Mark Knopfler gear, Misc

Fender discontinued the 150 super light strings

After almost 40 years, Fender recently dropped the 15o SL strings from their product range. For me bad news because the 150 SL (pure nickel, 008, 011, 014, 022, 030, 038) are the strings of choice on most of my Stratocasters.

08-strings had their popularity peak surely some decades ago. They were favoured especially among country players since thin strings made all those fancy banjo-style rolls and licks easier and faster. When players like Stevie Ray Vaughn promoted  heavy strings, 08 became rare and were often no longer on stock in most smaller shops.

I started to experiment with strings thinner than 09 amost 20 years ago. Two things I especially liked about them were the thinner g- string because with vintage-style Strat pick-ups (staggered pole pieces) an 016 always seemed too loud for me compared to the 011 b-string, and I like the sound of the thinner wound strings, especially the d and a strings.

It was however just a few years ago that I got a hint that Mark Knopfler might have played 08s on the early Dire Straits stuff.

By the way, Fender also dropped the 010-038 set some time ago (010, 013, 05, 026, 032, 038) which I personally liked better than 010-013-017… .

At least I don’t have to worry about not getting 08 nickel wound strings anymore because Fender still have them with that bullet end at a slightly higher price (3150 SL). I also noticed that they still have the 09, 011,015, 024, 032, 040 set (originally known as 150 extra lights, the strings Mark played on the Making Movies tour) which are now denoted as 150XL, while 150L is now 09,011,016,024,032,042.

Knopfler himself has meanwhile moved to heavier string as we know, and plays 010s (or heavier) on most of his electric guitars now. At least on Sultans of Swing and Romeo & Juliet he still played a signature MK Strat with 09s, but even on these songs he tried out 010s on the last tour.

Amps, Easy stuff for beginners, Effects, Guitar in general, Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, Misc, Misc, MK guitar style and licks, Vintage guitars

New site shop launched

Some of you might already have noticed that this site has its own shop since a few days. You can enter the shop with the MK-Guitar.com Shop button on the right side of the header section.

After some initial beta testing I am proud to announce that you can  buy stuff like

* Gear (partly vintage stuff)

Ernie Balls, Morleys, effects, instruments … mostly used, ocassionally new stuff
Not too much yet, but I hope to offer some more nice stuff here in the future (check regularly since these things are normally single items, first come, first serve…)

* My backing tracks

Many asked in the past for these, they are the ones I created to use on some of my youtube videos.
Note that I finally sorted out all legal aspects and can now offer these  legally here, which means with buying these you will not only support this site, but also MK himself 😉
If some of the articles of this blog were helpful for you in the past, you can now say thank you by simply buying one or more of these tracks alternatively to the Buy-me -a-beer thing below the posts.

At the moment there are only three backing tracks (Brothers in Arms, Six Blade Knife, Wild West End) but I have the following tracks already in personal use, still need to fix some final details: Sultans of Swing (long version), Romeo & Juliet (like on recent live versions), Song for Sonny Liston, Setting me up, Southbound Again (live  “boogie” version), Down to the Waterline

* Fan Items

I have a few spare copies of some of the Dire Straits books and stuff like that.

* Planned: Own products

Yes, there are actually some nice things in the pipeline …

* Planned: Video Tutorials & eBooks

There are occasionally some weird tricks, techniques, patterns etc. which I learned to play after actually studying these things since I started to play guitar in 1979. Please understand that I am not necessarily keen on giving *everything* away for free e.g. on youtube, but I decided to offer all I know in some kind of video tutorials.  I am still working on conceptual details, watch out for things to come.

Also note that I meanwhile reduced my regular job (one reason … to have more time for things like this site…) so it makes sense that this site might generate some income – the more, the more time for it in the future 🙂

Of course there will still be more free stuff on youtube as well.

Planned: Use the shop to sell your stuff

If you now or at any time want to sell any MK related gear, you might also want to offer it in this shop. This way you might reach an interested audience and the stuff can reside there as long as it takes to get a decent price. You don’t need to ship stuff to me of course, just use the shop as a platform to find a buyer. You can contact me in case for details.

I hope you will have fun browsing the store. Use the comment function of this article for suggestions or opinions.

Amps, Effects, Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, Misc, Recording

Trying to recreate that Sultans of Swing sound – The gear I used on the Puresolo competition.

