John Mayer is among one of the most popular guitarists today and for good reason. From his style of playing, unique chord voicings, and beautiful solos. One thing that makes John Mayer stand out is his tone, specifically on the songs “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” and “Neon”. Take a listen to both of these songs if you haven’t already heard them. John Mayer’s guitar tone is sultry, smooth, soft and has so much life. I’m going split this post into two sections: the gear he uses, and achieving a John Mayer guitar tone with a helix patch. Use the links below to skip around the page a bit.
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John Mayer is a Tone Fanatic
John Mayer is a tone nut. He can often be seen in photos with an enviable wall behind him or if you perform a quick Google search of “John Mayer Dumble on flight” and find the photo of him carrying his Dumble Overdrive Special on his flight. Yeah, that baby doesn’t get checked in.
He takes every piece of his signal chain into consideration and in many ways started a modern revolution in the way we think about and buy gear. We can see the influence he has on guitar players just by what amps and pedals are trending on second hand music gear sites like Reverb after having a look at what pedals he has in his chain after a performance. (Cough) TS-10 Tubescreamer (cough)
John Mayer’s Amp
John is a huge fan Dumble and high headroom amps. Twins, Princetons, you name it. He also has a Dumble Steel String Singer in his studio, which is worth its weight in gold. What we don’t know is what the exact model of his Dumble Overdrive Special amp head is. It’s most likely one of the earliest models.
He’s had a couple of signature amps: the PRS J-Mod 100 and one from Two Rock Amplification which was available for a limited run.
They look s’pretty and it would be rad to just have a couple of these at the studio.
John Mayer’s Pedalboard
His pedalboard is often the topic of discussion on online forums and groups. There are even several sites and even Instagram pages dedicated to sharing photos of his pedalboard from performances. Some users even get lucky enough to see knob settings.
For as great as his tone is his pedalboard usually consists of few but effective pedals.
Keeley Katana Clean Boost
Boosts come in handy when you want to have your guitar slightly come up in the mix without having a gnarly change in your tone.
The Keeley Katana Clean Boost is solid choice and has been seen on his pedalboard during the trio days and when he performs with Dead & Company.
Overdrive Pedals
Overdrive pedals differ from player to player, guitar to guitar, and amp to amp, and we all know the search for the one overdrive pedal to rule them never ends. Guitar players can never have too many overdrive pedals.
Of course, The Klon can be found in several of John’s pedalboard photos. This pedal has achieved a status that of legends like the Mexican Llorona and Bigfoot. After performing a quick search on Reverb I’m going to go ahead and say most of us don’t have the spare cash to throw out $4,200-6,000 for an overdrive pedal. However, spending that amount of cash isn’t necessary now that pedal companies are producing clones of the Klon – the Wampler Tumnus and the J. Rockett Archer to name a few that are doing the Klon sound well.
John is probably most famous for is Ibanez TS-10 Tubescreamer and the second-hand gear market saw a massive price increase for this pedal after it became a known fact that this was one of his most used pedals. The TS-10 is no longer in production but the other Tubescreamer options such as the also legendary Ibanez TS 808, the Ibanez TS 9 will get you in the ballpark.
Side note: If you’re just starting your overdrive pedal journey, the JHS Bonsai is a rad pedal! It has a 9 switchable overdrive models that emulate classic overdrive pedals and mods including the TS808, TS9, TS10, and Blues Driver.
Delay Pedals
John loves vintage style delay pedals. He can be seen rocking the Dunlop Echoplex which gives a vintage tape style delay. As for simple analog style delay, there are lots of photos of John’s pedalboard with an Aqua Puss Delay, also from Dunlop. Being analog modeled these two have the most basic control knobs such as Delay Time, Wet/Dry Mix, and Feedback.
There was a photo where the Strymon Timeline Delay was on his pedalboard. Like the aforementioned JHS Bonsai, the Timeline is a delay swiss army knife with 12 different delay types, multiple knobs to dial in vintage styled delays, and enough capabilites to tailor it to your liking.
Reverb Pedals
My assumption is that most of the reverb we hear on John’s recordings is coming from his amps. The spring reverb from classic Fender amps are highly sought after and often replicated in pedals.
Butttttt I did find out that he’s not a shy user of the Strymon Flint which also has tremolo on-board. Being a Strymon product, you can expect this bad boy to be a quality pedal.
Don’t want to buy all of these pedals amps?
Siiicccckkkk! Me neither.
