Scott Henderson Discussion

[atavachron16]

Hello Scott,

First of all, thank you very much for the "Scott Henderson Direct" idea! Be sure that a lot of guys are about to get full advantage of it... and I'm no exception.

1) I love the HBC album (too bad I could not be in Athens when you, Jeff, & Dennis came to play here), and my favorite piece is probably "Mysterious Traveller". I love the way you used fuzz on that song (I assume it's your ZVex Fuzz Factory, correct me if I'm wrong), and to me that's what a fuzz should sound like... big, wild, and with a certain "different" sonic character than someone's overdriven or distorted tone. So that leads me to the following questions:

a) What exactly did you do in that song tone-wise? Was it just the sound of a Fuzz Factory with your amp and a delay which resulted in that huge sound, or were there any other tricks?
b) If that was a ZVex Fuzz Factory, do you know what are the differences between the 3 current versions of this pedal (the 2 Vexter and the hand painted one)?
c) Apart from that, what germanium type fuzz pedals would you recommend for that huge fuzz sound? I'm asking because I've tried some silicon Fuzz Faces (Dunlop Jimi Hendrix and Eric Johnson Fuzz Faces, and Fulltone '70) with the crunch channel of my amp, and although the pedals sounded good, when I switched from my fuzz sound to my regular distorted one (same amp channel with a Maxon SD-9), I realized that the fuzz sound was a lot muddier and smaller, so ended up not wanting to play them a lot, and finally selling them. Since I don't want to spend any more money again for a silicon type one, I'm ready to go for a germanium type this time, but there are so many builders out there and I'm a bit lost. Any recommendation would be welcome.

2) I was almost sure that your main delay sound had 1-2 repeats (and that's what I hear in your studio releases most of the time... take "Mysterious Traveller" again for example), but I also saw a Youtube video of the Suhr SH-100 amp, and you used a delay sound with more repeats there. What are your preferences for your main delay sound these days? 1-2 repeats, or something else?

3) Can you tell what your friend Mike is doing on this one? Is he using a vibe for the whole song? Does he also add a flanger at 2:55 for this intense soloing part?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfIgyoyzKNE

4) With "Vital Tech Tones", you wrote some new original material, while with "HBC", you focused on some fusion classics and transformed them to a trio situation. Would you be interested in a similar side project (preferably guitar trio once more) but this time covering some blues, rock, or funk music?

5) I have uploaded some studio recordings of yours and some others of Tribal Tech on Youtube (you can check them all here: http://www.youtube.com/user/PapaDudeness/videos?view=0). I always provide info regarding band members, song writers etc, but if you don't want these songs available online, please let me know and be sure I will respect that by deleting them all.

P.S: Last but not least, thanks for everything you do man... you entered my childish favorite guitarists list just by listening to my first Tribal Tech song for the first time (that was "Face First")... and remained there after listening to every Tribal Tech record. But what you've been doing for the last years with your personal albums and your new musical and guitaristic approach, is something that only a few people have done before. What I mean to say, is that no matter how great a player is, there are a lot of guys who get better with age as guitarists and musicians (Steve Lukather, Andy Timmons, SRV, etc.), but only a few who get in that Jeff Beck territory of reinventing themselves and setting new standards in the way... and for me that's what you've been doing both as a musician and as a guitar player since converting from a 4-piece fusion super group to a guitar trio with such a distinct voice. I already wrote to you in the discussion forum some times in the past, but never had expressed my gratitude for doing what you've been doing musically all those years, so I think it was about time.

Have a nice weekend! And hopefully we'll meet in Greece in a Tribal Tech concert.

[Scott Henderson]

The solo is just the Fuzz Factory into the Marshall with some delay and reverb. On the rest of the tune there are tons of other things going on, too many to list!

I'm not an expert on ZVex pedals, but a friend of mine bought a "Vexter" Fuzz Factory and brought it over - it sounded terrible. It had none of the warmth or bass that mine has. That's my only experience with different versions of his pedals.

I've tried every Fuzz pedal you mentioned and didn't like any of them. There are three I'd recommend. The original Fuzz Face, but if that's too pricey, the Analog Man Sun Face gets pretty damn close, and the Germanium experience - that one sounds big like a Fuzz is supposed to.

My delay setting is usually around 450ms with a couple repeats, but in the studio I'm often changing it a little to fit the song. If there's more space between the notes, I turn up the repeats a little, and I can automate that parameter for different phrases. There's always an automated delay track going on - especially at the end of phrases - sometimes I want the delay to really be heard and other times I don't. On Palm Moon Plaza, there are 3 different delay times used, depending on how much space there is at the end of the phrases.

On the Landau clip, sounds like a vibe to me, but the solo section sounds like he turned on another distortion pedal to take it over the top. I love it when he does that!

VTT was a writing project, but that music was written in the studio, in a badly rushed way, and I'd never do another project like that again. Everything was rushed, the writing, recording, mixing. Those albums are fine for the time that went into them but definitely not my best work. HBC decided to play covers in order to avoid the VTT scenario - I took my time recording and layering the songs to make them sound huge, and we took our time mixing too. Also we chose to cover keyboard music because a guitar player covering tunes by other guitar players doesn't make much sense to me. So to answer your question, no I wouldn't be interested in doing covers of blues or rock tunes that were recorded by other guitarists.

It's OK to post those tunes - as long as it's just one every once in awhile, no problem. Thanks for the kind words - much appreciated. I also really respect Jeff, not just for his music, but for staying away from drugs and all the other crap that caused all the other guitarists of his generation to either stop improving, get worse, or die too young. Of all those guys, Jeff is the only one who plays better now than he did back then, and he was kicking serious ass back then too.

[Yusstyna]

Hi Scott,

There are sooooo many different versions of the Analog Man Sun face, which is the model that you are referring to?

Thanks!

[Scott Henderson]

I don't know anything about the insides of the Sun Face, other than mine is germanium, not silicon. Mine has only one knob with the "sun face" painted on it, which is a bias control.