The greatest and worst exponents of the wah pedal ?

vasselmeyer

lukedlb said:

57Deluxe said:

Been WAH-ring since 1973 and is intuitive. But by far the best use of the Wah was Mick ronson's half cocked open-on tone and only ever so slightly attenuated during chords and solos so that if you were unitiated you wouldn't know... But I did/do!

Mark knopfler the same on money for nothing 

Only live. On the record, the sound was a pure accident . Here's a quote from the co-producer and engineer, Neil Dorfsman from a Sound on Sound article (original at http://www.soundonsound.com/people/classic-tracks-dire-straits-money-nothing):

"I remember Mark's Les Paul Junior going through a Laney amp, and that was the sound of 'Money For Nothing'," says Dorfsman. "We were actually going for a sort of ZZ Top sound, but what we ended up getting was kind of an accident. Mark would be in the control room and we'd run a lead out to the main area, and I remember getting a channel set up to monitor, heading out to the room to move the mics around, and Mark's guitar tech Ron Eve getting on the talkback and telling me not to touch anything because it sounded amazing as it was.

"One mic was pointing down at the floor, another was not quite on the speaker, another was somewhere else, and it wasn't how I would want to set things up — it was probably just left from the night before, when I'd been preparing things for the next day and had not really finished the setup. Nevertheless, whether it was the phase of the mics or the out-of-phaseness, what we heard was exactly what ended up on the record. There was no additional processing on that tune during the mix.

"Later on, we tried to recreate that guitar sound at the Power Station with the same amp, same setup and same models of microphone, but we could never get it. I'd drawn extensive pictures and had a little map of how everything was set up, but there must have been something weird going on to make the guitar sound that way in Montserrat, because in New York it sounded like a cleaner, karaoke version of the same thing. I messed around with it for a good couple of hours, but Mark was just getting bored and wanted to move on. The whole thing was very confusing."

english_bob

JD50 said:

Portishead, under rated guitarist

That would be Adrian Utley.

Who has impeccable taste in vintage gear too, as it happens.

TimmyO

1. Anyone/everyone else
2. Kirk

TimmyO

Actually this reminds a bit of the thread on the old old forum that was entitled simply "Kirk or Slash?" lol 

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

lukedlb said:

Mark knopfler the same on money for nothing 

That's not a wah, at least on the recording - it was a badly mic'ed amp with some sort of phase issue that proved impossible to duplicate again. He did use a wah to play it live though.

According to an article in Sound On Sound magazine, that honky sound involved a Les Paul Junior with the tone pot rolled down. 



Back on topic: Some of Miles Davis' guitarists know their way around a wah pedal. Reggie Lucas, Pete Cosey and some other dude of whom you may have heard - John McLaughlin.

Dominic

guitarmangler said:

Worst has to be the whole crime of the century album by Supertramp. I love that album, but the whacka whacka on it is waaaaay too much. 

That's the bit I like !

dindude

builttospill said:

The Edge On The Fly Solo and Mysterious Ways

Yes, this.

dindude

builttospill said:

80's Grange Hill theme tune

No, not this.

Kebabkid

Good examples - Both The Shaft and Professionals Theme! Not sure who the guitarists were.

Octafish

Some great wah wah...



That intro.... and almost in a similar style at the start....

mike_l

TimmyO said:

Actually this reminds a bit of the thread on the old old forum that was entitled simply "Kirk or Slash?" lol 

Jaffa cakes or Hobnobs was the other.