The Line 6 Helix has all of the important components onboard in compact units. They even have the Klon overdrive! This was a huge deal for me. Tubescreamer, vintage tape, analog delay, and amps are all included!
As a studio guitarist, something like the HX Stomp was a no-brainer. I get all of the most impactful, popular, and sought after amps and effects in one small package. I grabbed one of these to have control over my tone when I go into studios for recording and I am not at the mercy of whatever amps and software plugins the studio may have. Lugging a huge amp for me is never an option and having different amps, cabs, and microphone settings at the click of a button is a real time and head ache saver. Dang, maybe I should do a post on how I use it.
Getting John Mayer’s tone in a Helix Patch
“Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” is easily one of John Mayer’s most iconic intros. The musical lines themselves are played so fluidly and the notes melt into each other, but his tone; ouuuuuufff his tone! It just oozes all the mojo. Initially, I thought that achieving John Mayer’s tone with the Helix was going to be difficult, and it was. But getting it to feel just right was a matter of keeping it simple and uncluttered because note definition is still important.
TL: DR – Here’s what it sounds like
Amp Settings
We are going to need an amp model with high headroom. A Twin or another classic Fender works great for this. These amps clean up well and do not get muddy when they are cranked but really begin to shine.
I went with the US Double Nrm block, an emulation of a Fender Twin on the Normal channel. It’s a naturally bright amp and since my main guitar, a Charvel Tele, is ultra bright, I took the top end down a bit. Check out my settings:
Feel free to adjust the eq to your liking, but if you still want to capture that “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” sound don’t go overboard with the top end. Too much treble can thin out your tone and sound weaker than my will power against a bowl of ramen.
Overdrive
Now that we have an amp, an overdrive or boost is in order. Because John Mayer uses his guitar for both rhythm work and soloing, we’re going to use the overdrive pedal as a “channel”.
The Helix has a bunch of overdrive pedals so I have emulations of every pedal John has used on his pedalboard with the exception of the TS10.
I loaded the Scream 808 block based on the legendary Ibanez Tubescreamer 808. With this block, I want to introduce just enough drive to increase the thickness of the signal and sustain to give our notes a singing quality. I adjusted the tone knob on the pedal so there was no huge difference in tone was when the overdrive was switched on and off.
Reverb
WE ARE FOR SURE COVERED IN THE REVERB DEPARTMENT. As of typing this, there are 19 types of reverb in the Helix.
Sometimes I like using the plain spring reverb from the legacy folder, but the Hot Springs block has some mojo.
I also didn’t want to go overboard with reverb with this tone as reverb is one of those things that if overdone it can toss your note definition in the trash. (I’m also not in a shoegaze band that relies on reverb) I’m keeping the mix at relatively low at 37% so my dry notes sound upfront and are decorated by the reverb tail like pieces of ear candy.
Additional Effects Blocks
Delay
Delay is everyone’s favorite effect. I added it to use it at a low level to give us a bit of depth, patched in parallel. Naturally I opted for the Tape Delay to get that vintage feel he goes for with the Echoplex and Aqua-Puss. It’s a frickin’ vibe, dude.
Compressor
I don’t think I’ve seen any photos of John Mayer using a compressor in any of his pedalboards, but I added the compressor block at the end as a way to slightly glue it all together and package the sound per se. At a ratio of 2:1 and a slower attack, this bad boy is only meant to catch the gnarly peaks and still allow pick attacks to come through. Feel free to turn this block off if you feel it’s getting in the way of your playing.
Here is a link to the patch. Simply enter $0 in the “Pay What You Want” field and you’ll receive an email with the patch.
John Mayer has become synonymous with great tone and its constant pursuit. The Line 6 Helix is a digital guitar processor that allows the guitarist to emulate the sounds of any other electric or acoustic guitar. While he has invested heavily in his gear, it’s not necessary for you to invest as much because we can get a tone very similar to John Mayer’s “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” at a fraction of the price. ($600 for the HX Stomp is a heck of a deal.) You can download my patch here and have fun experimenting getting John Mayer style tones without buying expensive amps and pedals.
Tag Me + Let Me Know What You Think!
If you post any content playing with it anywhere whether on YouTube, Instagram, Tik-Tok, tag me! I’d be ultra stoked to see what you’re doing and what it sounds like in your hands!
I’m also all ears to positive and constructive feedback, so feel free to send me a direct message on social platforms or send me an email.
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E-Mail: cain(at)cainkong.com
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This article is not sponsored, endorsed, or affiliated with Line 6 or John Mayer. All Amazon product links are affiliate links.
