Recreating Vai's Crossroads Tone!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ส.ค. 2024
- Recreating Steve Vai's (Jack Butler) Crossroads Tone!
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Hi, my name is Michael Nielsen. I'm a composer/producer. I write music for movie trailers, video game soundtracks, commercials, movies and tv shows. This channel is dedicated to guitar related gear and music production. My production and publishing company is called Ninja Tracks. My guitar sound design is available for Kemper, TwoNotes, THU Overloud, IK ToneX, and IR's.
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00:00 Intro
00:19 Talkin' bout Crossroads
02:23 The Guitar
03:49 The Amp
10:39 The Pedal
13:08 Recording / Mix
16:49 The Jack Butler Tone
![บุษบา - วงชานเมือง [LiveCoverVertion] Original : เมนทอล](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Dm81sKcd9rs/mqdefault.jpg)
I will never forget - I was in Basic Training for the Army and I knew Vai was working on DLR first solo album, so I was pretty stoked to see who this guy was. Toward the end of Basic, my platoon had been the top platoon the entire time, so we got to see a movie. I convinced everyone to go see Crossroads. I was in HEAVEN thru the entire thing. I had been a guitarist since 11 and finally a movie that drilled right into my heart! Steve Vai blew my mind!
I see an X100B, I smash the like button.
Such great amps - Listen to Vai's song, "Blue Powder", which was recorded with an X-100B, instead of his Marshall JCM900's. Much smoother and rounder tone than the Marshalls. I wonder just how loud he had it set for these tones. I'm betting it sounds much fuller if the 6L6 power tubes are being maxed out. Steve is know for recording very loud.
The local Sam Ash store had one for like a year... for $399. I kept thinking I should have bought it. Now it's gone and I'm whining.
What up Leon!
Haha - Absolutely. I sold my mid-80s x100B (6L6 version) about 3 years ago in a move to smaller amps. Wtf was I thinking??? That dirty channel that everyone complains about is a fair point if you're trying to switch back and forth to the clean channel. BUT, if you don't give a rats' about cleans and focus on the lead channel (gain knob pulled, around 11 o'clock) you can build a gain-pedal-ridden pedal board around it. I have my eyes peeled for one.
I still have mine, and overdrive is great at the high and low settings... though mine is the grey fuzzy el34 version. I’ll never get rid of it. Just recently recapped and new pots.
You hit the nail on the head. I remember watching this on vhs at my great aunt's apartment. I had no idea Steve Vai was in this movie. I was enjoying the movie for what it was, and then the ending came. I was flipping out screaming at my great aunt saying "do you know who this is?!!!!" "This is Steve freaking Vai!!!!" Changed my out look on guitar forever. I still can't duplicate it though. :) Great work on the guitar parts! And thank you for all your hard work educating us on all of this. I'm back to being 14 years old again! (Real age 48) Thank you for the memories.
"screaming at my great aunt saying "do you know who this is?!!!!""
really dude? he is not Pavarotti - and he is certainly no Beethoven.
I agree. This was the second time my mind was blown by a guitar player (since I could speak I had requested Hendrix from the Woodstock or Band of Gypsies LPs). I'm also 48 btw, and I bought my first guitar after watching the VHS in 1986; still playing.
Amazing video and fantastic playing too... Jack Butlers gonna like you...
LOL
kkkkk
You mean "Jack Butla"
Crossroads is the reason I play guitar. I remember waiting until the credits so I could figure out who Jack Butler was. It never occurred to me as a 15 year old that he could just be an actor. lol
The film was released like 4 months or so before the first DLR album so it was the first video on MTV where I was like "Its Jack Butler!".
I wish Vai would channel his inner "Jack Butler" again. Nice playing man!
Karate Cross 2.0 ⁉️
I STILL can't believe the karate kid beat Steve Vai...
I haven't been that shocked since the Ewoks beat the empire
why are you surprised. Steve Vai can't Karate.
Your defo an 80s kid!
Steve vai beat himself
Or since Chris Brown....well, we know what he beat.
All the slide stuff is Ry Cooder. The final portion of the duel (paganinis 5th caprice and whatnot) is all Steve Vai. It then returns to Ry Cooder for the blues jam.
