I hate to ask this but...

I know from my lurking that there are some very knowledgeable people here and I hate to dredge stuff up that I'm sure has been done before

BUT!

I have this little Fender Super Champ XD, a Brian Setzer model Gretsh and a Boss GT-5 effects processor. Now, without taxing anyone's brain too much, I'd like to just set up a patch on the GT-5 that gives me the nearest approximation to the Setzer sound.
Having read some other threads here I know it's not going to be very close (incidentally TV, I'll defo have one of your pedals when you get them!) but just a rough copy would be good enough.
I want to program a patch with delay and reverb. I believe that around 135ms, single delay is about right for Setzer, is it?
What about reverb settings? Should it be Hall or Plate or what? And should I just leave the amp on channel 1 and ignore all the effects? What about treble and bass settings on the amp. And what about the switches on the guitar (I must confess, I don't even know what they do!)

Ah.
I intended to make this easy but that's an awful lot of info I've already asked for!
Apologies.
Any help much appreciated.

Riffs_yeah! wrote:

I know from my lurking that there are some very knowledgeable people here and I hate to dredge stuff up that I'm sure has been done before

BUT!

I have this little Fender Super Champ XD, a Brian Setzer model Gretsh and a Boss GT-5 effects processor. Now, without taxing anyone's brain too much, I'd like to just set up a patch on the GT-5 that gives me the nearest approximation to the Setzer sound.
Having read some other threads here I know it's not going to be very close (incidentally TV, I'll defo have one of your pedals when you get them!) but just a rough copy would be good enough.
I want to program a patch with delay and reverb. I believe that around 135ms, single delay is about right for Setzer, is it?
What about reverb settings? Should it be Hall or Plate or what? And should I just leave the amp on channel 1 and ignore all the effects? What about treble and bass settings on the amp. And what about the switches on the guitar (I must confess, I don't even know what they do!)

Ah.
I intended to make this easy but that's an awful lot of info I've already asked for!
Apologies.
Any help much appreciated.

Hi mate,

OK - Lets see what we can do

First the guitar - is it a Setzer Hot Rod or a signature model? either way you want this Gretsch guitar guide - download it and go to pages 12 and 13 - this illustrates all the controls for the various Gretsch guitar models.

OK - so now you know what the controls do the easiest thing is to have all volume controls flat out (set to maximum) and , if you have the tone selector switch leave this in the middle position - the pickup selector switch should also be in the middle position (to start with)

OK - so hopefully thats the guitar sorted so lets see waht we can do about the amp/effects

I dont know the GT-5 very well but I do have a GT-6 (which is a cool and very comprehensive box of tricks!) however your Super Champ XD already has built in effects and is a tube amp - I think one of its delay settings is for 130ms which will suit you just fine for a slapback delay

Of course this wont sound exactly like Mr Setzer apart from anything else because you have one 10" speaker in an open back cabinet rather than 2 12" speakers in a closed back cabinet - so what can you do about this - perhaps run the guitar through the GT-5 using only its cabinet simulation (turning everying else off) - set this with a 2 x 12 fender speaker/cabinet emulation (if it has one? - the GT-6 certainly does) and see how that sounds - let your ears be the judge by running direct into the XD and then comparing by running into the GT-5 first and see which you like the best. It may be that the best sound is without the Gt-5 altogether.

Reverb is a good effect and some very well known rockabilly guitarists love to use it (Reverend Horton Heat for example) but generally Brian Setzer doesn't use it when playing live so again the simplest thing is to leave it off first - you can always turn on some spring reverb later once you have the basic sound sorted.

Amp settings - Bass around half way, treble perhaps at about 3/4, voice setting - well whatever one that gets close to a early 60's Bassman (sorry I don't know what the various voice settings are designed to emulate), gain - not too much - just enough to give the notes some "hair" or "edge" and volume to taste.

There you have it (hopefully) - you won't sound like him but you should get the best rockabilly type tone out of the kit you have.

These are just suggestions (or starting points) so please tweak away and you your ears to get the sound you like

Have fun and let us know if you need any further pointers

Cheers jon!

I set-up things the way you suggested and it's a nice warm sound, you can really hear the Gretsch tone coming through, sounds great on lead work.
Then I spent about an hour and a half last night setting the sound up on the GT-5 with the amp just passing it through on channel 1. This sounds really twangy, if a little too bright. So I have 2 nice approximate sounds now which i can quickly switch between. I'm sure I'll go on to mess about it with it more but it's a good start. Thanks.

Riffs_yeah! wrote:

Cheers jon!

I set-up things the way you suggested and it's a nice warm sound, you can really hear the Gretsch tone coming through, sounds great on lead work.
Then I spent about an hour and a half last night setting the sound up on the GT-5 with the amp just passing it through on channel 1. This sounds really twangy, if a little too bright. So I have 2 nice approximate sounds now which i can quickly switch between. I'm sure I'll go on to mess about it with it more but it's a good start. Thanks.

Thats all cool - glad to be of some help

I am glad you now have a couple of tones in the ballpark - you can now fine tune to your hearts content (which is both frustrating and at the same time fun!!)

Have fun