@Frank - If an effect is there, as part of the final product, you can't 'not hear' it, even if you (not you personally) don't necessarily recognise it. We can watch you play Easy in your clip, but we are only hearing it thanks to the amp you chose to use - maybe because that gave you some particular quality, or "effect"? ;-)
In some instances it's not completely possible to separate "effect" from content, like perhaps the delay & amplification on "Juke"? The multiple takes of Temperature by LW from June '57 & the cutting of the reverb in Backtrack are interesting in this respect...but don't necessarily "make" the tracks, or otherwise.
Our senses are easily influenced by our outlook & experiences (y'know like drinking OJ after brushing our teeth), but I try and listen to everything objectively, as well as appreciate the artistry. It's often surprising what you can pick out if you listen to things as if you have never heard them before...even after listening countless times, over many years.
I get a sense that some might feel I may be taking something away from BW by suggesting a degree of "outside help", that's really not my intention. ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
So BBQBob: Muddy, LW, Arthur Williams, Buddy Guy not "old School" then?
No one mentioned outboard units. But certain of BW's recordings feature reverb, he probably had no choice in the matter, recordings were "business", labels wanted a product to sell. Chess & Sun were in constant contact, as were the musicians flitting from one to the other.
You say he never checked controls before playing...not even on the Princetons he used? Tolex Princetons all have tremolo which is "on" unless switched off at the footswitch (unlike BF/SF Twins & Super Reverbs), if he never used it with them (which I don't doubt at all) then he must have checked/changed the settings, or used it...can't be both ways. ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Even when I feel I'm hearing a harp part juiced up some way in the studio from these Masters, I still can separate the technique from effect...In other words, it is their technique that is giving the final product it's true uniqueness, not the effect. Dennis Gruenling can create a "Leslie" out of pure technique - if he can, I'm sure the Masters BW and LW could too... In that clip I did - I am using a slight tremolo from the throat while holding the note.
Last Edited by Frank on Feb 27, 2013 9:31 AM
@56FH -- In recordings of those guys, there aren't any outboard effects with their amps being used at all. Reverb and and echo (often referred to these days as delay), were all studio effects only back then, and were quite primative, with reverb being either thru a plate or a spring in the studios.
Reverb was also done on the LW session that had Sad Hours/Blue Midnight/Mean Old World/Boogie by the use of pipes from the amp going out the window over the roof and then back into the john with a mike at the other end of it.
Another thing to remember back when these were recorded was that individual musicians didn't have headphones of any kind while they were recording (it didn't become general use until the late 60's), and often times were recorded with far fewer mikes than they do today, often with the ambient miking technque, wheras recordings made since the late 50's generally tend to have the rhythm tracks with a reference vocal cut first and then everything else gets overdubbed.
What Frank just posted in the last paragraph of his post is actually what's happening here and that's really a throat vibrato, but to do it exactly as BW did it, you HAVE to play it EXTREMELY soft in terms of actual breath force, and most harp players just don't play it that way at all because many of them just play much harder than they realize.
When I saw BW, he never traveled with his own amps at all, as he usually used pick up bands and used whatever amps they had with them at the moment, and it was anything from 4-10 Bassmans, Princetons, Super Reverbs, Twin Reverbs, Concerts, and NO effects were EVER used and if the amps had them, they were ALWAYS turned off, and not a single word of this is BS at all, and I am as serious as a heart attack about not checking these settings at all, so everything he did is FAR MORE from his technique than the gear.
I hung out plenty of times and he NEVER told anyone he was gigging with how to set anything up at all, so this whole gear argument about his use of tremolo, reverb or anything else just doesn't fly at all. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
“In recordings of those guys, there aren't any outboard effects with their amps being used at all. Reverb and and echo (often referred to these days as delay), were all studio effects only back then, and were quite primative, with reverb being either thru a plate or a spring in the studios.”
You are the only person in this thread who keeps mentioning “outboard effects” (which I take to mean a device plugged between the instrument and the amplifier).
