The only things I know about Summers are: 1) He used an Electric Mistress (which many people mistake for a CE-1 or CE-2) and 2) I can't play his stuff.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE I don't have a functioning fourth finger so - yeah. 3-finger blues it is, no more no less. Apparently, you can do it with alternate tunings but tbh I can't be arsed. Cool channel, subbed.
I've heard that Andy Summers had a lot of problems with Sting, there was a video when Andy opened up about that he was excluded from the band but he was still strongly advised to play the concerts with The Police, also Stewart Copeland had a go at Sting in a funny way in some interviews. I was a very big fan of the band but after reading all of that I'm thinking what the heck. Sound and musical arrangements are amazing (thanks to Andy's jazz influence and absolutely fantastic drumming of Stewart, and unforgettable Stings voice) which leads me to think that when there are three really strong and talented individuals playing, there will be an explosion of creative thinking and a lot of personal grinding, thumbs up for the video :)
"Lost frequencies that are the key...hiss mellows you out...it is the lossy formats that are key." Agreed! Great video...thank you for the work you do!
Mix to cassette! Hit it hard. Then bring it back to digital and do whatever. Best compression ever. But of course you need virgin cassettes and a great deck. A restored nakamichi dragon is shockingly good
Andy has the only tone I've ever heard that uses a bunch of Flanger, and I actually love it, because in every other instance I always mostly hate Flanging/Flanger effects
@@CIRCLEOFTONE I'm really nailing his sound right now with similar plug-ins and my Musicman EVH. I included some delay before the flanger and a RAT pedal before the compressor to step it up a notch for leads or heavier rhythms. Thank you so much for doing this video. It has really led me down a new path! Check out the Live in Tokyo 2008 Police concert if you haven't already. It's mind-blowing!
Very well narrated and observed views about The Police and their musical genius! Creative "cheating" is widely misunderstood and underrated. Great video. Thank you :)
Nailed the sound! Also, from a few books I've read and a doc I've seen, the police weren't recording so isolated like you mentioned until later albums, particularly Synchronicity. Message in a bottle was recorded in 1979.
Sounds stupid , but the right sort of hiss really does make a difference, it affects the way compressors and limiters process the signal, it colours the tone of the recording, as does the frequencies lost travelling through tape recorders and analogue amps (as you point out), I think it really helps to "glue" a track together without just sticking everything through heavy compression. Some big studios will add tracks of the right sort of vintage hiss to pro tools recording (I've actually been told this by an engineer who works at one of the very few big recording studios left) still doesn't sound as good as tape, but it's a LOT more convenient.
"Hiss mellows you out." One of the things I noticed when I switched from using VST amps to a real valve amp is that the hiss of a real amp doesn't have the unbearable nastiness that software does. It's a big fucking difference.
ya your fast becoming my go to channel !!! When they came out I was so metal that I walked out of the room when mtv video came on , but an older drummer friend ( lol he was 23) hipped me to what stewert Copeland was doing... then I started listing to the guitar and got the fever. Such a great writer , named my cat Andy a short time later, hey oh
I often joke about having never been arrested. The only Police record I have, is a greatest hits album. Some people don't believe me, but it's absolutely true. It's only against the law, if you get caught.
supposedly, lots of marshalls have great clean tone paired with the right pickup and set up right. I am not an expert, nor do I play a lot clean, just echoing what I have heard.
@@tolvajakos Nice bro! It's funny I watched a video of the Police live in 2014 and he was playing a Strat with a Mesa Boogie so... Who knows!? Very cool sound he has whatever he uses, Lol........ Mike.
@@MikeCindyWhite man, mesa boogies have the nicest cleans (I have tried that but they are also renowned for that). modern jazz/jazz rock people use it for the cleans.
@@tolvajakos Nice! I've always wanted a Mesa... I have an old JCM 800 and my wife has an old Vox, Maybe someday I'll save my penny's up and trade in the 2 for a nice Mesa... Maybe...
other brand considered metal that has amazing cleans is Engl. the one I have played was the Engl Screamer, and although it looks like a metal amp, and the name suggests metal as well, both the clean and the crunch tones it does is amazing. beats most Marshalls and Fenders imho. you can play crappy pickups (which is what I did) with relatively low skills, and you will still sound like a god. truly amazing.
I won't read all 300 comments, and not meant to criticize, but for completeness' sake: there's also the brass bridge plate and the bridge PUP mounted to the body. But I saw some videos and forum entries stating that needs a lot of tweaking to give the desired result. Then there's a phase switch, and concerning the 'always-on' of the pre-amp; that had a switch too. Nice video, well played. I didn't know about the double tracking. One aspect concerning tone. The great hits of ones youth sound(ed) different on the gear you listened to, then, on ones budget then, like little transistor radios. When I bought them on CD and played them on high quality stereo, the magic was gone. Radio had its own compression too, it seems.
@@andypolice Lighten up. It was a joke. Does the title say "Andy Summers guitar lesson?". No. It's about the gear he used. There are a million guitar tuition channels out there. This isn't one of them.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE I don't really mean to contribute to negativity, and he's being dramatic, but he is kind of right. If you're going to demo gear with a band/song in mind it wouldn't be a bad idea to learn the riff and progression you're shooting for.
Thanks man. Here is another ear hole pleasing sound that you hardly hear when watching TV shows etc but it drags you in ua-cam.com/video/DydIK14AvXI/v-deo.html
You just nailed the reason why I take all my synths (analog or digital) into an analog board (with digital FX) with the final mix going to my computer (Audacity) ... put some EARTH back into the signal!
