Rick Beato At That Pedal Show! [Recording Guitar Tips, Producing & More]

[Music] foreign [Music] welcome to that pedal show Dan here Mick here Rick here hello it's a big day in Shangri-La um we got a very surprised text message from Mr Rick biato indeed indeed send Dan a text welcome Rick by the way thank you thank you thank you so much for coming thanks for having me incredible sent down a text saying you guys around I wouldn't I'd like to drop in and visit and we're like what he's coming here so he said yes [Laughter] so welcome Rick if you don't know who Rick is um you're living and push the rock off uh get out and uh go and Google him and look at his YouTube channel because where are we now Rick uh around three and a half million something like that it's a three and a half million subscribers uh earned through a whole barrage of awesome content down here incredible um for which we must say thank you yeah indeed it's been so helpful and we referenced it quite a lot actually Nick was saying we do little band sessions in here it says yeah I'd like to tune the drum and we're watching one of your videos I'm like yeah I was like yeah well I've got the piano book and you know I'm because and I've said this to you before I love your guitar player thank you um because you were that was your thing for a long time right you were really into jazz yeah yeah back in the in the 80s and into the beginning of the 90s that's what I was I was a guitar player yeah the uh and the knowledge in that book I mean the if anyone hasn't uh anyone that's interested in learning Harmony and learning um how all that stuff works together the piano book is a really wonderful resource um this is and you've updated it yes now it's an online thing with videos and audio examples and everything I've been updating it but I wrote it back when I was a college professor back in the late 80s oh you were a college professor as well I was in my 20s yeah teaching music yeah teaching music I taught Jazz studies for five years um so I taught you know improv music theory ear training I conducted the big band I mean awesome yeah and I played I used to play five nights a week playing just uh different with different groups and stuff like that but playing jazz basically confusion no way we we may well touch on some more biographical stuff as we go along but Rick did a video with Anderson's yesterday where I believe he talked a lot about yeah biographical stuff please go and watch that um and come back here and finish this um to check out that whole discussion some of the stuff we want to talk to you about Rick is uh your time as a producer what you know about guitar tones again if you haven't watched Rick's done the most amazing videos on breaking down famous guitar tones telling exactly what's going on all that kind of stuff is utterly fascinating I was watching the bow wrap one the other night and you start saying this oh this is fantastic and then and Brian May Pops in I'm like ah come on there's too much so great yeah if you're gonna do a breakdown of Bohemian Rhapsody you have to have brain me in your video right I mean that's just great I love that I I love that you asked him oh did you guys practice and practice really hard for you know and he's like yeah no not so much right and the takes are amazing the the the it's a piano take all the way through piano bass and drumstick take all the way through with no mistakes it's unbelievable I mean Freddie Mercury is was such a phenomenal piano player that he doesn't even I don't think people even register how good he was and how good you know those guys were such incredibly good players yeah we was it this is slightly biographical what what lit what lit you up about music I mean because your whole career has been music was it just from the get-go did you I always loved music but I when I took up the guitar in uh I was in what 14 or so and I broke my ankle at the beginning at the end of the school year beginning first week of Summer uh after eighth grade and I didn't have anything to do I was in a cast and I'm sitting on the couch and my brother had this one dollar guitar that I picked up and I had played already played the cello in the bass so I could you know read music and stuff and and I could I had dexterity from playing upright upright basin so I picked up this one dollar guitar this is called a global and uh like a little plywood thing and I start learning chords I had a chord book there Mel B chord book yeah nice I started learning chords and then I had an America uh but song book and I put on this record and I'm like listening to it it's like those aren't that's not the right parts there you know had the wrong chords and everything it's like that's not what they're playing so then I start figuring out stuff by ear and that's like when night at the Opera came out Frampton Comes Alive came out all these great guitar records in the mid 70s so I we had these in the house and I would just start putting on the records and learning how to play well the learning how to play the songs just by ear there's no tablets or anything you just had to yeah Put the Needle down and figure this stuff out so I didn't realize I had a pretty good ear I didn't realize yeah yeah my friend said how'd you figure that out because I was figuring out Larry Carlton guitar solos uh lee asked me yesterday he's like what was your first electric guitar and I was kind of embarrassed I said a black Les Paul Custom but it was you know it was used it was really beat up early 70s custom and uh this guy I mowed lawns for this guy Tom Rizzo that owned a music store that that's who I got it for a mowed his lawn and I worked as a cashier in a grocery store and my mom helped me out buying my first guitar and awesome and it was uh but I figured out like uh my first band I had this this drummer Andy and he gave me a demo tape of learning covers and uh I met him in a music store and he's and on it was Don't Take Me Alive Steely Dan uh long distance run around yes all these and I went over his guitar players his brother was a really good guitar player and he I