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ex member 337 Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 33 Joined: May 2000 Posted: May 28 2000, 17:22 What would be the best electric guitar to buy to echieve the sound used on the 70's albums? Please answer - as it will influence my decision on which guitar to buy. Back to top

Ugo Group: Members Posts: 5495 Joined: April 2000 Posted: May 28 2000, 17:56 Mike has often said that his typical 70s sound did not depend as much on the guitar he used, as it did on the various effects (fuzz, overdrive, amplifier distortion, amplifier vibrato/tremolo) and the various methods of recording (half-speed, double-speed, backwards, filtered, compressed etc.) that were employed during the sessions. Anyway, if you are looking for a guitar suitable enough to emulate Mike's playing in the '70s I'd advise you to buy either a Gibson Les Paul or a Fender Stratocaster, because they were the ONLY two electric guitars he actually owned at the time. He bought all the others much later... -------------- Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: May 30 2000, 20:44 Ugo's right about the effects. Plug the guitar through an overdrive or distortion pedal and into an amp that's already distorted (this works best with valve amps, but solid state ones may give good results too, if used right). You might find that a compressor pedal helps things along a bit as well. On the guitars front, though... The guitar that Mike used on Tubular Bells was a Fender Telecaster, with an extra pickup added. By Ommadawn, he was also using a Gibson SG junior and a Les Paul custom, amongst other things. In the later 70s and early 80s he used a Gibson L6s a lot. You can get a good deal of his sounds just from a Strat or similar guitar and a bit of time spent messing around with effects boxes, though. Back to top

ex member 337 Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 33 Joined: May 2000 Posted: June 01 2000, 08:42 Would you say that generally he had a preference for P90 style pick-ups then? Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: June 01 2000, 22:30 He's certainly used several guitars with P90s on them - he has several Les Paul/SG juniors and specials. He also uses a lot with humbuckers - the Les Paul custom and L6s, for example, as well as many of the guitars he's used later, like his current PRSs. He uses quite a few Fenders as well, which have different pickups again...Those are quite important, because he gets a lot of his most distinctive clean sounds from his Fenders, if you're after those sounds as well... If you can get a guitar with 2 single coils and a coil-tappable humbucker in the bridge, you'd be well sorted to get the majority of MO sounds, distorted or otherwise. Back to top

ex member 337 Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 33 Joined: May 2000 Posted: July 12 2000, 15:34 Cheers, that all helps alot. I'm probably gonna get an L6-s deluxe then. By the way - does anybody know if this was the main guitar in 'Incantations' + 'Platinum' or if he just used it for 'Exposed'? Back to top

Craig Evans Group: Members Posts: 256 Joined: Sep. 2004 Posted: Dec. 30 2004, 10:12 Quote (jsamsworth @ July 12 2000, 15:34) By the way - does anybody know if this was the main guitar in 'Incantations' + 'Platinum' or if he just used it for 'Exposed'? The Gibson L6-s Deluxe was used in combination with a Gibson Les Paul SG Junior, which was manufactured in 1961 and thus were the main guitars on Incantations and the following Exposed LP.  However the Gibson L6-s Deluxe was used exclusively on Platinum for both clean and distorted guitar sounds.     -------------- "It is good to be on Horseback" - Mike Oldfield "On Horseback" "(Insert "The Thunderstorm" here)" Back to top

Luca Group: Members Posts: 84 Joined: Jan. 2004 Posted: Dec. 30 2004, 12:01 Why does he play platinum live with one of his sg's then? Back to top

Korgscrew Group: Super Admins Posts: 3511 Joined: Dec. 1999 Posted: Dec. 30 2004, 13:20 He did play the L6-S a lot on the 1980 Platinum tour. I'm not sure that either can be taken as complete proof of what he used on the album though - at that time, Mike seemed far less concerned with things being exactly the same as on the album, so his choice of guitar would seemingly be based as much on convenience as on the sound (he could get the SG and the L6-S sounding pretty similar anyway). The information about the L6-S on Platinum comes from the discography here. I believe that David Mar said on the forum once that the L6-S had been Mike's sole guitar in the studio for that album - the fact that he was playing it live so often at the time made that seem very plausible, as did the often quite brittle sound on the album, so that's why the discography says what it does about it. It's also possible that it wasn't the sole guitar, but I do think it's fair to say that it would have been used fairly extensively on the album. Back to top

Craig Evans Group: Members Posts: 256 Joined: Sep. 2004 Posted: Dec. 30 2004, 16:23 Quote (Luca @ Dec. 30 2004, 12:01) Why does he play platinum live with one of his sg's then? It is possable that Mike Oldfield would have used the Gibson SG Les Paul Junior on the Platinum Live tour for the encore tracks such as Tubular Bells, Ommadawn and Incantations as those tracks with the exception of Tubular Bells originally had their album sound achieved on 22 fret guitars such as the Gibson SG Les Paul Junior and string bends rather than the quicker intonation on 24 fret guitars such as the Gibson L6-S.     -------------- "It is good to be on Horseback" - Mike Oldfield "On Horseback" "(Insert "The Thunderstorm" here)" Back to top

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