Anything by Bowie gets a tick from me.
Tackling a Bowie song is always going to be a challenge given his huge vocal range and the amount of control he can exercise over his voice.
This is an energetic, highly creditable version.
Thanks for checking it out gecko.
Always was a big Bowie fan...and the "Ziggy Stardust" album has always been one of my favorite Bowie albums.
And of course...Mick Ronson just plain rocks.
Really good job on the cover...solid guitars, drums, the works.
If you toss a little reverb on the vocal...you'll get the complete Bowie vibe.
Did you track with platform shoes and some glitter?
Which of your Marshall amps & guitar setup did you employ for the tones?
Lol. I don't do platform shoes or glitter but I did shave my eyebrows just for this. I'll detail the guitar stuff in a bit. Thanks.
You got balls.
I like your doing of the tune a lot.
Miro's talking about verb on vox. The only thing that occurred to me after two listens was the possibility of some slapback on the vocal, just to see. Lennon slapback. It'd work, but I dunno how well. Don't hold it against me - I can't just applaud - but yeah, I applaud this one.
Thanks dobro. I don't know about "Lennon" slapback. I have no idea what that is. I don't know if you're aware of this, but Beatles references are lost on me. Now had you said "Lenin", then you'd be speaking my language.
Unless it's a rockabilly song, any kind of really audible reverb or delay on vocals makes me cringe. I assure you there is reverb on my vocal, but it's just a hint.
Mix sounds great Greg I wouldn't mind some details on your guitar/pedal?/amp set up.
Thanks Ido.
I touched on it in my earlier post to Ray, but here's more details.
First, the stupid acoustic. I did nothing to try to get a good acoustic sound. I put a condenser in front of me, almost touching my forehead, and pointed it down at the guitar while I strummed that stupid thing. Then I compressed it pretty good and let it be.
Electric guitars used:
Left - Gibson Les Paul Traditional - Burstbucker 3 bridge pickup
Right - Gibson SG Special 70s Tribute - bridge minihumbucker
Amp:
Marshall Plexi 1959 SLP
Cabs:
Marshall 1960A and 1960B. Both hooked up, but I only mic'd one of them. I do everything now with two cabs blasting, but I only mic one of them most of the time. My cabs have a mix of speakers in X-patterns though so....
Speaker used:
Celestion G12M Greenback in the "A" cab. These are my "go to" speakers. Greenbacks are the shit. I'm gonna blow em up one day, but until then, they see more mics than any other speaker for me. I think people WAY underestimate the speaker's role in guitar sound. Many guitar players fret over meaningless things like string gauge, tube rolling, and monster cables, meanwhile they have no idea what speakers are in their cabs. Different speakers have wildly different characteristics.
Mics/position:
SM57 straight on axis, right up on the grill, pointed right at the seam where the speaker's dustcap "nipple" meets the cone.
Audix i5 straight on axis, right up on the grill, approx 3/4 to edge.
This is where the "magic" happen in my opinion. Through much trial and error and learning my own gear I've come up with an understanding of how I want to mic my speakers. By doing this "bright and dark" dual mic placement, I can mix and blend the two to get the results I want. With it being the same sound coming from the same speaker, I don't get any weirdness. I get a full and accurate representation of what is actually blasting out from my cabs. What I hear is what gets recorded, and to me, that is the ultimate recording win. The real beauty to this setup IMO is that I very rarely EQ my guitar tracks. These tracks in this song are literally and truthfully exactly as the came out of the speaker. No EQ, no compression, no side chaining, automating, no nothing. I do strongly believe though that before trying stuff like this one has to be able to get a good sound with just one mic first. If you can't get a good sound with one mic, how are you gonna get a good sound with two?
And lastly, for the left rhythm "Mick Ronson" track, I ran the Les Paul through a half-cocked-and-locked Dunlop Crybaby 535Q wah pedal before the amp. That was his sound and style back in the day, so I tried to approximate it the best I could. The whole track is done through the wah and I used a lot of vol rolling on the guitar, which isn't something I normally do, so I'm actually a little happy I pulled it off. I didn't want to do a cleaner track, and a louder track, etc. I like doing things all on one track honestly and purely like a live performance, so I had to sharpen my vol rolling skills to get it done.
Ugh, I guess that's about it. Good equipment that makes good sounds is pretty easy to record.