Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
At The Back => Time Out => Topic started by: Johnny Mac on March 30, 2013, 07:53:22 AM
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I watched a documentary on Nile Rodgers on catch up this morning. It was on Good Friday. Very interesting even if his music isn't really your bag. They talk about his guitar a bit too. A very talented arranger. His band Chic, were in the charts a lot around the time i started secondary school. It takes me back to that time, when punk, disco, rock were all colliding in the charts here. He produced vast amounts of music too. He must be extremely rich. Not bad for a lad who's parents were both heroin addicts! :D
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I noticed that when I was looking on Iplayer last night. I'll go watch when I get a moment.
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I noticed that when I was looking on Iplayer last night. I'll go watch when I get a moment.
Well worth watching Steve :D
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He's a legend, I want his studio.
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Yeah, I watched it Friday night - excellent stuff. I'm almost ready to swap my Sultans and Apaches around again on the strength of it (Apaches to my 50s Roadworn - it makes that sound then, along with a whole bunch of others :D)
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He's a legend, I want his studio.
Indeed.
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Yeah, I watched it Friday night - excellent stuff. I'm almost ready to swap my Sultans and Apaches around again on the strength of it (Apaches to my 50s Roadworn - it makes that sound then, along with a whole bunch of others :D)
What pickup equivalent in the BKP range would you say he uses? Apaches, Mothers Milks or Sultans? I've been gassing fro a new Strat for years for this sort of sound. I've been using my Tele for rehearsals lately and it does a grand job I must say.
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My coverband plays Le Freak. I play it with Mother's Milk though.
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Didn't see the program but the guy's a Genius. Him & Bernard Edwards invented funk . he doesn't use a plec. His guitar playing in Chic should be the starting point for anyone interested
in funk.
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an excellent documentary which pays worthy hommage to the great man
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I got to watch the documentary today . I would not go so far as to say he invented funk though his did push the cart a bit further down the road. He certainly has a distictive style. I am no lover of disco music but I do respect what he has contributed.
I'd say Apaches to get that clean tone.
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Didn't see the program but the guy's a Genius. Him & Bernard Edwards invented funk.
I don't know about invented - what about James Brown, the Meters, George Clinton, Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, the Isley Brothers...? :P
No denying that Rodgers is a very cool - and influential - chap, though.
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I just caught the last 20 minutes.
I like his Strat! :D
(http://media-cache-lt0.pinterest.com/550x/63/d0/e5/63d0e5a7b6d40767e5ffc0202836e729.jpg)
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It's a nice guitar that Strat isn't it. He calls it the hit maker. Apparently it's the guitar he records every thing on. That goes beyond Chic. I read somewhere and it did get mention too in this doc', that its behind a few $billion of record sales :lol:
He didn't invent funk. That came about in the 60's, born out of Jazz & blues. They called it R&B, Funk, Soul ect. Jimmy Nolan was James Browns guitarist. He would have been one of the early pioneers of funk guitar playing, if not the pioneer of that style. That all gave birth to Disco which was a bit annoying but harmless really looking back on it. That in turn started to evolve into hip hop, house right up to what Ali G called Speed Garage :lol:
What you hear in the doc was how Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards developed what you could call a template. A unique style that was their signature sound and applied it to other artists who got them in to produce them. That was all influenced by the 60's & early 70's funk bands. Bands like Earth, Wind & Fire. Kool & The Gang, before they become pop bands with the focus on the lead singers that were on commercial radio in the late 70's & early 80's, were pretty much instrumental funk bands. Chic kind of did the right thing at exactly the right time and a lot of other bands followed suit and became more like disco bands as that's where the money was. Record sales were huge back then so they would have cleaned up. These sounds remind me of the charts back in 77 & 78 There were so many different genres all competing in the charts. It's was a big event on a Sunday night listening to the top 40 with a cassette in the recorder taping the songs you liked. You could go from Chic, to the Sex Pistols, to some mind numbingly cr@p Nan's favourite like the Brotherhood of Man all in a few minutes :lol: those were the bands you left the pause button in as they were a waste of tape and proper embarrassing if your mates heard it :D
I've found some info on the George Van Eps method he was talking about too. There's a lot of info there but NR is talking about just playing 3 strings in a chord to make it sound less messy. It's all about controling damping with funk as it only works when you play it tight and very precisely.