Plate reverbs became popular with the introduction of the “140” by EMT in 1957. Bill Putnam built his own reverb chamber at Universal, he also consulted on the stereo reverb chamber at 2120 S Michigan Ave, which never worked on both channels. Putnam also employed tape delay. Studio spring reverbs do not seem particularly relevant to Sun (Phillips appears to have used room ambience, or tape delay), nor Universal/Chess up to/including 2120? I did hear (Scott Dirks may have mentioned it) that Bob Koester retrieved a plate reverb from Chess’s last studio (E21st St, which opened spring ’67)
“Reverb was also done on the LW session that had Sad Hours/Blue Midnight/Mean Old World/Boogie by the use of pipes from the amp going out the window over the roof and then back into the john with a mike at the other end of it.” This sounds like several urban myths condensed into one. By the time those tracks were recorded Putnam had a permanently installed reverb chamber. The “john” would seem to relate to the Chicago Opera house men’s room which was used as a rudimentary chamber in 1947 (Harmonicats’ “Peg O’ My heart”). “Pipes” could have 2 roots, one being the piping from 2120 studio control room down to the reverb chamber on the lower level (the chamber made the effect, the pipes were just ducting. Phil Chess quoted “sewer pipe” but it’s not necessarily so that Phil knew the ins & outs of how the effects were achieved, (they had engineers to do that). E21st St had a large pipe running through the building, suggestions had been made that this may have been utilised for some kind of effect, but this seems unlikely (why would they need a plate, if so?).
“I hung out plenty of times and he NEVER told anyone he was gigging with how to set anything up at all, so this whole gear argument about his use of tremolo, reverb or anything else just doesn't fly at all.” Studio reverb is all over the JOB sessions with Johnny Shines & the Gus Jenkins Universal/Chess session (“Eight Ball”), Tommy Brown sessions (“Southern Women” etc), Walter’s own “Hard Hearted Woman/Back Home To Mama” etc. Sam Charters referred to using the minimum of studio reverb in the Chicago Blues Today Sessions (I am not making any specific claim as to whether that was used with respect to BW on C-TBT, just pointing out that these things were engineers/producer’s tools that may have been used without a performer’s consent, or knowledge). Muddy’s “She’s All Right” (alt take) has studio tape delay.
I think you are undoubtedly right in that Walter probably didn’t give 2 hoots about gear & settings (even his use of amplifiers seems very sporadic), but this is very different to saying his recording do not feature such things, as they plainly did.
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Last Edited by 5F6H on Feb 27, 2013 12:09 PM
I know Mark has a great ear. If he says he hears some kind of effect in the recording, I'm not going to argue with him over it. Neither am I going to argue with Bob when he says it's all Walter and no effects were used on the amp. My only thought is that maybe it's possible that Walters natural vibrato was enhanced by some kind of effect added by the studio and not from the amp he was using. I know Chess often added studio effects, so maybe Sun did too.
Tolex Princetons all have tremolo which is "on" unless switched off at the footswitch (unlike BF/SF Twins & Super Reverbs), if he never used it with them (which I don't doubt at all) then he must have checked/changed the settings, or used it...can't be both ways. ---------- Unless you dont have the footswitch connected at all-then its always off-
This has turned out to be a great discussion guys THANKS!! I have also found that tremelo on an amp cuts feedback. Just about anytime I played through my Premier 76 Id have the trem on and it works. That amp gets Dont have to hunt tone to a T.
@Kingley
Sun def was aware of effects. Listen to The wolf stuff. Willie Johnson had Trem on his guitar many times and so did Pat Hare. It makes sense that at that time there were few effects so it probably was common to have whoever trying out different things when they came in the studio. Who knows Sun might have had 25 old amps for people to use.
@TMF 714 - No, Princeton tremolo (bias trem) is always "on" if you have no footswitch, it can be turned down on the dials, but not switched off. Monitor bias and you'll see there is always some oscillation (not always audible) unless turned off. It's the LDR trem that is off without the footswitch. ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
I just spoke with a top pro harp player whos knows more about Big Walter than most have forgotten-he said there is no effect,amp or studio related on Sun 180.
The reason-inconsistent tremelo-it hinges too much on Walters breath patterns. It's not mechanical sounding enough to be coming from the amp or appllied by the studio-it varies with Walters breath patterns-
This is why I originally stated it was all Walter-it takes a discerning ear,but the musicallity of this tune is beyond reproach.
Edited for spelling.
Last Edited by tmf714 on Feb 27, 2013 4:28 PM
TMF714 - As Frank says, non of us were there, I suspect your top pro harp player wasn't their either. This isn't a democratic issue. The facts are the track was recorded with an amp, that amp either did, or did not have tremolo that was used. Whatever anyone thinks about it 60yrs down the line is irrelevant to what happened on the day. Any evidence is contained in the track itself. From that folks can draw their own conclusions.
You offer no more "proof" than I do.
