3 replies to this topic

[busaextravaganza]

Hi,

does anyone know which gear was used for the recordings of The Empyrean? Do you have reasonable suggestions or even some true knowledge?

For example, the guitar on "Before The Beginning" doesn't sound much like a Stratocaster to me, although I could be wrong because my ears are not too experienced with these differences. I sent him a message on myspace but of course I didn't receive an answer.

[Iva]

Hey, I moved the thread to another subforum because I'm currently writing about this myself (figured out that's the only way it might be a bit faster) and looking for resources in available interviews from around the album's release. Luckily, there aren't many of them; so this will be more or less easy.


What guitars and amps did you use on the album?
Pretty much the same ones I use with the Chili Peppers - a Marshall Major, a Marshall Jubilee, a '62 Strat, '57 Strat. It's the first time I've ever used the same stuff I use in the band on one of my solo records. But really, that equipment is more me than any other equipment I've ever used, so I figured I'd stop playing a game and do what I do. I also used a Fender Bassman amp for the guitar.

What effects did you use?
That BOSS Turbo Distortion, Electro-Harmonix English Muffin, BOSS CHorus Ensemble, Ibanez Wah Wah pedal - again it's the same stuff I use in the band. I think a Maestro Fuzz-Rite, but I used a lot of modular synth stuff. I would put things on tape, and then run them through a modular synthesier, basically using it as an effects unit. So most of the effects aren't guitar effects - the initial guitar tones were usually made using the things I mentioned, but I did pretty extensive treatments with the modular synthesiser. I also used some really cool outboard gear for treatments as well: the EMT 250 Reverb, Plate Reverb, Eventide Primetime - old digital reverbs - the EMT 250 was one of the first digital reverbs ever made, and it figures prominently on the record.

What about strings?
D'Addario 0.010s.

(Guitarist, March 2009: http://www.invisible-movement.net/articles...9/03-guitarist/ )

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The solo tones on that song are spectacular and seem to morph into and out of each other. How did you get those sounds, and what is going on in the mix?
I played my Stratocaster while standing in front of a Marshall, and I probably used a Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion and a Mosrite Fuzzrite, along with the guitar's volume control, to get sounds from mildly distorted to blasting. I also used an Ibanez WH-10 wah to get the feedback at different frequencies, and I may have added a tiny bit of Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail reverb. Once the guitar tracks were recorded, I flipped the tape over and recorded five or six tracks of different kinds of echoes and reverbs throughout the length of the song, then flipped the tape back over so that those effects would play in reverse. After that, I listened back to find the bits I liked, and equalized them to make them fit together - sometimes using extreme EQ, like filtering out everything but the highest frequencies of the echo or reverb. While mixing, I cross-faded and combined the effects in various ways to emphasize the performance that was already there. For example, if a note already sounded like it was rising up, I'd do something to make it sound even more like it was rising.

What sorts of delay and reverb processors did you use?
We used an Echoplex and a Roland Space Echo for tape delay, but we also used a Delta Lab Effectron digital delay. For reverb, I have a huge EMT plate reverb - it's about 12 feet long and nearly as tall as me - and an EMT 250 digital reverb. The EMT 250 was the first digital reverb ever made, back in 1976, and it is still my favorite digital reverb. I really like the old digital stuff combined with analog sounds and recordings.

What's an example of how you used modular synthesizers to create treatments?
There are several harmony guitars playing mostly long notes that come in at the end of Unreachable, which I ran into a low-pass filter set to sample-and-hold mode and controlled with a keyboard. So, when I pressed the lowest note on the keyboard, you'd hear only the lowest frequencies coming through the filter, and when I pressed the highest key, it would be the same as having the filter knob turned all the way up and the filter totally open - and pressing any of the keys in between would give you something within that range. I more or less played a drumbeat on the keyboard, but instead of notes coming out, the cutoff frequency of the filter changed, and that changed the sound of the guitars. I also did the same thing using a high-pass filter, and I recorded multiple takes of each type, and combined them during the mix. When you are filtering harmony guitars, you're taking certain notes out of the equation, depending on where the cutoff frequency is set. So, by doing several takes of it, I was hearing all the notes that I wanted to hear at various times, which gave the part some variety.

