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Re: SV: Garbarek album (from 1984)



> The funny thing about Holdsworth is that he claims those effects are all
> very short delays that are augmented by his playing. He's also got a 
>little
> bit of equiptment that he makes himself. The guy always blow my mind. 
>I've
> got some video of him playing the Synthaxe, It is nuts. Have you seen his
> instructional video. It's scary.
> Jeff Collins

As I recall, Holdsworth's reasoning is that a digital chorus effect is
really nothing more than a bunch of very short delays.  Thus he used
an ADA delay unit for his sound.

The equipment he has made is mostly in support of his tone philosophy that
for his overdriven guitar sound he needs power tubes - preamp tube
distortion is not enough.  Thus he's made "juice extractors" that take
the speaker output of any tube amp and convert it to a line level signal
and "the coffin" (a recording chamber for his guitar cabinets - mostly
sound-deadening material wrapped around the cabinets with mics stuck in).
Yes, Rocktron used to market the Holdsworth Juice Extractor, but Holdsworth
was unhappy with the product.  They ruined his original design for the 
dummy load part of the product (it fools the tube amp into thinking there
is a speaker connected to it).  He spent a lot of time and effort using
trial-and-error to come up with a particular concoction of resistors and
other components but Rocktron reportedly changed his recipe for the dummy
load.  On top of that, he felt the final product was constructed with poor
quality control.  I think he still sells his own Juice Extractor (under
a different name) on a made-to-order basis.

I have not seen the video but I do have teh book Just For the Curious.
His phrasing is unique among guitarists (e.g. lots of perfect fourths)
because he effortlessly uses fingerings that most guitarists would not
consider "comfortable".  It's worth checking out for guitarists (and
Stick players) who want to take their phrasing in a different direction.

Cheers,

Paolo Valladolid
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