played the Larry Carlton so he's like how did you learn that I was like I listen to the tape Andy said to learn the stuff and come over and a long distance around around the two two parts and and uh but you didn't know any Theory at that point none none no way so when did that begin uh when when I started taking into our lessons when I was uh probably 16 17. I took him from this guy Tom and then another guy Glenn Cummings and they started they were like okay here's and I could already I already figured out Jazz stuff because my dad gave me this virtuoso Joe Pass virtuoso record when I was in in 10th Grade and he's when I was 16 he said if you ever learn to play guitar like this you've done something with your life you've accomplished something my dad worked for the railroad my parents were real working classmate I worked in a can factory they were both very big into music though they loved as listeners not they neither played an Instagram but one day I I had this record sitting there and one day after about three months I was like I'll open this thing up listen to this my dad listened to Jazz all the time so I'm listening to this record and I was like get to about the fourth song all the things you are I was like I can figure that out I think I start figuring out it's like F minor seven B flat minor seven and I I figured out so my dad gets home from work I start I said check this out and I put on the record to start playing it my dad was never one he was very quiet guy he was like how'd you learn that I said what do you mean I just listened to it and learn yes that was it but that for for my dad that was a massive I was like wow I think Dad's impressed this is unbelievable I can figure out this you know guitar lines and everything the whole thing do you do you have the perfect pitch I don't have perfect pitch no again if you've not seen it uh Rick did great video uh with his son series of great videos with his son Dylan uh and Dylan does have perfect pitch yeah and it's but you know one of my favorite parts of that video is it's incredible and then you you are still in have you ever used it like you you know how much has it helped you and he's like nah not at all he doesn't he doesn't think about it yeah I said do you when you hear something and Dylan was only about nine at the time and everything I had him in a couple videos about Perfect Pitch and I said do you ever think of the notes when you're listening to music no only when you ask me right so it doesn't bother him it never even occurs to him if something's Out Of Tune or whatever it never even occurs um he doesn't even think about it because that's that's a um a preconception about Perfect Pitch isn't it well some people say it's painful if it's Out Of Tune and I had two assistants that had Perfect Pitch early on enter two back-to-back two assistants like one in ten thousand people so they have two assistants and then Dylan I remember one time we went out to lunch with both of them and Dylan I was like I'm the only person in the car that doesn't have a perfect pitch but one of them was really bothered by auto-tune notes and the other one wasn't and then Dylan he doesn't care at all so amazing what's he up to what's he doing he's uh he's at Stonehenge right now wondering how they got there yeah so you do the I promise this wasn't going to be biographical it's turning into biographical uh let's jump forward to the production bit yeah I'm super interested in this so you start in someone else's Studio I did as an assistant or something no I started um so I I would I was in a Barack band that got signed to a major level record deal in 19 99 and um and we spent a ridiculous amount of money on our record that came out terribly because the producer who ended up getting fired during the record I won't mention his name um he would just come in he drank too much it didn't show up the studio after about four days and then me and the we did the basic tracks of me and the singer were doing I didn't know anything about engineering or anything we were in NRG studios in La we were royalty we were all these different Studios paying two thousand dollars a day and everything we spent 483 000 on a record and it Kevin Shirley had to come in and fix the record at the end and try to mix these Things No track sheets 48 track analog it was it was a disaster so anyway so I finished with this experience and there's like four months until our record's gonna come out and so I said in my lawyer I'm gonna have to go back and teach guitar lessons I don't have any money and he says why don't you produce spans and I was like what he's like yeah you should produce Spencer like I don't know anything about producing pans I just went through this horrible experience he's like I got a band that needs a better demo I think that they could they could do something go go grab get grab the cassette and uh on your way out and take a listen tell them that I said that they needed need you to produce their demos better it's like okay so I called this band up there is a band called left front tire they're from uh outside of Atlanta and uh I produced their uh did Five song demo on a 16 track analog in my friend's basement Studio possibility he engineered it and everything and and one of the tracks got in the American Pie 2 soundtrack that sold a million copies and everything yeah I had got royalties so the first thing I did Angie money yeah earned me money and it was um and it was successful I then I started get project I projected project and then our record came out and we went on a tour opening for Mega Death uh and and uh for like 12 dates and Marty Friedman and I became friends wow and then eventually that tour ended and then our label got bought out we got dropped after only a few weeks after the record came out no way so then I immediately went back into producing and and so I was 37 at the time and I taught myself how to engineer by asking questions so I'm I had done a a um this is interesting I haven't told this story I don't think ever but in 95 or 96 I had a um my friend Rich said hey there's a band that's