Once I heard Klark Kent, I realized most of what I liked about The Police was Stewart Copeland. It sounds just like The Police, but with the jazz stripped away, and instead is just powered by punky chord progressions. Check it out, if you have any interest....
Andy had a great sound and made it his own. As a long time guitarist I've searched high and low for great tone, as well as spent thousands of dollars. From the 80's, some of my favorite tones were from EVH, SRV, Slash and Ty Tabor. If you want a good challenge and probably a really good video, try to recreate the Ty Tabor tone from Faith Hope Love album. I've read more Ty interviews about power tubes, preamps, solid state v tube, valve from old magazines than any other player. If you don't know who Ty is I highly recommend checking him out, his old rigs are just crazy.
What specific picups are in the tele? Also that Marshall gives really good quality tone may I ask what model that is Also from videos on here it seems brass nut provides very rich harmonic with more sustain. Did you noticed that right away or not too noticeable ?
I’m a huge fan of Andy Summers. Read his book, which was highly enjoyable. I like how he talked about how live they all played through echo plex units to make them twice as good of musicians.
Besides the pre-amp, Andy's guitar also has phase switching possibility. In the song there's also a keyboard beefing up the bridge "I hope that someone gets my..", played by Andy Summers. The Police themselves re-arranged the song for live performances and did not have another guitarist. Where did you pick that up ? Please search for their 1979 - 80 live performances to hear the difference in arrangement.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE It might have been, but never saw anything in press in those days which obviously was pre-internet, 1979-1986. It could have been a tech tuning a guitar. :)
That difficult riff was written and then inverted by Sting.. I’ve seen Sting play it live on acoustic... If you wanna get even closer out an Eq pedal after the mooer to get some more “ prescence” in the flange
So where did you hear for sure it was a Marshall not a jc120? He always uses the 120s live when playing this song so figured he'd be using what he used on it to replicate it live no?
Yeah, the Marshall Plexi is the main way to get this bright and punchy sound. I’m a Marshall fan and tried a lot of different models. Andy today is using a Mesa Boogie and I think his tone unfortunately is no more the same, much more jazzy…🎸🙌🏻
Positive side of old equipment frequency roll off. I just scored a 60s Sennheiser MD211N for $180 Australian. This was a mic used by Ella Fitzgerald and Tom Jones in his early career. It starts rolling off below about 300Hz. As soon as I recorded my voice I noticed it was a much more mellow rounded sound, it was a bit limited, but in a really pleasing way. Straight into the box it sounded like the early Beatles vocal sound. Then I tried it on my vintage banjo uke (quite a brash sounding instrument) and it was great, it kinda smoothed out the sound in a pleasing way...its pretty good on guitar too. Now I use it any time In want a vintage hue to my sounds. A guy said to me "Why bother...you can get vintage sound with plug ins now". I said: "I do use plug ins, but then I'm there tweaking this and that for hours just to get the right feel. But with this vintage mic it ALREADY sounds like I want it to sound straight in the box and then I just tweak the EQ a bit...if you START with the input stage then you don't need half as much digital magic, which can never fully recreate the original sound anyway!"
@@CIRCLEOFTONE regardless of that in the chain great setup, tone and knowledge. So i figured it was jc 120 for every breath you take or his dimension D...so it was indeed a jc120?
Yep. And Andy got ripped off on that track because Sting collected most of the EBUT royalties. Think about how big the puffy/biggie single was... Andy got none of that money.
There's a video on UA-cam of Andy Summers showing the riff to this song for a lesson or something like that. And it's been a while since he'd played it, and even he had trouble getting it down.
I saw an interview with AS some time ago. Ref the guitar, he bought it as is, from a student of his. All the mods were done by the original owner, the booster thing was mentioned however, I think he said he didn’t engage it though? I’d have to find it again.
Yep and funnily enough he gave a different account of how he got the guitar in a different interview. It's why I didnt mention it. I'm not sure what interview is true.
Andy summers used the old ehx Mistress that ran on 18 of 24 volts dc (can’t remember) this gives the bbd higher voltage what results in chorus/flanger having a lot more headroom. This is the reason why people claim that the ce-1 is better than the ce-2. Voltage on the bbd chip
Yep good info. A lot of those old Mistress pedals had a specific solder paste too. Thick traces instead of really THIN ones you get in modern printed circuits.
That should have some impact as well. A few years back I modified an boss ch-1 into a ce-2 made the bbd’s work on 15 volts dc (as does the ce-1, old vox chorus, etc) and was blown away by the modulation the bass notes got. Striking a chord sounded like Leslie. Amazing. Mxr still makes chorus and flangers with a higher voltage demand (18 volts dc) for a reason.
Worth looking into: did Summers base the 2nd guitar part on sympathetic resonance (which can only be heard using very special equipment) as what is behind jazz progressions indeed sounds alien - did he use this to support the alienness?
I always thought Message was doubled/harmonized somehow. Didn't know about the fighting. Got a Dyna in '81 because of Andy, wanted a flanger too but could only afford a cheap phaser. Think murder by numbers is their best later period song. Great great band.
