What does he use to get that exquisite tone?
What does he use to get that exquisite tone?
I don't know, but does he say, "Thanks, Rick James." at the very beginning of that clip?
Les Paul (neck pickup) - fuzz box - amp - plus Fripp's touch.
I think the "Control Centre" may have a lot to do with it
“Pleasure and pain can be experienced simultaneously,” she said, gently massaging my back as we listened to her Coldplay CD.
It's too bad we can't ask Steve Hackett. I'm sure he'd know.
"You can't get a hangover from booze. It's either bad ice, or stale potato chips." --Jackie Gleason
No chorus?Originally Posted by spknoevl
The clip predates Fripp using the "control center"; it is back when he still used an amp and a pair of Revox tape decks for his Frippertronics. The only time I recall him using chorus was during the Discipline-era version of KC: he certainly isn't using it in that clip.
I made this page some years ago
http://www.danbbs.dk/~m-bohn/fripp/index.htm
Les Paul Custom 1959, Guild fuzz: Foxy lady, Cry baby wah, volume pedal. Knock on-off switchboard. Two Music Man 410 amps. Two Revox G36 (thanks to Bauke Lormans, 2003 & Stijn Kraft 2006 for Revox info) , Yamaha 16 channel mixer.
Thanks. Simple, but he sure gets a sweet tone.
you are welcome.
An important thing about tone is technique (fingers, plectrum, stroke, left hand, etc). I saw once Johnny Winters'band, and he had another guitarist with him (not Derringer) who played a Fender Stratocaster, Johnny had a Gibson Firebird. There is a big sound difference between these two guitars, but Johnny went behind the other guitarist and grabbed his strat from behind, and suddenly the strat had Johnnys unmistakable sound !
If anyone still cares 3 years later...
As long as we're talking about the Fripp from 1969/70 until 1975, besides the aforementioned late '50s Les Paul Custom with its original Gibson PAF humbuckers uncovered, in concert Fripp used a Marshall 100-watt Plexi head for a couple of years then switched to a Hiwatt Custom 100-watt head and in the studio he used a little silverface Fender Champ combo amp.
But, the most important component to that signature Fripp tone with its singing sustain was a late '60s Burns Buzzaround fuzz box. Also used in the effects chain was a volume pedal and a wah.
If anyone still cares 3 years later...
As long as we're talking about the Fripp from 1969/70 until 1975, besides the aforementioned late '50s Les Paul Custom with its original Gibson PAF humbuckers uncovered, in concert Fripp used a Marshall 100-watt Plexi head for a couple of years then switched to a Hiwatt Custom 100-watt head and in the studio he used a little silverface Fender Champ combo amp.
But, the most important component to that signature Fripp tone with its singing sustain was a late '60s Burns Buzzaround fuzz box. Also used in the effects chain was a volume pedal and a wah.
I have never seen or heard about that pedal before.
Me neither. I would've assumed he used a Big Muff.
Answer1: The chances of ever running across an original Burns Buzzaround are indeed extremely slim. What few were manufactured and have rarely turned up in the used marketplace over the years. Even back in the day (70 / 71) Fripp had to search around for a while just to obtain a second Buzzaround as a backup.
Answer2: The Big Muff is a fairly different pedal when compared to a Burns Buzzaround. Its tonality has a bit of a midrange scoop that is now the familiar tonal signature with modern heavy metal. The Buzzaround is actually linear in its frequency response and has less muddy distortion artifacts in the lower frequency range. Nonetheless, the sustain + balance + tibre controls on a Buzzaround can be set to get a very ugly sound if you want it.
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The Buzzaround is basically in the same family of fuzz/distortion effects as the earlier Tonebender effects sold by Sola Sound and Vox. The Buzzaround was manufactured only for about 5 years (1965 ~ 1970) and did not sell anywhere near as well as the Tonebender pedals during those first five years.
The Buzzaround and the Tonebender are both based on a trio of germanium transistors. However, in comparison, they are rather different sounding and performing pedals. The Tonebender tends to sound brighter and cutting whereas the Buzzaround is darker, smoother, and can produce a stronger output signal than the Tonebender.
Clones of the Buzzaround began appearing about 10 or 12 years ago. Today, there are many close approximations of the Buzzaround available -- some with improved designs (such as adding a volume knob or better control placement). Just like the original, they are based on a matched trio of germanium transistors.
British Pedal Company has licensed the name and mechanical specifications of the original Buzzaround from JMI (the current owners of Burns) and have the circuit housed in a reissue of the original wedge case and another less expensive version in a "modern" case with better control placement. The model in the original wedge case is rather expensive (typical street price of US$450).