There's a great backwards-sounding wah solo on Unreachable. Is that another example of reversed reverb?
Yes. The guitar solo isn't reversed, only the reverb sound. We recorded several types of reverb - a thick one, a long one etc. - to use at different times. The reverb tracks sound pretty much like reversed guitar, and sometimes you hear more of them than the straight guitar track. For example, at the beginning, when I'm doing the Hendrix-like trills with two notes, hammering on and pulling off really quickly, at first the guitar sounds as if it is playing forward, and then, halfway through, all of a sudden it sounds reversed.

How did you get the supersaturated solo tone on Enough Of Me?
I played my strat through an Electro-Harmonix English Muff'n fuzz and a Fender Bassman. I started with the deadest sound a Strat can make by using the middle pickup and turning the guitar's tone control all the way down, which works well with that particular pedal. The English Muff'n creates a really rich distortion sound when you boost the lows and mids, and it's really my favorite pedal for getting that sort of sound. That solo involves displaced octaves and huge jumps from string to string, which is something that I've become more interested in. You almost have to speed up your brain and divide it so that you can think in two directions at once.


(Guitar Player, April 2009: http://www.invisible-movement.net/articles...04-guitarplayer)


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As you described, there are many different atmospheres, and it sounds like there were different setups for each song. What were you using to achieve the sounds?
As far as guitars and gear, on all my solo recordings in the past, I never used the same rig that I use in the Chili Peppers. In the Chili Peppers, I always have a Marshall Major, Marshall Jubilee, and my old Fender Stratocasters. My main Strat is a sunburst '62, my second favorite is a sunburst '57 (Ed. Note: appointments suggest the Strat is actually a '55), and my third is a red '61. It's interesting, the relationship between the tone when you play an electric guitar acoustically and when you play through an amp. There's definitely a correlation between how it sounds acoustically and how it sounds through the amp. That's my fattest-sounding guitar, acoustically and plugged in. It's so much about the way it vibrates when you play different notes. On that guitar, there are certain frets where you hear a reverb-like sound. It has to do with the springs in the back, but it's interesting how some guitars have certain hot spots on them and certain places feel like they vibrate more than others. It's all stuff that gives it personality. I like working and playing around things like that. It gives you a path to travel instead of just having the full option and nowhere to go. It's like having unlimited freedom, but not knowing what to do with it.

So, guitars on this album were one of those three Strats and, on acoustic parts, an all-mahogany Martin. For amps, I was using both the Major and the Jubilee. I used a Fender Bassman on a few things, too. In the last few years I got deeply into what I can do with a Marshall and a Strat, as far as feedback, tone, and things like wah pedals. Because I'm into synthesizers, I started approaching the tools in the basic setup of a guitar with distortion, wah, whammy bar and amplification. I started really looking at those parameters, much like the knobs on a synthesizer. They're just ways to produce different sounds. For this one, I wanted to use the same gear I use in the Chili Peppers because that is the part of me that I've put the most time into developing.

The main stuff for guitar sounds was that rig, and I was treating it with a modular synthesizer. So the recordings usually had nothing more than a wah pedal, distortion and fuzz. I use the Boss Turbo Distortion pretty regularly, and an Electro-Harmonix English Muff'n tube fuzz, which has really extreme EQ and a big, thick, meaty sound. I used it on the solo for Enough Of Me. I turn the EQ up, but leave my guitar tone knobs down and use either the middle or neck pickup so the initial source sound is really dark and kind of plain. If you blast the tone controls on the effect, you get a really thick, beautiful sound that reminds me of an exaggerated Eric Clapton tone in Cream, where you have this really smooth fuzz. For that solo, I was jumping from low to high notes rather than following a linear train of thought. I was kind of thinking in two ways at once by alternately playing very low notes with high notes, where the octave was displaced by a couple of octaves, and it worked really well.