It was a mix back then. The guitar was from 1961. New stuff back then was manufactured different. Eg you can't recreate the pedal today because of laws involving lead etc and other standards. The electric mistress was an 18v pedal. The speaker cones were made of different materials. Check out Uncle Dougs channel where he puts older capacitors against newer ones. When you have a 1000 links in the chain (from pickup winds, to caps, to cables, to resistors, to tubes) and some involve lead, archaic layouts, hand soldered, pure copper vs cheaper modern pot metal etc you roll the dice tonally. Not all old stuff sounds good. But there are some that shave freqs and are happy mistakes. Or they lose freqs and are boosted to compensate and that causes the sweet spot. A lot of new stuff is more efficient. You don't lose as many freqs. So it can be pretty grating. If you recorded Hendrix today with an SM57 and a strat through a cranked modern Marshall/fuzzface/greenback reissue/modern pre/DAW the treble would take the enamel off your teeth. You can hear that treble grate a little in my vid.
His guitar doesn't have a brass nut but does have the heavy brass bridge. It really mellows your tone. There is also a crack in it at one side near the pickup . Armadillo do brass replica if you can find one. They aren't cheap and are heavy as hell.👍 Also, according to his book, the onboard pre amp didn't work a lot of the time.
Good info. Thanks man. I'm not a fan of old style brass saddles on a Tele personally. I could not get them swapped out fast enough. I pref the strat style saddles on a Tele.
Nailed it again brother! Been really looking forward to this one. So it was a JMP after all... interesting. I’m definitely picking up the Mooer, it’s pretty much the only Electric Mistress copy reasonably priced & I think it sounds great here. Plus it’ll work for Gilmour sounds. -Brian T-
Yep I researched that aspect a lot and the Mooer was the best affordable option. I'm doing Gilmour soon. I'm covering his three main clean effects. The mistress, phase 90 and Leslie.
There's a little error: It's regatta de Blanc (not wanc), but hey, that guitar sounds amazing! Which Squier series is that? Through all that good gear it sounds like a much more expensive guitar. Cheers.
I thought is was just Stewart, and Sting that fought. I didn't think Andy was the type to do that too. Also I have not heard it in a long time, but Andy did an album with Robert Fripp that was pretty cool.
Get in touch with earvana ask them if they'd make you a brass compensated nut the intonation with one is better so you get sweeter sounding mixed tracks
Not to take anything away from Andy's mastery of the sounds, but this was entirely a Sting creation. The progression, the riff, and the harmonization were all his ideas.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE if you search on UA-cam for the Jools Holland interview of the Police when he talks to Sting you see Sting just go through it. You just have to get past the way Jools disrespectifully unplugs Andy's guitar
I didn’t know the guitars were layered.. Even though I live by the “don’t record what you can’t replicate live” lifestyle, it’s good to multi-track and layer ever once and a while.
I decided I was going to play it all the way thru every day for awhile...almost blew out my wrist..only lasted about three days! Gotta go back and try again.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE You're right! But it's amazing how many guitar teachers I've seen suggest that this riff IS a warm-up exercise...which of course, it could be...just proceed with caution, haha...
Yeah, the Marshall Plexi is the main way to get this bright and punchy sound. I’m a Marshall as well an Andy Summers fan and tried a lot of different models. Andy today is using a Mesa Boogie and I think his tone unfortunately is no more the same, much more jazzy…🎸🙌🏻
Lost freqs are key to a lot more than we tend to think. Not just in the signal path, but in the guitar itself... lots of people think a maple top or fretboard "makes a guitar brighter" for instance... but that's not really true. Maple just absorbs/bleeds off less highs than mahogany does, so you're hearing a wider range of the original freqs. That's not the same thing as "making" something brighter. It's all very fascinating.
Indeed. We usually add a boatload of gain and/or effects to however the instrument resonates on its own. My approach has always been when in doubt, choose the brighter-sounding guitar. Because it's very easy to roll off highs with EQ or all sorts of tricks. Adding highs for clarity to a dark- or muddy-sounding instrument (or pickups) is more difficult. Of course sometimes dark or muddy is what you want.
It's not called cheating when you're in the studio. The British started what is classically called embellishment meaning extra but without it it can still be played live.
There are a couple of good videos about the guitar on the fender page. On and off switch for the preamp, on and off switch for the phase. All the mods were done before he got the guitar except for new tuners.
Yep I remember there are two different accounts on how he got the guitar. One was he got it from a student and another from somewhere else. And both were quotes from the man himself.
It's all relative. Most vintage pedals that famous people used from these eras are 3 or 4 times that. I sold my old ts9 for $400. Pink Floyd used a vintage dyna comp, so for vintage ones to still be the same price as new ones is a rarity in guitar circles.
fyi: 1. Regatta de Blanc and the first three Police albums were all named by Miles Copeland (their manager) not Sting.... 2. Andy Summers had a brass bridge with a small crack in it; which also gave his Telecaster a warmer sound. Never heard that it had a brass nut. You can get one of these form Armadillo Music in Texas I think. they have a website.; there is a replica of his guitar that Telecaster have made that you can get for 6 grand I think. I made my own project using one of the new Classic Vibe Telecaster bodies that they brought out recently; (in fact it's my profile pic) with the on board pre-amp. It also has an out of phase switch which Andy used sometimes; in fact the out of phase and the pre-amp together give an interesting sound. Link to page with info about the wiring diagram: www.tdpri.com/threads/an-stereo-output-jack-on-andy-summers-tribute-tele-how-does-it-works.594107/ 3. I'd reccomend playing the whole riff as the same arpeggio shape moved around the way Andy does as it makes it sound a little smoother. Cheers.
#Owen, we saw James Toseland's (heavy rock) band play at Wolverhampton (supporting Quo on their "Frantic Four" reunion tour) and one of the guitarists (Ed Bramford) played a Telecaster for a lot of the songs. The tone he squeezed out of it was excellent. Mind you, looking at images of him playing live, he's modified the guitar with 3 pups including what looks like Seymour Duncans in the neck and bridge positions. [Edit - really interesting video btw!]
