Get That Vintage Sound: The Strokes' Style Guide

The Strokes' distinctive sound is achieved through a combination of classic gear, crisp melodies, tight arrangements, and vocal effects. The band's vocalist, Julian Casablancas, is known for his unique vocal style, which involves a range of techniques such as getting up close to the microphone to maximise the proximity effect and then backing away for the screamy parts. To create distortion, he would sing through a Peavey practice amp, which was then recorded with a microphone. This, combined with the use of specific pedals and amplifiers, helped to shape the band's signature sound.

Use a Jekyll & Hyde Overdrive & Distortion V3 pedal

The Jekyll & Hyde Overdrive & Distortion V3 pedal is a versatile and powerful addition to any guitarist's pedalboard. With its dual-channel design, the Jekyll and Hyde channels offer a wide range of tones, from clean boosts to dark, crunchy distortions.

The Jekyll channel is based on the Open Road pedal but with added customisation options. The Bass knob and Clean Mix control let you fine-tune the amount of grit in your tone, making it perfect for finding that sweet spot between clean and overdriven sounds. This channel is also "Ampy" sounding, meaning it can be treated like the pre-amp on your favourite American rig.

The Hyde channel, on the other hand, delivers heavier distortion and more bottom end. With its Hi-Gain and Volume controls, along with a Three-band EQ, you can achieve a wide range of JCM800-inspired tones. The "Bright" switch adds a touch of sparkle to your sound, while the "Voice" switch lets you contour the amount of natural compression to taste.

One of the unique features of this pedal is the ability to use each channel independently. The separate inputs and outputs allow you to add additional effects between them, change the order of effects, or even integrate both channels separately into your pedal switching system. This gives you unparalleled flexibility in crafting your signature sound.

The Jekyll & Hyde V3 pedal also offers both true bypass and buffered bypass modes, thanks to its Pure Tone circuit. This means you can choose whether to let your guitar's signal pass unaffected or enhance it with the pedal's built-in buffer. And with the gold-plated contacts and custom-designed Forever Footswitch, you can be sure that this pedal will last for years to come.

With its combination of versatile tones, high-quality construction, and intuitive controls, the Jekyll & Hyde Overdrive & Distortion V3 pedal is an excellent choice for guitarists seeking to capture the sound of The Strokes.

Use a Fender Stratocaster guitar

The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a solid-body electric guitar with a contoured asymmetric double-cutaway body and an extended upper horn. The archetypal Stratocaster has a body made from alder or ash, a maple neck, and a headstock with six tuning pegs mounted inline along a single side. The fingerboard may be maple or another wood, such as rosewood, and usually has at least 21 frets. The Stratocaster's body is front-routed for electronics, which are mounted on a plastic pickguard.

Most Stratocasters have three single-coil pickups, a pickup selector switch, one volume control, and two tone controls. The bridge can be one of two designs: a pivoting "tremolo" bridge or a less common "hardtail" fixed bridge. Both types of bridges have six individually adjustable saddles. The innovative tremolo system, designed by Freddie Tavares, is balanced by springs mounted in a rear cavity.

To get the sound of The Strokes, you'll need to adjust the guitar's setup. This includes optimising the instrument for your preferred string gauges, tweaking the action for your fretting and picking style, and getting the tremolo system to respond correctly to your wang-bar technique.

Here's a step-by-step guide to setting up your Fender Stratocaster:

• Measure the action at the 12th and 1st frets.
• Measure neck relief by determining if the neck has forward (concave) or backward (convex) bow.
• Adjust the truss rod to control neck relief.
• Adjust the tremolo spring tension to allow the tremolo to float parallel to the body.
• Adjust the overall height of the bridge to allow the trem to move up and down while providing enough leeway to fine-tune string action by raising or lowering the individual saddles.
• Set the action by adjusting the height of the saddles.
• Adjust the action at the nut by deepening the nut slots with a properly gauged nut file.
• Adjust pickup height to ensure the pickups are not too close to the strings, which can cause string rattle and intonation problems.
• Adjust intonation by moving the saddles forward or backward to shorten or lengthen the vibrating portion of the string.

By following these steps, you can set up your Fender Stratocaster to achieve the sound you're looking for, whether it's the sound of The Strokes or any other artist.

