In Praise of 'Caress of Steel'

[mattd]

Ok. I'm looking for some opinions.

I really like how this album was recorded. The release date was 1975 and it seemed that people really knew how to record correctly back then. The clarity of instruments is just spectacular, and the bass and kick couldn't be any more tightly slotted together.

But since it's so clear, you can pretty much hear just about everything that went on in the studio -- nothing's covered up. And I've heard some things that I'm curious about and I'm interested to see what other people think.

At 0:31 in 'Lakeside Park,' the guitar tone changes from overdriven to clean. It sounds like it's all one track and the switch was done live as he was playing the part -- rather than tracking an overdrive guitar and a separate clean guitar track. And so assuming that it's a single track (and it sure sounds that way to me), can anybody tell if he's switching the pickup selector? Or is it a foot switch between an overdrive channel and a clean channel on the amp? Or is it anybody's guess?

At 2:51 in 'The Fountain of Lamneth,' the same thing seems to happen, except the switch is from clean to overdrive, and this sounds much more like a pickup switch to me. It sounds like the neck pickup was set way down to get clean tone and bridge pickup was set to full volume to drive the amp a bit.

The thing that gets me is that pickup selectors are usually the cheapest part in the guitar and can be really, really noisy. Why would you do anybody do his tracking this way as opposed to tracking separate parts?

 

[Roguetitan]

Caress of steel was one of Rush s greatest works besides 2112 and all of the background artifacts are meant to be there in my own opinion
no foot switch in the studio there were multiple tracks of clean and overdriven recodings edited together.

 

[Tadpui]

The thing that gets me is that pickup selectors are usually the cheapest part in the guitar and can be really, really noisy. Why would you do anybody do his tracking this way as opposed to tracking separate parts?

I have a feeling that if anybody used a pickup selector to change guitar tones instead of editing together sperate guitar tracks, it would be for the purpose of conserving tracks on a limited budget/limited amount of tracks. Like if they're trying to do a song on an 8-track and need to put all of the rhythm guitar on one track, or even share tracks between instruments.

I recall hearing that one of Led Zeppelin's early albums was recorded like that, with a few different instruments on the same track.

I'd imagine that even in those early days, Rush's budget would probably allow for ample tracks to put clean guitars on one track and distorted guitars on another. But I don't know for sure.

The only other reason I'd imagine using a pickup selector rather than editing together seperate takes would be to preserve the feel of a single-take live performance in the studio.

 

[Roguetitan]

even back then Rush was known to be very technical oriented so I seriously doubt they were using single tracks.

 

[johnnymegabyte]

I've read of in the early days of "one take" recordings. Does this mean live-off-the-floor, which then suggests Alex would toggle his sounds "live" between clean and distorted ?
One other possibilty of the drive/clean control was he used a Volume pedal. I (being a Rush fan) would set Bridge PUP on 10 and Neck PUP on 2 to 5 for the cleaner tones, even when using a 2 channel amp.
Also I believe Alex was using a Gibson ES-335, but he could get a ton of overdrive with his setup and clean tones, i.e. a versatile guitar.