Yet again... How does Mike Oldfield get that unique clean guitar sound?
David Lo
as on Songs of Distant Earth.
I know this question has been asked many times, but I can't find a useful
answer.
The usual answer to this kind of question is "the sound is from his unique
technique / from his fingers" etc. And "why do you want to copy his sound,
create your own" etc etc. I know he has a unique picking and left-hand
style...
But I just want to know, hardware-wise, e.g. what guitar, amp and effect(s)
would get you relatively close to that clean M.O. sound.
I'm not even asking because I just want to copy his sound - as a guitar
beginner I'd simply like to understand what makes his sound so unique. E.g.
it sounds different from the "standard" clean strat sound..
Thanks!
tim gueguen
"David Lo" <da...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:t9udnQFBs_5...@is.co.za...
> How does one get something similar to that clean Mike Oldfield sound, e.g.
> as on Songs of Distant Earth.
>
dual pickup positions on his guitar ie the bridge and middle pickups on a
Strat.
tim gueguen 101867
Richard Carter
> Lots of compression using one or more rack compressors, using one of the
> dual pickup positions on his guitar ie the bridge and middle pickups on a
> Strat.
I'd say that more common recently has been the middle pickup on its
own. It depends on which track you're looking to duplicate the sound
of though.
It's also worth having a second listen to make sure that the sound
you're wanting to get is actually a Strat! A notable one would be Let
There Be Light, which is the PRS, and going back further, things like
the intro to Moonlight Shadow, which I'm fairly certain is a Les Paul
Special.
But still, DIing the guitar is the secret - amps are always going to
colour the sound in a way that takes you away from that super-hifi
sound of Mike's. Then the compression, as Tim said. I'd say pretty
much any compressor will do as long as you've got a bit of control
over it. Short-ish attack time, low threshold, high-ish ratio,
sorted...
A bit of EQ afterwards will help get you where you want to go,
generally a bit of treble boost (if you have a choice, try shelving
from around 12-13kHz upwards), and a perhaps a little in the bass end
(try in the 120Hz region). Experiment, of course, it depends on the
guitar - you'll hit on something that sounds right eventually.
To get it exactly the same, you'll need Mike's guitar and the input
modules from The Manor's Audio Developments mixing desk...and Mike's
hands...but with a little experimentation, you'll be able to get very
close.
It depends on how you play, of course - a huge amount of the sound is
in the way Mike approaches the guitar...and that's the hard bit to
duplicate...
Richard C
David Lo
I'm still learning about what a compressor (etc) actually does, but it makes
more sense now!
Just some useless chatting:
Like I said, I'm really a beginner (playing about a year now, but "teaching"
myself so it's going slow), and I mostly play acoustic-style, i.e. finger
picking on an unamplified electric, which sounds OK to me (currently I only
have an electric, but no amp, just podxt and vamp modelers). But when I
plug my electric into my amp modeler (or someone's amp) it sounds terrible
(not the POD, my playing :).
I think playing electric v.s. acoustic is quite different, especially when
using some effects or distortion etc. And especially when it's not just the
simple single note parts I like to practice (like No Man's Land, Tres Lunas,
Muse), but songs with chords (e.g. Greensleeves) really sound bad amplified.
Like, it sounds like my sounds end too "sudden" when switching to the next
chord etc. I also realize I need to work on things like palm muting.
The reason I'm interested in Mike's sound, is because that is what inspired
me to learn guitar about 15 years ago. I bought my first guitar more than
10 years ago but only really started a year ago.
"Richard Carter" <korg...@mailandnews.com> wrote in message
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