OFF: What hi-fi equipment do you use to listen to Hawkwind?

[Albert Bouchard]

On Dec 31, 2004, at 2:00 PM, Doug Pearson wrote:

> I'll say right now,
> that for rock guitar, absolutely NOTHING beats the sound of a Les Paul
> through a Marshall tube amp recorded with an SM57 [inexpensive
> industry-standard dynamic microphone] onto analog tape, preferably
> through a
> preamp with good transformers, like a Neve or API; no digital
> approximation
> comes close to THAT).

That is a good sound for sure but Hendrix used mainly Fender amps in
the studio. I've found the blending two sounds, say a miced Marshall
cab combined with the Vox Tonelab or a POD has a very pleasant and
mixable sound. In BOC we almost always used a combination of mics, cabs
and amps to get the sounds especially in later years where we had all
the gear we could ever want. A Mesa Boogie combined with a Hiwatt
through a couple marshall cabs was especially useful.
That being said I think one reason why certain great guitar-playing
former bandmates have a less than great tone these days is the reliance
on the POD. It's great. It's easy and quick but it has a fake quality.
The Brain Surgeons new record was recorded over two days the weekend
before last and we used a combination of POD, Tonelab and JCM 800's for
every song (except the acoustic one). We used Senheiser 609s on the
Marshalls and that had a little more full sound than the SM57. We used
the studio's mixing desk for preamps (SSL) and that is comparable to
Neve, Trident etc.
We also recorded every instrument in true stereo with two mics (one
near and one far) but I'm not sure how useful those far mics are. They
make things sound a little muddy to me. We didn't worry about leakage
because we were well rehearsed and didn't make any mistakes. ;-) So you
can hear the sound of the room without using those extra true stereo
mics.
I'd been thinking I wanted to do that since I got a new dual G5 and now
track count is a non-issue for me. I guess if it works on a part I'll
use it and if not I won't. At least I have the option.
Al