A friend (a fellow Prince enthusiast) asked me how 2 get the guitar sound from 'U Got The Look'. I have tried 4 about a week and i honestly don't kno. I was hopin that some 1 on here would be able 2 help.

BeneHaze said:

For an SOTT era heavy sound, try a neck position humbucker with the following fx: wah (in fixed position or regular style moving) heavy compression, heavy distortion, touch of chorus, delay with long delay time set to 1 to 2 pretty loud repeats. The screaming sound happens when the delayed signal and the live playing are in near unison. Put the wah before the other fx. See if it works!
[Edited 12/10/06 7:27am]

EuroCinema said:

prince doesn't have neck position humbuckers, at least on the guitars he uses onstage. unless the neck pickups just look like single coils (which are available, I know).

I'm curious to try your settings, though, to see what it sounds like

NDRU said:

Yes, but:

A) The neck position pickup should be used about 80% of the time. Prince actually switches quite a bit, but the neck position gives that fat tone. I like it there 2.

B) He uses active pickups, like EMGs. I use those on my Tele. It doesn't HAVE 2 be a humbucker, because there is no hum from active pickups, and they have much greater output than a passive single-coil pickup would.

THAT all being said, I don't know what pickups he uses in the Hohner.

Giovanni777 said:

yeah I've never used EMG's so I don't know what they sound like (well, other than listening to prince), but that would make sense

The Hohner has Kinman stacked humbuckers, but it didn't have them yet during the sott-era.I doubt that the originals were still in there though.

That said, the guitar on U Got The Look sounds very much like a Cloud to my ears. Apart from the song SOTT, which sounds very tele-ish, it was a Cloud-heavy era for P anyway. Which would make the pickup either a an active 81 humbucker at the bridge or an ACTIVE SA single coil in the neck position.

If you don't have an active neck position single coil, I think a neck humbucker will get you closest, the tone sounds too "glassy" to me to be a bridge position pickup. And an active single coil has more punch and clarity then a passive one.
[Edited 12/15/06 2:20am]