Btw I live in Mississippi and the guitar that he plays and dropped is hanging at the Hard Rock casino. You can see the crack where he dropped it.
the English gentleman 001 that must have been awesome. I had to watch the movie again the other night after watching this...
the English gentleman 001 i always told my wife if I could talk to anyone of my favorite musicians it would be Vai. He seems like he would be an interesting person to talk with. I thought that I read an article at some point and he said the hardest part of him doing his solo in that movie was messing up on purpose.
the English gentleman 001 wow that’s awesome man! I was hoping I would get to see him on the generation axe tour, but unfortunately they didn’t come close enough to where I live. How did his guitar play as for as set up and feel. I have 3 JEM’s but I’m sure they aren’t comparable to his.
the English Rocker where’s the club they filmed the duel?
Thanks brother, I loved your comentary.
That was awesome!
So how can I pitch shift like this on a budget ? Is there a cheap pedal for the pitch shift ? I have a boss pitch shifter but it is t as subtle it is dominating . Steve has a subtle supernatural effect
Damn man. This is exactly the way I feel about the Crossroads tones. Insane... Never heard Vai play or sound like this ever since. Great playing as always Michael! Also really love the Zakk Wylde video you made!
The actual rig Vai used during this era included 2 Roland SDE-3000 delays, a Lexicon PCM60 digital reverb, a 6-channel mixer and a Mutron Bi-Phase pedal. There're images of this rig on Vai's website. The same rack is also visible in the movie if you watch closely. Maybe the chorusy/detune effect you hear is the Mutron Bi-Phase.
YES!!! I actually only JUST last week noticed the rack sitting next to his Carvin in the movie! It's that red rack with the huge mixer in it. haha. Thanks for watching!
Also the Boss DS-1 distortion.
Jason Becker and Marty Friedman also used the X100B during Cacohony (more specific on the Go Off album). !!!
yeah with the DS1, so he gave us, Vai's, Becker and Friedman tone :p
Ry Cooder's slide playing was fantastic in this movie... and Arlen Roth's Acoustic Blues playing is incredible.
Ralph Macchio's too....and even though he won, after the filming he taught Vai the licks he'd struggled to play during the competition. Not everyone would have been that kind.
Quote from Steve Vai:
It was 1983 and I had just received my first amplifier stack.
It was a Carvin X100B amp and it had a head and two 4x12 cabinets.
I was over the moon about this towering skyscraper of sound demolition.
Carvin agreed to give me this amp in return for a demo song where I used the amp.
I immediately created "Blue Powder".
🤘🏻 🌟 🤘
Wow.
So your sayin he got it for a song,,,,
Yo! That DS-1 sounded legit!
Crossroads was such a HUGE influence on me! I watched it so many times! I got so mad that the Karate Kid beat Steve Vai! That time was so great for music to me! I’m so glad I got to grow up at that time! Thanks for such a cool video! :)
When that movie came out...I couldn't watch it enough...Over And Over....Loved it...After watching this....I'm gonna watch it some more ! ! ! Hell Yeah !...Thanks Michael...You were awesome as always...Please keep posting !
That was a badass video. This one and the Zakk Wylde have been my 2 favorite vids of yours. These deep dives into tones are excellent and super informative. Thanks for doing them
The red Jackson Vai played in the movie was a prop guitar, the music was actually recorded with Vai's Green Meanie Charvel. Also I'd be surprised if he was using an MXR distortion, he's pretty well known for using a Boss DS1.
Robert W he had an SD-1 in his Alcatraz rig, so that was probably the overdrive used. www.vai.com/alcatraz-gear/
Man full on guitar nerding is so fun
Nailed it!
Thanks Michael, very cool video and it's takes me back to my pre-playing days of watching this movie and thinking Vai was just the COOLEST I'd ever seen!
Stellar work going through all of that to reproduce an iconic tone! Thanks for going the extra mile!
LOVED IT!!! Thanks for putting that together! Yes... the Carvin amps were way underrated for sure. Great playing and way to dig in to get that tone!
Agree with the 'blow your hair back' moment when Vai's onstage. The "Bad Horsie' bit and the over-the-top aggressive play by Vai was what made me FF to this part of the VHS constantly. Good tone from a Carvin(?). Who knew?!? Nice demo!
