In the blog post about the Sultans of Swing lead guitar track that was made available through the Guitar Hero 5 game we had some interesting discussions about some technical aspects of the guitar sound. One was whether the effects we hear (compression, chorus, reverb) were added later in the mix or were recorded right with the instrument track. Unfortunately there is no direct information available so we will probably never know for sure. However, I recently read some articles or interviews with Rhett Davies – the sound engineer on the first Dire Straits album. He told a few interesting things about recording the Avalon album with Roxy Music in the early 80ies – so from ‘almost’ the same time as the Straits’ debut album (1978). I think some of these things were general preferences and might be true for the Dire Straits album as well.

Here are a few excerpts (from Sound on Sound):

One feature of Rhett Davies’ production style that surprised Bob Clearmountain when they first worked together was his willingness to print effects to tape with instrument recordings. “Generally speaking, and this applies to Avalon, if we were working on a particular sound and that sound had a delay or a reverb, I would print that with the signal. I love delays. We used the Roland Chorus Echos a lot, and I still do today, I love them.

My guess is – if it was not a Roland Jazz Chorus, as some rumour says at least for Sultans of Swing – then  it maybe was the Roland Space Echo 301 which was mentioned by Rhett Davies in an article on a Bryan Ferry solo album in 2007, while the famous Roland Dimension D was as it seems introduced later,  around 1979. Knopfler also had a 301 in his guitar rack on the Making Movies tour in 1980/81.

continued:
Quarter-note triplet delays are my favourites. [Check out my article about quarter note triplets if you are not familiar with the idea behind them] Anything that creates cross-rhythms is what I was always looking for, so if we were working with a rhythm box, I’d always be experimenting with delays, just to create something more than the plain thing that was there. Obviously it depends on the instrument, but if you’re talking about basic backing-track instruments then you’re trying to create something.

My concept was always that anybody could put the track up and push the faders up and it would sound as it’s supposed to sound. When we mixed Flesh & Blood, Bob couldn’t believe it, because nobody printed delays with the signal. If it was something like the lead vocal, I’d print that to a separate track, but we were still working on 24 tracks, and if it was a guitar and that was part of the sound it got printed. Roxy enjoyed working that way, because there’s nothing worse than thinking ‘It doesn’t sound as good as it did last week, what’s different? I’m sure that’s the same setting.’ This way, it’s always there, and it makes a faster way of working. I could put a track up in a minute and it was ready to do an overdub, so if we had musicians coming in that we wanted to try on two or three songs, it was really fast just to change the tape, and the song was ready to go. I also always used to try to keep an instrumental rough mix on tape as a working mix, so you could just whack up two faders and it was there.

So, maybe the chorus was the 301. The Space Echo 301 was – as the name suggest – mainly an echo – a tape delay to be more concrete, but it also has a chorus effect. I remember that Mark was once asked about the delay in the intro of Down to the Waterline, and his answer was:

“I have no idea what that was. Rhett Davies was the engineer on that record, and he’s in love with Roland Chorus Ensembles, so it might well have been that. I actually use a Roland onstage. ” (from this interview with Guitar Player magazine)

I think if Davies tend to record effects with the instrument onto the track, the rumour of the Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer as the compressor on this album becomes a bit more likely. Too bad we will maybe never know for sure. I did a Google search for Rhett Davies but to no avail: he does not have a personal homepage or something else which allows us to contact him, at least I have not found anything so far.

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Normally I use my Music Man 212 HD 130 amp for clean guitar sounds, but the other day I was tinkering around with the Les Paul jamming to Brothers in Arms. The Music Man has a solid state pre-amp section which is not ideal for distorted sounds. Yet, I was surprised to get some really nice, fat and warm sounds out of this combination.

Knopfler uses Marshall cabinets which allow a very deep bass sound, but I was pleased with the rich bass response from the Music Man, not bad for an open back combo amp.

I feel that it is important for that Brothers in Arms tone to play really softly and gently, don’t bash the strings or tear them. This way you get a great dynamic range.

And before I forget to mention: I rolled back the tone control on the guitar to 2.5 !

