What arises in your mind when you hear the word “Guitar”? The spontaneous response for most of us is physical guitar. What is your association with the word “Guitarist”? I suppose everyone of you visualizes their guitar idols. For such a guitar idol will be discussed in the following lines. Before the  revealing of his name we will say a few words.  

15 times nominated for “Best Rock Instrumental Performance” through the years.

Some of the most famous musicians were his students in his early career – Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons, Steve Vai, Alex Skolnick etc. He toured with Deep Purple and Mick Jagger back in the days.

 The music composed by him combines successfully elements of blues rock, jazz, hard rock. 

The super-speedy technique he showed to the world inspired equally both the beginners and the advanced players. No doubt he will leave  a radiant trace in the World’s music history. The modern shred guitar wouldn’t be the entity that we are experiencing each day without his fearless steps into the unknown and the mysterious world of creating something new. A true pioneer.

This is the most successful solo guitar performer, the prominent guitar virtuoso – Joe Satriani.

Story

He was born in 1956 in Westbury, New York. The guitar for him came as an inspiration for the first time at the age of 14, thanks to Jimi Hendrix. Other influences worth mentioning are the forefathers of the electric guitar: Brian May, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, and Jeff Beck. He left football practice to start playing on the guitar and thus began his career. At the age of 18 he studied music with one of the most notable jazz musicians and teachers in New York Lennie Tristano and only four years later he moved to Berkeley, California. 

 

The next few years he played with several local and not so big bands, but this helped him to record and release his first album “Not of This Earth” in 1986. Right after the following year, he recorded his masterpiece “Surfing with the Alien”. Remarkable and unique to this day, the album made a huge impact on the following generations. This album helped him to establish himself as a respected guitarist by inventing a new genre. Also, the track “Crushing day” was featured on the soundtrack for a movie.

 

The huge “Flying in a Blue Dream” is his third album. This may be his best musical work. There aren’t any exceptions as it comes for the music inside. A couple of songs have vocals and are generally full of emotions. When it comes to writing music, this is the work of Satriani which best represents his philosophy and his style.

His vocal-like phrasing is his insignia.

Here comes the most successful and commercial album in his glorious days. “The Extremist” -1992- a fantastic album with plenty of harmonic and melodic tunes. Each song is really memorable. His innovative approach to the instrument, the way he implemented the legato and the tapping style turned him as one of the pioneers of contemporary guitar music. 

 

The album is an optimistic message delivered with musical notes. The famously “Summer song” toured the US radio stations at that time and was all over the charts. 

 

The G3

 

G3 – This is the event of all times for the guitar community that Satriani himself founded in 1996. The intent of this agenda was to rotate the most famous guitarists in the world, touring worldwide.  Featuring Satriani himself, Steve Vai, Eric Johnson, Yngwie Malmsteen, Andy Timmons, Paul Gilbert, Steve Morse, Steve Lukather etc. Experience for a lifetime.

 

Full list of Joe’s discography:

  • Not of This Earth (1986)
  • Surfing with the Alien (1987)
  • Flying in a Blue Dream (1989)
  • The Extremist (1992)
  • Time Machine (1993)
  • Joe Satriani (1995)
  • Crystal Planet (1998)
  • Engines of Creation (2000)
  • Strange Beautiful Music (2002)
  • Is There Love in Space? (2004)
  • Super Colossal (2006)
  • Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock (2008)
  • Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards (2010)
  • Unstoppable Momentum (2013)
  • Shockwave Supernova (2015)
  • What Happens Next (2018)
  • Shapeshifting (2020)

In the next few years he collaborated with other famous musicians and formed a band called “Chickenfoot”.

 

His work continued through the years and in 2022 we welcomed his new eighteenth album, “The Elephants of Mars”. A true masterpiece and returning to the roots.

 

GEARS

 

Joe Satriani’s thirty years unique sound is a product of specific gear and equipment and we dug carefully to recreate one of his best songs. The Ibanez guitars have been preferred by him since 1988. The iconic model JS1200 is a JS series introduced by Ibanez in 2004. It is a signature model which was produced in Japan by the FujiGen factory.

 

He used many different brands of amplifiers, but always returned to the Marshall amps.

Later on he got an endorsement deal with  Peavey company which produced for him the signature JSX series – JSX Head 120 W, the small JSX Mini Colossal designed for small spaces and another 50W head, the JSX 50, was designed, but Peavey never released it. Later in the years and after a discussion to Joe’s exact specifications, Marshall Amplifiers made for him a signature model called JVM410HJS. 

 

Over the years Joe Satriani bounced around a lot of guitar pedals, but the most used still for today is the good old BOSS DS-1. 

Tone recreation Joe Satriani “Crushing day” Guitar Tone with Amp Simulator

 

Recreating his breakthrough album’s track “Crushing day” is kind of a privilege for us and we made an effort to cut the sound of its constituent parts. Nova days using amp simulators became a normal way of composing, recording and even playing live. Even Joe said in an interview, he used an amp sim for his latest album. From start to finish!

The tone was made in Amplifikation 360 and we used our Caliburn C Amp. It is based on a British amplifier. We also used Distortion Efektor as well as Chorus and Delay Efektors guitar pedals software emulator. 

 

The chain starts with a simple pedalboard. A noise gate followed by a wah pedal and then the distortion pedal that is used for boosting the amp for the solo.We have added the wah in case you wanna use it and spice up your solo parts. The settings of the wah are set to act like an auto wah depending on your dynamics of playing.

Then it’s the amp with the cabinet. The whole tone is shaped with two EQs for more control and getting closer to the actual recording. There are rumors that the sound is direct recording of a pedal or a rock-man preamp, so this is quite close to the actual track. The Caliburn C amp is 900 based and delivers more gain on top.

Then it’s the final FX Rack. The chorus, which is crucial to get that chorus-flanger stereo sound, then a simple delay and a reverb for the solo. Nothing special, nothing overcomplicated.

Here is the full preset in A360

Here you can hear the tone. The guitar is an Ibanez RG320 with stock pickups.
Audio Sample: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DA4ToHL_M4S2h8oXnY7OPWPd3VBJx44B/view?usp=sharing

 

Here you can download the preset and copy it to your presets folder:

Link: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kWPE2fFLHAuwo23LfGZglsy0THJQUxLU/view?usp=sharing

 

The preset file for A360 looks like this: Satch – Crushing.ka360p  copy the file after extracting it from the zip file at:


Presets folder:

Windows:

C:\Users\[User Name]\Documents\Kuassa\Presets\Amplifikation360

Mac:

/Users/[User Name]/Music/Kuassa/Presets/Amplifikation360

 

Joe Satriani is definitely a magnificent guitarist. The dynamic feeling in his creativity is comparable with time and space beyond our imagination. His fascinating technique of playing continues to amaze even today’s guitar generation. His music is a wonderful display of virtuosity.

 

Stay tuned for more tones with history, explanation and preset for download!