My recording guitar is a 1953 Gibson L-5. My road guitar (stuffed with foam rubber and socks) is a 1949 Gibson L-5. Each has a single Bartolini neck pickup (1CTA on road guitar, 1HCX3 on recording guitar, but until Learning How To Fly it was also a 1CTA). There is no bridge pickup (what looks like a pickup is an empty shell; on the road guitar that shell houses the preamp). The pickup feeds an onboard discrete buffer preamp (Carrotron modified for 18V rather than 9V, long since unavailable) with 1 meg input impedance and 100 ohm output impedance. The preamp has a gain knob which adjusts between unity and +20 dB. The preamp output feeds a passive volume pot (always at 10), then goes out of the guitar. All other knobs and switches are disconnected. Mogami cable is used throughout guitar. Even though it is a vintage Gibson L-5 with humbucking pickup, its output sounds much more like a Strat with single coil pickup due to the pickup and preamp.

I always play through a volume pedal (formerly Ernie Ball, now Boss, soon to be replaced by a custom VCA with microprocessor-programmable taper controlled by modified Ernie Ball pedal with digital encoder because I am dissatisfied with the available tapers and the fact that they change without notice when manufacturers get a new pot shipment). From that point the recording and live signal paths diverge:

The guitar output goes through an Aphex 124A -10/+4 interface for amplification to line level, then through the volume pedal. We record raw tracks directly onto our Sonic Solutions workstation at 48k using GML 20 bit A/D converters and Apogee D/A converters. Prior to Learning How To Fly, we recorded raw tracks onto a DBX-700 digital recorder (early wonderful-sounding non-PCM format which stored two digital tracks on consumer videotape), using the two digital tracks for Patti's mics and one Beta Hi-Fi audio track with DBX noise reduction for the guitar (Aphex interface was unneeded). For Reckless Precision and Hymns, Carols and Songs About Snow the guitar was recorded on one digital track of the DBX-700. We monitor post-D/A converter, so there is no signal splitting before the A/D converter.

We mix at Different Fur with Howard Johnston from our Sonic Solutions workstation onto his Sonic Solutions workstation at 20 bit/44.1k (48k on Learning How To Fly, which necessitated a sample rate conversion at mastering), again using our D/A and A/D converters. Prior to Learning How To Fly, we mixed to 16 bit/48k (originally DAT; later Sonic Solutions) using Apogee A/D converters.

First the raw guitar track goes through an Avalon compressor, set to virtually never compress; we just like its slight coloration. Then we EQ using multiple channels of Avalon EQ in series (although before Learning How To Fly we used GML EQs), with left and right adjusted slightly differently to give a little stereo spread. Currently we are using two channels (8 bands) on the mono signal, then splitting the output to two more channels (4 more bands each) which go to left and right. We use a lot of high end boost (as much as 30 dB or more at 20 khz!) to get the air and harmonics. The curve looks sort of like the Fletcher-Munson curve, only drastically exaggerated in the top two octaves.

The EQ outputs feed the SSL console direct inputs. We mix in some EQ'd Dolby A encoded but not decoded; we used a lot on Reckless Precision. It adds something we couldn't achieve using EQ, but I can't find words to describe the effect. Effects: Reverb only, although Howard combines 10-12 different reverb units, from Lexicon 480s and EMT plates on down.

The EQ and reverb variations from song to song are very minor. The changes from album to album are more substantial; we always spend a day or two up front trying to improve on the sonics of the previous album, and I feel we succeeded again on the most recent one, Paradise Found. On ballads we wage, and sometimes barely win, an ongoing EQ war when boosting high end (tone vs. hiss coming from the EQ'd buffer preamp noise floor, given the relatively soft attack and sustained chords without fresh attacks to mask guitar hiss).

Incidentally, the path on "All This Love" and "Dance With Me" from Paradise Found is completely different: Austin Hatchett (my miniature road backup guitar with same electronics as road L-5), through API EQ, recorded analog, mixed at Seedy Underbelly in Minneapolis by Ricky Peterson and Tom Tucker using our Avalon compressor and EQs but API console and different effects. The "All This Love" remix was mixed at Different Fur from ADAT safety copies.

We mix both our Ear Monitors and front of house from our own rack onstage. Patched into the guitar channel is a White 4400 1/3 octave EQ with a preset curve somewhat reminiscent of the one I was describing above, but less extreme. The only effect is a Yamaha SPX-900 reverb. The in-ear monitors are consistent from night to night; all we have to do is make sure they are working. All of our soundcheck is spent adjusting the front of house sound system, since the mix we send out is preset via calibration (like playing a CD, only it's live). Patti and I alternate between making sound on stage and listening in the house while the other makes sound, with both of us instructing (and learning from) the engineer. We serve as good checks and balances on each other's ears and room analyses. Sometimes we travel with an engineer, but we still stay equally involved in soundcheck.

After first setting the console's input trim using a test tone from our rack, we isolate and fix silent or bad speakers, check for phase coherency, wipe out any existing system EQ, reposition speakers if called for, restructure gain and/or grounding scheme if noise is audible, readjust crossovers, amp levels and balance among various system zones (left vs. right, stacks vs. center cluster vs. front fills vs. other fills) if needed to get the system sounding as good as possible without EQ, then EQ the system from scratch using the appropriate combination of individual system 1/3 octave EQs on each zone and a global 1/3 octave EQ inserted into our console channel. (Sometimes, in very complex systems with lots of zones, at festivals with several groups or in situations where we are not the headliner, we accept the existing system setup and EQ curve, making changes only on the inserted 1/3 octave EQ.)

Fortunately we seldom have to worry about feedback, because we do not have speakers on stage and Patti's B&K mic is so flat. This means that all engineering decisions can be made entirely on musical grounds. After 20 years of this, we can usually optimize a system quickly and consistently in a soundcheck, making mediocre systems sound good and good systems sound great. If we are not working with our own engineer, we also try to show the house engineer the sound we are after so the system can be fine-tuned during the first songs once the audience comes in and changes the acoustics.

I haven't used a guitar amp in about 20 years, and given that I basically just use one tone with the goal of a crystalline orchestral sound, that has turned out to be a good move.

The buffer preamp is amazing. Guitars are invariably impedance mismatched relative to whatever follows them, with a substantial loss of clarity right off the bat. We all grew up hearing and therefore loving that sound, but I have come to prefer the sound of the more theoretically correct approach. I have not tried it yet, but Bill Bartolini designed an onboard buffer preamp using my Carrotron as a reference, and feels that he surpassed it in all respects, so this would be worth checking out. Even a foot pedal such as the TC makes a big difference and makes it easy to compare to the unbuffered approach without rewiring, but the closer to the pickup, the better. This is very unscientific, but I would estimate that about half of my sound is the pickup/preamp, and the other half the extreme EQ we do (discounting the effect of the fingers, of course). In recording that is combined with a very transparent recording path not coloring the sound any more than necessary.

© 1999 Tuck Andress