That Nick Drake Guitar Sound

[Al]

I think his unique style contributed to his sound a great deal, he was a very good player, anyone here tried to play his stuff on guitar?, what the fuk is going on there!?..

5 leaves left, bryter later, pink moon...classics!!

Al

[prince turbo lung]

the guitar he is pictured with is a guild f-20, but i own a f-20 and a f-30 (paul simon model) they really do not sound like nick drakes records. as someone said above it sounds like a small body gibson, i agree. gibsons are richer sounding where as the guilds have real upfront mids with kinda muddy bottoms. as with mics who knows maybe ribbon, maybe dynamic, i would also consider a small dia tube condenser with a dark sounding capsule. the guys who did his records also did some of the nico stuff which have similar sounds....john wood and joe boyd (engineer, producer) they would be a great pair for a tapeop interview.

[Al]

Nick Drake used the small bodied Guild guitars and think possibly he had a Martin later on.

Check out the book, it's a good read if your a fan.

Al

[ottokbre]

this whole thread has gotten me running around looking at old shit online! love it!

a singer/songwriter i was working with had two vintage Gibsons that had a very close sound. but acoustics rarley translate via a mic, so i'm wondering if it was the guild going through a dark mic.

the last jesse sykes album has got some tones like that. she plays a guild jumbo with that heavy ass bracing that can make a huge guitar sound all uptight and hushed. by the time it hits tape, it sounds like something completely differant.

i guess that why i'm kinda looking for peoples results. part of the problem with comparing songs from yore with todays technology is that design and construction change so much of what we use. everything is brighter, and focused, but often at the expense of that subjective musicality.

[Al]

I think it may have been a condenser mic, at least on Pink Moon he played sang live with one microphone with him facing the wall, it was recorded in a couple of days, done.

I think the story is that he felt that Bryter Later was too much of a cluttered affair with all the instrumentation and wanted to do something simple.

No dubs other than piano on "Pink Moon" that little line sends shivers up my spine everytime i hear it.

Nice to hear from more fans of the Drake.

Al

[provide86]

One overdub- the piano solo on the title track.

yes, people tend to neglect this for some reason when talking about pink moon. it was a tiny bit more than just nick and his 6-string.

i didn't think i was anal enough to make this post. maybe because it's such a special record.

[campironwood]

Anyone ever try an old EV RE-10 on an acoustic? Been doing this a lot lately and this is about as close to the nick drake sound that I've ever heard come out of my alvarez. I usually have it about 1 1/2 - 2 feet away from the guitar, kind of off axis.
Just scan the area with a good pair of headphones on and this mic and you might be surprised.
You can get 'em used off ebay pretty cheap.

[jislober]

Yeah, I just picked up a pair of re10s and have been using them to record acoustic guitar. I've been pretty pleased with the results. Really cool tone on those mics. I think I like them better than 57s. Any other use for them?

[campironwood]

I think I like them better than 57s. Any other use for them?

sweeeeeet.
Tons of other uses. I've had great success on vocals, elec guitar, and as and outside kick drum mic. One piece of advice, make shockmounts for these mics if you can. If not, the shockmounts for the AKG C414 works pretty well. The RE-10 has tons of handling noise, and lots of low end rumble can sneak up that mic stand with no mount.
Other than that, I love this mic... experiment away with it.
Point it at places you normally wouldn't point a 57.
Also, if you can really crank the pre, this mic sounds great as a room mic... for any instrument.

-Matt

[takeout]

...As a side note, because I'm so infatuated with certain steel string players' tone, I've found that on several recordings I've made of late, the guitar sounds a lot like John Fahey's early albums, (Again, the tone, not the playing) I was really close miking with a 57 in my room which is rediculousley reflective, hardwood everywhere. And I was compressing a bit, but I think that combination of close miking bite and upfrontness, with the room still seeping into the mic because it's so reflective, sounds like early Fahey. Sorry I'm rambling, but you gotta love Fahey tone, if you love Nick Drake tone. Or maybe not I don't know . . . .

John Fahey rules. I'm deep into him right now. Started me on my search for fingerpicks that I could actually tolerate. Something about grabbing four strings at once and just pulling... it's more like a piano than a guitar at that point.

Drake-heads take note.

[greenmeansjoe]

Ah, Nick Drake. The acoustic tones on all three of his records are some of my absolute favorites. So pretty.

This gets me thinking:

The acoustic I record with is a piece of shit. Sounds terrible. It's an electric/acoustic, actually. A Yamaha. There's no depth to it at all. The mids are dead. The highs are tinny. The lows have no resonance. Lots of fret buzz. It sucks.

But mic that junker with a 57 around the 20th fret and whatever other cheap dynamic I have handy two or three feet out from the body, and it sounds amazing.

What sort of magic is that?

Joe

[tsw]

I don't think anybody brought this up yet, but I read an interview somewhere with someone who was part of the recording of Pink Moon (may have been the producer), and he pointed out that he used no compression at all on Drake's guitar. Apparently, Drake's technique was so clean that compression was just not necessary. We probably shouldn't underestimate the effect this has on the tone, since compression seems to be such a given these days.

andy

[madpie]

Hey on the (slightly off topic) subject of Fahey, Kottke et al., do any of you fingerpickers out there know of good books on technique? I'm really taken with stuff from Nick Drake to Blind Blake to Fahey, but while I can fake a bit of the Drake stuff I really can't even start to play "Michigan Rag" or any of the stuff that involves the walking bass lines in conjunction with the high parts. Any insights? ... And (yet another tangent) any suggestions for the record to get by Rev. Gary Davis?

[takeout]

Hey on the (slightly off topic) subject of Fahey, Kottke et al., do any of you fingerpickers out there know of good books on technique? I'm really taken with stuff from Nick Drake to Blind Blake to Fahey, but while I can fake a bit of the Drake stuff I really can't even start to play "Michigan Rag" or any of the stuff that involves the walking bass lines in conjunction with the high parts. Any insights? ... And (yet another tangent) any suggestions for the record to get by Rev. Gary Davis?

Fahey put out a couple of instructional videos before he died. Dunno how good they are; a guy named Stephan Grossman is selling them on his site, among others.

The Scorcese "Blues" series on PBS had some cool footage, especially the stuff with Chris Thomas King (?) playing the part of Skip James (I just found out about him; check his stuff out if you haven't already). Alvin Youngblood Hart does some cool stuff in it too.

Books? Try anything Chet Atkins put out. He could play two different songs at the same time, so if it's parts independence you want...

There's also a book "in the style of Lindsey Buckingham" that I've been meaning to check out. Banjo-like techniques as applied to rock guitar and cocaine abuse, or something.

Basically I've just been sawing away at the easier Fahey stuff (i.e. Sligo River Blues). Alternate tunings have been getting me going too; I'm coming up with all these interesting moving basslines...