Those album names were just gobbledygook that Sting thought sounded cool. They translate to “outlanders of love” and “white regatta”. I think he was trying to go for “white reggae”
Oh so very close my man well done.....I suspect the reverb tails are a little shorter and he may be using a super short slap back 25-30ms - you'd just be tweaking beyond anything the audience could perceive though
Hate to break it to you but Sting wrote this guitar riff. Andy admitted in his biography that his only famous riff that he can claim ownership of is every breath you take riff which Sting had recorded on organ for his demo and Andy played around with the arrangement to get the classic riff we all know. There’s an interview with Sting on songwriting where he discusses how he wrote message in a bottle. This isn’t to take anything from Andy, without Andy the band wouldn’t have made it and Andy’s tone influenced nearly the entire 80s decade sound.
The only things I know about Summers are:
1) He used an Electric Mistress (which many people mistake for a CE-1 or CE-2) and
2) I can't play his stuff.
Yep it's a beyaycchh to play.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE I don't have a functioning fourth finger so - yeah. 3-finger blues it is, no more no less.
Apparently, you can do it with alternate tunings but tbh I can't be arsed. Cool channel, subbed.
@@mattgilbert7347 thanks Matt.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE No worries, mate
Nor can I. I don't know how Summers came up with all of it.
Andy Summers is THE man!!! Have talked to him many many times over the past 21 years and he's so cool!!
Very cool.
Yeah, that movie he made about his stint with the Police was excellent, I think...
@@kitano0 Loved it! Saw it in the theatre.
Pretty sure the F sharp chord at the end of the chorus is minor..
Its my jazz oddessy version. If in doubt, blame jazz.
Can't argue with that logic!You've ruined my Saturday morning troll..
Yes. Minor.
There’s at least two clearly incorrect chords in this.
@@paulstearne will you evar forgove me?
I've heard that Andy Summers had a lot of problems with Sting, there was a video when Andy opened up about that he was excluded from the band but he was still strongly advised to play the concerts with The Police, also Stewart Copeland had a go at Sting in a funny way in some interviews. I was a very big fan of the band but after reading all of that I'm thinking what the heck. Sound and musical arrangements are amazing (thanks to Andy's jazz influence and absolutely fantastic drumming of Stewart, and unforgettable Stings voice) which leads me to think that when there are three really strong and talented individuals playing, there will be an explosion of creative thinking and a lot of personal grinding, thumbs up for the video :)
Yep. Sting went up his own ass a bit, but to be honest I kinda miss assholes in rock.
"Lost frequencies that are the key...hiss mellows you out...it is the lossy formats that are key." Agreed!
Great video...thank you for the work you do!
Thanks Joel.
Mix to cassette! Hit it hard. Then bring it back to digital and do whatever. Best compression ever. But of course you need virgin cassettes and a great deck. A restored nakamichi dragon is shockingly good
@@crungefactory Thanks for sharing! I have heard of this approach, it’s a brilliant merger of analog and digital.
Nailed the harmony lines - well done! Great tone!
Such quality analogue epicness makes me want to cry listening to it. It's so real.
Bravo! That song was a life changer back in the day. And you very well chased it down.
Thanks man.
Andy has the only tone I've ever heard that uses a bunch of Flanger, and I actually love it, because in every other instance I always mostly hate Flanging/Flanger effects
Yep it's glorious.
Awesome video! I played a Fender Player Telecaster through a Marshall Silver Jubilee and it sounded amazing!
That's an amazing combo.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE I'm really nailing his sound right now with similar plug-ins and my Musicman EVH. I included some delay before the flanger and a RAT pedal before the compressor to step it up a notch for leads or heavier rhythms. Thank you so much for doing this video. It has really led me down a new path! Check out the Live in Tokyo 2008 Police concert if you haven't already. It's mind-blowing!
Very well narrated and observed views about The Police and their musical genius! Creative "cheating" is widely misunderstood and underrated. Great video. Thank you :)
... This warrants a fresh coffee!
Nailed it. Thanks for the vids over the year - Always enjoy the interesting info/back-grounding. Have a great New Year. Cheers.
Following from your vid , I came across an interesting interview with Andy Summers circa 1987 - worth a look. ua-cam.com/video/RS87DCFfzxU/v-deo.html
You been playing a bit of Floyd (with those double compound bends) ?
That is coming up soon. Hehe. I did early Floyd here ua-cam.com/video/cRD6rskW0uo/v-deo.html
Nailed the sound! Also, from a few books I've read and a doc I've seen, the police weren't recording so isolated like you mentioned until later albums, particularly Synchronicity. Message in a bottle was recorded in 1979.
Cracking one, I love The Police.
Thanks Matt.
As always researched to the max and very informative. Thank you!
Thanks man!
Sounds stupid , but the right sort of hiss really does make a difference, it affects the way compressors and limiters process the signal, it colours the tone of the recording, as does the frequencies lost travelling through tape recorders and analogue amps (as you point out), I think it really helps to "glue" a track together without just sticking everything through heavy compression.
Some big studios will add tracks of the right sort of vintage hiss to pro tools recording (I've actually been told this by an engineer who works at one of the very few big recording studios left) still doesn't sound as good as tape, but it's a LOT more convenient.
Exactly. In modern music they replace it with white noise but digital white noise is horrible. Great post.
"Hiss mellows you out." One of the things I noticed when I switched from using VST amps to a real valve amp is that the hiss of a real amp doesn't have the unbearable nastiness that software does. It's a big fucking difference.
