The secrets behind Steve Lukather's guitar tone on Along For the Ride

The biggest challenge of writing about Steve Lukather for this column was choosing a song to examine. As a first-call session guitarist, he’s played on hundreds of hits over the last four and a half decades, and he’s recorded more than two dozen albums with Toto, about a dozen albums as a solo artist and god knows how many projects as a primary band member, including collaborations with Larry Carlton and Edgar Winter.

Considering Lukather’s massive amount of experience, it seemed like a better idea to look at his most recent work to learn how his tone has evolved. Until a few years ago, Luke used to rely on a sophisticated rack setup to access a wide variety of studio-quality tones, but more recently he’s adopted a much simpler approach, relying on his versatile Ernie Ball Music Man Luke signature guitars, classic Marshall-style Bogner Helios 100 half-stacks and an assortment of stomp boxes. 

The “keep it simple” approach also applied to the recording of his latest solo album, I Found the Sun Again, which was recorded live in the studio without click tracks or multiple takes and with only minimal overdubs and post-processing.

Steve Lukather - Along For The Ride (I Found The Sun Again) - YouTube

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Along for the Ride kicks off the album, highlighted by its catchy melodic riff and gorgeously gritty overdriven rhythm guitar tones. Luke generated the riff’s distinctive warble by striking the base of his Luke III’s vibrato bridge with his palm. 

His guitar’s tone during the solo at the end of the song is as good as it gets, with thick body, smooth sustain and percussive punch courtesy of boost from his signature ToneConcepts Distillery The Luke pedal and dynamic expression that oozes personality, which only comes from tens of thousands of hours working the fretboard.

According to Lukather, the latter is the key to truly great guitar tone, and gear is just the mechanism and foundation to present that.

“Once after I played a gig with Larry Carlton,” he illustrates, “this guy walked up to Larry and said, ‘That guitar you played sure sounded great tonight.’ Larry then pointed to the guitar on the stage and answered, ‘Oh yeah. And how does that guitar sound now?’” [Laughs] 

It’s a great lesson – the player matters more than the instrument, and one should obsess less about gear and more about developing one’s touch, expression, phrasing and nuance in the quest to achieve great tone.

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Sterling by Music Man Luke

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ToneConcepts Distillery The Luke

TONE TIP: Luke’s tone settings tend to give most frequencies equal weight, so avoid the temptation to boost just the mids or highs. Do, however, feel free to go heavy on the gain.

• I Found the Sun Again is out now via The Players Club.