But, nowadays, there are several other Buzzaround-like pedals available. Some of these are:
Abraxas Sound Buzzaround
ARC Effects Crimson King 21st Century Fuzz Machine
Arcane Analog Buzzsaw
Arcane Analog NKT213 Buzzaround
Creepy Fingers Buzzaround
Critically Overdriven The Lenny Fuzz
D*A*M Fuzzaround
DenTone Electronics Buzzaround
EarthQuaker Devices Sound Shank
Erafuzz Buzzaround Germanium Fuzz Replica
eZone53 Buzzaround
Ghost Effects Buzzaround
Hudson Electronics UK Buzzoid
Klinger Custom Pedals Buzz Fuzz
KR Musical Products Fuzzoid
MJM Authentic Vintage Series Buzz King
MJM King Buzz
Mojo Hand Buzzaround
Mojo Hand Rounder Fuzz
Montgomery Appliances Buzzaround
Pigdog Spectrafuzz
Retro-Electro Buzz-A-Like
SkinPimp Buzzaround
Stephen Douglas Design Green Shadow
V8V Buzz U Round
Wilson Effects FUBAR Bliss
Wilson Effects Uber FUBAR Bliss
Zontwiggi Electronics Buzzaround
http://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/In..._Player_(1974)
Interview with Fripp about his fuzzbox:
What type of volume pedal is it?
It's the cheapest one I found, and the only one I could afford at the time that seemed any good. I think it's a Farfisa [by C.M.I.] pedal. It's still the finest volume pedal I've found anywhere. It's the only one that goes off and still has a wide movement. It's quite incredible. On stage I use three pedals on a pedal board: A volume pedal, fuzz-tone, and wah-wah. The fuzz-tone and wah-wah are pretty rubbishy. I'm not sure what type of wah-wah it is. The best fuzz-box to use is a Burn's Buzz-around which they discontinued making in England about six years ago. I have two of them, but they're not at the moment attached to my pedal board. The more pedals you go through, the longer leads you need, and in turn the less volume you get. You lose gain along the way. To lessen that, the wah-wah and the fuzz are on the knock-off circuit. In other words, when I'm playing, all the time I'm going through the volume, but when I'm using either fuzz or wah-wah, I knock a different pedal which brings in a different circuit for the fuzz and the wah-wah. When I'm not using them I press a button and knock them out of the circuit so that the circuit shortens, and I keep up my gain. I also use a Watkins Kopy Kat echo unit. It's all right, but it's not particularly good. It suffices for what I want, which is not really a lot of echo effects but just a slight edge, because the sound on stage is very dead in a lot of halls I play in. It really doesn't matter what kind of fuzz box you use. It has more to do with the state of mind.
But if somebody wanted to obtain the same sound you got, wouldn't it be important to know what type of fuzz you were using?
No. I can get that same sound with every kind of fuzz box I've ever used. It's not a question of equipment
That Guitar Player Magazine article is the one I first read (in 1976 or so, for me) about Fripp's equipment and then another article about Fripp in GP Mag -- maybe in 1978.
I believe the volume pedal Fripp's talking about in that article (above) was actually an "emergency buy" when he was on tour in Italy in 1972, after his gigging volume pedal died on the road.
The fuzz-tone and wah-wah are pretty rubbishy...
The "fuzz-tone" Fripp speaks of was an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff. At some point in 1973/74, Fripp decided to quit hauling his semi-rare Buzzaround pedal out on tour and replace it with an expendable and easily replaceable fuzz pedal. The Buzzaround was -- at that point -- reserved for recording studio use only. Use of the E-H Big Muff as a tour pedal continued for many years.
Aha! The video example the OP posted isn't working anymore, so I couldn't base my assumption on actually hearing it. I just thought of Fripp's general tone and it reminded me of the way a Big Muff sounds, at least from my limited experience with one. So I wasn't completely wrong.
Though I'm more a preamp generated distortion guy than a fuzz or distortion pedal one, I can relate. If you have a specific tone in your head, you can find it on a reasonable variety of gear. I worked with this bass player for about 7 or 8 years and in the course of that time, I brought about 4 or 5 different amps to the gig. After one gig, I asked him how he liked my new amp. He said, "You have a new amp? I don't know; I've heard you with a few different amps and you always sound like you. It's the same for me; that's why I stopped experimenting with amps."
Then there was the time when I got my first digital modeling amp, a Line 6 AxeSys (or something like that). I was working on sculpting a lead sound and I made 4 patches to compare and pick my favorite. I used 4 different high gain amp models; a Marshall, a Boogie, a Peavy and a Soldano. By the time I finished tweaking the respective models' gains and EQs (and at least in one case I had to put a Tube Screamer model in front to smooth out the mids), they all sounded remarkably similar. That bass player was right!