Owen, preamp kits are available to add a simple clean boost to your guitar controls cavity before the output jack
ya your fast becoming my go to channel !!!
When they came out I was so metal that I walked out of the room when mtv video came on , but an older drummer friend ( lol he was 23) hipped me to what stewert Copeland was doing... then I started listing to the guitar and got the fever. Such a great writer , named my cat Andy a short time later, hey oh
I often joke about having never been arrested. The only Police record I have, is a greatest hits album. Some people don't believe me, but it's absolutely true. It's only against the law, if you get caught.
Hehe
you are the real spectral golden ears man! nice job!
Thanks man!
Sounds great bro! It's not cheating when your that creative! Lol... I never knew he used a Marshall, such a bright Fender tone!!
supposedly, lots of marshalls have great clean tone paired with the right pickup and set up right. I am not an expert, nor do I play a lot clean, just echoing what I have heard.
@@tolvajakos Nice bro! It's funny I watched a video of the Police live in 2014 and he was playing a Strat with a Mesa Boogie so... Who knows!? Very cool sound he has whatever he uses, Lol........ Mike.
@@MikeCindyWhite man, mesa boogies have the nicest cleans (I have tried that but they are also renowned for that). modern jazz/jazz rock people use it for the cleans.
@@tolvajakos Nice! I've always wanted a Mesa... I have an old JCM 800 and my wife has an old Vox, Maybe someday I'll save my penny's up and trade in the 2 for a nice Mesa... Maybe...
other brand considered metal that has amazing cleans is Engl. the one I have played was the Engl Screamer, and although it looks like a metal amp, and the name suggests metal as well, both the clean and the crunch tones it does is amazing. beats most Marshalls and Fenders imho. you can play crappy pickups (which is what I did) with relatively low skills, and you will still sound like a god. truly amazing.
I wonder if Andy ,on the pre-Cornish pedalboard days, placed the echoplex first and then the mod and od
I won't read all 300 comments, and not meant to criticize, but for completeness' sake: there's also the brass bridge plate and the bridge PUP mounted to the body. But I saw some videos and forum entries stating that needs a lot of tweaking to give the desired result. Then there's a phase switch, and concerning the 'always-on' of the pre-amp; that had a switch too. Nice video, well played. I didn't know about the double tracking. One aspect concerning tone. The great hits of ones youth sound(ed) different on the gear you listened to, then, on ones budget then, like little transistor radios. When I bought them on CD and played them on high quality stereo, the magic was gone. Radio had its own compression too, it seems.
Thanks man. Good info.
One of my fav bands! And there's the Model D! So glad you still have it. 🤗
I just installed some midi pickups. Hehe.
:O awesome!
fa# minor NO major
Was going to say the same thing. My memory of when I used to play this song was it was a minor.
I'm playing a jazz rendition. You can blame jazz for anything.
what a jazz version !! you killed message in a bottle
@@andypolice Lighten up. It was a joke. Does the title say "Andy Summers guitar lesson?". No. It's about the gear he used. There are a million guitar tuition channels out there. This isn't one of them.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE I don't really mean to contribute to negativity, and he's being dramatic, but he is kind of right. If you're going to demo gear with a band/song in mind it wouldn't be a bad idea to learn the riff and progression you're shooting for.
F# minor surely? 3:52
All that work ..
"The hiss mellows you out". Thats amazing insight. I mean it, I'm not being facetious lol
Thanks man. Here is another ear hole pleasing sound that you hardly hear when watching TV shows etc but it drags you in ua-cam.com/video/DydIK14AvXI/v-deo.html
You just nailed the reason why I take all my synths (analog or digital) into an analog board (with digital FX) with the final mix going to my computer (Audacity) ... put some EARTH back into the signal!
Yep. The subtle fluctuation and chaos of analog is what is missing in rock and metal today IMO.
Once I heard Klark Kent, I realized most of what I liked about The Police was Stewart Copeland. It sounds just like The Police, but with the jazz stripped away, and instead is just powered by punky chord progressions. Check it out, if you have any interest....
I had no idea that harmony existed, interesting video. Are you selling your Tock album anywhere? I would like to purchase and have a listen
You can get it at circleoftone.com. thanks man.
You should try STP and/or Acid Bath. Also Happy New year Owen! Been watching for a little more of a year now. Love your channel. Keep it up.
Thanks man. Great suggestions.half new year to you too.
Have you tried Slick guitars 3specially tele guita
R fetish also Xavier guitar thier les Paul real mahogany with 3/4 flamed maple cap great under $350
No but I like the look for the price
Andy had a great sound and made it his own. As a long time guitarist I've searched high and low for great tone, as well as spent thousands of dollars. From the 80's, some of my favorite tones were from EVH, SRV, Slash and Ty Tabor. If you want a good challenge and probably a really good video, try to recreate the Ty Tabor tone from Faith Hope Love album. I've read more Ty interviews about power tubes, preamps, solid state v tube, valve from old magazines than any other player. If you don't know who Ty is I highly recommend checking him out, his old rigs are just crazy.
Very good video , any chance to check out the exploited "death before dishonor" album guitar tone i never heard a sound like that anywhere, thank you
What specific picups are in the tele?
Also that Marshall gives really good quality tone may I ask what model that is
Also from videos on here it seems brass nut provides very rich harmonic with more sustain. Did you noticed that right away or not too noticeable ?
It's a home build. The pickups are 70's fender. I think brass is a pit too brash. I pref bone
Never been a huge fan of his but as usual, you've done another masterful job. Oh, and that amp. That bloody amp!
