spagthorpe
Power User
I'm just wondering if anyone had taken a crack at this. I read about his equipment in the early days which just makes my head hurt. I know a lot of his sound (most) comes from his playing style, which is unique, but I still wonder if anyone has taken a crack at it.
" At the time, Mike was using a complex chain of equipment in order to get his guitar sound. From the guitar, he plugged into a treble booster. Brian May, of Queen fame, explained once that because these devices remove a lot of low end from the sound, it helps the sound to distort more smoothly. They also add extra gain (i.e. they amplify the signal). Mike plugged the output from the treble booster into a small battery powered amplifier made by Vox, which Mike had set up to distort the sound a bit. From there, it went into the microphone amplifier section of a Teac tape recorder, which he overloaded to get some more distortion, and then into a graphic equalizer with the mid-range frequencies boosted. The guitar signal then went back into another channel of the Teac tape machine, which Mike said helped to bring the guitar down to the right level. The output of that was then plugged into the mixing console. From there, it went through a noise gate (a device that reduces the level of a signal, or cuts the signal completely, when the level of the input signal falls below a set threshold) and another graphic equalizer. It was this second graphic equalizer that Mike used if he wanted to change the sound at all. In addition, Mike had a limiter inserted, to stop any unwanted signal peaks. Mike also had a Fender Twin Reverb amplifier in the studio, to which he sometimes fed the guitar signal from the mixing desk – he’d then record the signal with a microphone. Mike felt (and quite rightly if you ask me…) that doing this added warmth to the sound, helping it to sound more ‘real’ and less electronic. "
" At the time, Mike was using a complex chain of equipment in order to get his guitar sound. From the guitar, he plugged into a treble booster. Brian May, of Queen fame, explained once that because these devices remove a lot of low end from the sound, it helps the sound to distort more smoothly. They also add extra gain (i.e. they amplify the signal). Mike plugged the output from the treble booster into a small battery powered amplifier made by Vox, which Mike had set up to distort the sound a bit. From there, it went into the microphone amplifier section of a Teac tape recorder, which he overloaded to get some more distortion, and then into a graphic equalizer with the mid-range frequencies boosted. The guitar signal then went back into another channel of the Teac tape machine, which Mike said helped to bring the guitar down to the right level. The output of that was then plugged into the mixing console. From there, it went through a noise gate (a device that reduces the level of a signal, or cuts the signal completely, when the level of the input signal falls below a set threshold) and another graphic equalizer. It was this second graphic equalizer that Mike used if he wanted to change the sound at all. In addition, Mike had a limiter inserted, to stop any unwanted signal peaks. Mike also had a Fender Twin Reverb amplifier in the studio, to which he sometimes fed the guitar signal from the mixing desk – he’d then record the signal with a microphone. Mike felt (and quite rightly if you ask me…) that doing this added warmth to the sound, helping it to sound more ‘real’ and less electronic. "