Like many others,  I recorded an entry for the Puresolo competition (you could play your solo over one of the following backing tracks:  Sulans of Swing, Calling Elvis, or Speedway at Nazareth). I always find it a bit frustrating to take part in such a competition because as it seems nobody knows before who decides basing on what criteria (authenticity, accuracy, originality, creativity, …??) Anyway, as the backing track was really great – the original recording of  Sultans of Swing without the lead guitar –  I simply used the opportunity to try how close I can get to the sound of the original. Note that you had to record the guitar with Puresolo’s software which did not allow you to fix mistakes later, so you had to play the whole song in one part and leave in all mistakes, or try it again with a second attempt.

Instead of a link to the competition entry, you will find a  player module with my version  at the end of  this post, mainly because Puresolo only plays back uploaded stuff in a horrible quality (something like 64 kbs). The guitar sound is surely not 100% as the original but closer to it than any of my previous attempts so I thought you might be interested in some details on the gear and settings.

The gear I used

I first played a few guitars I had here to see which one sounds closest over the backing track. I originally felt to go for one with a maple neck, but finally my ’62 Strat with rosewood fingeroard had something the others had not. This does not mean that Mark also played his rosewood Fender Strat instead of his maple-neck, you can never be sure of these things.

A Fender Stratocaster

I first played the guitar through a Morley volume pedal which makes the sound generally sweeter (it takes out some harshness) but for this particular recording I felt I need a lot of treble, so I left out the pedal. For the same reason a Fender Pro Reverb made it compared to an old Music Man amp. I dialed in enough treble and put on the bright switch. The sound was much brighter than I normally play here in the room but sounded alright over the backing track.

A Fender Pro Reverb - I dialed in a lot of treble

I tried an exciter effect – an old Pearl Thriller – which made the sound even shine a bit more.The last effects I used was some chorus and a limiter. Here I took a software plug-in from my Creamware Scope system.

Pearl Thriller - a clone of the Aphex Exciter effect
A subtle chorus effect - speed was rather slow
I lately prefer a limiter over a compressor

I used an old Schoeps CM64 tube microphone which sounded sweeter than the Shure SM 57.

The position and angle of the microphone

Which Pick-Ups?

The next decision was the pick-up combination to use. Normally you’d say Sultans of Swing was the bridge & middle pick-up. I am still not sure what it was but bridge & middle definitely did not sound right here. The middle pick-up alone was too sharp, so I ended with the neck & middle pick-ups. However, note that this Strat has a Dimarzio FS-1 in the neck position, and this pick-up has a totally different impedance than a stock Fender Strat pick-up. This is why it does not sound as nasal when you play it together with another pick-up.

I had rather thin (08) strings on the guitar, maybe too thin. I also did not more experimenting to get that little bit of distortion that seems to be on the original recording. It sounds like an abrupt clipping, maybe from the desk (?!).

So, here is the result in uncompromised sound quality (MP3 320 kbs) as I can hear it from my hard disk. Unfortunately Puresolo compressed everything down to 64 kbs directly after the upload, what a shame since some of the entries are really great!


Simply click on the blue progress bar to make the player play a different part of the song.

Effects, Mark Knopfler gear

Ernie Ball volume pedal modification to make the taper like it was with the old Allen Bradley poti

Regular readers of this blog might know my first article about the different behaviour of Mark Knopfler’s Ernie Ball volume pedal compared to recent Ernie Ball models. In short: In the 80ies  a different poti was used that caused a completely different sweep curve than later ones (see diagram below).

Knopfler’s pedal changes volume drastically over the first part of the pedal sweep range. This allows him to perform the violin-like fade-in notes he is famous for with much more intensity than the new pedals.

Also, during the last part of the pedal sweep – from middle to full – Knopfler’s pedal changes the volume only moderately which means you can adjust the overall volume of the guitar much more precisely than with the new pedal. Let’s say you want to set the level to something like 80% (which Knopfler often does), the new models require a pedal position  that must be accurate to a tiny fraction of an inch, just a bit more and you are instantly at 90%, a tiny bit less and you are at 70% or even less. I found this extremely difficult to perform with your foot while playing and singing. Knopfler’s pedal can be rolled back for an inch to have the desired level, half an inch more and you might have 85%, half an inch less and you are still at let’s say 75%, so it is much easier to adjust.

