Uli Jon Roth!!!

[5150_Dash]

One of my favorite guitar players of all time. I'm talking about his Strat days tone with this thread, as I'm not even going to attempt to match the Sky Guitar tone...so for something like Sails of Charon anyone got any ideas? (love that tone)

I'm assuming 100 watt plexi...
stock strat pickups?
effects?

[yngwie308]

ah..........Outlier grey spec YJM308 for starters, maybe on of those expensive German Ritchie Blackmore pedals, the name escapes me.
That would be a start, and a 50 watt Metro/Marshall.
yngwie308

[Tone Slinger]

I agree, Roth is one of the BEST !

Roth used a '72 Marshall super tremelo and 4/12 Marshall Bass cabs ( Higher wattage celestions, maybe 65 or 70 watt speakers ?). Roth, believe it or not, didnt use a gain box much, prefering the 'output' tube saturation that his Marshall gave him. This wasnt alot of gain. Roth did have 2 primary Boost boxes though, a sillicon Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face (used alot on "Fly To The Rainbow' and "In Trance" (End of 'Top of the bill' for ex.) )and first appearing on "Virgin Killer's 'Polar Nights', a Roland Jet Phaser. Roth continued to use the Jet phaser throughout the Scorps and his solo career. Examples are, "All Night Long", Polar Nights, 'We;ll Burn The Sky' 'I got to be free', 'Earthquake', and 'Just another Rainbow'. The jet phaser has a super high gain type distorto/fuzz combined with a great phase tone.

"Sails of Charon' was just loud Marshall, white strat and a wha (sounded like a cry baby as opposed to a vox) Roth used this combination alot. Here again, not as much gain as one would initially think. I do agree with Dave though, a DOD 250 can get you at that type tone as well. To me, the 250 can make a 'clean' type Fendery sound get that great 'cranked Marshall' sound. It particuarly sounds good with single coils.

[NY Chief]

Ahead of his time with the early Scorps. I think pre-dating EVH...

[Tone Slinger]

Agreed, Roth was SO good that it was VERY noticable to any who heard him. Ed definatly listened to him.

[carlygtr56]

Put up some Uli recently as well-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuanfS2BuUE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg2r4h4qrwE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uCdKH-AHMY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Seabean]

Showing my age.... I had the Scorps VK album in '77 just before VH hit, and I thought his playing was amazing, particularly "Catch your Train".

To me Uli was the first "shredder".

[NY Chief]

Showing my age.... I had the Scorps VK album in '77 just before VH hit, and I thought his playing was amazing, particularly "Catch your Train".

To me Uli was the first "shredder".

+1 here

[csiniawski1]

He's my favorite player I learned about him through the Scorps and I still follow him now....hes absolutely amazing live. The new music is a bit different but his guitar playing is still out of this world. I saw him a few months ago at house of blues and I stood right in front of his 2 stacks...the pressure from the stacks and the sound just filled my head like nothing I've ever experienced before.

I think he uses some chorus and delay in some of his tracks as well. He also had a larger tremolo bar which he used often both for slight tone variations and dives, etc...

[Omn]

One of my favorite guitarists. It started with "In Trance". Never ended. Even though Scorpions where the high for me... He is still GREAT!!
"Why" is one of my all-time-highs as far as songs go.

[flieger67]

Definitely one of the masters. I have enjoyed his more recent albums melding classical music with his playing. I've also found a bootleg or two of some of his Sky Academy performances. He gets a lot of cool guests for those shows, including guys like Warren DeMartini.

[csiniawski1]

I got to see the 2006 sky academy performace. I was out in California for an internship and I happened to see that he was playing at UCLA.

I took one of the other guys that was in the internship with me. He seemed to have a good interest in music and when he saw UJR he was absolutely blown away and had no idea anyone could play guitar like that.

There were so many cool people on stage jamming with him including Robby Krieger, Joe Stump, the keyboardist from Toto (who is really really good), and I can't even remember but there had to be 10 other rather famous people. He had Francois Buchholz playing bass if I remember correctly too.

My girlfriend promised she would pay for the sky academy one of these years for me and I am really looking forward to it. Not only to learn something from UJR, just to see how he practiced and all of that good stuff.

I met him a couple of times after his shows at the HOB in Chicago too. You won't meet a nicer and more laid back guy. He is very quiet, but you can also tell he is very intelligent. Luckily someone had a polaroid the first time I met him and I got a pic. Its one of my favorites. If I had a scanner I would post it but unfortunately I don't.

If anyone has a chance to see him play, by all means go. Get there early and stand in the front left of the stage. Not only will you enjoy the show, and get to see how he plays, you will get to witness first hand how amazing a 100 watt marshall can sound in the hands of a master. He is playing his 100 watt super tremolo along with some sort of custom boutique amp now and the combination of these two offers a sound that I can't describe other than it is awesome.

[outlier]

I remember way back looking at the Tokyo Tapes vinyl cover and there's one live shot of Uli that looks for all the world like he has a E-H Big Muff Pi at his feet.

[Tone Slinger]

Yeah, the pedal board shot inside one of those live 'Tokyo Tapes' shots did look like a EH BM, dont think it was though, very hard to tell. I can definatly make out the Mutron, Fuzz Face and Roland Jet Phase. Roth has very much been an inspiration to me for as long as I've been listening to him.

[outlier]

I do remember it being hard to see. I'll have to find my vinyl copy of Tokyo Tapes. No telling how long that'd take...

I remember being a little surprised. I was made to believe by better players than myself back then that real guitarists didn't use "fuzztones." And E-H was cheap stuff and all I could afford. I'd figured that a real star player like Uli could afford something else.

Uli's always been a great player. So much to like about his playing. Lately I've been digging that deconstructionist chaos solo on "Top of the Bill." Brilliant.

"Catch Your Train," what can you say? In my view, one of the best all-time solos from anyone. "Kojo No Tsuki" had a cool solo. I remember thinking "There's something to that..." I said that to Marty Friedman once and he replied, "I can't believe you just said that!" and then went on to comment about how he was similarly affected by that solo. (I used to be a music writer for a newspaper and was doing an interview for a preview Megadeth show article.)

Another good solo on a rare track, "Suspender Love." Only seems to show up on a vinyl Japanese compilation album. I've never seen it anywhere else.