on a m records called orbit and they're they're making a record up in Detroit with a guy named Ben gross Ben's a great engineer and producer and mixer and uh he did the the uh Hey Man Nice Shot um what's the band Mike what's the band filter okay he did the filter the first couple filter records and um Ben's done a lot of a lot of big records anyway so I go to his studio in Detroit and he's got a SSL console he's got all this stuff set up I didn't know what any mics were called or anything I didn't know and I was like how do you decide what to put mics on and and he would just tell me he's like and why do you have a what do you have in the top of the thing oh I have this 414 on the top and 421 what's a 414. I'm literally writing this stuff down in a notebook about how we make drums I drew diagrams and everything guitar amps how he makes this stuff so then when I started making records my first so I worked with my friend Billy for about six months or so and then Billy was starting to do some really big rap projects at a studio with Little John and big like a lot of big Atlanta wraps yeah yeah so Billy's like well you can you can engineer on your own so I went to this other Studio tree sound and my friend Dave Cobb who was I in uh he had a console there Dave is in this band called The Tender Idols it's like one of the first bands I produced he was actually the guitar player but he's a big country producer now I don't know if you ever heard of him yeah so um so I go there and Billy's like I'll come up there I was like I don't know how to do this he's like I'll come up and check just mic the drums up so I would reference this book and I placed the mics exactly where Ben said to place them and get the drums on I recorded where the face I didn't know anything about any of this stuff and uh and and the and the I remember the engineers like wait you want to put these four 14s in the top of the drums and a 421 and he said put him out of phase and all this stuff and I did that and I got the most amazing drum so Billy came behind he's like sounds incredible wow and then I just taught myself engineering from there isn't that amazing because how many kids have gone to college to learn that and they get yeah they read the book and they learn all this stuff but actually doing it there and then is because you see it you hear it somebody shows you it's like I've been fortunate I've worked with a lot of big Engineers too and uh that made a lot of you know um records that I love the sound of from Randy Staub who did the you know Metallica Black Album and stuff and Randy mixed some stuff around it worked with a lot of mixers and a lot of well-known engineers and I would ask them tons of questions write stuff down or I remember things pretty well let's let's jump into recording some guitars because it's something that we get asked about understandably a lot um you know the way we record on the show is primarily to try and capture What's Happening Here in the room as a producer yep is it the same concept or is it you know how are you approaching it are you approaching it um you know let's find a guitar sound that would fit in this track and like what's the first thing as a producer guitar player walks in puts a zap down what do you do so depending on what the context is I will um it really depends on the type band it is I I'll usually try to find something if it's a rock band that's like a two guitar band I try to find uh I don't like that that having a typical big mono sound where you play the same thing on out of both speakers I like them them to be different tones they have to be similar enough so it sounds like stereo but but you're going to get a wider stereo image by doing something different with the sound putting a tune screamer in front of one and playing the same Parts playing on different guitars that have different picket configuration something to give the the they need to sound similar enough that it sounds like a stereo double track for example in a chorus but they they have to have a different tonality so that it makes a stereo image widen right yeah otherwise it's what I call Big mono even if it's if it's the same part with the same guitar you know double tracked it's still going to sound kind of mono-ish yeah okay unless they're playing really different parts now there's there are bands and records that historically would play like a band like Pearl Jam for example if you listen to a song like dissident that's off their second record now on that song There's a main guitar part that's in the left speaker and a second guitar part that only comes comes in sporadically that's played yeah and the other speaker one's on a Les Paul I believe one's on a strat the one on the in the right speakers on a strat and it's a real stereo part and then the chorus you can hear a distortion pedal come on and there's a main part in the chorus so there's three distinct guitar parts and to me that's like the classic sound of of famous records that you would hear it's kind of like um if you listen to Stairway to Heaven when Jimmy Page comes in you have the guitar and I believe it's in the uh left speaker and the Reverb isn't the right speaker yeah and then the recorders come in John Paul Jones is a four-part recorder thing and so that's in the right speaker but the Reverb of that is in the left speaker this used to be how stereo Imaging was done Andy Johns did that yeah these guys that were brilliant mixing Engineers recording Engineers knew how to create stereo Angie by the Stones guitar comes into one speaker the reverbs and the other speaker of Van Halen yeah comes in you know uh they did a great video on that yeah so they this was a common thing to create stereo you'd create you take a mono sound and put the Reverb in the other speaker which was done like with Van Halen that's after the Reverb you know uh is done in the control room let's say and that's just the wet Reverb right wet Reverb there's no dry signal in that yeah yeah just in the other speaker and this was a common thing in the 70s to do that to use that kind of wet dry thing but between