@Reedaloud - re-read the earlier posts re. intensity, the speed is absolutely uniform (though no doubt Walter could do a uniform tremolo, the uniform speed is not my main reason for coming to the conclusion I have). ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
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Last Edited by 5F6H on Feb 28, 2013 1:29 AM
Check out the "kiss pops" Walter does on EASY at 2:48 and then at 2:51...
For the record, I have nothing against the use of an 'effect' to (juice up or fill out) an already excellent take, though the "less is more" concept is usually always best when applying to harp...Walter was also a Master at mic technique manipulation, and I'm convinced that he is cable of doing things that seem humanly impossible.
@5F6H-Like I said ,it's all in the ear. It is fairly easy for me,having a musical ear,to discern between a mechanical and human vibrato/tremelo. The speed is NOT uniform-if you think it is ,you seriously need your hearing checked. So what about when you DON'T hear tremelo-your telling me Walter stepped on a foot switch to kill it?
"Proof" and politics are not the issue-you are the in the minority here-it's the words of people that were around Walter when he was alive-
P.S.-the pro I spoke to did hang around Walter enough to know that there were NO effects applied by the studio-and he said Walter would NEVER use the amp tremelo-studio or live.
Last Edited by tmf714 on Feb 28, 2013 5:57 AM
What Kingley says about "Easy" vs. "It's Not Easy" certainly applies to my own version: it's my extension of Nat Riddles's fairly close copy of "It's Not Easy."
"It's Not Easy" is obviously identical to "Easy," in copyright terms, which is why it was named something different: to get writer's-side copyright credit on a new song.
@TMF714 "@5F6H-Like I said ,it's all in the ear. It is fairly easy for me, having a musical ear,to discern between a mechanical and human vibrato/tremelo. The speed is NOT uniform-if you think it is ,you seriously need your hearing checked."
It's more in the vynyl & digitised code, than in the ear. What's recorded is recorded & changes very little compared to our perception of it.
Hmmm, all through this thread I have managed to "refrain from flaming, insulting, or otherwise impugning the intelligence or good intentions of your fellow board members". I'll thank you to do the same. My hearing is fine, for someone of my age at least.
I am, though, very interested in your "musical ear", you have some medical certification to prove that your ears are more musically developed than the average musician's? Does this ear play tunes all by itself, is the other ear jealous (deepest apologies if you are mono-eared)? Do you ever put your "green fingers" (or any other self-diagnosed, miraculously enhanced, body part) in your "musical ear" to blot out unwanted noise?
Was the top pro (who is welcome to e-mail me & discuss his insights further, perhaps his case will be strong enough to swing me round?) there in 1953 at the session, with details of the amp used? We are not concerned with the days/months/years/decades Walter spent not recording Easy at Sun on that day in 1953, it is specifically this track & session that is under debate, because it appears (to me) to be unique.
I have already listed a selection of tracks with studio effect featuring BW, the pro is clearly wrong when he says "NO effects applied by the studio" (is that exactly what he said, or are you paraphrasing?). I do not believe any tremolo effect was applied by Sun post production, or at the desk, merely an effect available on the amp used.
I am perfectly comfortable being in the minority (of a minority of posters, of a minority interest forum, who are a minority of the 7billion people on this planet - we are all, ultimately, in minorities of one sort or another).
I'm not going to change my position because you know a bloke, who knew a bloke, who did something years before he met the bloke you know. I know a bloke who threw a kettle over a pub, so what!;-)
Proof would seem to be very much the issue...politics I'll leave to you, I have no axe to grind & no agenda here. Just my perception...which I am just as unlikely to "prove" as you. I suspect no proof will be proof enough for you, however.
Personally, I'd look to someone independent & with no interest in harp to analyse Sun 180 - as fans & players, we come to the table with considerable "baggage" in terms of outlook, and deeply held perceptions & emotions. By your own, now personal comments, it seems objectivity is slipping out of your grasp. Be as vehement as you like and invoke whatever & as many pro players you like, but you're going to have to come up with something tangible to change my view. If it matters as much to you as it seems to, perhaps you'll put your hand in your pocket and fund some independent analysis?
If you want to have the last word, be my guest, but be sure that it is relevant to the debate at hand & if it is any kind of evidence, fact or proof, that it's bulletproof, not just hearsay. Opinion, perception, gut feeling? ...Knock yourself out, expressing, sharing, debating and comparing opinions is what forums like this are for.
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Last Edited by 5F6H on Feb 28, 2013 6:43 AM
@5F6H-"It's more in the vynyl & digitised code, than in the ear. What's recorded is recorded & changes very little compared to our perception of it"
The general perception here is Walters shimmering vibrato is made by him-not an amp.
