amiller":gh1fxw6m said:
The more I listen to the Pete Thorn CD the more I like it. I really dig all of the different tones I'm hearing. The writing is very cool and of course the playing is excellent.
It would be great to have the track by track low down. What amps, pedals, FXs, speakers/cabs, mics and the like. If this is already out there in the cyber please point me in the right direction.
Very cool CD
Hi- thanks! Glad you are digging it. Maybe I'll go a couple tracks at a time-
first off, the basic recording signal chain was pretty much the same- I usually used a Bogner 1-12", with a Scumback M75- or
a Celestion G12H30 heritage, which is what I had before I started using the Scum. Mics were a 57 and either a 421, a Heil PR30, or a Heil PR20. The 57 was a constant, and sometimes i'll blend in another mic. Mic pre is
an API A2D, digitl out into
an Apogee Ensemble. I use Logic as my DAW. Running on either a Mac Pro 8 core, or at the beginning I used either an old Mac powerbook laptop (parts of "10th Street" were recorded on this) or a white imac from 2006 (parts of "Into The Ether", "Velvet Fist", and all of "Monster Movie" and "Homage", and other stuff was done on the Imac). Oh, and "Promise" was recorded on the base model white 2007 Macbook I'm typing this on right now, because my Mac Pro was in the shop.
disclaimer- alot of what I did, I don't remember what the hell I used. I am terrible about writing stuff down/documenting, and usually i just hear a part in my head, grab a guitar and a pedal or two, kind of go "hmm, maybe this amp?" and I'll plug in, dial up a sound and go. If it doesn't work, I'll try something else. If it does, great, and i move on. But i'll do my best to remember...
Revenge Of The Nerd-
The drums are all programmed (Steven Slate Drums were used). Bass is Steve Stevens- he plays an old pink Spector, and it sounds ripping! Not sure what he used for plug ins but he sent me 1 track and it was already "amp"d" sounding, distortion and whatnot. I love that tone, I'm not sure how he got it.
Amps are the PT100 and Marsha. pretty even mix of both, to get different tones. Rhythms are quadrupled, a track of Marsha and track of PT100 panned hard left and hard right. I used different guitars for the melody leads in the verses to get the call/answer effect going. Tried to vary the tones, using the PT100 ch2/3, Marsha BE and C45, etc.. I used the EVH wah extensively on this track. Ed actually gave me one for xmas 2009 and I got it home and of course felt like "a kid at xmas", haha! So I plugged it in and used it all over the track- I'm not usually a wah guy but I do love that EVH wah and it helped set off the tone of some of the leads. Sometimes i leave it stuck, sometimes not. Guitars on the track include a LP, my Suhr Modern, and my Suhr Tele (kind of a traditional, single coil, swamp ash affair)... Also, I may have used the Suhr Koko Boost on this track- I don't remember.
Perplexed-
once again, programmed drums, the Steven Slate ones. It's me on bass, with my old Mexican Pbass with the tags still hanging off it. One day in like 2004, i was living in the Hollywood Hills, and I was recording at home, and i didn't own a bass, and was always borrowing. I needed to cut a bass track and I thought "fuck it" and ran down the hill to GC Hollywood. I played every lower end Pbass on the wall, and this ugly natural finish ash one was the best sounding, and it plays great. I bought it for about $400 bucks and ran back up the hill, cut the bass track and it's been my bass ever since, and I never took the hang tags off. P-basses are like a good Ford or Chevy truck, they just work as expected and get the job done. I use the d.i. input on either
the UA 6176 mic pre/comp, or the API d.i. input. They sound way different- the UA being fat and dark and the API is forward, clear and aggressive. Plug In for amp-ish tone is
a Waves CLA bass.
Amp is the Suhr SL68 that John made for me- it's handwired, and it screams. What an amp. It's the closest thing I've ever found to "My Sound". It's John's version of "the perfect plexi"- those amps were all over the place circuit-wise, little variations here and there, and this is the variant John digs. It has a switch in it to lower it to 90v and re-bias automatically, and it does it just like a variac, lowering all the voltages in the amp.. Anyways, I of course love my PT100, but there's something about the dimed plexi,
it's what I imagine driving a formula one car must be like, you better be up to it, and if you are, it's like nothing else...... Guitar is my Wolfgang EVH. Ed and Matt Bruck gave me one about a year ago and I love that thing. Pickups, little frets, the whole deal. Obviously a special axe to me! Anyways, the whole track is kind of an ode to EVH and I tried to not do too much layering- the rest of the album is pretty heavy on the layers and overdubs, but I wanted to do one straight up rocker in the spirit of VH, kind of a tribute if you will, to that style of playing, writing, and production (to the best of my abilities). Besides "Promise", it's also the only track that's "all me"- since I played bass and guitar, and programmed the drums, and mixed it. There's at least one other musician on every other song on the album. OH- the down section in the middle at 2:04- is actually my Suhr S, on the neck pickup- a ML as they are now called (formerly FL). Pedals- I think I used the Koko Boost for the last solo, for just a bit more midrange kick than the rest of the tune. And of course there's the EVH flange here and there. Delay and verb was added in the mix.
) a few years ago... 
I raced some years ago, but this was just like nothing else. It just feels insane... Did 8 laps, and it felt like I had done a 5 hour gym-session.