two speakers to create a stereo image and then then they would uh like an Angie for example so Keith comes in with this guitar part one speaker read from the other speaker then the piano comes in on the next phrase pianos and the other speaker with the they're at Three Rivers the other thing wow right but then when it comes to the first chorus a second acoustic comes in and the right speaker and the piano goes to the center for the rest of the song okay okay so they're using panning and they're using effects in a very creative way and to create the illusion of stair well it's not the illusion of stereo it is stereo and it was really really brilliant these guys invented this stuff yes people these mixing Engineers producers invented these things unpresumably out of a limitation of what they had available yes so in order to make more of that more than the sum of its parts essentially whereas now we've got everything yeah we don't know how to use it the the one of the things though about um I did so much experimenting trying to get original guitar sounds where I would use maybe two different amplifiers together and I'd have a I have a little Labs distribution box yeah radial makes them a lot of companies make them where you can split the signal that the one I have goes one in three out three different amps and sometimes I'll do if I want Clarity I was talking with Butch Vig about this he's you know sometimes you'll have a an amp with Distortion you put like an ac30 on to get the clarity and if you're having chords and stuff that that need you know uh if you have a f sharp chord with open B and E strings right that that has more dissonance in there because you have that rub between the a sharp and the open B string there and to get the clarity you want something a cleaner sound but it has to have it can't be too you can't have like a clean Fender yeah yes that cord yeah Alex life's in chord uh so if uh you can't have a super clean amp in there because it's going to sound it doesn't blend well yeah correct so you have to have a pushed sound so I'll have an AC 30 in it with maybe a you know some type of a uh gain pedal in front of it to give it some some more meat but still where you have the clarity and I blend the two sounds maybe GCM 800 and that together on one side those two amps to create one sound what's some of the drive for that we were talking about this the other day when you were talking about the harsh effect yes and the fact that it becomes stereo enables that vocal to sit down the middle a little better is that part of the drive for that do you think or yeah absolutely yeah because that's where if you have that big mono sound it's very hard to fit a vocal in the center because it just takes up all the middle of the mix even when the things are hard panned so these are are I would just because I mixed my own records as well most not all the time a lot major Label records you have a mixing engineer on some of them but I mixed 95 of the records that I did too and you want to you want to have nice stereo Imaging and you have different which is created by having different mono Parts you know if I had a uh if I'm miking a Leslie cabinet many times I'll make it with three mics but I'll blend it to Mono sometimes I'll have in Stereo depending on how big what you know when you're listening to a sound on a you know if if I'm listening to a sound from us anything from the 70s for example typically the the a Leslie from an organ is going to be in mono it'll just be one trick because you just didn't have the tracks yeah you might have two tracks in the drums yeah or you'll submix things down and then you have to and and bounce but uh I would always do things like it I wouldn't have a I would never record two mics of a guitar amp onto two separate tracks and Pro Tools you know I always thought like because I started on tape I always would be like that has to be one sound the top and bottom snare mic one sound I just wanted them send them at the console it's fascinating what you were saying about you know you've got that sort of thick guitar sound and then you add in something a little more percussive like an ic30 with a little more treble I don't know if you have any analogies for this I've always thought of a mix that's being like a great plate of food so you've got something earthy and Meaty but you've got your maybe you've got some sort of herb flavor and it's just it's a combination of crunch texture yep and flavor so you've got it becomes three-dimensional yeah if you think about it in that way or if you have another way you think about it yeah and it's it's it's it's interesting because the two amp thing is kind of different than having two pedals and one sound right because uh you're that's going to create one sound just the combination of layering those things will create one sound whereas when you use two different amplifiers you're creating and then the other side you might have something different as well sure or you may may uh use a different miking combination but there's so many different things to think about with this right once you get a great sound through the amp in the room then you're like how do you capture that sound yeah yeah and how does it fit in the track is it too big for the track because sometimes it'd be you know if you listen to these Van Halen sounds you know you'd be they'd be you'd hide past them and the things that people don't think about a lot of times is that sounds that you hear on records are going through a recording console they're going through they might go through if it's a record from the 70s it was done on tape it comes from a microphone it could be a Tube Mic you know let's or let's say it's a 57 Just One mic comes into the console and Eve console well you got a couple uh uh Transformers in the preamp section you give the pr and you know you go through the EQ section even if you engage it and don't EQ anything that creates a different amount of harmonic Distortion then it comes out of the console it might go through if it's a cleaner sound might go through an la2a and you go