The Mystery of the Muffled String

[Bruce Cramley]

What never fails to amaze me, after nearly 50 years of listening to Shadows records and at some stage having learned and played a large part of their repertoire, is that I can listen to a track I haven't heard in a long time, and discover something I hadn't noticed before. Such is the case here.

I was listening to 1861 (from 'The Shadows - Early Years 1959-1966' 6CD boxed set) through headphones, panned fully to the right, and noticed that whenever Hank plays notes on the 3rd string, they are distinctly muffled/dead (NOT deliberately muted), suggesting a problem with the string, the bridge saddle or the nut. As well, I can hear a third guitar (right side) playing soft high chords C-Am at 0:40-0:42 then 1:16-1:18 then 2:07-2:10, 2:15-2:17.

Donning my Hercule Poirot hat (Clouseau more likely), according to Roberto Pistolesi's book "That Sound", the following songs were recorded within a 5-day period - Les Girls and The Rumble on 31-5-62, Tales of a Raggy Tramline 1-6-62, '1861' and Kinda Cool on 4-6-62.

In Les Girls its hard to detect because of the muted bits and the rest of the song being played on the top strings, but lo-and-behold, you can hear the muffled 3rd string in the last notes of the verse (left side) at around 0:42 and 1:25.

In The Rumble, the muffled 3rd string is quite evident throughout the recording.

In Tales of a Raggy Tramline, I couldn't detect the muffled condition, but I discovered a few hitherto unnoticed gems. Again listen through headphones, pan fully to the right, and if you have software available, slow the piece down to 70-80% of normal speed.

In the intro 0:6-0:12, Hank's 6th string sounds badly out of tune (though this sounds a bit like the notorious strat 6th string intonation/overtone problem).

Sticking out like a sore thumb and cringe-worthy, Bruce's guitar is horribly out of tune in his 1st & 2nd strings (haven't I read somewhere that BW is paranoid about tuning?). If you've got good ears, Hank Bruce and bass are slightly out of tune from eachother.

Also of interest:- in the middle drum break just before the bass comes in, you can hear Hank playing a soft little fill at 1:23. Hank fluffs a note at 1:54. Near the end at 2:12, you can hear Hank softly checking his fret position before playing the last few notes up high.

Here's another goodie - the bass player (pan left) has mental blackouts at 0:49-0:54 and later at 1:49-1:52.

The lads must have been having a bad day, but Brian's part is spot on, top marks for his snare drum technique - precise, controlled, even, crisp and powerful, 'onya Brian.

It makes me wonder how many takes were done and is this the best take in the vault.

----------------

I recall seeing a photo (from Boyfriend Magazine) of young Hank holding the maple neck strat with fag papers wrapped around the 4th and 3rd strings at the nut. So it begs a question for the illuminati and historians out there, when was this photo taken and does it correlate to the recording dates above, and if so, does this solve the mystery of the muffled string?

Hank's sound in Les Girls, Rumble and 1861, is not the same sound as in the Shads' first LP, it has evolved, probably attributable I would guess to using AC30TB and possibly rosewood neck strat. But here's a puzzling thought, if the muffled string theory checks out, this implies 34346 was still being used and not a rosewood. If the theory doesn't check out, then which ever guitar Hank was using had a problem. Why in heaven's name would Hank record with a problematic guitar, didn't he have spares (even the Gretsch!!), didn't he have a guitar tech to fix the guitar, couldn't he borrow one from Jennings, couldn't they postpone the recording sessions?

Another anomaly - if Raggy Tramline was recorded on 1-6-62, then Hank's sound is chronologically out of character with other tracks recorded in the same epoch, this is definitely Hank's earlier vintage sound, ie 34346 with AC30/4 or AC15. The song was composed by Bennett/Harris, so it stands to reason that it is Jet playing on the recording. But Jet left the group in April-62, which leads me to conclude that Pistolesi's stated recording date of 1-6-62 for Raggy Tramline cannot be correct.

Not wanting to demean Roberto's great book, but I've noticed numerous spelling mistakes and typos in the recording list (pp 102-115) so is it possible there are also mistakes in the recording dates?, has anybody verified the recording dates and other facts in Roberto's book?

I believe its about time somebody published a definitive and technically detailed "The Shadows - Complete Recording Sessions" book (similar to Cliff's one by Peter Lewry and Nigel Goodall, or the better one on the Beatles by Mark Lewisohn), maybe someone like Malcolm Campbell could be enticed to undertake the project. What do you think?

Lots of questions and food for thought.

bruce, Sydney.

