In this article you will find a sound clip to hear the sound of a guitar amp … (a) mic’ed close to the speaker (Shure SM 57) (b) mic’ed at a distance of about 2 m (6 ft.) (Audio Technica AT 4050) (c) with both microphones [of (a) and (b)] blended together. The close mic’ing results in a dry and precise sound with hardly room. When you move back the […]
There are countless ways to record an electric guitar. While some of these do not really work for distorted guitars, you have even more choices when you want to record a clean guitar: you can plug it directly into the mixing desk, or use a DI-box before. Then there are special recording solutions like digital or analog pre-amps that also emulate the influence of the guitar speaker or even the […]
According to an interview with Guitar Player magazin from 1979, Mark Knopfler played a DiMarzio pick-up in one of his two red Fender Stratocasters that he played around the time of Dire Straits’ first two albums: On one there’s a DiMarzio pickup for the bass, and I like it because it just seems to give a fatter, louder sound, with more clout than the standard pickup Fender uses. DiMarzio has […]
A few people asked for the gear I used on the last set of youtube videos that I put online last week, namely on the video clips of the following articles: The one-man band – Playing both rhythm and lead guitar together Dire Straits Eastbound Train – Rhythm riff, licks and solo explained Mark Knopfler licks using the b5 note Knopfler goes Jazz – Video with licks from Comfort and […]
I already wrote three articles about Japanese vintage Strats, an introduction and a portrait of the fiesta red and the pink metallic Squier JV. I noticed that a lot of people surf into this site because of these articles, so I want to release a fourth one, this time about the almost legendary Tokai Springy Sound Strats. Many years ago I had on of these myself. This was about 1980. […]
The video in today’s post demonstrates an important aspect of Mark Knopfler’s unique guitar style: the blend of rhythm and lead guitar playing. I remember the day I first saw Mark Knopfler on TV in the late 70ies. I knew their stuff from the records, and I heard his lead guitar playing on these. What was striking when seeing him play was that his hands were apparently doing something all […]
Eastbound Train was one of Dire Straits’ first songs. It was recorded as a demo before the first album was recorded, and it is the song of the earliest Dire Straits live recording that exists (from the Hope & Anchor, London, December 1977). This live version was released as the b-side of the single Sultans of Swing in 1978, but with exception of the demo (that has a totally different […]
The b5 notes means the flattened fifth note of any scale. If we have e.g. a C-major scale (c – d -e -f -g – a – b – c ), the fifth note is the g , and if this note is flattened, we get the gb. The same logic works with any major or minor (or other) scale. The following video demonstrates the usage and the position of […]
With this post I am proud to annouce the 50th article of this blog, which went online on August 10, 2008. 50 articles in 104 days means an average of 0.49 article per day, or 3.4 articles every week. In these three months the blog built up a reputation among Mark Knopfler fans and guitar players, and the number of daily visitors is still steadily rising. Thanks to every visitor […]
In 1982 Dire Straits recorded their Love over Gold album in New York. According to Knopfler himself, he spent some time before with learning new chords and licks from a book by Mickey Baker. This circumstance, and the collaboration with Jazz musicians of the New York jazz scene – like Mike Mainierei, Michael & Randy Brecker or Tony Levin – seem to be the reason why sudenly more jazz elements […]