through some tubes a compressor and then you go into the tape machine it hits the tape and and gets some more harmonic Distortion from the tape then it comes back out into the console for playback and then when you're mixing it everything's going to a half inch to track and getting more harmonic Distortion I mean sometimes a sound a guitar sound back in the day could have gone through 12 different Transformers and and tape twice yeah yeah yeah so to to think that a guitar sound is that whether it's Mark Knopfler or Eddie Van Halen or Brian May that a guitar sound is what they played in the room you got to take into account how was it eq'd on the mix down in the control room was the tape speed manipulated did they slow the thing down or speed it up which changes the tone right totally so there's so many different elements that when you're trying to mimic a guitar tone I'd be like you know I might say to somebody I'm trying to get this Van Halen's like well that's eq'd on the console anyway so you're never going to get exactly what it is you can get close I mean I'm just saying you know for example but rarely do the people not engage some type of EQ yeah yeah or even as you say the very fact that it's running through all that gear that's right has an effect in itself right and that idea you know talking about stuff like the harmonic Distortion and all the extra harmonics they're created It's Like Glue isn't it it's like a glue that that makes that sound what it is and what you've come to know and love and if you've ever tried this have you ever have gone out and picked up a nice modded Plexi and put it you know attach a variac to it and try to play some Van Halen it's an aggressive in your face arresting noise that doesn't sound like the smooth beautiful thing that comes out yeah yeah I guess that's part of all yeah do you ever get to the point where there's too much of that stuff and it it starts to cave in on itself yeah you have to gather you know getting the right sounds to mix together is really really difficult when I interviewed Daniel lanwa we talked about about how we recorded I mean he got some of the greatest sounds of all time I can't wait to watch that I mean it's really and he talked about different records and how they got different sounds and it's absolutely fascinating here's a guy that that learned and is literally in his mom's basement he and his brother started their studio and they would learn from recording hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of uh of Records amazing Hands-On Hands-On okay is there any gear guitar player walks in and it's got something and you know that's gonna sound good there's anything consistently that you've seen katafa's walking and you know that they always record beautifully or can it be literally anything in uh usually when I would produce uh when when 95 of the time people that would come in their gear would sound bad because they went to her and they'd be they everything would be beat up it doesn't matter if they're major label bands whoever you know usually their stuff wasn't in good repair which is why I started collecting all the gear that's people wonder why do you have so much gear it's because I didn't want all my records to be using the same amplifiers the same guitars the same drum sets use different snares and different songs different you know and uh from Project to project so and everything is well maintained when you're traveling around AC 30s are not great to be bouncing around in Vans and things like that they don't work very well a lot of guitar amps are like that so uh so I would tend to use mostly my own gear right okay so you have control Rick has 60 amps by the way I have 60 amps and 60 guitars I think but I I saying how how I didn't play guitar for years and one of the reasons I didn't play guitar I worked with these bands with all these low tunings and they'd have dropped tunings and everything and I would never I don't want to sit and play a guitar that's yeah that's tuned down to a or anything you know I have a lot I have six Les Paul's that are all in different tunings they've all got you know 56 in the low E string or it's but it's not the low E it's the low B and uh so I would never sit around and Fiddle around or anything because well first of all there were no guitar solo it was in any rarely guitar souls in any of the music I produced right at that time you know that era in the early early 2000s or almost no guitar solos well yeah remember that in the metal music yeah I have a question about that so yeah um thinking about those heavier guitar sounds when you're tracking yeah the dissonance caused by distortion on chords did you ever get into the tracking separate strings thing no no no I'm not lying yeah and actually um I interviewed Colin Richardson once and he was doing it with a band Napalm death and a few other uh classic British metal bands um and he was I was actually at a session while he was doing it and they were playing you know it's quite a complex riff right yeah but they were playing a full chord and it might have a major third or some other thing that's going to cause a an issue how did how would you deal with that then just tune the damn guitar typically I would make players play with the least amount of distortion they could play the parts and if they use pinch harmonics I would gain I would turn up the preamp on those pinch harmonics and stuff but but they would realize too that you always the sound would always be better when you didn't have when it wasn't super saturated because you have no Dynamics thank you it's uh it's thank you eventually you the preamp to a certain thing and then there's it's so compressed there's no Dynamics yeah right and I'd be like you gotta back this off note and I can't blame my riff like this it's like yeah you can trust me then you go in you hear it they're like oh it sounds great and then the guys wow would start you know I said if you need to do the pinch harmonics we'll gain it up or use a pedal for that or live you can play with more Distortion but in the studio it will sound better