Again:

Old style: great change in the first, small change in the second half of pedal sweep –> great for fade-ins, great to adjust volume
New style: small change in the first, great change in the second half of pedal sweep –> less intense fade-ins, difficult to adjust volume

Knopfler himself is aware of the problem so his roadie Ron Eve (or was it already Glenn Saggers?) just bought the remaining stock of the old potis from Ernie Ball to have replacements for all times.

My findings and measurements in detail

I have examined Ernie Ball pedals from the last decades but almost all had the new type of volume curve. I just managed to find one from 1986 which seems to behave like Knopfler’s, while my 1989 is already wrong. Surprisingly both the 1986 and the 1989 have an Allen Bradley poti, both made in Mexico. Later they came with a Canadian poti, today with one from Japan (custom-built by Tocos). I took a lot of measurements to see what really happens (diagram below), and found that all the newer potis behave almost identically.

Left to right: 1989 Allen Bradley poti - 1996 Canadian poti - the new Tocos poti

Unfortunately the original poti is no longer produced 🙁 . Allen Bradley was sold in the 80ies and soon stopped making them. The original type is – as I found out – extremely sought-after, in other words almost impossible to get. In addition, Ernie Ball changed some details of the pedal itself – e.g. to accommodate the new potis which have metrical threads instead of inch threads – so a direct replacement is often impossible anyway. Since these potis were all designed for heavy-duty usage (“extended life”), replacing it with some ordinary poti wouldn’t be a good idea – and possibly not easy anyway.

Knopfler has an Allen Bradley poti - note however that these look identical to the later Allen Bradley potis that had the wrong curve

The taper switch on some newer Ernie Ball pedals

Ernie Ball reacted to the situation and implemented a switch which enables two different volume curves, something that seems like a solution. However, my measurements showed me that it in fact changes the curve, but not really to what it was with the old poti. If you look at the diagram you will see what I mean. Besides, with the additional 220k resistor the taper switch puts in, you will lose a bit more treble, too (by the way, this is the reason you cannot simply increase the value of the resistor to make the curves more similar).

Quote from the Ernie Ball website FAQs on the problem

Q:I recently had you guys rebuild my older EB Volume Pedal and the new pot does not distribute the volume like the old pot did. Is this correct?
A: We have used at least 4 different companies to custom-build our potententiomers since the pedal’s inception in the 70’s. Since 1998, we have been using Tocos pots, which we feel are among the very best available today. However, they do have a different “sweep” than the older pots do. On top of the fact that potentiometers in general have very wide tolerances, the fact that upon rebuild we are removing one vendors pot and replacing it with another, there will be some obvious differences in the pedal’s sound. Here’s the scoop: we no longer stock the pots of old, not only because we can’t get them, but also because we do not think they are as consistently good as the Tocos pots. The Tocos pots are the most consistent, high quality pots we have tested. With regards to the sweep changing, that is due to modern day pot manufacturing techniques that are used across the industry.

In my first article I described that I swapped the cable from the guitar and to the amp on my pedal, so I got a curve closer to the old ones. This however had a technical drawback: you lose a lot of treble when the pedal is not at full position (much more than you normally do), so it was not really a solution.

Measurements

Measuring the output in relation to the pedal position
Ernie Ball volume pedal curves - After my modification (red curve) the pedal behaves just like the sought-after version from the early 80ies (yellow)

Without being a technician, you can see huge differences in the diagram. On the horizontal axis we have the pedal position, on the vertical we have volume output. The 1989 Allen Bradly (red) and the Canadian  poti used in the 90ies (blue) have almost identical curves. This is only slightly changed with the taper switch (green).

The yellow curve is the original poti style, and the orange curve is the 1989 poti after my modification (see below). Believe me, I myself am very pleased with my result 🙂 , and don’t forget that potis differ due to tolerances, so even two identical models will not measure 100% identical.

Now the great news

Coming from a family of engineers, I could not sleep (well not really 😉 ) before I found a solution for the problem. I finally managed to modify my two pedals to behave almost 100% identical to the old poti style, and this without any drawbacks, like the need to use (and first to find!) some low-quality poti with a similar curve, or to build in active electronic components that require a battery and introduce noise. The ease of use, look  and reliabilty of the pedal is not decreased in any way! The modification was  very tricky at first (you need inch allen keys that are difficult to get here in Europe,  or you constantly wish for thinner but longer fingers to operate things inside the pedal) and required a lot of experimenting (including making myself a little tool), but finally I got it done. I was really surprised about how close my modification is to the original curve (see diagram).