Unfortunately the sound on my youtube videos is not as good as it is before uploading a video. I don’t know what exactly it is, seems like a built-in denoiser or something, which produces a wobbling sound and other artefacts. Any help how to eliminate this is really welcome.

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Dire Straits’ first hit was Sultans of Swing, recorded in Basing Street studios, February 1978. But did you know that there was a different studio recording before (demo version, Pathway Studios, July 1977), and also a later recording (Pathway Studios, April 1978) that was recorded to be released as a single in some countries?

The demo version

This version was recorded on July 2, 1977, together with four other song (Wild West End, Down to the Waterline, Water of Love, and Sarcred Loving which was written by David Knopfler and was never released). The band had just started a few weeks before, and after rehearsing these first original songs they decided to book a small studio – Pathway Studios  – to produce a demo tape. The session cost them about 180 GBP. We all know what happened later: Radio DJ Charlie Gillet played these demo tapes in his Honky Tonk radio show, and the band finally got their record contract at the end of that year.

Pathway Studios was a tiny 8-track demo studio in Islington, London. Here is a quote I found about it in the Wikipedia. Note that it seems to refer to some later point as Alesis digital reverbs were definitely not available in 1977:

“The studio was very small, about 8 x 8 metres with a 2 x 2m control booth in the corner and an upright piano next to it. You could just squeeze three people into the control booth! The tape deck was a Brenell 1 inch 8 track. The monitors and desk were custom made, and they had a pair of Auratones as well, fed from Quad power amps. The desk was quite small, pushed hard against the front wall with the custom monitors hung above and the Auratones on the meter bridge. Outboard was very basic: a Bel delay line, an Alesis digital reverb and Drawmer gates, but they had a nice plate reverb in a cupboard in the office upstairs. I can’t recall all the mics but they were the industry standard stuff. We got big warm sounding mixes and despite the cramped conditions the mixing process seemed effortless compared to the difficult digital learning curve I have been on in the last two years.”

The following two pictures show Squeeze recording there in 1976.

This Sultans of Swing version (and only this song) was later released on a compilation album called the Honky Tonk demos by Oval records (see below for sound clip).

The single version

After the recording of the first Dire Straits album at Basing Street Studios (February 13 – March 5, 1978), the results were played to Phonogram’s marketing people. Some of them thought that Sultans of Swing was too polished and smooth sounding for a single that is accepted by the radio, so they re-recorded this song on April 20 / 26, 1978, again at Pathway Studios. This single was released in some countries, among them England and Germany, while in others the album version was released (e.g. in the Netherlands or the US). In some countries,  e.g. the former Yugoslavia, one verse (#5, “And a crowd of young boys…”) was cut off to decrease the overall length which – with almost 6 minutes – was rather long for the radio. This version features more distortion and compression, it indeed sounds more like  rock music. It even appears to be a bit faster although it is practically not. It seems it was never released on CD (see below for sound clip).

Sound and gear on these versions

On the demo version Mark Knopfler played most likely his 1961  Stratocaster (S-No #68354) , at this time he only had one Strat. It was probably not painted red yet but had a wood finish. The pick-up position seems to be the middle pick-up. The sound engineer at Pathway – Chas Herington – was later the  lighting designer on the Brothers in Arms tour  in the mid 80ies. It was 1985 in Arnhem, Netherlands, when I spoke with him and asked him about the equipment on these sessions. He told me that Mark played an old Fender Vibrolux amp which was recorded with a Neumann microphone. He also stated that Mark’s typical sound came out of the amp this way, and was not created with outboard effects and processing.
I assume that on the single version Mark Knopfler played his maple-neck Strat (S-No. #80470), also through the Vibrolux. This time there is a subtle distortion, possibly also compression (remember the rumour about the Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer). The pick-up position seems to be bridge & middle to achieve that nasal sound.

Sound clips

Here are sound clips with excerpts from both versions.
Demo version (from CD)

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Single version (from vinyl single)

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Note that Mark also plays one of the two rhythm guitars on both tracks.

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I recently recorded an acoustic guitar for a cover version of Brothers in Arms. I used two different microphones – a large diaphragm condensor  Audio Technica AT 4050 near the bridge and a small diaphragm condenser Schoeps CM 64 over the neck. I had seen pictures showing Mark using a similar approach from a radio promo recording he did a few years back.

