Pete Townshend: Update on The Who...

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Xenu
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Postby Xenu » Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:26 am

lukpac wrote:
Rspaight wrote:Pino's tone might be great, but you can barely hear it -- they've got him cranked way down. John's bass might have been over-processed and trebly but at least it was *there*.


I've heard he's a lot higher in the mix these days, but I haven't heard/seen that for myself.


Some old(er) clips of late-2000s Who is on youtube, and it's amazing how bad JAE's voice was live during that period.
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Postby Rspaight » Sat Aug 05, 2006 10:52 am

Xenu wrote:Some old(er) clips of late-2000s Who is on youtube, and it's amazing how bad JAE's voice was live during that period.


He never sang backup in those shows, and Daltrey doubled his lead on "My Wife." His voice was completely gone.

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Postby lukpac » Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:20 pm

Xenu wrote:Some old(er) clips of late-2000s Who is on youtube, and it's amazing how bad JAE's voice was live during that period.


*What* voice?
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Postby Rob P » Sat Aug 05, 2006 1:42 pm

Crummy Old Label Avatar wrote:Who cares (not me), but I noticed that Townshend is now a paid endorser of the "new" Hiwatt amps. Guess they're not paying him enough to have him actually drag them onstage, though.

Yeah, Hiwatt is the trademark early 70s British rock guitar sound. The entire 70s Pink Floyd output is exclusively Hiwatt-dependent. Gilmour is the one most popularly identified with Hiwatt, but I'd argue that Hawkwind (up to around 1976 or so) had the definitive Hiwatt-fuelled sound. I believe that around 1976 Dave Brock finally switched to a Roland Jazz Chorus -- as did a lot of other people. The thing about Hiwatt is that it was one of the first clean and neutral amps (unlike, say, a Marshall and its trademark distortion), designed to reproduce accurately whatever sound you put into it.

But the Roland JC 120 is a far better and much more reliable amp (even thouigh its distortion channel is a complete joke).

I have no idea what the "new" Hiwatt amps sound like.


I haven't heard the new Hiwatts either. The latest guitar amps are so advanced, it's hard for me to keep up with all the innovations. I think the circuit modeling emulators and on-board computers are a great idea in theory, but most guitar players think they're cheesy. Guitar players aren't always known to be the most grounded of individuals, however. Given the choice between: playing through tubes, replacing them when they go bad, and being stuck with two or three signature sounds; or, using a newfangled reliable solid-state amp with dozens of preset tones, endlessly adjustable by tweaking, and less weight to carry; many players would choose the former.

Another prominent user of Hiwatts was Robert Fripp, until he became enamored with the New Wave and ditched the tube amps.

My friend's Hiwatt had reliablity problems. When it was on, it sounded dazzingly good. Not long after he got it, one of the channels developed crackling, and he had to send it off to California to the one company in the U.S. that was certified to fix Hiwatts. He eventually sold it for something with less power so that it could be overdriven easily. He was shaking the walls of the house trying to get the Hiwatt to overdrive, it had that much power.

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Postby Xenu » Sat Aug 05, 2006 8:24 pm

lukpac wrote:
Xenu wrote:Some old(er) clips of late-2000s Who is on youtube, and it's amazing how bad JAE's voice was live during that period.


*What* voice?


How do you mean?

I actually quite liked JAE's voice. He lost the ability to sing live a little bit before he lost the ability to sing in the studio. By the 1990s tours, it was pretty much completely gone.
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Postby lukpac » Sat Aug 05, 2006 8:51 pm

I meant in his last years, obviously.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby Crummy Old Label Avatar » Sun Aug 06, 2006 10:18 pm

Rob P wrote:I haven't heard the new Hiwatts either. The latest guitar amps are so advanced, it's hard for me to keep up with all the innovations. I think the circuit modeling emulators and on-board computers are a great idea in theory, but most guitar players think they're cheesy. Guitar players aren't always known to be the most grounded of individuals, however. Given the choice between: playing through tubes, replacing them when they go bad, and being stuck with two or three signature sounds; or, using a newfangled reliable solid-state amp with dozens of preset tones, endlessly adjustable by tweaking, and less weight to carry; many players would choose the former.

Another prominent user of Hiwatts was Robert Fripp, until he became enamored with the New Wave and ditched the tube amps.

My friend's Hiwatt had reliablity problems. When it was on, it sounded dazzingly good. Not long after he got it, one of the channels developed crackling, and he had to send it off to California to the one company in the U.S. that was certified to fix Hiwatts. He eventually sold it for something with less power so that it could be overdriven easily. He was shaking the walls of the house trying to get the Hiwatt to overdrive, it had that much power.


Fripp also dumped the Hiwatts in favor of a Roland JC120, but then so did just about everyone after Roland introduced them in 1975. I don't think it has anything to do with Fripp becoming enamored of the New Wave, really. It's just an all-around better amp than the early 70s designs: tons of power, solid state, and virtually indestructible. Many 1975 originals still work fine today. Frippertronics and any amplified microtonal music is far more conducive to the clean sound of the Roland Jazz Chorus than any tube amp.

The modeling amps are a good idea, but I think it's still too early in the game to jump on that bandwagon. The only ones I've heard that sound at all convincing are the Vox Valvetronix amps. The only problem with them is that they seem to have some horrific reliability issues. Apparently, the QC at Korg's Chinese factory leaves a lot to be desired. (Just check out the user reviews of them at Harmony Central. It seems to be common for the Voxes to die one way or another after a month or so, so I'd steer well clear of them.)

Of course modeling amps will become the norm soon enough, and the technology will no doubt improve.
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