trust me especially when you start layering stuff yeah if you use less gain that's amazing you see just use is enough to where you still have Dynamics in the amp and uh to and you get just some there's much more harmonic content and it just doesn't sag and get super compressed I hate that sound yeah I don't hate it but it's you know how do you talk about you talk about Van Halen yeah he backs off the the the volume volume knob and everything and the clean parts of the universes and one take all the way through and he hits the choruses and it just sounds it sounds incredible I have another theory then Rick I'll test on you um is that the addition of volume makes playing with less gain a bit easier because yes you do would you agree with that totally 100 yes it's good I feel like yeah because because the amp and the guitar react together yeah when you're when you're playing a louder guitar and I mean I noticed it right here when you guys are playing it's it's it's um it just has a more has a fullness yeah I would always have people track whenever possible track in the same room as their amp but you can I said this yesterday actually with Lee that you can get just you can get feedback if you go up to the monitor speaker if it's loud enough yeah with your guitar it's being miked and your amp is in a different room your cabinet but you go up to the monitor speaker and put your guitar there it'll feed back yeah so you can get that so with in the time that you've been recording guitar then Everything Has Changed in in a in a huge way we've gone from a purely analog world to a now mostly digital world or a hybrid world has it got easier has it got harder well it's easier because there's things that are you know there's cab simulators and things you can use your amplifiers with there's modeling stuff like that so it's easier in some ways but it's um but the access to any kind of gear with microphones my preamps pedals amplifiers guitars there's all these Boutique Builders everything out there now and then you have the most um variants now that you can get you can just do so much right now yes it's so much easier and with digital recording obviously anybody you know you get if you buy a Mac computer it comes with Garage Band and yeah yeah just open it up you can it's far far easier I mean to to if you're gonna fix a part uh you know you'd Luke Steve Luka there and I were talking about that about you know Dewey chance fixing this part you know if there's something he wouldn't he wouldn't make a mistake you've mentioned a few people today who who have we talked about we talked about Butch fig can you butch fig and you've talked about Daniel Daniel uh and we've just had Luke there thanks I'm sure we've had some more but it wouldn't be right if we didn't honk those this is the name drop one by the way but it's I it's fascinating to ask guys like that that have done on so many sessions you know to hear how they did things and the level of musicianship that they those guys have yeah you know it's astonishing yeah and but you know like you said if there was a mistake try to drop in you know man alive Butch Vegas he talked about that about dropping in because he was he was the one that said that that you know if it had a mistake and he was Butch being a drummer it's really good punching in and out because you have to do a split second before yeah and you got to have the out point be in the right spot um I I did a record with my old band and um and the engineer accidentally erased we had a live take with two guitars bass and drums and I did the intro thing and the engineer we had getting to the mixing stage he accidentally erased over a couple bars in my intro that was not played to anything it was on tape and oops and then you to try and punch it in and get match the sound was like impossible you know you know in Pro Tools you could just take in it yeah yeah so these that part of it is far far easier but people used to use Samplers and take vocals even back in the 80s and they would take a whole chorus section and put in a sampler and and place it in a second course yeah they didn't always re-sing every part no every part what about the camaraderie of uh a group of musicians playing together like you were saying your band doesn't take and it's two guitars based drugs or whatever and then you over dug after are we how do you feel about that versus just starting from the ground up tracking I would try to keep as many tracks as I could from the initial tracking if I had a band that was really good live band I would track the tape and I'd dump it in yeah but that's that was very very rare a lot of people could play well enough that that you could keep the parts but some of the but the ones that could where you have a drummer that could play A Part without a mistake uh sometimes I would record into tape and do a few different takes and then I would take the drums and bass and I would piece together the thing if it was a good verse and chorus here yeah I'd be like play more dynamically in the bridge or whatever and then you use that be black tape it would be the same thing in tape editing sure I think a lot of people would be surprised that just how Hands-On that whole process is in terms of you know what you hear as a finished record is a million processes that's right yeah right yeah I mean nowadays uh I was watching Billy eilish with the brother Phineas nude they were talking David Letterman he had 80 little Snippets for her lead vocal that was comped from and she's Billy eilish is a great singer and doesn't need 80 things but that's what it took to get this vocal where he felt like he he wanted it the performance he wanted and that's how records have been done for for decades yeah okay what's on your pedalboard well my pedalboard um I used to have about 13 petals on my pedal board when I played in a band okay um uh if I could remember it's kind of off it's it's uh no boy now we're talking we're going back 25 years now right I know things that I had on it I don't remember the order I had an mxr flanger from 1978 I had a memory man you know