Dial in a Keith Richards Style Tone with the Dual Drive
When it comes to vintage rock and roll guitar tones, Keith Richards is always someone that guitar players take note of. Keith has provided us with over 60 years of raw, rough and ready rock riffs from a very simple rig.
At its core, Keith’s rig is usually a Telecaster tuned to Open G (DGDGBD – with the Low D removed) or a Les Paul Junior. He is sometimes seen wielding an ES335 or Les Paul, but he prefers more single coil/P90 based tones.
His amp rig is usually made up of cranked, low output Tweed style amps. So think American voice with a very focused mid range and not a lot of low end. In this lesson we’re going to try to re-create a Keith Richards style tone with just the Dept. 10 Dual Drive and Cab Rig. This tone is not modelled after any specific Stones track, but it’s more of a “catch all” Keith Richards style tone to get you in that ballpark.
On top of the pedal, I am using the Clean channel, with the level cranked. I’ve cut the bass back slightly as Keith’s usual amp choice does not have a huge low end. I’ve pushed the mid and treble to try to re-create this iconic amp sound. As these amps are American voiced, I have also set the ISF to the American voice.
Inside Cab Rig I have chosen the 6L6 Power Amp type. The amps Keith used are typically 6V6, which is very similar to a 6L6 with a lower headroom. Tonally these are the best match. Keep the Resonance on the lower half because you don’t want too much low end boom here. I’ve also set the Power Amp Drive to max, even though we’re playing on the clean channel, this gives us some of that cranked amp breakup.
The cab I’ve chosen is the 1×10 Classic USA Combo. Keith would have mostly used small amps with 8 or 10 inch speakers.
Mic wise, you can’t go wrong with a condenser or Ribbon mic, any of the mics here will get you similar results but I’ve gone with the 67 Condenser as this is an industry standard mic that would have made an appearance on at least a handful of Stones tracks.
On the master EQ I have cut some more lows and low Mids, but pushed the high mids and highs to once again get the bite that these small amps are known for.
If you enjoyed this tone and want to use it in your own Dept. 10 Dual Drive, you can download the Cab Rig preset here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ltgrjndkm841ep/Keef%20Tone.cabrig?dl=0
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About the Author
This article on dialling in a Keith Richards style tone using Cab Rig was written by Leigh Fuge. Leigh is a professional guitarist and content creator and also works alongside musicteacher.com to create guitar focused, educational and entertainment content.
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