One of the presets on my Zoom G3X is called "Fripper." If I remember correctly, they model a Big Muff with the tone control turned far to the left in front of a HiWatt stack. Their HiWatt model doesn't distort very much (I'm not sure how realistic this is), so the distortion is mostly being generated by the Big Muff.
The guitarist in my Crimson tribute band has recently bought the ARC Effects Crimson King pedal. It sounds really amazing!
Perspective Vortex - my new solo project available now at http://perspectivevortex.bandcamp.com
Mahtrak Progressive Jazz Rock - www.mahtrak.com
Yeah, I remember thta line about "I can get that sound from every kind of fuzztone" comment. I think someone told me much later that the thing is, Fripp wasn't using the fuzz in the usual fashion, ie with the "distortion/tone/whatever" control dimed out (or close to dimed out) in front of a clean tone amp. He apparently had the Hi-Watt (with the two channels jumpered together, as I recall) set to give him just a bit of a snarl when he had the guitar wide open, then if he wanted a cleaner tone, he'd back off the guitar's volume control. The fuzz was used to push the amp "over the top", so the tone you're hearin is actually a combination of amp distortion helped along by the fuzz.
I've also heard it suggested another part of that tone is backing off the guitar's tone control, and as was said, use the neck pickup.
And I think on one of the King Crimson Collector's Club releases from the Islands era lineup, there's a photo where you can see Fripp's pedalboard, apparently built by Pete Cornish (it looks like an early Pete Cornish pedalboard, anyway) and I think there it looks like a Big Muff on the pedalboard. It certainly doesn't look like the Buzzaround pictured above. So Fripp must have switched to the Big Muff for live work more like 71 or 72.
In the mid 80's, 85, I think it was, Fripp was featured on the cover of Guitar Player again, in connection with his announcement of the first Guitar Craft seminars. There was a sidebar piece on that one about gear. Fripp said that cheap Farfisa volume pedal he got in the early 70's he continued to use all through the 70's, until Boss put out a volume pedal circa 1980 that used some kind of "magnetic drive" (or something like that) which did away with the conventional potentiometer arrangement (and thus all the scratching noises that you get when the pot wears out). He said the Boss pedal was the first volume pedal he came across that he liked as much as the old Farfisa one.
I also remember he mentioned using Big Muffs and a Guild Foxey Lady, which I think I eventually found out was essentially the same circuit as the Big Muff. He talked about having a switching system built thta would allow him to mount all his fuzztones in a rack, and then switch around from one pedal to the other, depending on what he wanted at the time. This was back before everyone had these fancy effects switching systems that are commonplace now.
There was a point when I had a really nice overdrive on my Hammond organ, and I was doing it with this weird little notch filter called The Notch which I've never seen before or since. And of course all that was happening (besides a nice little eq tweak) was that when I kicked it in the signal level went up and overdrove the Leslie. But people all thought I had this amazing awesome distortion- which wasn't even a distortion. In Fripp's case I think his signature is more about the amount of compression and sustain he got. Did he use a stomp compression, like the famous blue one?
Well damn... God bless the internet-
http://www.musicgoround.com/p/342665...-by-intersound
What's "the famous blue one"? You mean the Boss CS-2? I always thought the "famous" compressor was the red one, ie the MXR Dyna-Comp.
Anyway, as far as I know, Fripp didn't use a compressor. He certainly didn't have one on his 70's era pedal board, just volume pedal, wah wah, and fuzz, plus a WEM Copy-Cat echo unit (or so he said in 73 era GP interview, though I can't think of too many instances on any of the live recordings).
Belew uses, or used to anyway, a lot of compression. During the early 80's, he used a Dyna-Comp on everything. I remember Henry Kaiser griping about that in Guitar Player, actually. He said he loved Belew's guitar playing, but he hated that Belew always used a compressor (apparently, Kaiser felt all the stompbox compressors were terrible).
I'm getting my boxes mixed up... yeah, I'm thinking of the Dyna-Comp but picturing the Boss in my headBoth Belew and Fripp seemed to have the same general super compressed clean chorus tone in the 80s band...
MXR made a blue one, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUzMMuNbOMw it simulates a synth fuzz sound in 3 octaves, and you can blend how much bass or treble you want.
The old one I have is a bit tricky, you can only play over the 12 fret, and you need to use the pickup with less overtones, otherwise the output is not really usable. You cant play reconizable chords either.
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