I made another video some weeks ago where I talked about doubling guitar riffs for a fatter sound. I played a Japanese Erlewine Automatic, a very cool guitar with one humbucker, and dialed in a sound similar to the Dire Straits classic Money for Nothing. I did not try to get as close as possible to the original sound which is very much a typical 80ies sound, bright with some […]
In the early 80ies – in the Love over Gold / Local Hero / Infidels era – Mark Knopfler used a metallic blue Japanese Fernandes Strat copy with Seymour Duncan pickups in the studio. John Suhr once told me that in his opinion Mark created some of his best guitar sounds of that time with this guitar. If you wonder what happened to this guitar or where it is today, […]
Here are two videos I recorded to try out another guitar I am building on: a Schecter Dream Machine-like Strat with an ash body and a birdseye-maple neck, with a brass tremolo and a ‘Making Movies’ pickguard. In other words, a Strat inspired by Mark Knopfler’s S8001 Schecter Strat. It is not finished but assembled for tests of sound, playability, and stability. And I must say, I am very impressed […]
In my last two videos I got some nice guitar sounds out of the integrated amp simulation and effects of my Soundcraft UI24R mixing desk. I was playing the MK61 pickups in the bridge & middle position of my Strat. This week I tried the same with the neck pickup. This is a VFS-1 pickup. I also worked much more with my ‘virtual studio’ (Steinberg Cubase together with the Soundcraft […]
For my latest Youtube video I recorded three different lead guitars over a self-produced backing track with the chords and groove of the Dire Straits classic Once Upon a Time in the West. The three guitars – a ‘normal’ Strat, a Schecter Dream Machine replica, and a Suhr – are similar to what Mark Knopfler played in the 70ies, 80ies, and in the 90ies. I tried to create a sound […]
In addition to the rumour that Mark Knopfler used the Orange Squeezer compressor in the 70ies with Dire Straits for his unique guitar sound, here is a confirmation coming from an interview with Mark himself: In the September 1979 edition of the Portuguese magazin ‘Musica & Som’ we find an interview with Mark, most likely dating from the gig in Freiburg, Germany, June 2, 1979. Mark was asked for hig […]
Recently I did a service job on a Suhr MK1. It is the same guitar in fact that I played on a youtube video and that was featured in a blog post six years ago. It belongs to a collector of MK-related guitars who lives near my place, and who kindly also lent me some of the more expensive guitars for my youtube videos in the past. With this blog […]
If you have not seen this already, here is Mark’s contribution for the Soundbreaking series on Youtube. Soundbreaking is a documentary series about the creation of new sounds in the rock music history, based on more than 160 interviews with celebrated recording artists, producers, and music industry pioneers. Mark is demonstrating various guitar techniques and instruments. I guess you have seen one or the other lick in similar videos with […]
I recently had a problem with a Music Man HD130 amp (the one Mark Knopfler used in the early days of Dire Straits). One speaker was creating a scratchy, distorted sound, surprisingly only at very low volume while it was fine at medium or high volume. I managed to cure it with an easy trick, nothing too special or secret but nevertheless something I want to share in case someone […]
Here are just two quick pictures of what I have been spending time with lately: This is a body of one-piece (!) flamed (!!) birch (!!!), shaped like a Schecter Dream Machine body (yes, the shape is slightly different to a Fender body, e.g. slimmer horns and cutaways) . The neck is a one-piece birds-eye neck, the neck profile is copied from a Van Nuys era Schecter neck. The wood […]