Thank you so much for this video! Very helpful, I always loved Vai's sound in this movie
Ah yeah, the sweet memories. I was 16 when this came out and it made a huge impact on me. Loved it. Great video and stellar playing, as always.
The early X-100B with vinyl covering and 6L6 tubes has amazing clean tone and passable "Hot Rod" lead tone when you spend time dialing it in. The later ones with carpet covering and EL-34 output tubes DESTROY for crunch tones. They are really different amps. I don't know what other mods they had done by that time, but clearly they had tweaked more than just the covering and output tubes. If you like crunch tones, the later X-100B is a Marshall JCM800 destroyer. Take my word for it. Another thing to consider, the original Carvin X-Series cabinets were extremely well built. IIRC, mine had the white label G12M-75 watt Celestions originally. They had seriously tight bottom end, and the cab itself complimented this. Very thick plywood construction with front-loading speakers and completely sealed back. As well made as Boogie cabs of the 80s.
I used a fuzzy el-34 100 watt head and cab for awhile, just it and a Les Paul, gigged with it once in a pretty big room. I think with those things cranking them is better than bedroom stuff...I mean it's a 100 watt tube amp lol.
I've had both 6L6 (multiple times, including 212 combos and heads) and one el34 version. I don't know if it was something with just the one el34 version I had, but it was overly compressed-sounding. It had more gain but lacked dynamics and sounded strange IMO.
The best one I had was a 6L6 head that had a master volume added on in place of one of the inputs. Anyway, great amps when boosted with an old TS10, IMO.
Man, you missed that Cacophony recorded "Go Off" with the carpeted, EL34 versions of the X100b.
Great work as always fella... Brilliant! Making me smile all the way through!
Really like this in-depth analysis, toying around with the amp tones, getting to know the gear.
Awesome!! Love this!
Yes!! I was 14yrs old when this came out! That’s when I started playing guitar. I got tabs in one of the Guitar Player magazines a year or so later. I spent the next few days learning it. And the next few years trying to perfect it.
That was awesome! It’s amazing how much that dry sound transformed with the reverbs.
Love this video, wonderfully done! I could swear that I read an interview in a guitar magazine back in the 80s that the pedal Steve used with his Carvins was a Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive. I had an X-100B back in the day and it sounded great with that pedal boosting it.
Michael, what a great breakdown on that tone! Thank you for your wonderful insight! I, too, was enthralled and inspired by that movie, and this vid brought back such wonderful memories of wearing out a copy of the vhs tape. Awesome!
Thx for this Mike! Fantastic as always!
Loved the finished mix, thanks for sharing.
Killer tones! Love the tone at the end! Thanks for that insides!
Perhaps the best analysis of one of the most iconic guitar moments and sounds in rock guitar history. Congratulations Michael. As a very small reward for this colossal effort, you now have at least one new subscriber.
Wow, what a video. Proper knowledge and great playing. Thank you for making this!
NAILED IT! Great job Michael!
Very nice! That movie blew my hair back too man! Carvin is making the 100B pedal now. Has the entire preamp & 5 band EQ as well & is a large pedal but when I saw them I could hear that washy-growling Vai tone & was instantly transported back to my teen years & found myself GAS'n for yet another piece of gear! GAS NEVER sleeps!! Great video & you absolutely nailed this tone! Keep doing the good stuff!!!!!!! 🤘😁🤘
Awesome Vai vid mate!!
Abosutly love this! The gems on your channel is mind blowing!
Awesome work!
Wow! that was so awesome! I don't know why it took me so long to watch this video - especially since I have a Carvin X100B amp! I'm going to go put the knobs at these settings right now! Thanks!
Awesome man!! That’s a classic tone and very good one too!!!
excellent video!!we all guitar freaks remember that movie,Steve Vai was on fire on that movie.thank you for making this video buddy.
Oh men, nostalgia to the roof ! You nailed it sonically and in the playing! And also, you made me rethink the idea of selling my Carvin X60B :) !
great video. well done. you nailed the tone.
Dude, YES. This sounds amazing! Thanks a lot Michael.
That movie, along with finding my dads Van Halen 1984 cassette are the 2 exclusive reasons I play guitar and am obsessed with music
I ran around the house at 3 with a beat up yamaha acoustic everytime I heard Jump lol. And then when I seen crossroads I started taking it a little more serious.
