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1. 

   In the Oldfield book, Mark says that he was using a wha with the Cafe Racers to play a song (“fade away” or someting like that, not sure about the title) “just like the James Burton version”. He talks also about the LP and the amp put on a chair.It’s in the early chapter of the book (don’t have it at the moment, so can’t tell the page).
   So we can think that in early DS days, he used the same gear as in Cafe Racers : LP special and wha
   And by the way, David explained also in this book, that for their first gigs, the band name was Cafe Racers, and it changed to DS after. He printed T-shirts with the name, but I can’t rememeber if it was before or after the change of name (have to check the book again)

   Comment by Jean-François — 23. January 2009 @ 08:38

2. 

   The name was changed when they played the Albany, which was before this gig. I think he got the Strat after the Cafe Racers but of course still had the Les paul Special. The amp he “used to put on a chair” with the cafe racers was a Selmer 2×12 combo I think, but it seems he did not have this one when they started with Dire Straits (maybe he traded it for the Strat??), and John had the Vibrolux.

   Comment by Ingo — 23. January 2009 @ 14:21

3. 

   Very interesting article.

   I alway wondered what gear MK used for the BBC sessions of july 78 (Live at the BBC record). Was it the Twin reverb ? But that strat sounds very loud compared with other lives of those early days. I think he probably used some overdrive pedal, but don’t know which one.

   If you have some piece of information… (maybe a dedicated article ?)
   Thanks !

   Comment by Florian — 1. February 2009 @ 13:26

4. 

   I don’t think Mark used overdrive at that time.
   Indeed, the guitar on live at the BBC sounds more satured as usual, but the bass sounds also that way, even drums are not very clean .
   I think it’s more a matter of record, production, mix, etc…
   Maybe the amp gain was a little more up, to have more volume.
   Live sounds are often less clean than studio ones.

   It has always interested me to know how get drive sounds : just with amp gain, pedals or so. When I listen Hendrix, it’s always difficult to say if it’s the marshall, or the fuzz which make this sound. Th marshall with guitar volume at 10 can be more drive than the fuzz with guitar volume at 5.

   On Gilmourish, it’s explained that all drive sounds of Gilmour from early 70′s are played with a fuzz, and the guitar volume roll down. I find it strange, because he could have satured the amp without using a fuzz, like Ingo did on the record with 2 mics.

   On my amp (a Peavey 60w transistor) I have 2 channels : normal and drive. But on the normal one, I don’t achive to get a warm tone, it’s just like an acoustic, you know “gling gling”. So, to have a warmer tone, more sustain, I have to use the drive channel, with less guitar volume, and then it’s like I had a tube amp (well not really, but you know what I mean).
   But I doubt that pro guitarists with tube amps make this way. I think that at a high volume, the sound can be satured without any pedals (as GF explained about the LP and the marshall in his recent diary entry)

   Comment by Jean-François — 2. February 2009 @ 11:06

5. 

   My english is so bad ! By “satured” I meant “saturated”, I guess you all had understand.
   By the way, what I forgot to say is that you can saturate the pre-amp, the amp and also the cabinet, and why not the pre-amp soundboard (even if it’s not the better way !) so “overdrive sound” can be so much different things…

   Comment by Jean-François — 2. February 2009 @ 12:22

6. 

   The amp on Live at the BBC should in fact be a silverface Twin Reverb into Marshal cabinet. It think the distortion comes from the amp, no overdrive pedal. You need to crank up these Fender amps a bit to get this distortion, don’t think it comes from the desk, surely not, this would be a rather nasty distortion.

   Comment by Ingo — 2. February 2009 @ 14:58

7. 

   Indeed, sound board overdrive always sounds awfull.

   What make overdriven tones so beautifull on guitar is the filtering hability of the speaker/cabinet. If you record the overdriven signal directly in the preamp of the amp (as Ingo showed it with in his article) it also sound usefull, may it be a tube amp or a transitor one.
   I built a super reverb recently with a nice overdrive capability. I guess that the amp was pretty loud in the BBC studio. One can also notice there are a lot of bass frequencies in the guitar sound. This would confirm that the Marshall cabinet was actually used. It sounds somewhat “Marshall” to me.
   Do you know what kind of speakers this cab had ? I guess it was a 4×12.

   Comment by Florian — 4. February 2009 @ 20:23

8. 

   Sorry, I meant “awful” instead of “useful”

   Comment by Florian — 4. February 2009 @ 20:25

9. 

   Ahaan… I will follow.

   Comment by Debty — 26. July 2009 @ 22:48

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