built to spill guitar sound

[qbertsoul]

i'm curious about how Doug Martsch gets and records some of the guitar sounds on "there's nothing wrong with love", particularly the lead guitar parts on "In the morning" (first track). i heard he plays a strat through this rig: http://guitargeek.com/rigview/291/

it sounds like he's recording multiple guitars for the lead parts to make them really thick, but their sound is kinda odd. they're really overdriven and their is almost no attack with each note that's played, so I can't even tell if he's picking the notes, but he's not doing volume swells and it doesn't sound like he's ebowing either. it's just kinda peculiar.

can anybody shed some light on this? i'd be most appreciative!

[wayne kerr]

Hey Doug's setup is pretty rad - but here's the real deal:

http://guitargeek.com/rigview/224/

Keep it simple!

Sis

[theistheman]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That's great.

[qbertsoul]

i'm not saying doug's setup is great. i just want to know how he got those sounds.

[gog]

...i know that his main distortion pedal is a danelectro daddy-o.

[brokenchairs]

I have a russian big muff pedal that pretty accurately captures a lot of those early built to spill sounds, even though i'm almost for sure he doesn't ever use one. theres a really cool article with built to spill for the experience music project that follows them through their whole recording process. it's not really in depth, but it's still pretty cool to see how they record. Theres nothing wrong with love is probably my favorite album of all time. Isreals song will forever hold a special place in my heart.

[unionsquare]

I saw Built to Spill about a dozen times after that record came out. At the time, he used a Fender American Strat (bridge pickup) and a silverface Fender Twin Reverb. I'm fairly certain that he did use a big muff at that point. You might want to email Phil Ek on that one... I think the record sounds great ... but I remember the band apologizing for the lack of variety of guitar sounds because they didn't have the budget to experiment and fiddle...

us

[inverseroom]

I have never seen this band live, but that album sounds like Fender all the way--I would put money on a Strat through a Fender amp. I'd imagine that any very slight tube or stompbox distortion would do it. It is a highly unadorned sound, and all of its expressivness comes from the playing style and energy in the room.

A great, great album. It is the antithesis of overproduction--the sound of those guys, at that time, with those instruments. Even Guitar Geek would be spectacularly unhelpful in reverse-engineering THAT!

[qbertsoul]

does phil ek normally respond to typical geeky fan questions? if so, what's his email address? i'd love to ask him a few questions.

[justinf]

I remember after the Fender amp era he used some Soldano stuff, probably the SLO. Those are bad ass amps.