Use a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amplifier

The Fender Hot Rod Deluxe is a 40-watt guitar amplifier that has been in continuous production since its introduction in 1996. It is a modified version of the Fender Blues Deluxe, with a higher level of gain in its preamplification signal.

The Hot Rod Deluxe is a mono-channel amplifier with three switchable gain levels: "Clean", "Drive", and "More Drive". It features a 12-inch Celestion A-Type Speaker, as well as Bass, Middle, and Treble EQ, Master Volume, Presence, Normal/Bright, and spring reverb.

The modified preamp circuitry in the Hot Rod Deluxe IV offers greater tonal definition and clarity, even when pushing the amp into overdrive. This means that your tone will remain articulate no matter how hard you push it.

The spring reverb has also been modified for improved smoothness, allowing you to dial in your sound at any volume.

The Hot Rod Deluxe utilizes a pair of 6L6GC beam tetrodes for the power section and two 12AX7 dual triodes for the preamp section. One additional 12AX7 tube is used for the phase inverter of the power section.

The physical appearance of the amplifier is based on the mid-to-late 1950s narrow panel tweed amplifiers, with a top-mounted, chrome-plated chassis and black "chicken head" pointer knobs. The cabinet is made of lightweight pine, which was used in Fender amps in the 1950s and '60s for more resonant and "musical" speaker cabinets.

The Hot Rod Deluxe has received positive reviews, with customers praising its sound quality, performance, and gain channel. It is described as a solid platform amp that delivers warm and buttery tones and smooth transitions between distorted and more distorted sounds.

Use a Shure SM57 microphone

The Shure SM57 is a versatile microphone that can be used to achieve the distorted vocal effect popularised by The Strokes. It is a dynamic microphone with a cardioid pickup pattern, which isolates the main sound source while reducing background noise. This microphone is known for its toughness and has been used on live stages and in recording studios worldwide.

To get The Strokes' vocal sound, you can use the Shure SM57 as your vocal microphone. This microphone is known for its ability to handle high-pressure sound and will allow you to turn up the volume without distortion drowning out your performance. The natural presence boost of the SM57 will add clarity to your vocals, similar to the effect achieved by The Strokes.

The Shure SM57 is also an excellent choice for capturing the sound of musical instruments. Its frequency response and presence boost bring out the snap in snare drums and the bite in guitar amps. This makes it a popular choice for musicians who want to mic up their amplified or acoustic instruments. Additionally, the SM57's tight cardioid polar pattern allows for exceptional isolation, making it easy to position the microphone to avoid picking up unwanted sounds.

The Shure SM57 is a durable and versatile microphone that can be used to achieve The Strokes' vocal sound, both in the studio and live performances. Its sound-isolating capabilities and natural presence boost make it a popular choice for musicians and engineers alike.

Use a Peavey practice amp

To get the distinctive distorted vocal sound of The Strokes, singer Julian Casablancas would sing through a Peavey practice amp, which was then miked with a Neumann TLM103. This was one of two techniques used by producer Gordon Raphael to achieve the band's signature vocal sound on their album "Is This It".

The Peavey practice amp is a small, crappy amp, only about eight inches tall. Casablancas would sing into an Audio-Technica 4033A mic, which would then go through an Avalon 737. Raphael would spend about an hour working with Casablancas to get the right vocal tone.

The second technique was something that Casablancas had discovered on his own while making demos. He liked to sing through his Peavey practice amp, and Raphael would mike that with a Neumann TLM103. Casablancas would still be singing into the Audio-Technica (he found the Neumann distasteful), but Raphael would use the Neumann to get the exact details of what the amp sounded like. Casablancas wanted it to sound shitty, but not too shitty. He would say things like, "This sound needs to have its tie loosened," to describe the kind of vocal sound he was going for.

On the album, Casablancas knew from the beginning that he wanted to be in the control room while the band was tracking, just concentrating on his vocals.

To get a similar vocal sound, you can try running your vocals through a Peavey practice amp and then miking that amp with a condenser mic. You can also try using a Shure SM57 or a "crappy little guitar amp with a microphone attached to it with all the knobs cranked." Another option is to use a TC-Helicon VoiceTone X1, which is made specifically to do this effect and can be used live.

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