String by String - A Def Leppard Recording Process?

bingefeller

I'd read about the one string recording process before, but never thought it was true.  This guy explains it in detail and it's really interesting to watch.

stratman3142

Very interesting and well presented.
A method to experiment with in recording non-5 chords with a distorted guitar sound.

bingefeller

stratman3142 said:

Very interesting and well presented.
A method to experiment with in recording non-5 chords with a distorted guitar sound.

Yeah, you definitely notice the difference, dont you?   I liked how much his tone chimed when he played the clean chords. This vid made me stick on Pyromania again, truly a great album and it captures the sound of the 80s.  

guitarfishbay

A cool video, at the heart of it all of these techniques are problem solvers really. Guitars have limitations but these can be overcome with time in the studio.

quarky

What a great video!

quarky

It is interesting if you play something like Rock of Ages, or Pour Some Sugar on Me, and then something like You Give Love a Bad Name, or Its My Life, the difference in the way the songs are put together. This video is great for showing why.

bingefeller

quarky said:

It is interesting if you play something like Rock of Ages, or Pour Some Sugar on Me, and then something like You Give Love a Bad Name, or Its My Life, the difference in the way the songs are put together. This video is great for showing why.

Yes, those Def Lep songs are so highly polished, down to every single detail.  It's really quite amazing when you listen to them, especially through headphones.  

bloodandtears

Was only done on one track iirc.. Love Bites

not_the_dj

bloodandtears said:

Was only done on one track iirc.. Love Bites

The clean chords on the title track are the main example (I've gotta know tonight -strum strum strum- if you're alone tonight -strum strum strum-)

bwm5150

bloodandtears said:

Was only done on one track iirc.. Love Bites

The Hysteria pre chorus is the main example the band talks about but my video was based on Steve Clark interviews where he talks about how some of the rhythm guitar had to be tracked up on Pyromania because of the complex chord voicings they were using. He specifically mentions Comin' Under Fire, but you can hear it used a lot on Pyromania. 

ICBM

I think it sounds really odd. The whole point of why distorted chords on a guitar sound like they do is that the distortion is applied to the sum of the chord notes and not the other way round, so you get the results of the intermodulation as well - if you add together the separate distorted notes it sounds cleaner, but like a keyboard playing a 'guitar' sound. Not so much difference on a clean sound, but then why bother really?

For what it's worth, if you want to do it the other way round and make a keyboard sound more like a guitar, just run it through an overdrive pedal...

Redlester

Great vid! 


I don't care what anyone says, Def Lep had some of the best guitar sounds of the 80s, and Hysteria in particular is a testament to dedication and knowing exactly how to make the most of the studio setting. 

And for a decade replete with gorgeous 'ker-ching' clean guitar sounds, the bridge on Hysteria is the definitive statement. Sounds great, works a treat, and really lifts an already beautiful song into an even higher emotional realm. 

RocknRollDave

Not wishing to turn this into an anti-Leppard post, but just to say I don’t see the point of applying such polish to a band like Def Leppard.

I mean, it’s Rock, right? The softer, shinier end of the Rock spectrum but Rock all the same. Does it need/ warrant such painstaking fluffery?

Does Rock music of this ilk benefit from this kind of stuff? 

Danny1969

RocknRollDave said:

Not wishing to turn this into an anti-Leppard post, but just to say I don’t see the point of applying such polish to a band like Def Leppard.

I mean, it’s Rock, right? The softer, shinier end of the Rock spectrum but Rock all the same. Does it need/ warrant such painstaking fluffery?

Does Rock music of this ilk benefit from this kind of stuff? 

Well it was the mid eighties ... released in 87 I think but started in the earlier eighties and the ideal was to have a rock record that could stand up to a modern pop record of the time ... like Jackson etc.  By using the little Rockmans and avoiding too much power chord crunching they did make a record that's more palatable to a pop audience. I was in a rock covers band at the time and we covered that whole album pretty much, it was so popular. 

Still listen to Love Bites and Hysteria now, these are the more country Mutt led songs which stand the time better than some of the rockier stuff. 

CaseOfAce

I seem to recall that Motorhead were in the studio (Holland?) next door to Leppard and when they found out they were recording stuff string by string they couldn't believe it?

Hysteria was also a massive gamble by the band. Didn't it take something like 5 years (not helped by the drummer's accident) and they / record company were up to their necks in debt paying for it. 
At first it didn't look like it was going to pay off... and then Animal hit and single after single followed. Stateside they hit the big time.

Danny1969

CaseOfAce said:

I seem to recall that Motorhead were in the studio (Holland?) next door to Leppard and when they found out they were recording stuff string by string they couldn't believe it?

Hysteria was also a massive gamble by the band. Didn't it take something like 5 years (not helped by the drummer's accident) and they / record company were up to their necks in debt paying for it. 
At first it didn't look like it was going to pay off... and then Animal hit and single after single followed. Stateside they hit the big time.

Windmill studios - Dublin I think then mixed by Shipley and Mutt at his studio over here 

monquixote

If you fancy cheating a bit the Boss MDP pedals like the OD-1X split the frequencies and distort them separately so you get less intermodulation on complex chords.

Danny1969

I did demo  pickups at Sim's in Kent that Martin had designed that was split across the strings, so you could have the bass notes on the treble pickup and the high strings on the neck pickup. That was an interesting sound. 

sweepy

A similar approach was used by Nik Kershaw when recording the solo for Wouldnt  it be good, literally recording one note at a time 

bwm5150

Danny1969 said:

CaseOfAce said:

I seem to recall that Motorhead were in the studio (Holland?) next door to Leppard and when they found out they were recording stuff string by string they couldn't believe it?

Hysteria was also a massive gamble by the band. Didn't it take something like 5 years (not helped by the drummer's accident) and they / record company were up to their necks in debt paying for it. 
At first it didn't look like it was going to pay off... and then Animal hit and single after single followed. Stateside they hit the big time.

Windmill studios - Dublin I think then mixed by Shipley and Mutt at his studio over here 

Windmill in Dublin, Wisseloord in Holland and a brief stint in Paris.

ICBM

sweepy said:

A similar approach was used by Nik Kershaw when recording the solo for Wouldnt  it be good, literally recording one note at a time 

Interesting - that explains why I've always thought it sounded rather "keyboardy". I had never been completely sure whether it was a keyboard sounding like a guitar or a guitar sounding like a keyboard, since the sound is quite keyboardy, but some of the phrasing is guitar-like - but now I know .