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Per,You've expressed my feelings exactly.. I bought "Fireball" and "Machine Head" from my older brother when I was just learning the guitar. I recently purchased a beautiful lightweight 1974 strat, and there it was..! All that glorious tone I had heard from Hendrix (Electric lady when he bought a new 1968 strat), Trower (74 strat), Gilmore (68 strat), Blackmore (71 and 73 strats), Bolin (74 strat). The "uncollectible" strat era, due to the machine wound pickups with 1000 fewer windings (saved CBS $$$) and overcharged magnets, cheap tuners, etc.. but a completely NEW sound, embraced by those listed above.
Here's a classic example of that tone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm9-PZJ3bukThe assistant engineer / tape op on "Fireball" was Mike Thorne, who went on to produce the first three "Wire" records in 77, 78 and 79, and Soft Cell's big hit with their cover of "Tainted Love" in the 80s
Nice seeing my old fav albums mentioned! The early Purple albums, especially Fireball and In Rock, was a huge recourse for me as a teenager learning to play guitar. I too had been using a reel-to-reel tape recorder as pre amp compressor/distortion so I wasn't surprised when I later heard that Blackmore used one pre Marshall. Never heard any looping from him though, but as for guitar tone, phrasing and micro tonal string bending he still is one of the best. Check out Deamon's Eye for an example. This was even before Stevie Ray Vaughan stepped out with his typical arsenal of copied Hendrix licks (that Jimi to a great deal picked up form John Lee Hooker, so everyone's a parrot) and I thought Blackmore's way of approaching the Stratocaster was genuine. His, Hendrix and Jeff Becks early playing helped me in a great way to understand the mechanics of the STrat that can be tamed to music. Greetings from Sweden Per Boysen www.perboysen.com http://www.youtube.com/perboysenOn Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 3:40 PM, Charles Zwicky <cazwicky@earthlink.net> wrote:Looping, no, not true... Ritchie Blackmore used a tube based reel to reel recorder as a preamp / gain booster and slapback echo, even back in his pre-deep purple days with Screaming Lord Sutch. http://www.thehighwaystar.com/interviews/blackmore/guitarplayer/guitarplay4.html> "I like a little bit of distortion which is controlled through my taperecorder. I built my own tape recorder; well, I didn't build it, but I modified it from a regular tape recorder to an echo unit. It also preamps and boosts the signal going to the amp. If I want a fuzzy effect l just turn up the output stage of the tape recorder. Can you be more specific as to how it works? I just keep it on "record" so it records, and it's like a continual echo becaus I couldn't get that echo with any echo machine. A continual boom, boom, boom, repeat. Most echo machines are awful; it's like you're in a hallway. The tape recorder doesn't interfere with the note you're playing. What type of recorder is it? I don't really know. I tried using a Revox and it didn't work. I'd really be in trouble if somebody stole my recorder. I've been using it for the last four or five years. How did you come upon this idea? I used to do that at home; I used to take my tape recorder and use it as an echo. So I thought if I could use it at home I could use it onstage and it sounded right onstage. How exactly is it hooked up? There's a cord from the guitar into the tape recorder input, and the output stage just goes back to the amp. And I can control the volume, too; I can have it loud with no distortion or vise versa. I have a little footpedal that I can stop and start it with. A lot of people think when they see the tape going the solos are recorded. Lots of people ask that. Some guy shouted in New York, "Turn the tape recorder off." Actually all that inspired me, I turned it off and really whizzed around." Here is one of the coolest Ritchie Blackmore tape delay / volume swell> tricks.I've Cued up this link to 4:00 to the start of the coolness...: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS9IqML8Ubc&feature=player_detailpage#t=239s people told me (and I have found this mentioned online here and there) that Ritchie Blackmore was an early livelooper, using Revox tape machines. I've never listened to Deep Purple much so this has completely escaped me so far. Can anyone confirm? when was that, are there recordings or even videos of this? "Richie Blackmore experimented with it in his early Deep Purple days and with his previous gigs with 'Screaming Lord Such'. This would have been late 60's, early 70's, he's quoted saying people in the audience could see the reel to reel and would yell at him to 'turn of the tape recorder'" "Late 60s", so he got into this probably inspired by Terry Riley, before Fripp/Eno, right? -Michael -- ... http://www.zmix.net http://www.esession.com/ChuckZwicky http://albumcredits.com/zmix
-- ... http://www.zmix.net http://www.esession.com/ChuckZwicky http://albumcredits.com/zmix