[cockroach]

I've always found that the wound third string in a heavier set of strings (probably what Hank was using back then) always wears out and goes dead first- the windings are very thin, and often break, giving gaps showing the steel core. And let's face it- Fender bridges, Kluson tuners etc were quite crude back then, not like these posh high quality redesigned bits of custom made guitar hardware freely available now..

Remember also, there were no guitar techs, no digital recorders with pitch correction, no digital electronic tuners or huge racks of backup guitars back then!

And home sound systems for playback gear (i.e. domestic record players) would never have picked up the tiny things you can hear nowadays with super modern headphones and digital recordings/playback etc, even from old master tapes...

And Cliff recently said in a Mojo interview that they always thought the Beatles early stuff was out of tune!

[Arpeggio]

Hi Bruce. There's a lot of fascinating information in Roberto Pistolesi's "That Sound". A great book to have and read. To complement it I would suggest that you also need "A Pocket Guide To Shadow Music" (Malcolm Campbell, Les Woosey & some other bloke) - which is still available from Leo's Den. Even Bruce himself approved of it!! Yes....the recording date you mention was erroneous - the correct date should be 19 / 12 / 61. I gather from real guitar experts (+ photographic evidence) that Hank continued to use the maple neck Strat in the studio after he'd acquired the rosewood neck Strat. Yes, I'm sure that Shadows fans would love a book about the Shadows EMI sessions. Maybe Malcolm Campbell could be prevailed upon - although I know for a fact that Tony Hoffman and Dave Herbert have an enormous amount of data begging to be turned into just such a book. Gentlemen???

Best wishes,

Rob

[Bluesnote]

It funny how clinical our ears have become over the years. I used think the Shadows playing was faultless yet a few months ago I decided to re-learn Kontiki. I got the original from Youtube and noticed that around 105 Hank hits a bummer. I'd have thought they'd have run it again rather than leave it in there. But I suppose in the sixties there were loads of bands doing some pretty dodgy recordings, as mentioned the Beatles, but also the Stones did some pretty out of tune stuff too in their early years. I think the idea was to churn out as many hits as possible and make loadsa cash for their managers coffers

Here's the version I found......\
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRrISegvqpU

[John M]

Uh huh... and round about 1 min 23 sec when hes doing the strummed chords there is delay in the strum which is off putting.
Is it deliberate? or was he did he "blank"?

[RUSSET]

I was listening to the Fentones recording of 'The Mexican' recently, & was astonished at the crudity of the recording. The tune itself , & the performance was great, but the horrible recording was spoiling it. I guess studio techniques were maybe still in the learning faze in those days, with regard to recording Guitar bands. All the Big Band stuff seemed to be good quality & got recorded right though, didn't it ?

Tony.

[cvfilms]

It's a good job Simon Cowell wasn't around in those days otherwise with all these mistakes etc the group that is now so famous worldwide would never have got of the ground!
Rob
For G***s sake get a life.

[David Martin]

(Simon Cowell - and the other judges go deaf round about the semi-finals and stop making critical comments... IMHO with the exception of Joe, the quality and intonation of the singing is now execrable... but Simon knows he'll make money from any of the "finalists" )

Have you also noticed that on a variety of tracks, Hank suffers from a "quiet" top E string... it's actually not uncommon on Strats... and it's my belief that it's a mechanical, not electrical, phenomenon...

[roger bayliss]

Well these days if you make a mistake it's easyily covered up and you can take the bits from several takes and stich them together to make a good un ! I suspect most artists make mistakes and noises wehn recording or live work. They use all sorts of techniques to try and remove reduce noises and mistakes in recordings including EQ say to reduce the finger noise on say a bass part, but back then it was early days with little scope for overdubbing and recorded very much live ... added to the fact they were very young guys as well under a lot of pressure and probably working/gigging aa day and recording evenings and nights it's easy to understand why there are a few minor things we pick up on. The producers/engineers must have made decisions based on what they had and proably never considered that in the future people would sit with headphones on late at night with everything panned left or right etc trying to learn a guitar etc part...

[JimN]

Have you also noticed that on a variety of tracks, Hank suffers from a "quiet" top E string... it's actually not uncommon on Strats... and it's my belief that it's a mechanical, not electrical, phenomenon...

Quiet top E strings are very common on lots of different guitars, pickups and string sets. I adjust Strat and similar pickups with a pronounced vertical slant which favours the treble strings - and sometimes use a top E wihich a thou or two heavier than you'd expect in that set (eg, an 11 in an otherwise 10-46 set).

On my Gibson humbucker-equipped guitars (and on a J Mascis Jazzmaster now outfitted with Cat's Whisker P90-type units), I deliberately raise the top E polepiece so that it's TOO LOUD!

Players who try my guitars often comment on the visuals and on the audio response. But anything is better than a badly-balanced output.

JN