Steve Lukather Quotes

Ampeg made incredible guitar heads in the early Nineties and then stopped. And I don't know why. The one we used had a nice clean, warm sound, and it blended well with the other amps that were in the studio.

I'm not going for a soft sound. I ain't lookin' for a warm sound. My sound is warm, but I don't need tubes to do it. The Randall RG-100 is the best amp for what I do.

Different boards do different things to the sound that's coming through them. An old Neve desk does embellish it in a way that makes it sound sort of bigger or warmer. It doesn't change the performance but it does enhance the way that it sounds.

I do think music sounds better when it's on tape and more simply recorded.

There's something about a wah pedal that really gets my gut going! People will probably say, 'He's just hiding behind the wah.' But that isn't the case. It's just that those frequencies really bring out a lot of aggression in my approach.

The records that I like, they have life and warmth and soul in them. Like the slap back on Scotty Moore's guitar on 'Mystery Train.' You're not gonna get that in a computer. You're gonna want a live room, you're gonna wanna bounce the tape, you're gonna want real musicians, in a room, vibin' off of each other.

I think I could walk into any music shop anywhere and with a guitar off the rack, a couple of basic pedals and an amp I could sound just like me. There's no devices, customized or otherwise, that give me my sound.

In my touring rig, there's a pedal drawer, where I'm able to switch pedals in and out, going into the front of the amp.

I've really gotten over pedals. I can't keep up with this craze of boutique pedals that make you sound like everything but your guitar. I can't get my head around it.

I use Bogner amps and custom-designed Schecter guitars with Seymour Duncan Invader pickups. I beef up my tone with a Boss CS- 3 Compression Sustainer. It's kinda like my secret weapon.

When I think of a lot of the players I admire, they could always play their parts without hiding behind distortion and sustain.

What I noticed, in the short time I've been in Chickenfoot, we wound up doing a tour and a live DVD with basically that scoop sound. I was using OD2 for that entire tour. When we went out on this new tour and made the new record, I used the amp in an entirely different way. It was already modified.

Possessing best musical equipment has always been my craze.

I love a little distortion across the bass; I think it kind of adds something to the sound of the band when the bass is a little overdriven.

If I had a religion, its deity would be Audysseus, the sound God, and He would be a vengeful god, dishing out eternal damnation to people with cheap stage monitors.

A place like Sound City, which was just a big, beautiful room where you would hit record and capture the sound of the performer - a place like that isn't necessarily in demand anymore.

Told you. Everything sounds better in the car wash.

I like to work with a combination of analog and Pro Tools. I love the sound of analog tape, but there's so many things you can do with Pro Tools that would be incredibly difficult and very time-consuming with analog.

I think musicians like me are drawn to those older desks, not just because they're legend and lore but also because they do something really specific that is hard to emulate or re-create digitally.

When one plays a Steinway, there is a warmth and nobility in the sound that is unequalled by any other instrument.

Get rid of the shitty sound. Life's too short.

It always sounds more right to me when it's detuned. When it's right in tune, it's like there's something slightly off. But at the end of the day, it's all about frequencies and what they do to you. That's the real core.

Usually I don't think much in terms of interesting sounds. Although I think I want to get one of those whammy pedals, I forget what it's called and who makes it. It's got a whole bunch of different settings. You can play a note and it will raise the pitch when you push the pedal.

I never did use earphones until into the Eighties or Nineties. I don't like to use earphones. I've never heard anybody sing with earphones effectively. They just give you a false sense of security. A lot of us don't need earphones. I don't think Springsteen or Mick do. But other people more or less have given in. But they ought not to. They don't need to. Especially if they have a good band.

I've noticed the sound of the golf ball being hit by the golf club is different, and much more realistic, with the hearing aids. The sound with the hearing aids makes sense, and better represents what I know is happening to the golf ball. So you could say that the hearing aids help give me confidence regarding my golf game.