If you want me to modify your pedal (should work with all Ernie Ball types, at least for the common 6166 and the 6180 Junior pedals), I will happily do so. I thought it is fair to charge you the same fee as you pay for a repair at Ernie Ball – US $ 55 or 42,- € via PayPal (and what I do is more work than what they do, plus for some pedal models they even charge you US $ 75.)  Shipping: You pay shipping to me (Germany), I pay shipping back within Germany, within the EU it is  plus 5,- € . If you are from outside the EU, please ask for details before since customs seem to make handling rather difficult. Also ask for alternatives if you don’t want to use PayPal.

Use the contact form of this blog for first communication. I will reply via email then!

BTW, I will leave in your original poti which means if it is already scratchy, it probably will still be after (although one of mine was cured for some reason after the modification :). I also can open your poti when scratchy to see if I can clean it inside, please inquire for details in such a case.

Update: Check the MK-guitar.com shop for our stock of Ernie Ball pedals that are already modified.

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

Mark Knopfler’s Grosh Electrajet

Visitors of Mark Knopfler’s latest Get Lucky tour might have wondered about one of Knopfler’s new guitars which he used on stage for the last song each night – Piper to the End. This song features  (live and studio) the Electrajet built by Luthier Don Grosh.

Don Grosh started his company Grosh Guitars in 1993, “with the singular goal of producing the world’s finest custom electric guitars and basses” (quote Grosh website). Each guitar is built from high-quality materials and parts by a small team of experienced luthiers under control and direction of Don Grosh himself. The product range covers models with both Fender or Gibson influence.

Mark’s guitar is the Electrajet, a Fenderish design which looks like a blend between a Stratocaster and a Jaguar or a Jazzmaster.

The Electrajet and a Fender Jaguar

The Electrajet normally has an alder body, although ash or mahogany are optional. Grosh uses only hand-selected (“tap-tone matched”) old-growth tone woods. Unfortunately at the moment there is no information on the details of Mark’s guitar but it does not seem to differ much from the standard configuration except the brown tortoise pickguard instead of the standard one in aged white. The neck is maple with a rosewood fingerboard (brazilian rosewood is available at a 400$ extra charge). The tremolo system is a vintage-style Gotoh or Wilkinson Stratocaster bridge, while the jack plate seems to be adopted from the Telecaster.

The pick-ups are two handcrafted P90 – manufactured by Grosh, or optionally by Fralin. The original P90 is a Gibson single coil pick-up which has a warmer and fatter sound than a Fender single coil like in the Stratocaster.

Knopfler’s Electrajet seems to be in aged white. All Grosh guitars feature a hand-rubbed ultrathin nitrocellulose laquer finish which allows the wood to “breathe”.

The Electrajet is priced at $ 2,950 (base price, additional costs for optional features) for the custom version, or at $ 2,000 for a standard version. A detailed list of the differences between both and much more information on the Electrajet can be found on the Grosh website.

I can’t tell whether Mark used the Electrajet for other songs than Piper To the End. Here he played the bridge pick-up. I had the impression it did not went through his Reinhardt amps but through the Tone King Imperial. The sound was sharp (because of the bridge pick-up) with some warm distortion.

Below are some pictures from the recent tour which show Mark with the Electrajet.

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

The different Mark Knopfler signature Strats used on the Get Lucky tour

After seeing Mark Knopfler live on  the recent Get Lucky tour I can confirm that he plays different MK Signature Stratocasters on stage (compare the post on Guitars on the get Lucky tour). In Oberhausen und Amsterdam he seemed to play four different red MK Strats:

#1 – on Border Reiver

This one is tuned to Eb which of course does not mean an open tuning but one half note lower than standard tuning, something Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughn did to get a fatter sound without having trouble with playing techniques like string bending.

still looking for good picture

#2 – on What it is & Sailing to Philadelphia

Just like on the last tour, he probably has 010 string gauge on this one. Serial No is SE 00000 (confirmed for 2008 tour)

still looking for good picture

#3 – on outro of Romeo & Juliet and on Sultans of Swing

Probably with 009 string gauge again (confirmed for the Kill to get Crimson tour), with a wireless camera mounted on headstock. This one has a comparatively light rosewood fingerboard. On the 2008 tour he played these two songs on Glenn Worf’s MK signature Strat, which has a lighter, more orange colour. This might be the same guitar again.

