I was recently asked the question, "How can I get Billie Joe's (from Green Day) tone? I have $1,000 tp invest in a guitar and an amp... can you help me?

Here was my answer...


Great question. "Tone" is an elusive thing. Let me tell you a little story to illustrate what I mean. I'm an "old-school metal head"... I grew up loving the music of the 1970s and 80s. I read an interview once with Ted Nugent where he talked about how much he liked Eddie Van Halen's tone. He was on tour with Van Halen at one point and after he heard Eddie do his sound check he asked if he could plug in and play through his rig. Eddie said, "Sure..." So he did... and to his disappointment he said, "It just sounded like Ted Nugent playing through Eddie Van Halen's amp." The point: Tone is produced as much by the way the musician plays--as it is by the instrument, amp and affects that are used.

Now--having said that--there are a number of things you can do to get a tone similar to Billie Joe's. Since you have a $1,000 budget you have a lot of choices. I would encourage you to do some research at www.musiciansfriend.com. Do a search for "electric guitars". They have a wide variety of great ROCK STYLE electric guitars -- most all of which would do the job nicely.

You definitely want to get a guitar with a "humbucker" pick up in the bridge position. A "humbucker pickup" looks like two pickups side by side... you can see pictures of humbucker pickups by doing a web search for "humbucker pickups" and then clicking on "images" tab. You'll see exactly what I mean.

You want a humbucker pickup because it will give you that big/fat sound you're looking for.

As to specific brands of guitars and amps here are some suggestions:
GUITARS: Fender, Gibson. Ibanez, Kramer, Dean, Peavey... there are lots of them... but any guitar made by these companies--within the $500-$700 range will do the trick very well.

AMPS: Again--there are lots to pick from--but a few that I might recommend would be the new VOX valvetronics or the Line 6 spider series amps. Both sound great and of course, if you have a truck load of money--a 50 or 100 watt Marshall stack would be the holy grail.

Remember: www.musiciansfriend.com is a great place to check all of this out.

And here is an article you can read on Billie Joe's sound/set up:
http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/how-to-capture-billie-joe-arms/

Hope that's helpful.

_________________
Metal Blessings!
Pastor Brad
www.guitarjams.net