from from way back with a cable all right I would have a oh geez I had a bifet preamp does that is that a pedal like an old um uh I mean the electro harmonics thing it's um I don't remember who made this pedal yeah anyway it's a it's uh I had a um I'll be fa2a the boss one the old boss it was no it was not um well I did have a micro amp right that I used to keep that I would use um I had um there's basically all the pedals that were available 25 years I had a boss uh tremolo and tremolo pedal which is a great pedal yeah that uh they discontinued I don't know why that I still have I have all my original pedals from back then um I'm trying to picture my pedal board right now right I had a Wawa a Vox Wawa nice um and what were you going into uh I had a gcme two jcm 800s yes two full Stacks yes original 70s uh uh um yeah I traveled with two full stacks and I had two GSM 800 heads or uh one was a 50 watt uh from 1981 and one was a uh 100 watt from 84 both for vertical inputs okay um and uh through four um uh basket weave no not basket weave the the checkerboard yeah fronts and everything the 70s so it'd be amazing it would be eight 16 green 16 100 or 400 watt cabinet cabinets I've never done that have you done that nope no and the singer from my band he had four he had two stacks and he used uh jmps um early 70s like 71 jmps full Stacks with uh but he used different speakers he used um uh I think he used vintage 30s in his cabinets right wow amazing that's loud and our bass player had two svts two eight ten svts and our drummer had a big John Bonham right so you guys were properly we were probably a lot I know the playing in a loud band and everything but two two stacks I mean that's why I have to be like why do you have so many stacks and it's like is this awesome because why it's rock and roll yeah amazing is it good is it over Rick is that is that over we we discussed this quite a lot you know um the available modeling technology and we see bands going out now with no amps and in ears and it's not an experience that that I would say we've loved yet where are you on all of that so I went to a show the other night and there were no amps on stage and some shows I go to there are amps on stage it really depends um um it definitely playing through amplifiers is not over it will never be over um but there is a convenience thing it's so hard to tour nowadays that that's the problem that that um that traveling with stuff it's hard to move a 412 cabinet that's in a uh in a road case you know especially remove you know move four of them yeah it's so um but you know if you can do it I would do it yeah yeah if I was out playing I'd be playing through a nap yeah nice I think that's how we feel about it um maybe uh before we ask you some questions about what's next for Rigby Auto we'd like you to have a listen to the kind of the sounds that we use and we'd like to your opinion and and what you think and whether this is the kind of thing you have used or you would use or you're like yeah man we did that in 86 whatever um because one of the things with Dan and I are quite passionate about is this idea and when you were talking about stereo earlier and having the Reverb over there and the dry sound over there to create that field it struck me that that's kind of part of the basis yeah that's a wet dry yeah yeah and don't get me wrong none of this is new right this this all happens absolutely decades ago but I don't know that is the basis of that's what a wet dry thing is yeah is that that and and people used it to create stereo back then and which is I think a brilliant thing and it sounds great in the rooms yeah and it was all post then right so yeah just for clarity it's amps would have been in one room it gets recorded and then the reverbs get added yeah post post processing off the console yeah yeah let's see what you think what are you what are some of your what's your like call go-to guitar tone what do you love what's your where's home um depends on what it is okay let's plug in that's yeah so why don't we start with like one of our uh what we call TPS wet dry yeah so when we say wet dry it's not quite true because the dry is still in the Wet Side so it's more like damp driver and by the way uh this uh ridiculous pedalboard is an experiment at the moment it's not cool I was about to say I wouldn't actually use this I do actually use this but um it's because I'm in the middle of learning the h90 at the moment so that's why it is what it is um okay there uh let's well let's just to amps today Deluxe Reverb reissue just a standard Deluxe Reverb reissue and a j745 reissue so uh yeah the pedalboard is so ridiculous I can't reach that [Music] foreign [Music] sounds great how do you feel about the low end I think it's got really good low end yeah really good low end because we were talking earlier about you'd High Pass if you're recording would you get rid of a lot of that no no no no no no no it depends on what's what's in the mix yeah if it's out by itself I'd record it just like that and uh but once you start getting in with drums and stuff you know maybe I'd be I pass it at 100 Hertz or so but if it's if it's out front if that that type of a part that's clean like that might be by itself might be in one speaker might be uh you can do the wet dry where if you have the two amps and they're spaced out a little bit you can record one and and actually still put them in each speaker right and would actually sound like a wet dry in that way yeah um so I'm guessing you've seen a lexicon 224 I have yeah the real real one many times and plug-ins ones and yeah do you like it is it a thing it's one of the best uh digital delays or digital reverbs ever made Okay so we've got to do a like a room at the moment yeah which is [Music] thank you [Music] we love it because it doesn't sound like a pedal you know what I mean it sounds like does it sound like a pedal it sounds to me like what you would hear in the control room when you add it in yeah and put it on on a bus it's so good yeah we're obviously just after Vindication today they get one of the bigger