Romeo & Sultans: Glenn Worf's guitar?

#4 on So far Away

On some gigs he played the ’54 Stratocaster, but seems to use another MK signature with heavy strings (wound g string) now. Easily to recognize on pictures because of the narrow guitar strap.

So far Away

One of Mark’s signature  Strats has the serial no SE 00001, but I cannot tell for sure which of the four guitars this is. The one on So far away has a nice slightly flamed headstockk, but the flame/grain pattern seems to be different than on the 00001 Strat. Maybe it is the one on Border reiver?

I am looking for good pictures of guitars   #1 and # 2 to contrast them all here. If you have any, please send them to me so that I can put them into this post.

And if you wonder where I got the information about the guitars of the 2008 tour from, check out this video in case you don’t already know it:

Amps, Mark Knopfler gear

Which songs of the Get Lucky tour are played with the Tone King Imperial? And what was the amp setting?

Visitors of the recent Get Lucky tour have seen the Tone King Imperial on stage again, located between two red Marshall cabs just like on the previous tours. I had ideal seats for the two concerts I have been to (Oberhausen and Amsterdam) and tried to make out for which songs Tone King was used, actually by trying to hear if the sound comes from the Marshall cab or from the Tone King.

It seems the Tone King was used on Donnegan’s gone and Piper to the End in Amsterdam (they did not play Donnegan’s gone in Oberhausen). By the  way , on the last tour (Kill to get Crimson) it was used on Cannibals, True love will never fade, Our Shangri-la, and Postcards from Paraguay.

Here is a picture of the amp settings in Amsterdam:

I guess the clean channel (right) was for Donnegan’s gone,  while the hotther left channel might be used for Piper to the End.

Of course I am not 100% sure, and the amp might have been used on other song’s too. If you can add some info, please do so with the comment function.

Effects, Mark Knopfler gear

Some new thoughts on the Ernie Ball volume pedal

On the recent Get Lucky tour I became aware of a little technical detail I had never paid attention to before: I was sure that the guitar cable coming from the guitar would first go into the Ernie Ball volume pedal and then back to the area on the right side behind the stage where Mark Knopfler’s effect rack and amps are placed. Instead, I observed that a long cable leads directly from the guitar to where the amps are. In other words, the input amp of the effect rack (or some other) seems to be the first part in the signal chain. Here the signal is boosted to line level, then (before or after the other effects in the rack) it seems to go back to the volume pedal in the front area on stage, and back to the effect rack again from where it runs to the amps.

I always wondered why Mark’s volume pedal behaves different than the Ernie Ball pedals  I have tried out (the response curve seems to be totally different, see here for more). Maybe Mark’s pedal really has a different poti (like some rumours say), or it just reacts differently because it works on a much higher signal level (after the first gain stage in the effect rack the signal becomes “active”, which means more level and a lower impedance). Theoretically it is also possible that Mark uses the version for line levels of the Ernie Ball pedal, which has a 25 kOhms poti instead of the 250 kOhms of the standard version.

I tried my pedal with a low impedance signal to see if it makes any difference: it did not, but I could not test with a higher level yet.

Another consequence of this signal path is that the long first guitar cable surely changes the colour of the tone. The longer a cable is, the higher its capacity which means it moves down the position of the pick-ups resonance frequency peak. It acts like a small capacitor put into the circuit. This way the cables capacity can easily shift the resonance peak of a standard Fender pickup (normally at about 6 kHz) to something like 3 or 4 kHz, which means that glassy high end at 6 kHz is reduced and the “presence” frequencies at 3-4 kHz are boosted.

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

Mark Knopfler – Guitars on the Get Lucky tour 2010

The US leg of Mark Knopfler’s 2010 Get Lucky tour is over, and we in Europe are looking forward to the next part. Due to the new recording policy on all MK concerts,  there seem to be less videos on youtube than we had the years before, but still we have some 🙂 On the base of mainly these videos I put together a list of the guitars Mark has used on the different songs on this tour so far:

Red MK Signature Fender  Strat(s)

Of course he played his signature model, and probably more than just one. He played it on:

Border Reiver, What it is (not confirmed) , Sailing to Philadelphia (not confirmed), Romeo & Juliet (outro solo), Sultans of Swing

The guitar on Border Reiver is tuned to Eb (one half tone lower than standard tuning). On the 2008 tour he played one Strat with 010 strings on What it is and Sailing to Philadelphia, and another one (owned by Glenn Worf) with 009s on Sultans of Swing and Romeo & Juliet, might be similiar on this tour.