I also used the Mosrite Fuzzrite a lot, and a Maestro Fuzz-Tone, which is a funny one. It's got a cord that goes to the guitar, and there's only an output top the amp. The E-H Holy Grail reverb is a pretty normal thing for me, and the Ibanez WH-10 is my standard wah since BloodSugarSexMagik. I don't think there's a better wah. When we were making Stadium Arcadium, there was so much wah I figured I'd use a variety of pedals and there wasn't one that came close to the Ibanez. There are a couple of Crybabys that are cool, but for me, they weren't as good, because I use a lot of feedback. I want something that when I put it in one position, one note is going to feed back, and when I put it in another position, another note is going to feed back. You just have more variation with the Ibanez because there's a wider frequency range. Another pedal is a Boss Chorus Ensemble, which I use to split the signal in my rig.

And, early digital reverb units like the EMT 250, AMS and Lexicon Prime Time were definitely a big part of the guitar sound. A lot of atmosphere was created by using those reverbs and putting them through the modular synthesizer, then doing weird things like tripping them out on the mixing board. I really like the combination of using early digital reverbs with analog synths, analog synth modules and analog EQs. I think it's a magical combination.

How were the synthesizers used?
I wanted to record the guitar with the effect, then take the sound off tape, run it through the modular synthesizer, and turn some of the knobs and have some of the other knobs in essence turned for me by other modules. Playing with the knobs of the synthesizer that the guitar is going through is pretty much like going through effects. It's like hi-pass and lo-pass filters, and different kinds of phase shifting. Sometimes, I play a filter like it's notes on a keyboard, but all you're changing is basically where your wah is set, though you're doing it in steps rather than in a linear way like you do it on a wah pedal. But you can jump from one frequency to another. I'm doing that at the end of Unreachable, which has four guitars playing harmonies, then all going into the synthesizer and playing the steps of the filter with a keyboard. So I'm playing a rhythm, kind of like a drum beat, but where the high frequencies are kind of like the snare drum and the low frequencies are like the kick drum. So it's basically like playing a wah pedal that goes in steps, rather than in a linear fashion. So anything that sounds phasey or chorusy, or unusual for a guitar to sound like, I typically do it with modular synthesizer.

Do you have guitars set up different ways to achieve certain sounds?
I do. I use D'Addario .010s on my main guitars and the action is between high and low. Whenever I play a guitar with really low action, there doesn't seem to be as much of a difference when I hit it really hard or when I hit it really soft - there's less vibration in the body. I would imagine if I picked the strings lighter, I would probably do better with lower action. But I go through extremes of hitting the guitar really soft and really hard, and there's also a difference of sound in fretting the strings hard and soft.

What type of picks do you use?
I use orange .60 mm Dunlop Tortex picks. When I play with a heavy pick, it seems like there's less difference in the sound from picking softly to picking hard. I like the acoustical relationship to the instrument and the way it vibrates the instrument more. It seems like I can apply more variation in sound by having a pick like this, depending on how you hold it. You can do the same thing you can do with a heavy pick, but a heavy pick can't ever really do what a lighter one can do in terms of rhythm playing. I used to use heavy picks when I was a teenager and into playing fast heavy metal. But as I gradually got more into playing the textural way, I've used the orange Tortex picks.

(Vintage Guitar, April 2009: http://www.invisible-movement.net/articles...4-vintageguitar )
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And this article is probably the most insightful one, but not translated completely. I just contacted a Japanese friend and asked her if she could finish what someone else's started, as what we have so far seems to be the best insight into the recording of The Empyrean:

http://www.invisible-movement.net/articles...rmagazinejapan/

[busaextravaganza]

This was even more than I expected! Thank you very much Iva!

[Iva]

You're welcome.
These should be put on a neatly-ordered list.