"I didn’t grow up working on 24-track – the first two Taste albums were eight-track and we always had tracks left over – we couldn’t believe it, either! Then we did a couple of albums on 16-track, which was great because we could compromise here and there – like if you had a tambourine or handclaps, the roadies could do it, or your friends could do it at the same time as somebody was doing acoustic in a booth."
"It keeps a kind-of a workshop feel to it; you can bring every musician in at different hours but you lose that interaction of people playing together, which is pretty evident by some of today’s music."
Old records sound better than the modern ones.
“Well they let the bass rumble round, spillage was allowed and separation wasn’t the first commandment. I think that’s a major part of it, plus the desks and things in those days were valve desks and they were slightly distorted in the nicest possible way.
"The old compressors and echo chambers were very mechanical and they just did the one job, but did it very well.
“It’s like if you compare Dylan’s Highway 61 to his last two albums – he himself has said that he’s yearning to get that sound again but obviously somebody’s misdirecting him. It’s just a ‘combustion’ of sound. A technician would probably say, ‘Okay Rory, can’t you hear that cymbal’s peaking at such and such, can’t you hear that bass is not forward enough.
You’re a bit of a Telecaster man; I think they’re your favourites aren’t they?
“I think they are. I mean, I’m a Strat player because of the three pickups, the out of phase thing, as well – even on my Stratocaster I’ve neutered the middle tone control. I think probably the ideal guitar would be like a Telecaster lead pickup on a Stratocaster body, but then that’s what Lowell George used to do.
“I turned against the rhythm pickup on Teles, years ago, and I put two Strat pickups in the middle and rhythm position, but then lately I’ve reverted back to the way they were.
That little metal pickup, as I call it, if you get a good one it’s got a strange little character all to itself. Okay, it’s not going to shake the Albert Hall but it’s a very warm and unusual little sound. It’s the flat pole pieces for a start and, I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think it’s thinner wire than the lead pickup. The only trouble with Teles is the old squealing problem, but we’ve all learnt to cure it, one way or the other.”
This ‘66/’67 Tele was the go-to guitar for slide on Rory’s early solo albumsThis ‘66/’67 Tele was the go-to guitar for slide on Rory’s early solo albums (Image credit: Future)
What’s your remedy?
“The rhythm pickup, you just dip in petroleum wax and put it in the fridge and that one’s cured, or at the very worst a bit of bicycle tape. The lead one is always the difficult one. What I do with that one, or should I say what Chris Eccleshall [renowned guitar maker and repairer] does with that one, is just take the brass plate from underneath the pickup and throw it away.
"He re-earths it somewhere else and that cures it. Plus, you have to put the petroleum wax in. Country purists would say that you lose a bit of zing doing that; I don’t know, that’s debatable.
Excerpt from musicradar.com, tO read the full article click here