Gibson Les Paul

The following songs seem to be the ’58 Les Paul. I can’t tell if the ’59 was also used.

Why Aye Man, Hill Farmer Blues, Cleaning my Gun, Speedway at Nazareth, Brothers in Arms

Fender  ’54 Stratocaster

So far away

I first listed So far away for the MK Signature Strat, because of this video (bad quality, red or sunburst Strat?) but on all other ones I have seen so far it it the sunburst ’54 Strat.

Pensa

Telegraph Road (2nd part)

National Style-o

Romeo & Juliet, Telegraph Road (part 1 – until “three lanes moving slow”)

Don Grosh Electrajet

A rather new addition to Mark Knopfler’s collection.

Piper to the End

Martin 0040S

The Ragpicker signature model

Get Lucky, Marbletown

Danelectro

Tuned to open E, slide

Donnegan’s gone

(No information yet)

I cannot tell which guitars he played on the following songs. If you have been to the US tour or know more from other sources, please use the comment function to let us know.

Prairie Wedding, Monteleone, Remembrance Day, Coyote

MK guitar style and licks, Recording

Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms – Cover by Ingo Raven

This week-end I found time again to record another cover version – Brothers in Arms. After Six Blade Knife and Wild West End, this is the third video I put some additional effort into, which means I did not record the  audio with the microphone of the camcorder but with the gear in our homerecording studio. Nevertheless it should be considered rather as “live video” and not as studio recording because I played the  guitar plus the vocals in one complete live take – without any overdubs and without correcting little mistakes to leave it in a more authentic state.

This time I recorded four takes all in all and then decided which one to take. The backing tracks were done some time ago – regular readers might remember the blog article about recording the acoustic guitar (my Gibson MK-81) and another one where I jammed to it and played a few solos.

The backing track is available here.

Recording gear

I recorded all audio with Cubase and a Creamware Scope system (now by Sonic Core) with which I also mixed the final tracks. The Hammond B3 emulation is also from the Scope system, and so is the reverb and all other effects (except a bit spring reverb from the guitar amp, and a sleight delay from the MXR analog delay). The drums are from Native Instrument’s Battery, a VST plug-in in Cubase.

Maybe you are wondering how I synced the Cubase audio to the digital video file: in fact I did not sync them at all. Instead I recorded the audio in Cubase,  and filmed myself while playing the guitar plus vocals. I later imported the video file and the mixed audio track into a friend’s Adobe Premiere. Here I visually aligned both tracks so that the waveform of the master audio track and the audio of the video file start simultaneously – at high zoom this is pretty easy to achieve. I found that for some reason both tracks do hardly drift apart over a time of just a few minutes. Then I simply muted the audio of the video file so that you hear the master audio only – that’s it. The same I did with the second video file.

Gear used here – signal chain

Gibson Les Paul Custom ’74 (10s strings)
Morley Volume pedal
MXR Analog Delay
Music Man HD 130 212
Shure SM 57

Some notes on how to play it and how to get the sound – dynamics are the key

I guess there are a zillion tabs around that tell you which notes to play (I myself never play or learn anything from using tabs, by the way), so I am not going to talk about this stuff here again. Besides I improvise a lot here: I found that as long as you stay in the G#m scale you can play more or less what you feel to and it sounds alright, the rest are all those licks I remember hearing in one of the many version Mark Knopfler did of this song. Each time I play it, I play it totally different, I never stick to a particular version.

What however seems important to me is the use of dynamics. What I mean is to remember that good music consists of loud notes which are contrasted with low, subtle notes. Many players I see on youtube seem to play everything rather loud. The problem is that when you start a song like Brothers in Arms and hit all those first notes at – let’s say – 80% percent of maximum strength, you cannot go really higher to highlight other notes. If you however start at rather 20% – which I am doing here – you have more to add later. Besides, the sound will be completely different. Be aware that Youtube also compresses the dynamics, so in the room I played with even more contrast between loud and quiet notes than you are hearing here. Similarly, something like the original Sultans of Swing is played with a huge dynamics range (which is later reduced technically for some other reasons) and this causes a huge sound difference compared with playing with a small dynmaics range. I guess I might come back to this topic with a dedicated future blog article.