"Hmmm, all through this thread I have managed to "refrain from flaming, insulting, or otherwise impugning the intelligence or good intentions of your fellow board members". I'll thank you to do the same. My hearing is fine, for someone of my age at least."
I am pointing out a basic fact-I clearly hear a change in intensity and timing.
"I am, though, very interested in your "musical ear", you have some medical certification to prove that your ears are more musically developed than the average musician's? Does this ear play tunes all by itself, is the other ear jealous (deepest apologies if you are mono-eared)? Do you ever put your "green fingers" (or any other self-diagnosed, miraculously enhanced, body part) in your "musical ear" to blot out unwanted noise?"
No medical certifcation,just able to play guitar,trumpet and piano,which does require reading and understanding some music theory.
"Was the top pro (who is welcome to e-mail me & discuss his insights further, perhaps his case will be strong enough to swing me round?) there in 1953 at the session, with details of the amp used? We are not concerned with the days/months/years/decades Walter spent not recording Easy at Sun on that day in 1953, it is specifically this track & session that is under debate, because it appears (to me) to be unique."
Uh-no-this player would like to remain anonymous-this is simple fact pointed out by him,and he would not e-mail you about something that he beleives to be fact-why do it? It's a waste of his time.
"I am perfectly comfortable being in the minority (of a minority of posters, of a minority interest forum, who are a minority of the 7billion people on this planet - we are all, ultimately, in minorities of one sort or another)."
Really? Than why carry on like this?
"I'm not going to change my position because you know a bloke, who knew a bloke, who did something years before he met the bloke you know. I know a bloke who threw a kettle over a pub, so what!;-)"
He's not a "bloke"- talk about flaming and insulting-and you wonder why he won't e-mail you?
"Proof would seem to be very much the issue...politics I'll leave to you, I have no axe to grind & no agenda here. Just my perception...which I am just as unlikely to "prove" as you. I suspect no proof will be proof enough for you, however"
You brought up democracy-not me.
"If you want to have the last word, be my guest, but be sure that it is relevant to the debate at hand & if it is any kind of evidence, fact or proof, that it's bulletproof, not just hearsay. Opinion, perception, gut feeling? ...Knock yourself out, expressing, sharing, debating and comparing opinions is what forums like this are for."
Thats it for me on this subject-if you won't listen to Bob or myself,who know people who hung with Walter,then you will have to live with knowing your wrong.
Ahh..........how about stepping away from the keyboard for a few minutes, everybody. These sorts of debates should be fun. When they lead to anger, it's time for everybody to pause a moment and ask whether that's really needed. It's also time to reaffirm what everybody, on both sides, agrees on: Big Walter's genius. Nobody is disputing that.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Feb 28, 2013 7:30 AM
@TMF714 - "Bloke" is not an insult, or a flame, it is a term used for a human male of unknown identity, like "guy", "chap" or "fellow". Kindly do not attribute me with your penchant for personal & deroguetory remarks.
"The general perception here is Walters shimmering vibrato is made by him-not an amp." This is also my perception, as I have said, with respect to any other BW recording that I am aware of.
"Really? Than why carry on like this?" Like what? We supposedly live in the "free world", we're allowed to disagree. Neither you, I, Bob or anyone else are infallible...as a scroll through the forum will show, we have all been wrong before & probably will be again. Disagreeing with you, or Bob, (or myself,) is not synonymous with "wrong".
EDIT apologies Kudzurunner, your post coincided with this one. I am not angry at all, merely perplexed. It's just a conversation.
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Last Edited by 5F6H on Feb 28, 2013 7:46 AM
I have went to see bigtones band a couple of times in the knoxville,tennessee area....possibly all under 30 years of age....they can keep the blues alive....jon has little walters licks down very well
To me the version of Easy recorded at Sun is simply wonderful. I don't really care whether or not the amp had effect on it, the studio did or didn't add it, or anything else about the amplification really. For me the beauty is in what Walter is playing. I learned to play this track a long, long time ago and still play versions of it all the time. I never get bored of it, because it can be endlessly varied. It teaches a person how to play a fairly stark melody and then mess with that melody to create tension and keep it interesting both for the player and the listener. That to me, is where the real beauty of it lies.
Thanks George, I hope to see you again soon and hopefully I can figure out where these Harp shows are I would love to come out to them. I would also love to play guitar if anyone needs any players at the conventions or whatever? If anyone hears of any let me know.
