Playing technique and gear: Stevie Ray Vaughan
Published on Tuesday 19 May 2026
This blog is dedicated to Stevie Ray Vaughan (3 October, 1954 – 27 August 1990), one of the most beloved blues guitarists of the late 20th century. With his band Double Trouble, he laid the foundations for the blues revival of the ’80s. More than 20 years after his tragic death, his influence is still clearly felt.
In this blog, we’ll first take a look at playing technique. As your author can talk the talk but is also incredibly shy, he won’t be appearing in the instruction videos himself. Instead, we’ll point you towards useful YouTube clips from third parties. (Due to copyright, it isn’t possible to embed the videos in the blog.) Finally, we’ll look at Stevie Ray Vaughan’s gear and how to get close to his sound with different budgets.
Playing technique
If you want to talk about Stevie Ray Vaughan’s technique, you can’t avoid touching on a bit of gear too. Stevie played extremely heavy strings, ‘thick as barbed wire’, with sets of 0.13 mm (for more info see the blog string gauge). That said, it’s not recommended to immediately switch to the same gauge yourself. First, it plays very stiff; second, the heavily increased string tension can have nasty consequences for your guitar. For Stevie’s well-known Texas Shuffle, though, it’s true that ‘the thicker the better’. A key part of his playing is muting the strings with his left hand (instead of the right-hand palm). He still strikes the strings, but mutes them with the left. That creates a kind of rasping sound (a rake). With string tension that’s too low, you risk accidentally pushing strings down too far so they ring out when you don’t want them to.
Another thing to watch: Stevie Ray Vaughan almost always tuned his guitar down a semitone. That way everything sounded just a touch grittier. To get the same feel and groove it’s not strictly necessary, though—you can simply stick to the original tab. It is tricky if you want to play along with his albums in standard tuning, but there are ways around that. For example, here’s a backing track for ‘Pride and Joy’ in E.
As an example, here are a few links to instruction videos for Pride & Joy, one of Stevie Ray’s standout tracks. It’s got all the hallmarks: Texas Shuffle rhythm, rakes, double-stops and efficient use of the blues scale. For convenience, the lessons are in E. Do yourself a favour and learn how to play the blues scale across the entire neck. Just look at the solo in Pride and Joy: blues licks at the 12th-position are seamlessly backed up by double-stops and bends in open position. If you keep clinging to that one blues box, you’ll never get the variation you really need.
1. Full, 2. Intro, 3. 1st 12 bars, 4. verse, 5. Main Solo, Outro
Gear Talk
Stevie Ray Vaughan played a Fender Stratocaster, just like his brother Jimmy. Of course, he owned several, but the best-known is his No.1 (also known as Stevie’s first wife). It was a kind of Frankenstein guitar with a 1962 neck and a 1963 body. The tremolo bridge on this guitar was mounted left-handed, which wasn’t a big deal—he didn’t use it that often anyway. The Fender Stevie Ray Vaughan Stratocaster is based on Stevie’s No. 1. An important detail is the neck with a palissander (rosewood) fingerboard, which gives a warmer tone than a maple fingerboard. The pickups had a high output (hot), and like Jimi Hendrix, Stevie usually played on the neck pickup. Contrary to what’s common, Stevie used Fender amps for his overdrive sound and Marshalls for his clean parts. In this blog, I’m focusing on the driven (live) sounds. Stevie made his name with Fender Vibroverb, Super Reverb and Twin Reverb amplifiers. In 1990, the Super Reverbs were replaced by two ’59 Bassmans.
Compared to many guitarists, Stevie used very few pedals. For drive, he used an Ibanez Tube Screamer (opinions are still divided over whether it was a TS-808 or a TS-9). The TS was set with the volume maxed and the drive low. For Cold Shot and Couldn’t Stand the Weather, he used a Fender Vibratone, a rotating speaker cabinet comparable to a Leslie Model 16. For his Hendrix covers, Stevie had a Vox Wah and a classic Arbiter Fuzz Face (when it worked—original units were notoriously unreliable compared to today’s Fuzz Face models) or an Octavia pedal.
Anyway, now we’re going to try and recreate the sound.
Guitar
Naturally, you’ll go for a Strat-style guitar with a rosewood fingerboard. The Squier Affinity Strat pack is a solid place to start. If you’ve got a bit more to spend, you could go for a Squier Classic Vibe. If you want more flexibility, you could also consider a Yamaha Pacifica with a rosewood fingerboard. Personally, I’m a big fan of the G&L Tribute series, because I often change (guitar) tuning, I prefer their Tribute ASAT Special (not quite Stevie style, but practical). From around 500 euros you can pick out a real (Mexican) Fender. With the American Standard series (from roughly 1400 euros) you’re getting a modern classic. The Holy Grail, of course, is the Fender Stevie Ray Vaughan, based on his legendary No. 1.
Effects
There’s no point buying a Tube Screamer if you’re playing into a solid-state amp. The name says it all: ‘Tube Screamer’—it gives a valve amp that extra push so the valves start to ‘scream’. A solid-state amp doesn’t have valves…… so what do you do? A good option is getting an effects pedal with modelling. Your author is personally completely mad about the Zoom G3X. With the Zoom G3X you get multiple effects and amp modelling in one compact unit. For the amp model, set it to FD Combo, Deluxe R or the FD Vibro. (see image) For effects, choose T-Scream (gain below halfway, volume full up). On a rainy day when you fancy playing ‘Couldn’t Stand the Weather’, you’ve still got an effect slot left—choose ‘the vibe’. If you’re running the G3 into an amp, set that amp as neutral as possible. With the Squier starter pack and the Zoom G3 you’re ready to go for under 350 euros. If you have a (6L6) valve amp, it’s worth looking for a good drive pedal. Naturally, you can go for the Ibanez TS808, or the TS9. Another option is the Visual Sound Route 66 with compressor. The Digitech Bad Monkey is often mentioned as an affordable and solid alternative.
Amplifiers
As mentioned earlier, with a cheap solid-state amp you’ll want to play via a modelling/effects pedal. With the slightly more expensive models that include amp modelling, you’ll obviously set the amp to a Fender model. Modelling amps from Fender themselves have the advantage that they’re allowed to use their own model names instead of lookalike names, which makes setting things up nice and easy. With Line 6, Fender-style amps have names like ‘Twang Green’ and ‘Blues Green’—check the manual or their website for details. With a Roland Cube you’ve got three options: the blackface and the tweed setting, or the ‘dyna-amp’ setting. The name says it all—this simulates a dynamic (valve) amp. With a slightly bigger budget, from around 200 euros you can already choose a Fender-style valve amp (6L6 or 6V6). The vintage-styled Gretsch Electromatic, for example, has 6V6 power amp valves. Granted, the more versatile Blackstar HT1-R has ECC82 valves, but with the ISF function you can dial it in so it responds like an American classic. In the higher price ranges, you can also go for a versatile Blackstar amp. Around 750 euros is where the Fender amps with 6L6 valves start. If you’re absolutely gutted because you’ve just won the lottery, then you grab a delivery van and in one trip you pick up the Fender Vibro King, Twin Reverb and ’59 Bassman.
Finally
Of course, this is only an overview of the options. The key word in the set-up is dynamic…… you don’t need the same amp/pedals to get a similar sound. The goal is to dial your amp (and drive pedal) in together so that with a light touch it stays as clean as possible, and when you dig in it breaks up into a gritty driven sound. In other words, you control the amount of overdrive with your playing. Rotary effects, wahs and fuzz pedals are optional.
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