There has been some great discussion over on the 'Unreal Holdsworth' facebook group as a result of some scoops into the inner sanctum of Holdsworth tone creation courtesy of Chip Flynn. Given that there has been some really great Holdsworth style patches posted on the forum I thought it would be useful to flag up some key info
From Chip:
'the shave and a haircut' - during the None Too Soon sessions, Allan worked tirelessly trying to get sustain and clarity, and a tone befitting an electric jazz context. He wanted to 'shave' out the rattiness of the upper treble areas .. So he set the DG1000 to zero bass, treble almost off, and high and low mids around 5/6 - took that signal and 'shaved' the treble at 4K, and rolled in more bass with an 1140 TC Parametric EQ . Then he compressed that sound with a DBX compressor and used a noise gate to clamp the note when he lifted his left hand fingers .. This went into a borrowed JCM 800 to his Holdsworth Harness, to a Yamaha Home Stereo amp .. We were on the phone a lot during this period... Allan nicknamed this technique the 'shave and a haircut'
Tone Control - Allan tried a few resistor based changes in his wiring, and used 250K pots tone and volume. About eight years ago, he disconnected the tone pot entirely, and EQ'd everything with the parametric in the Magic Stomp . We spoke a lot about "the points of EQ" and what effects your tone - pick>finger pressure>guitar type>string gauge>cable length and thickness> tube amp or modeling amp>cabinet size>speaker ... he wanted to eliminate as many EQ points as possible to ensure consistency. He always said he had only three constants - 1) a headless instrument 2) a Neuman U87 3) Dunlop Nylon 1MM pick
Speakers - Allan's favorite speaker was an old Goodmans speaker from the U.K.. They were used in HiFi Equipment, and Vox used them for a short time .. Allan sometimes recorded on a 12" speaker in mono, added stereo imaging delay through two 10" speakers, and recorded that . He thought the 10" speaker had a great all around sound and gave things a "finished" sound especially through his Yamaha home stereo receiver ... His favorite speakers were a 10 and 12" Goodmans, old Celestion G1265's, and lately a Scumback M65 Large Dust Cover speaker I sent to him. With his harness, he didn't care too much about the speaker, since the sound was formed independently from the speaker and cabinet, and just needed re-amping . Same with modeling .. Cleans were recorded in Stereo, but solos were in Mono and imaged later ..
and subsequently we had many great conversation about all the things every tells you Allan hated or didn't want to speak of. And he was fun to booze with.