http://www.tedgreene.com/audio/TedGreene_GeorgeVanEps.asp (http://www.tedgreene.com/audio/TedGreene_GeorgeVanEps.asp)
Here's another great example of funk guitar by Onnie McIntire on the intro. These blokes were from Scotland
http://youtu.be/bSq93Hsn0Bg (http://youtu.be/bSq93Hsn0Bg)
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Yep, I'm with 38th - I'd say Apaches...
... which is why the two strats have been sat next to a soldering iron all day. Not actually done anything about it, but they have been sat there looking at me accusingly. Got to move them now so we can sit on the sofa :lol:
I'll let you know when I actually get round to it, my memory of the Apaches in the 50s Roadworn were very much like that sound in the doc and on some of the youtube clips I've watched :D
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... which is why the two strats have been sat next to a soldering iron all day. Not actually done anything about it, but they have been sat there looking at me accusingly. Got to move them now so we can sit on the sofa :lol:
That's the way, build up to it gently! I'd give it another 18 months or so, then maybe plug the iron in.... :wink:
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Yep, I'm with 38th - I'd say Apaches...
... which is why the two strats have been sat next to a soldering iron all day. Not actually done anything about it, but they have been sat there looking at me accusingly. Got to move them now so we can sit on the sofa :lol:
I'll let you know when I actually get round to it, my memory of the Apaches in the 50s Roadworn were very much like that sound in the doc and on some of the youtube clips I've watched :D
I'm gassing so bad for a Strat, with a maple finger board with low output pickups like Apaches! It's vintage white with a white pick guard that's doing it for me. Alder or Ash? Not sure what the differences would be but I bet you could tell me Andy :-) I've got 12 months before my car has to be put out to graze. In that time I need this Strat and a mac book. I'm so sick to death of drummers I'm going to bring my own in superior drummer 2. I don't really want to lug my iMac about.
I've been rehearsing with a another really good bass player who used to be in the band Freeez. I'm thinking we could play live using a sequencer for drums or my looper that can store and play .wav files. I'll have to see.
Here is an old clip of him on the Old Grey Whistle Test :-)
http://youtu.be/8uClb7xpQps (http://youtu.be/8uClb7xpQps)
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If you are in need of a cash fix Johnny I'm still waiting to relieve you of that Anniversary :)
I actually checked one out at Angel Music a couple of weeks back but it wasn't in as good nick as yours
BTW
Ash strats tend to be brighter and a bit more jangly than the alder.
Alder is a bit warmer and fuller but goes well with the maple neck
IMO
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It's tempting but I've never sold a guitar. A guitar is for life, not just for posting pics for likes ;-) I love it too much Clyde. I've had it since 1989.
Have you still got the Goldtop with the P90s?
Thanks for the tips on the body wood.
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Apologies for resurrecting this thread. Came up in a relevent topic search.
I have a HSH, maple boardand neck, basswood body,ibanez 550. What BK would be appropriate for Niles' sound, if I could get a Gilmore option on it as well that'd be awesome.
Its a rather bright/brittle guitar When played without an amp.
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Apologies for resurrecting this thread. Came up in a relevent topic search.
I have a HSH, maple boardand neck, basswood body,ibanez 550. What BK would be appropriate for Niles' sound, if I could get a Gilmore option on it as well that'd be awesome.
Its a rather bright/brittle guitar When played without an amp.
I'd forgotten about this thread. My life has changed a lot since that last post I made about this.
Well I was going to go with Apaches or Mothers Milks. Probably the later. The funky snap in his tone is mostly studio trickery but a drop in the mids is how I dial it in on my amp, a compressor and the neck pickup. The neck pick up is all Nile Rodgers uses, through a clean Fender amp for his live setup.
I did read how he and Prince get their funky recorded sounds. It's plugging direct into a Universal Audio limiting amplifier and then straight into the desk with a lot of EQ. It's a suprisingly hard tone to recreate I've found.