What a fantastic job on recreating that tone! I got into playing guitar after my dad brought home crossroads on VHS also. From that point on I was hooked, I must have watched that scene 10+ times before he returned the tape.. Now when I hear Butler's Bag, it bring me right back there to that time. You nailed the tone and the playing. I love it!
I'm really loving your vids, bud!
Wow! That was awesome! I was smiling ear to ear. Brought back memories. Same here, man!
Loved this, thank you.
Very nice playing! I had no idea you were so good.
having grown up watching this film, this demo was awesome. you def nailed jack butler’s (Vai’s) tone, and his playing. I thoroughly enjoyed this, well done. 👊🏼👊🏼💥💥👏🏻👏🏻
Awesome vid man. That movie has a special place in my heart lol
Oh man , you made me so happy with this video, great stuff, greetings from Croatia!
Spot on!!! Yup you’re an awesome player with an amazing ear!!!!🙏🏻
Boom...that just happened 👍 great entertaining video with loads of great memories and good information...thanks Michael
wow U nailed it! I remember watching the movie when it came out...It was a mind blower for sure...U can play Man! those Vai blues boogie phrases you played at the end was outta this world!
Pretty cool man. Props!
Love your channel bro 🤘
Gracious! Thank you! I was 14 when Crossroads came out
Please DO MORE. VIDEOS LIKE THIS 🥺. PLEASE. The analysis is golden.
Spot on with the Beatles reference for our generation 🤘🏻
Yeah, except even a 5-year old has heard of the Beetles. 95+% of the people walking down the street have never heard of Steve Vai.
That was..... Awesome! Never heard that tone recreated. Soo cool!👍
Awesome video!! Always loved that Tone!
10/10 👌🏼 loved the analysis and history lesson, thanks!
Great video, playing and tone. I purchased your Kemper X100B profiles and your Jack Butler profile is spot on! It is providing great motivation for learning this piece.
Killer Micheal !!! Well done ! Sounds right on ! Great playing ! peace.
Awesome as always Mike !
Loved this one
I pretty much felt the same as yourself and many others while watching Crossroads for the first time ! And all the times after !! Great video & channel.
wow so cool! an ocean way plugin that simulates being in a large area. Never knew they even had anything like that pretty cool man! Great video btw crossroads was one of my favorite movies of all time to :)
This is one of my favorite videos that I come back to every now and then, like a favorite movie.
Wow....great video man, I’ve always wondered how Vai got that super clean tone on Crossroads? Thanks for clearing that up, and great solo at the end too. You got a new sub👍
you are awesome!! thx for this channel!
Thank you for your content. Great Video!
you made it very clear to understand the signal chain and thought process and I think you nailed it. Its a bright lively sound with a 80's vibe, but god damn the karate kid's tele combo sound is equally impressive,(also played by Vai himself) such a great moment in music/flim history
Dude! You NAILED it! I saw this movie in the theater when it came out. My buddy and I were excited because Steve Vai was in it and he had played with Frank Zappa. Plus we had both heard "The Attitude Song" sound page from Guitar Player magazine. Awesome \m/
You nailed it buddy!
Analysis done right. Thanks for this comprehensive masterpiece.
That was awesome playing at the end. I'd pay for that Jack Butler lesson!
You are amazing, thanks brother.
Crossroads changed my life too! Incredibly thorough well-researched video
Awesome playing... thanks for sharing
Found this movie buried in a bargin bin, in a forgotten dvd store in the mall back in 2007 I had been playing guitar for a year or so and everything about this movies story from helping people to facing your fears and all the tone that comes from being a righteous dude.
thanks for this awesome material sir! 80s sure had monster guitar sounds
Wow! Spot on!
Great job! Nailed it.
Amazing !!!! 👏👏👏
I really enjoyed the graphic EQ portion and the way you described the different freqs. Would love to see more from you on that topic.
Love it! One of my favorite movies of all time! Thanks for this video! How about doing some Kemper Profiles with all of the Crossroads movies tones?
I did! It's in the Carvin pack on Big Hairy Profiles website :)
Very nicely done
Great tone and playing ✨
Your videos about tone on certain guitarists are class A +.
Great Job!!!
This was awesome man!
loved it thanks for this!