I recorded both mics to separate channels of a stereo track into Cubase. When hearing the result I was pleased with the broad stereo sound and left it as it was. Of course you can mix both sources with different panning and volumes to be much more versatile.

I made a sound file for you for demonstration, you can hear the mix of both microphones but also both individually (in the mix and alone) to judge about their different sound capabilities. The old (1962) Schoeps is a great mic. It has a tube circuit and a nice treble boost for that warm and crisp high end. Of course there are many other great ways to position two microphones, this being just one.

The guitar is a 1976 Gibson MK 81 by the way. It will be featured in a future article.

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I have my National for some years now but never found the time, money, and courage to install a pick-up into this sensitive instrument. But a few weeks ago I decided to order what is said to be the best available pick-up for single cone Nationals: the iP-1X pick-up from Highlander – the same model that Mark Knopfler has in both his beautiful 1937 National and his new National.
I bought it new on ebay for USD 239 (169,- €), quite a lot of money for just a pick-up with an internal pre-amplifier, well, but a lot cheaper than the recommended retail price of USD 329.

What is always annoying here in Germany is that you have to pay not only customs (which in this case were only 2.7 %) but also 19% VAT, and this not only on the price of the item but also on the shipping costs (!?). You even have to pick-up the package from the local customs office.

In the box were the pick-up itself which is installed into a new biscuit (the piece of wood that holds the bridge) – so you have to exchange your old biscuit – the pre-amp which has to be installed in the interior of the guitar, a case for the external battery (replacing batteries inside of a National is no fun and puts stress on the cone construction), a guitar cable (stereo, one lead for the 9v battery power), and some velco tape to fix the cables inside the body of the guitar.

Installing the pick-up

Unfortunately this is a job that is not easily done, and does not take just a few minutes. The new biscuit with its bridge is much higher than the original one and has no grooves. It took me almost three hours to transfer the shape and height of the original bridge to a cardboard template, then to transfer it from the template to the new bridge, to cut it out roughly with a fret saw, to fine tune the contours with a file, and to saw the new grooves, again using the template. Of course I did this extremely carefully and slowly because I was afraid to cause some irreversible damage. Fortunateley the new bridge soon looked fine and was ready to install.

Normally you would ask a good local luthier for this job, but (a) there was noone near who had experience with Nationals and this pick-up, and (b) I like to do all kind of jobs on my guitar myself anyway. An experienced repair man surely will get this job done much quicker than me.

One thing that worried me was the fact that you need to drill a small hole into the cone (!) for the cable from the pick-up to the pre-amp. Besides two tiny screw holes on the wood stick inside the body to hold the pre-amp, this is the only irreversible modification of your guitar. I was reluctant when I learned about this before I ordered the pick-up because the cone is extremely sensitive, and also in my opinion a major sound difference between a vintage instrument and a new National. The hole could be pierced with a small prick first, then carefully drilled to 2,5 mm (3/32 “).  After threading the pick-up cable through the hole, I had to solder the RCA connector to the cable that is plugged into the pre-amp.

The rest was easy: the pre-amp is held by 2 little screws, like Mark Knopfler I used the f-hole for the output jack (no drilling required), and fixed all internal cables with the velcro tape.

The sound

After restringing the instrument, I was extremely curious how it will sound. I went directly from the pre-amp into the mixing desk and played the guitar over my studio monitors. What should I say, the sound was …. wonderful, sounds as you hear it from Knopfler’s guitar on his live recordings. The output seems to be rather hot, and the pick-up delivers the full range from bass, middle, to treble end. It is so balanced that I even did not have to adjust any EQ, sounded fine as it was. After adding some reverb it was perfect. I also could not detect any sound difference with the acoustic sound. Even at high volume I did not get any feedback problems, great!

Now it was also time to add a strap button to the heel of the neck so that I could play the guitar when standing, something I did not need before. I did not produce any sound clips because it really sounds just like the recent Knopfler live recordings (he had different pick-ups installed in the past I think), listen to Romeo & Juliet on the roadrunning live CD for example.

I would give 5 stars for this product.

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