Much tone, very want. =D
Thanks man. Means a lot.
I’m a huge fan of Andy Summers. Read his book, which was highly enjoyable. I like how he talked about how live they all played through echo plex units to make them twice as good of musicians.
Lol.
LOVED his book, yes.
Hey man - just a heads up that it’s an F#m (not an F#) on both the pre-chorus and the end of the chorus. Otherwise nice job, love the enthusiasm.
Yeah I'm an idiot haha
Besides the pre-amp, Andy's guitar also has phase switching possibility. In the song there's also a keyboard beefing up the bridge "I hope that someone gets my..", played by Andy Summers. The Police themselves re-arranged the song for live performances and did not have another guitarist. Where did you pick that up ? Please search for their 1979 - 80 live performances to hear the difference in arrangement.
Rumor has it there was another guitarist behind a curtain playing the harmony on some songs/gigs. Great info btw.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE It might have been, but never saw anything in press in those days which obviously was pre-internet, 1979-1986. It could have been a tech tuning a guitar. :)
I have said it once and I will always continue to say it, FEEDBACK AND NOISE ARE YOUR FRIENDS!
My tinnitus agrees.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE Mine too. In all seriousness though, I hate when guitarists have funeral levels of silence between notes played. It is silly.
Not correct, F# Minor, not F7, also didn’t have a brass nut
That difficult riff was written and then inverted by Sting.. I’ve seen Sting play it live on acoustic...
If you wanna get even closer out an Eq pedal after the mooer to get some more “ prescence” in the flange
So where did you hear for sure it was a Marshall not a jc120? He always uses the 120s live when playing this song so figured he'd be using what he used on it to replicate it live no?
recording 1979 marshall
Yeah, the Marshall Plexi is the main way to get this bright and punchy sound. I’m a Marshall fan and tried a lot of different models. Andy today is using a Mesa Boogie and I think his tone unfortunately is no more the same, much more jazzy…🎸🙌🏻
Positive side of old equipment frequency roll off. I just scored a 60s Sennheiser MD211N for $180 Australian. This was a mic used by Ella Fitzgerald and Tom Jones in his early career. It starts rolling off below about 300Hz. As soon as I recorded my voice I noticed it was a much more mellow rounded sound, it was a bit limited, but in a really pleasing way. Straight into the box it sounded like the early Beatles vocal sound. Then I tried it on my vintage banjo uke (quite a brash sounding instrument) and it was great, it kinda smoothed out the sound in a pleasing way...its pretty good on guitar too. Now I use it any time In want a vintage hue to my sounds. A guy said to me "Why bother...you can get vintage sound with plug ins now". I said: "I do use plug ins, but then I'm there tweaking this and that for hours just to get the right feel. But with this vintage mic it ALREADY sounds like I want it to sound straight in the box and then I just tweak the EQ a bit...if you START with the input stage then you don't need half as much digital magic, which can never fully recreate the original sound anyway!"
Fun Vid, Thanks. dit-dit-dit-da-da-da-dit-dit-dit. Great sound Circle man. Yuma,AZ.
Thanks man
Hey man, great vid as always!
By the way, when's that thing on cheap mics you mentioned a while back coming? :D
I've been buying a few more cheap mics for the series.
Can't wait!
great job
Thanks Andre.
surprised you didnt throw in a mxr micro amp to simulate his boost
Yep. Good shout. I'm not convinced he actually had the boost hooked up internally or used it that often. They usually sound pretty bad vs pedals.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE regardless of that in the chain great setup, tone and knowledge. So i figured it was jc 120 for every breath you take or his dimension D...so it was indeed a jc120?
Yep. And Andy got ripped off on that track because Sting collected most of the EBUT royalties. Think about how big the puffy/biggie single was... Andy got none of that money.
Plexi does some amazing cleans... when set very very very very low. Red Hot Chillis anyone?
John frusciante simple clean tone. Yup! So good.
By the way tone on plexi 100w, set very very very low and with ce1 .
Good sound! How is it that there is $1K in pickups in that Tele?
Thanks man. Vintage fender pickups and internal pots, wiring, capacitors etc get pretty pricey. I don't pay the going rate, I just leap on bargains.
There's a video on UA-cam of Andy Summers showing the riff to this song for a lesson or something like that. And it's been a while since he'd played it, and even he had trouble getting it down.
Haha. Yep I can relate.
I saw an interview with AS some time ago. Ref the guitar, he bought it as is, from a student of his. All the mods were done by the original owner, the booster thing was mentioned however, I think he said he didn’t engage it though? I’d have to find it again.
Yep and funnily enough he gave a different account of how he got the guitar in a different interview. It's why I didnt mention it. I'm not sure what interview is true.
How did Andy do it live?
He had a second guitarist behind the curtain.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE Yes,I asked the question before I watched the entire video.
A harmonizer..
He only played the main part live.
Andy summers used the old ehx Mistress that ran on 18 of 24 volts dc (can’t remember) this gives the bbd higher voltage what results in chorus/flanger having a lot more headroom.
This is the reason why people claim that the ce-1 is better than the ce-2. Voltage on the bbd chip
Yep good info. A lot of those old Mistress pedals had a specific solder paste too. Thick traces instead of really THIN ones you get in modern printed circuits.
That should have some impact as well.
A few years back I modified an boss ch-1 into a ce-2 made the bbd’s work on 15 volts dc (as does the ce-1, old vox chorus, etc) and was blown away by the modulation the bass notes got.
