Mike's Tone circa '94

[ducko]

Hi all

I thought that there used to be a 'gear and muso' section on the board, but couldn't find any more.

Nevertheless, was wondering if anyone has any info on Mike's gear - specifically effects and amps - used circa '94. Am interested in how he created that noteworthy tone and sustain without managing to sound effects heavy and too pristine. The sound I'm particularly interested in is the solo from Garden (refer Atlanta '94).

If anyone has any info, or could point me in the right direction, it would be most appreciated.

Also, anyone seen pedalboard pics of the band form this era through to 98?

Cheers

[Birds in Hell]

Mike's tech discusses his gear in this article from the April '95 issue of Guitar World: http://fivehorizons.com/archive/articles/gw04952.shtml

Mike's rig is a pretty basic mid-seventies classic rock setup with nothing digital," says Jeff Ousley, McCready's tech. "He uses a lot of guitars: a maple-necked, hard-tail '56 Strat, a rosewood-necked '59 Strat, and a maple-neck '58 as well as a couple of '62 reissue Strats that we got from a Fender Custom Shop and two '52 reissue Telecasters. There's a Gretsch hollow- body that he uses on 'Glorified G.' He also owns a bunch of Les Pauls. There's the '72 three-pickup Gibson Les Paul Custom that he smashed on MTV when they did 'Rockin' In The Free World' with Neil Young. I've picked that guitar off the floor many times, but I guess that extra pickup holds it together. Mike's also got a '56 Les Paul that's been heavily modified. The P-90's were replaced with humbuckers and the neck is probably an early- Seventies model. There's a Tom Petty model Rickenbacker 12- string that Tom gave Mike, which he uses on 'Not For You' and "Corduroy.' Finally, there's a '68 Telecaster with a Bigsby that he uses in Mad Season."

All of Mike's guitars are strung with GHS Boomers 0.011's that he picks with Dunlop Tortex 0.88mm's. "The guitars feed a Sony WRR-840 wireless into a Rocktron Rack Interface buffer/splitter. The Interface has a 'Wireless Through' output that I send out in a loop that goes to the effects and back. From the interface, we go to an original Uni- Vibe, a Dunlop wah pedal with a built-in preamp that provides four different tone selections, an old Boos analog delay pedal and then to an Ernie Ball Stereo Volume pedal set in the 'pan' mode. One side of the pan pedal.. which feeds our clean amp.. goes back to one input of the rack interface, while the signal from the other side of the pan pedal goes to an old, puke green Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer. That signal then also goes back to the rack interface and into the dirty amp. When the pan pedal is all the way back, Mike just gets the clean amp, and when he pushes it all the way forward all he gets is the dirty amp. "The dirty amp is one of three Marshalls: a '68 50-watt Marshall plexi or one of two '69 100-watt Marshall Super Tremolos that have had the tremolo disconnected by Sal Trentino, who services all our amps and also does Neil Young's work. They're all four- input amps, so I jump the channels to get a little more gain." "The clean amp is a Mesa/Boogie Studio Preamp that runs into a VHT G2150 Classic power amp and two 300-watt Marshall 1960 4x12 cabinets."

I suspect he was using much the same stuff in 1994.

[Bammer]

[ducko]

Mike's tech discusses his gear in this article from the April '95 issue of Guitar World: http://fivehorizons.com/archive/articles/gw04952.shtml

Mike's rig is a pretty basic mid-seventies classic rock setup with nothing digital," says Jeff Ousley, McCready's tech. "He uses a lot of guitars: a maple-necked, hard-tail '56 Strat, a rosewood-necked '59 Strat, and a maple-neck '58 as well as a couple of '62 reissue Strats that we got from a Fender Custom Shop and two '52 reissue Telecasters. There's a Gretsch hollow- body that he uses on 'Glorified G.' He also owns a bunch of Les Pauls. There's the '72 three-pickup Gibson Les Paul Custom that he smashed on MTV when they did 'Rockin' In The Free World' with Neil Young. I've picked that guitar off the floor many times, but I guess that extra pickup holds it together. Mike's also got a '56 Les Paul that's been heavily modified. The P-90's were replaced with humbuckers and the neck is probably an early- Seventies model. There's a Tom Petty model Rickenbacker 12- string that Tom gave Mike, which he uses on 'Not For You' and "Corduroy.' Finally, there's a '68 Telecaster with a Bigsby that he uses in Mad Season."

All of Mike's guitars are strung with GHS Boomers 0.011's that he picks with Dunlop Tortex 0.88mm's. "The guitars feed a Sony WRR-840 wireless into a Rocktron Rack Interface buffer/splitter. The Interface has a 'Wireless Through' output that I send out in a loop that goes to the effects and back. From the interface, we go to an original Uni- Vibe, a Dunlop wah pedal with a built-in preamp that provides four different tone selections, an old Boos analog delay pedal and then to an Ernie Ball Stereo Volume pedal set in the 'pan' mode. One side of the pan pedal.. which feeds our clean amp.. goes back to one input of the rack interface, while the signal from the other side of the pan pedal goes to an old, puke green Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer. That signal then also goes back to the rack interface and into the dirty amp. When the pan pedal is all the way back, Mike just gets the clean amp, and when he pushes it all the way forward all he gets is the dirty amp. "The dirty amp is one of three Marshalls: a '68 50-watt Marshall plexi or one of two '69 100-watt Marshall Super Tremolos that have had the tremolo disconnected by Sal Trentino, who services all our amps and also does Neil Young's work. They're all four- input amps, so I jump the channels to get a little more gain." "The clean amp is a Mesa/Boogie Studio Preamp that runs into a VHT G2150 Classic power amp and two 300-watt Marshall 1960 4x12 cabinets."

I suspect he was using much the same stuff in 1994.

Thank you BIH for this most excellent piece of info. Now to find my 68/69 Marshalls...

[wease]

Jump the channels? Does that mean he plugs into all of them?

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Strat]

That stuff will forever go over my head. Good thing ill never have to deal with more than 1 amp at a time!

Man, i wish he'd put back in his Boss DM Delay. What a beautiful pedal that is.

[wease]

So, what little I've been able to find out about jumping is you plug your guitar into one channel and then, from the second input in that channel run a line to the input of the other channel. Sounds easy enough, but I'm not understanding going from an INPUT to an INPUT. How can a signal go OUT from an input.

I've also heard of using both channels by getting a y-splitter and splitting the signal coming straight from the guitar. Duane Allman was famous for that.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[wease]

So, you actually go from input to input? How does that work?

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[wease]

thanks trag!

I'm trying this later. I've got a super deluxe to experiment on.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[wease]

Wow! What a difference! It was still sounding a bit off, so I switched the brightness off on both channels and BANG! That was it!

[ducko]

Would be great to have the gear (and time) to experiment with this sort of arrangement. I'm more of a 1 amp guy. I note in the Guitar article on Stone's setup, he uses lower watt amps to drive tubes to distortion, but typically keeps the amps below the point of distortion and uses pedals to drive his amp over the edge. This is more aligned to my simple way of thinking (and budget).