Michael Rutherford question.

[02R96]

Genesis - Burning Rope from "And then there were Three"

 

I really like the way he plays the solo in the middle of this song. My question is how is he getting the swells on the notes? Is he using a wah or some kind of phase effect?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oH2NmPH72g

[Caevan O’Shite]

Cool song.

 

Referring to the guitar soloing from about 4:03 to about 5:09, I don't hear any kind of volume swell or other sort of swell or envelope effect, just a sustaining distortion or fuzz kind of tone. Now, there is a little bit of subtle harmonic-overtone "bloom" in some notes, developing as they are held, but I think that's just an inherent quality of the guitar and distortion.

 

I think that some lines might have been doubled an octave higher (beginning at about 4:47), by simply laying down a second track playing the same line an octave higher.

 

Some of the rhythm and fill type guitar lines throughout the song do indeed sound like they are played through a phase-shifter pedal or some manner of triggered-phase (classic ADA?); and some may be an electric 12-string. And there are lines that are doubled by keyboards, too.

[02R96]

Thanks for the reply.

 

I was rooting around on the web and it was mentioned he used an "oh so finicky ARP Avatar (analog guitar synth)" on And Then There were Three. Is that what I could be hearing?

[Caevan O’Shite]

Maybe! I assumed it was doubling with keys here and there. The solo sounds like guitar- just guitar without synth- to me, though. But maybe the guitar-synth is layered in kinda low in the mix, blended in subtly? Idunno...

[Danzilla]

Coming in after the fact; but yes, from what I've read and seen, he was getting into the early line of guitar synths on that album.

[02R96]

So does anyone know how to create the blooming effect on the longer held notes? Or is it more in his guitar/amp/effects?

 

I played around today and using my Tele/Orange TT/Big Muff clone. All I could do is create various levels of flat distortion.

 

I think I'm getting obsessed with this piece!

 

 

[Winston Psmith]

Sorry to jump in late on this, but anyhow . . .

 

Couple of things. Rutherford and Tony Banks were fond of oddly-tuned 12-strings run through effects, and layered with synth lines; IIRC, there was even some mention of this in a recent GP article.

 

While it's possible that they were experimenting with an Avatar, the thing was incredibly unstable, and pretty much killed off the company. It's also possible that they were using a combination of Phaser/Swept Filter effects. If you run two Phaser/Modulator-type effects together, there will be times when the filters generate frequency peaks that swell and bloom; this seems to be the idea behind EHX's Flanger Hoax, for example. A Wah pedal fed into a slow Phaser can do the same thing, and you have more control. It could work.

 

You can also get a nice swell effect, if you have a volume pedal w/a Min Volume knob. Set the Minimum value to a reasonable level, adjust your amp accordingly, then push the pedal when you need that little "oomph".

 

Hope some of this helps - if nothing else, you've got some experimenting to do. Good luck,

WP

[Caevan O’Shite]

Sorry to jump in late on this, but anyhow . . .

 

Couple of things. Rutherford and Tony Banks were fond of oddly-tuned 12-strings run through effects, and layered with synth lines; IIRC, there was even some mention of this in a recent GP article.

 

While it's possible that they were experimenting with an Avatar, the thing was incredibly unstable, and pretty much killed off the company. It's also possible that they were using a combination of Phaser/Swept Filter effects. If you run two Phaser/Modulator-type effects together, there will be times when the filters generate frequency peaks that swell and bloom; this seems to be the idea behind EHX's Flanger Hoax, for example. A Wah pedal fed into a slow Phaser can do the same thing, and you have more control. It could work.

 

You can also get a nice swell effect, if you have a volume pedal w/a Min Volume knob. Set the Minimum value to a reasonable level, adjust your amp accordingly, then push the pedal when you need that little "oomph".

 

Hope some of this helps - if nothing else, you've got some experimenting to do. Good luck,

WP

 

All of this is correct and true; great info and an excellent post! But I don't know as any of these things apply specifically to the solo passage there between 4:03 and 5:09.

 

If anything, besides the doubled phrases near the end of the solo, I think it's all down to a good guitar and a fairly loud amp (and perhaps, but not necessarily, an OD/Dist/Fuzz pedal) that vibrates the guitar and strings into sustain and a little subtle feedback, bringing out harmonic overtones as some notes are held.

 

For an example, at low or even direct/headphone volume, I can get very similar harmonic bloom with my Les Paul and my Sustainiac Model C electro-acoustic feedback-sustainer from Maniac Music, which uses a vibrating-transducer that clamps onto the headstock to induce acoustic feedback through the wood and strings of the guitar. The same kind of timbrel effect can be produced by a loud enough amp and speaker-cab close enough to the guitar, which would have been very easily done by Mike Rutherford when recording those tracks.

[02R96]

OK I think I got it figured out. It's a guitar synth. You can really hear it at the of the solo when he's playing slow single notes. Listen to this... BTW the run starts at around 4:10.

 

[Winston Psmith]

Watched the vid, but that just brings up another question for me - what's Daryl Stuermer playing through? I can barely see Mike Rutherford in the background; it looks like he's got one of his signature double-neck hybrid instruments on.

[02R96]

Which video did you watch? The one I posted is just a static picture since it's just audio from a simulcast by WXRT in Chicago.

[Winston Psmith]

Not sure - there was one with just a still of Tiny Banks at his keyboard rig, but I clicked on a few more, trying to hear the breaks. I'd say on almost any live track from that time, Daryl is filling in on guitar, so that's another layer of sound to sort through.

[happydog]

I think you're not going to nail it with that combination of stuff. The Orange is going to be too scruffy to make that tone happen, and the Big Muff is going to be too woofy, and the Tele is just not going to give you that smoothness. I think you might need to come at it from more of a compressor/overdrive perspective - and I hate to say it, but a solid state amp might play a very key role. Both Hackett and Rutherford were known for using solid state amps live and in the studio with Genesis.

 

A very likely suspect for the guitar used on that recording might be a Shergold Modulator, which would be the top half of Rutherford's doubleneck. He had a custom Shergold at the time which had interchangeable bodies. You could attach a 6 string or a 12 string guitar to the bass. The 6 string half of the Shergold was set up like a Strat with 3 single coils, and in subsequent Genesis work live, Rutherford seems to have stuck to Stratocasters, so my guess is that a Strat could get close to that tone too.

 

So does anyone know how to create the blooming effect on the longer held notes? Or is it more in his guitar/amp/effects?

 

I played around today and using my Tele/Orange TT/Big Muff clone. All I could do is create various levels of flat distortion.

 

I think I'm getting obsessed with this piece!

 

[happydog]

I was rooting around on the web and it was mentioned he used an "oh so finicky ARP Avatar (analog guitar synth)" on And Then There were Three. Is that what I could be hearing?

 

The Arp Avatar was cranky and weird. I actually tried one out in a music store when it came out (yes, I am that old). It did do octaves, so it could very well be that.

 

A very interesting part of the Arp Avatar was the "hex fuzz," and that was the best thing about the unit IMHO. Basically, the hexaphonic pickup on the Avatar sent each string through its own fuzz circuit, which meant that a lot of the intermodulation schmuzz that you get when you hit a chord (or even a dyad) when your guitar is plugged into a fuzz was lessened or absent. It was a very cool sound, but that was just about the only reliable sound that the Avatar had on it. Otherwise it was made of total glitch. But that solo could well have been done through the hex fuzz circuitry on the Avatar, which would explain a lot of its sound.