Citaat:
Bill Steer (guitar) was bothered all the way through the backing tracks that the guide guitar (through his beloved marshall) had been too scratchy sounding. We tried moving the pickup height. We tried different amps (Soldano, 5150, various Marshalls, Dual rectifier, many, many amps!) then we tried different cabs... Nothing sounded as good as the demo sound. We had started with the same combo as the demo, but that was the "scratchy" sound that was annoying Bill... then I had an idea.
This was like making a resonant kick drum by putting two kicks back-to back with no heads in between. I took two Marshall 4x12 cabs. We took the backs of both of them. We took the speakers out of the second one, and we blocked off the holes with plywood and corrugated cardboard, as the closest thing we could find to a 'seal'. This was definately getting boomy, and quite interesting, but Bill still didn't like the top end. It was sandpapery and irritating to him.
As a last resort (after 4 days of trying things out, double-tracking things, seeing if things got better or worse after layering... then erasing everything right away!) we went up to the demo room (studio 3) and took our "Frankencabinet" up with us. We miced up the cab and brought it up on the Allen & Heath. There was our sound. Was it the room? -probably at least partly, but we'd tried 5 or 6 completely different areas in studio 2... ord knows there's no shortage of acoustic spaces there... or was it the Allen & Heath Mic preamps? -Who Knows? Who Cares? -I'm wheeling the Studer upstairs, and we're booking some time in studio 3!!!
The cab was miked as was my custom at the time: Two SM57's, right against the speaker cloth, but one on the center of a cone, one at the edge of a different cone. The two were combined and maybe shifted slightly for maximum summing, or smoothest top end, but that's usually a good starting point. Don't ask me why it works, I've tried to riddle it out, but it works.
Wat in deze quote niet genoemd wordt is welke versterkers er gebruikt werden: een 5150 met een Guv'nor ervoor (waarschijnlijk net zoals je een TubeScreamer zou gebruiken) en een Marshall oefenversterker. Die laatste staat waarschijnlijk niet erg hard in de mix.