entre 1982 et 1987 qui a eu le malheur de se trouver à cheval entre Randy Rhoads et Zakk Wylde
Citation:
Jake E. Lee: Thank God For Axology
by Steven Rosen-Guitar World Nov.1986
Since his days in Ratt, Jake E. Lee has used guitars without a vibrato arm, structuring his style around virtually one singular instrument. This guitar is a circa 1974 (it may be a 1975) Fender Stratocaster which has been Charvel-ized, featuring Gotoh tuners, brass bridge and Gibson frets. The headstock was carved down courtesy of Charvel and the neck has been shaved (it is now thinner and narrower) by the same company. The neck is made of maple with a rosewood fretboard and the body is one allowing the strings to run entirely through it. Lee feels they produce a warmer sound than those bodies sporting vibrato assemblies. Two single-coil DiMarzio SDS-1 pickups have been slanted opposite the normal position so that the pole pieces for the bass strings are closer to the bridge, producing more bite and less mushiness. Jake found that pickups started losing clarity on the low E and A strings when the neck pickups were switched on and this new positioning seemed to solve the problem. The bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan Allan Holdsworth prototype (he has used other Duncan units but never found one quite so warm-sounding).
Lee plugs the Charvel into a 1977 Marshall 100-watt head (stock) powering a Marshall 4x12 cabinet with EV speakers. He couples this with a Marshall 50-watt top (circa 1964) powering the same cabinet for his recorded rhythm sound. The 100-watt gives him the edge and distinction of sound he is seeking while the 50-watt smooths out the tone with a warmer quality. Jake normally doubles and triple-tracks all his rhythm parts. All the Marshall bottoms are of a straight design (the slant cabs, in his estimation, tend to lose bottom) and he has realized that the EV speakers are more efficient for bass response than the Celestions. These latter speakers constitute a narrow frequency response and break up quicker; Lee likes amplifier distortion as opposed to distortion from the speaker.
All the solos on The Ultimate Sin were played through the Marshall 50-watt with the exception of Killer Of Giants, which was performed with an old Rockman and a Rat Distortion unit. Jake stands in the studio when running down solos because he does not achieve the same feedback or response from a studio monitor as he does from his own amplifier speaker. I guess it's weird, most people don't do that. That's what everybody kept telling me. I like to stand in front of the cabs an have it blow my hair back. I get into it more that way. I like it loud and I like it coming right out of my cab into my face.
Though he calls using pedals 'cheating', Jake used an array of Boss units, including: CE-3 Chorus, BF-2 Flanger, DM-2 Delay (rhythm), (2) DD-2 Digital Delays (lead), GE-7 Equalizer (7 band), SCC-700 computerized pedalboard, and a Variac (set between 90 and 100). The two digital units are as follows: one for slow leads and a lot of delay, and one for normal leads with just a touch of delay.
His ideal guitar sound combines an abundance of midrange with a cutting edge, but a problem he encountered with the Marshalls was when he increased the bass, there was a tendency for that whoofing quality to develop. Prior to Ozzy, Jake was running Hi-Watt amplifiers (they did not have this problem), but ultimately switched to Marshalls because they featured a warmer tone. He eliminated the unwanted frequency by plugging into a Boss OD-1 OverDrive, turning up the distortion to approximately nine o'clock and the level to maximum. This narrowed the frequency-removing low lows and high highs-so he could crank the bass on the Marshall for more warmth and less mush and turn up the presence without that 'scratchy' sound developing.
Lee utilizes a very heavy pick attack ('I like to dig into the guitar with the picking hand and wrench it out with the left hand') and for the last album he fingered Fender .121 picks. His strings are ultra-heavy on the bass end and run: .009, .012, .017, .026, .036, and .048. His ears like the sound of the pick striking the string, and because he uses heavy gauges it is more difficult to achieve that sound. The pick rests at a 45 degree angle in relation to the string, so in essence the edge of the plectrum meets the string before the flat side of the pick. After a couple of 'zingers' (running the pick down the length of the wire), the plectrum develops small grooves and the effect when it snaps the string is one Lee incorporates into his style.
Jake played a few acoustic guitar parts on 'the Ultimate Sin'; the instrument was an old rented Martin steel-string and a cheap nylon-string which 'happened to stay in tune'. Though the verses on 'Shot In The Dark' sound as if they're textured with acoustic, this is a rented 1957 Fender Stratocaster through a Roland Jazz Chorus amplifier.