Striking a chord sounded like Leslie. Amazing.
Mxr still makes chorus and flangers with a higher voltage demand (18 volts dc) for a reason.
@@kontsnorification cool
Did Andy use the two Marshalls as a wet/dry set up..?
What's your problem with 3rds?
Worth looking into: did Summers base the 2nd guitar part on sympathetic resonance (which can only be heard using very special equipment) as what is behind jazz progressions indeed sounds alien - did he use this to support the alienness?
Gotta get me dat Marshall! That thing can do anything. Nice Job.
It is a workhorse.
I always thought Message was doubled/harmonized somehow. Didn't know about the fighting. Got a Dyna in '81 because of Andy, wanted a flanger too but could only afford a cheap phaser. Think murder by numbers is their best later period song. Great great band.
kudos on those massive chords.
Thanks Simon.
I really dig how you cover everything from The Police to Immortal on this channel. It's like these videos were custom made for me lol.
Very interesting, but regarding what you say about the MXR-surely a lot of the gear used then was new then, or close to?
It was a mix back then. The guitar was from 1961. New stuff back then was manufactured different. Eg you can't recreate the pedal today because of laws involving lead etc and other standards. The electric mistress was an 18v pedal. The speaker cones were made of different materials. Check out Uncle Dougs channel where he puts older capacitors against newer ones. When you have a 1000 links in the chain (from pickup winds, to caps, to cables, to resistors, to tubes) and some involve lead, archaic layouts, hand soldered, pure copper vs cheaper modern pot metal etc you roll the dice tonally. Not all old stuff sounds good. But there are some that shave freqs and are happy mistakes. Or they lose freqs and are boosted to compensate and that causes the sweet spot.
A lot of new stuff is more efficient. You don't lose as many freqs. So it can be pretty grating. If you recorded Hendrix today with an SM57 and a strat through a cranked modern Marshall/fuzzface/greenback reissue/modern pre/DAW the treble would take the enamel off your teeth. You can hear that treble grate a little in my vid.
His guitar doesn't have a brass nut but does have the heavy brass bridge. It really mellows your tone. There is also a crack in it at one side near the pickup .
Armadillo do brass replica if you can find one. They aren't cheap and are heavy as hell.👍
Also, according to his book, the onboard pre amp didn't work a lot of the time.
Good info. Thanks man. I'm not a fan of old style brass saddles on a Tele personally. I could not get them swapped out fast enough. I pref the strat style saddles on a Tele.
Nice playing...
Thanks man.
Nailed it again brother! Been really looking forward to this one. So it was a JMP after all... interesting. I’m definitely picking up the Mooer, it’s pretty much the only Electric Mistress copy reasonably priced & I think it sounds great here. Plus it’ll work for Gilmour sounds.
-Brian T-
Yep I researched that aspect a lot and the Mooer was the best affordable option. I'm doing Gilmour soon. I'm covering his three main clean effects. The mistress, phase 90 and Leslie.
There's a little error: It's regatta de Blanc (not wanc), but hey, that guitar sounds amazing! Which Squier series is that? Through all that good gear it sounds like a much more expensive guitar. Cheers.
That was a joke. Wanc = Wank. It's a British slur. Hehe.
Haha, now I see! So what series is that Squier? Are those the stock pickups?
@@Texturas75 the guitar is modded. It has old Fender USA pickups and new USA tuners.
I thought is was just Stewart, and Sting that fought. I didn't think Andy was the type to do that too. Also I have not heard it in a long time, but Andy did an album with Robert Fripp that was pretty cool.
great video!!!
Thanks Alex.
Get in touch with earvana ask them if they'd make you a brass compensated nut the intonation with one is better so you get sweeter sounding mixed tracks
I have a brass nut on my pinecaster.
Not to take anything away from Andy's mastery of the sounds, but this was entirely a Sting creation. The progression, the riff, and the harmonization were all his ideas.
Interesting. Where did you hear that?
@@CIRCLEOFTONE if you search on UA-cam for the Jools Holland interview of the Police when he talks to Sting you see Sting just go through it. You just have to get past the way Jools disrespectifully unplugs Andy's guitar
I didn’t know the guitars were layered..
Even though I live by the “don’t record what you can’t replicate live” lifestyle, it’s good to multi-track and layer ever once and a while.
Wow that sounds so cool! Dead on. Love your vids!
Do you think you can try Deftones Adrenaline album?
That riff! So amazing, yet so maddening as playing cleanly and accurately for the duration of a 4 minute song is sheer torture haha :) Great vid!
Yep it's a tough one. Esp with my little finger locking up.
I decided I was going to play it all the way thru every day for awhile...almost blew out my wrist..only lasted about three days! Gotta go back and try again.
@@kitano0 you need to warm up for stuff like this. I did a little and still flubbed.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE You're right! But it's amazing how many guitar teachers I've seen suggest that this riff IS a warm-up exercise...which of course, it could be...just proceed with caution, haha...
I like to come back to videos I don't remember watching a year ago with a fresh set of ears. :|
One of the best guitar sounds/players ever. Thanks you!
Thanks man. He is a god.
Nice video! Rush - 2112 would be interesting.
That's a challenge.
Yeah, the Marshall Plexi is the main way to get this bright and punchy sound. I’m a Marshall as well an Andy Summers fan and tried a lot of different models. Andy today is using a Mesa Boogie and I think his tone unfortunately is no more the same, much more jazzy…🎸🙌🏻
No jumper with your inputs?
Nah. I did it on Danzig etc but not this.
