tenaciousJay wrote on Thu, 10 February 2005 14:10 |
Wow, great to have you here, Terry. Billy Gibbons is one of my biggest influences on guitar, both playing and tone-wise (And Jimmy Page is the other!).
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Me, too! I have been very lucky!
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I'd love to know anything about the sessions for Deguello, specifically anything you can remember about the wide range of incredible guitar tones - amps, guitars, pedals, microphones, rooms, whatever.
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On the Deguello sessions, we were really ramping things up as far as equipment and direction. This album I think is the progenitor of "Eliminator." Billy brought for the first time A LOT of guitars and amps to the session. I had always in the past only had one or two, maybe three guitars, and usually just "the" one amp around, for almost any session. It just wasn't thought of in the 'earlier' days to need a wide selection, just as it wasn't contemplated to need any outnoard mic pre's or such. But this time was the first time I remember a truckload of gear coming in...today it's common practice; anyone who has the gear brings it! (REM were recently in our studio here in Nassau for three months, and they brought EVERYTHING they own, which is a LOT of gear. It filled over 90 LARGE road cases.)
We did indeed use various guitars and amplifiers during this Deguello session (by the way the "Deguello" is the bugle call that used to be played by the Mexican army back in the Texas-Mexico war days. It meant "There will be no quarter, only death, for any who don't surrender now!" This was played, for instance, at The Alamo.), and I employed for one of the first times during an album session, various mic's and mic placements for guitar. Billy had his Les Paul (Pearly Gates) of course, but also Strats, and some wild cheesy Japanese guitars. Amps would have been the various Marshall's (or his Rio Grande customised ones) as well as some Fenders, old Gibson's and I think maybe a Magnavox.
Again, this entire album was recorded in Ardent Studio A, on the SpectraSonics/Auditronics console (USING THE CONSOLE MIC PRE'S OF COURSE), and tracked to either 16 or 24 track 2" (can't remember which now). It would have been mixed probably to 1/4". BG did indeed have an assortment of pedals, the ones out then which are 'vintage' pedals now.
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That one seems to get overlooked as a classic ZZ LP but it's always been one of my favorites. Bad, Nationwide kills me every time I hear it. Do you recall how Billy played that first solo? There's a part right after the intro of the solo where it sounds like he's quickly tapping 2 notes octave apart with his left hand but I could never get it to sound right.
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Unfortunately, I don't remember that exact guitar moment right now. I haven't heard this album for many years, again because I refuse to get anywhere near the AWFUL "CD Remixes" which totally ruined ZZ Top's legacy on CD. But I did purchase the box set recently; haven't had any time to listen to it, but I will look to see if this is on it, and try to figure out what you mean.
A couple of items concerning the recording of Deguello, though:
•On "Dust My Broom," there was, intentionally, absolutely NO reverb or delay of any kind, and every instrument possible was recorded by direct injection (DI); no amplifiers were harmed in the making of this recording.
•The horns which appear on a couple of songs were actually played by the three group members themselves. They had bought the saxes, and spent months learning and practicing for this purpose. I did have to use some pre-Protools sampling and editing techniques to get them right, but they did play it! (I would often then use my early methods for sampling and moving parts out of time, or other methods to tune things which needed it. Also, vocals were heavily comp'd, or at least heavily punched. So much for the "good ole days" of REAL live music!)
•On "Manic Mechanic," which I really loved, there was obviously heavy treatment on the vocals...quite a bit of it was recorded with the multi vari-sped up, so it would be slow and huge on playback.
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Also, have you heard the new CD box set at all? I've heard it's a much better representation of the way the LPs sound but haven't actually gotten a chance to listen myself.
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Same here, as mentioned. I WILL try to find time to check it out and report, though!
Thanks so much for your interest and questions!
Terry