff from Black Sabbath acoustic intrumental track ?

You aren't going to get the heavily compressed, high-gain sounds of contemporary metal without a minimum of equipment. Some styles require pedals.

Well, to me at least, almost everything sound bad when you turn down the tone (almost everything!). If you play what would be considered metal, you dont really need it, so why have it? And there's not always time to alter the sound by turning knobs... Etc etc. If you dont use the tone knob, away with it = less is the signal chain right :-)

everyone has a different style, to say a guitarist isn't worth their weight because they don't do something you want them to do is unfair...

+6672rock Tom Morello wouldn't be the acclaimed guitarist he is without pedals and his "various sounds"

Nice! I will try that indeed! I'm not really a metalhead, just self taught and un experienced i guess :-p. I only use the tonecontrol sometimes when i am playing to a record of older rock/metal like sabbath, thin lizzy etc, the tone rolled of helps to duplicate that tone from back when

It's a Lazy J

Guitarist Is that the 20 or 40?

Mitch Main Looks like the 20

STRATMAN firdaus Any more on the exact amp used? LazyJ20, with the power scaling/attenuation, etc? Thanks.

Yeah. If you try to manipulate the volume knob with a cheap solid state amp, all you get is mush as you turn it down. On the other hand, a nice tube amp with a naturally overdriven sound will clean up nicely.

it's more the 50's pickup wiring. you can do it by yourself. it prevents the high end frequencies from getting muddy, when you turn down the volume. i loaded a very cheap les paul with cheap P.A.F. style pickups and used a 50s wiring scheme from YT and it just worked better as i thought, since i have no experience in soldering and electronics in general. i play a Katana MKII and this amp is so great.. but also my old line 6 spider (do not laugh) in crunch mode does a really good job. Thats all in one about 500 bucks. is it as good as a gold top? i don't think so, but vintage guitars are also no magic. And of course the sound is in your fingers and Bonamassa is a brillant player

.\m/

Mox_au Too funny. Reminds me of my uncle who was a musician. One of his jokes would be as he was strapping on his guitar he'd say "Excuse me while I fine tune the audio." And then he'd just take his hand and run it across the knobs like a piano player zipping across the keys turning all of them to full. He'd nod slowly and say "Perfect. Let's begin." Good memories.

+Todd Crawford lol

+Mox_au If you havean Ibanez maybe. If you have a Gibson, it's the neck pickup what made the unique gibson sound. Ex. Sweet Child o' mine..

+krisztian76 All guitars worth having have a unique sound from all pickups involved: the LP has the preamp-slamming bridge pickup and the furry, warm neck pickup, the Tele has the twangy bridge pickup and the jazzy neck pickup, the Strat has many great tones, best of all being bridge + middle wired together in parallel.