I laughed with you at the Stewart Copeland overdub story :-) Thanks, mate!
Hehe. Cheers Ken.
Lost freqs are key to a lot more than we tend to think. Not just in the signal path, but in the guitar itself... lots of people think a maple top or fretboard "makes a guitar brighter" for instance... but that's not really true. Maple just absorbs/bleeds off less highs than mahogany does, so you're hearing a wider range of the original freqs. That's not the same thing as "making" something brighter.
It's all very fascinating.
A lot of it is from playing unplugged. It does sound brighter when noodling on the couch etc. Plug it in and the effect of wood is negligible.
Indeed. We usually add a boatload of gain and/or effects to however the instrument resonates on its own.
My approach has always been when in doubt, choose the brighter-sounding guitar. Because it's very easy to roll off highs with EQ or all sorts of tricks. Adding highs for clarity to a dark- or muddy-sounding instrument (or pickups) is more difficult.
Of course sometimes dark or muddy is what you want.
Spot on!
Cheers Nick!
That stretch - my hand aches just watching you do it.
Yep it is a pig to play.
Andy Summers used a LOT of really difficult chords.
Reggatta de Wanc???
It's a British slur. Wanky means posh/fancy/pretentious etc.
Andy records shure 58 mic !
Good to know! Do you know where you got that info from?
I love these. Any chance we can get a video on power man 5000's tonight the stars revolt? The guitar sound was massive on that album
Thanks man. I'm booked up for a while but if you start a thread on the facebook group people can tell you.
It's not called cheating when you're in the studio. The British started what is classically called embellishment meaning extra but without it it can still be played live.
Massive respect fro doing Andy Summers with a fucking Valvestate in the background : )
I used that for Death, Static X and Obituary hehe
@@CIRCLEOFTONE Naturally, there's only one amp for the tome of that time in my opinion : )
There are a couple of good videos about the guitar on the fender page. On and off switch for the preamp, on and off switch for the phase. All the mods were done before he got the guitar except for new tuners.
Yep I remember there are two different accounts on how he got the guitar. One was he got it from a student and another from somewhere else. And both were quotes from the man himself.
Guitarist's logic at work here. "It'll only cost you 50 bucks. You might even wanna go get an old one and then it'll "only" cost you 100 bucks."
It's all relative. Most vintage pedals that famous people used from these eras are 3 or 4 times that. I sold my old ts9 for $400. Pink Floyd used a vintage dyna comp, so for vintage ones to still be the same price as new ones is a rarity in guitar circles.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE Just joking with you bro.
Loving that ‘Leaky Capacitor’ tone.
fyi: 1. Regatta de Blanc and the first three Police albums were all named by Miles Copeland (their manager) not Sting.... 2. Andy Summers had a brass bridge with a small crack in it; which also gave his Telecaster a warmer sound. Never heard that it had a brass nut. You can get one of these form Armadillo Music in Texas I think. they have a website.; there is a replica of his guitar that Telecaster have made that you can get for 6 grand I think. I made my own project using one of the new Classic Vibe Telecaster bodies that they brought out recently; (in fact it's my profile pic) with the on board pre-amp. It also has an out of phase switch which Andy used sometimes; in fact the out of phase and the pre-amp together give an interesting sound. Link to page with info about the wiring diagram: www.tdpri.com/threads/an-stereo-output-jack-on-andy-summers-tribute-tele-how-does-it-works.594107/ 3. I'd reccomend playing the whole riff as the same arpeggio shape moved around the way Andy does as it makes it sound a little smoother. Cheers.
Thanks man. Great info. Deep dive. I can't play it the way he does because my little finger locks up. It's a bone thing.
@@CIRCLEOFTONE sorry i should have realised that when you mentioned your issues with your little finger.
@@larryghorra6561 no prob.
#Owen, we saw James Toseland's (heavy rock) band play at Wolverhampton (supporting Quo on their "Frantic Four" reunion tour) and one of the guitarists (Ed Bramford) played a Telecaster for a lot of the songs. The tone he squeezed out of it was excellent. Mind you, looking at images of him playing live, he's modified the guitar with 3 pups including what looks like Seymour Duncans in the neck and bridge positions. [Edit - really interesting video btw!]
Very cool.
Kinda has a Joe Walsh tone when you do those high bends in the lead parts lol. Love it
Check this out ua-cam.com/video/1g0bfBLcLJY/v-deo.html
Those album names were just gobbledygook that Sting thought sounded cool. They translate to “outlanders of love” and “white regatta”. I think he was trying to go for “white reggae”
@@paullee3660 yeah it drives me nuts. He ended up going up his own arse musically so that was early warning. I like it though...I respect big egos
Oh so very close my man well done.....I suspect the reverb tails are a little shorter and he may be using a super short slap back 25-30ms - you'd just be tweaking beyond anything the audience could perceive though
Your hand looks like a spider walking on the fretboard playing that intro riff! Dave Mustaine eat your heart out!!
Hate to break it to you but Sting wrote this guitar riff. Andy admitted in his biography that his only famous riff that he can claim ownership of is every breath you take riff which Sting had recorded on organ for his demo and Andy played around with the arrangement to get the classic riff we all know. There’s an interview with Sting on songwriting where he discusses how he wrote message in a bottle. This isn’t to take anything from Andy, without Andy the band wouldn’t have made it and Andy’s tone influenced nearly the entire 80s decade sound.
end of chorus it's F#m7, not F7 !
1000th person to tell me
@@CIRCLEOFTONEyeah, i could not read all the comments. But now you'll never forget ;-)