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RE: (TV) Re: clean guitar tone

I'm going to chime in (tee-hee) on this one.
On dirty tones - I reckon that Ike Turner has a good claim to the first distorted tone on record with "Rocket 88" in the early 50s, he pulled a tube out of his amplifier to get more overdrive. Pulling tubes and slashing speakers and of course turning the damn thing way up are the Link Wray, Dave Davis and Townsend-approved methods for pre-stompbox raunch. Even after everyone had their little fuzzfaces, tonebenders and big muffs, broken speakers still delivered some cool sounds. I've been looking for a box that gave me that "Spirit in the Sky" sound, but apparently that sound was in fact a trashed-up speaker.
On Television/Verlaine tones - Fender guitars used with small tube amps turned way up are a big part of the classic Marquee Moon sound. But I think that Verlaine has struggled to achieve the 'complex' bold-clean sound he wants (I think he's done pretty damn well, I'm just going on what I've read in various interviews he's given). Heavy strings and Fender Jazzmasters and strats are the starting point but I also think that Verlaine tends to use some kind of tube pre-amp in the studio at least, old echos, a pedal called the mini-boogie, that kind of thing. I think that compression is another part of the equation that doesn't gets mentioned often enough. I think there's some fairly heavy compression/limiting going on at the recording stage of TV tracks - these would be classic 60s units - like those used by the Byrds for that clean sustain sound in 8 Miles high. I never seen any comprehensive list of the kind of pedals uses live but it sounds to me that he uses a Compressor pedal for a clean boost, which can also be used to kick the Ibanez Tubescreamer overdrive pedal he definitely has on stage at all times into more of a floaty (woo, technical) sustain tone. Having said all that I saw Verlaine with television on the BBC program later in 92 and he simply reaches over to his Vox AC30 and turns it up. 

D


From: "Eric Veillette" <ericgv@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: tv@obbard.com
To: tv@obbard.com
Subject: RE: (TV) Re: clean guitar tone
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 12:50:18 +0000

I'd say Howlin' Wolf had some serious distortion going on by the mid
fifties... but who knows for sure...


From: "Per Rosin" <per_m_rosen@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: tv@obbard.com
To: tv@obbard.com
Subject: RE: (TV) Re: clean guitar tone
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 12:26:54 +0000

Wasn't Jimmy Page involved in that recording? Concerning distortion it's
been there since the first amps and electric guitars, it just depends on if 
you crank the amp or not. Who invented it? Maybe some obscure bluesguy. Of
course there are other ways to get other kinds of distortion, preamps,
fuzzboxes or holes in the speakers.


From: "Jim Kauffman" <jkauff@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: tv@obbard.com
To: <tv@obbard.com>
Subject: RE: (TV) Re: clean guitar tone
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 07:53:00 -0400
Not to forget Dave Davies, who pretty much invented rock guitar distortion 
by punching little holes in his speaker cone for the recording of "You
Really Got Me".

Jim K.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: tv-owner@obbard.com [mailto:tv-owner@obbard.com]On Behalf Of
> Martin McClellan
> Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2001 11:29 PM
> To: tv@obbard.com
> Subject: RE: (TV) Re: clean guitar tone
>
>
> Some of the best distortion on record was done without pedals: The
Sonics,
> early Stooges (I think...does anybody know for sure?), early Van
> Halen (Well
> he DID change the way electric guitars are played. Got to give him
credit
> for that) and, god love them, AC/DC (ever stood in front of a 100-watt
> Marshall full stack wide open? The angels sing...A friend once told me
> "yeah, it's rips holes in your aura, and you get a rush." Whatever man, 
he
> was right about the second part).
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