ones up down one of them I mean never would hear that in back in the day you'd never hear Reverb pedals of that Lush and Beautiful Sunday yeah yes you know really unusual sounds amazing foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] that sounds great I mean these are all perfect sounds but you get you're starting out with great sounds already yeah right so then it's they're perfectly balanced you know the tone coming out of the amplifiers this is just enhancing it beautifully yeah what we've got there is the one of the tremolo harmonic tremolysis going down on one side and the delay just down one side either so you might hear that in the mix a little a little easier but then we've got another tremolo at different speed and the other thing and it kind of it can the dangerous here it can get a bit soupy because you've got one in one side and one the other just listen to that for a second [Music] foreign [Music] so badly today because he's here [Music] foreign to me that's a harder sound to make work because it's a slower the the modulation is a little bit slower on it and you have notes will duck in and out things like that so it really depends on what the part you're playing is yeah sounds better probably with single notes maybe than chords even that sounds good with chords depending on what what the it's all all about the part any sound can sound good with the right part yeah I like that yeah good that's there I go that's what you want to hear uh just a couple of um game sounds then so it's got to be the hardest thing hasn't it overdrive getting it like you were saying earlier trying to encourage people to use a bit less gain so you get the clarity of the guitar and all of that let's see let's see what you think of this um we did we did record a video for Rick's Channel where we go through a bit of this by the way so um if you've watched that we might be going over some similar ground so the way down and I tend to do it is we'll have a usually a fuller overdrive first and a boostier thing second to give a bit of clarity because obviously if you have the Boosty thing first and the hard overdrive next it's a small game yeah yeah okay yeah it does exactly what we're doing bearing in mind this is a strat right can I said number one Reverb please Dan [Music] [Music] how do you feel about the top end of that it's to me it's a little too tappy it'd be better with a humbucker with like with the SG from before you know um that's that's a little bright I think I would uh I think that tone with a with an SG or Les Paul SG would be really uh or Les Paul either one let's try this but it's quite bright sounding let's pull this actually yeah it really depends on the guitar because I think one of the things we've learned over the years is that once you get into a mix or in a band having that little extra top can help help get you heard but it does sound a bit crispy maybe okay let's try this [Music] [Applause] [Music] that's what I love that sounds great um still I still hear the top end crispiness on it with that but that has obviously much more of a uh much more like one to two k mid bump in it and being supported in the mid like that kind of mitigates the it does it does it's all about you know if you have a lot of if you add bass it masks a top end if you add top ended Master base and things like that right there's all these all these things about that but that's a that's a great sound I mean the Strat sound you know depends on the context yeah right I guess that's the truth of this yeah the the the here we are listening to all these guitar sounds in isolation the whole time and really I mean there are sounds where you're like oh that's a bad sound it's got a buzz in it it's got you know it's shrill whatever it is you know but you're pretty much not going to get a bad sound out of this rig I hate to say it happy days I'll get one for you [Music] thank you that was a great sound yeah you're surprised my favorite son I've heard today awesome okay we could do that for hours but um thanks for listening to that Rick what what does the future hold for you then so we're 3.7 million subscribers what's where's your ambition what what do you want to do um I just make videos on things I'm interested in so I wanted to keep doing that yeah that's that's pretty much all I've done since me and my channel great um I make videos on topics that that and I interview people that I admire so I want to continue to do that and that we all admire greatly yeah yeah and and thank you um those interviews that you've done I think in generations to come will be such a resource and I think will be known as to be actually really seriously important works I think it Heralds a paradigm shift too yeah because it wasn't that long ago where maybe some of the more uh serious media might look down her nose a little bit at YouTube and the quality of what can be achieved there and I think you're absolutely out the front proving that in a big way and I think that is carrying the flag for all of us in a credibility sense and we must thank you for that word indeed yeah indeed because it's a big deal and it's appreciated yeah thank you thank you so much for your time today it has been I mean it's been crazy this is crazy we could talk for 25 hours so we had to pick something but yeah yeah yeah I appreciate you thanks for inviting me here it's this has really been been great they say welcome um thanks for watching uh subscribe do all that stuff um that thank you to our friends who've gone to that pedalshowstore.com and grab some merch also massive thank you to our patrons on patreon I'm thinking how to get the words out I'm still yeah we don't need any words all the information is in the description below please check Rick's Channel out if you haven't done already um we will see you soon thank you for being here thanks everyone thanks Rick bye [Music] thank you [Applause]

Channel: That Pedal Show

Views: 213,175

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Id: 9vefw_c2BRA

Length: 53min 52sec (3232 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 14 2023