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Makin that guitar talk.


vernarial

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I figure this is as good a place as any to ask this seeing as how posters here sure listen to alot of music.

Several years ago I was listening to some radio show and they were highlighting this guy that played a steel guitar. Well this guy could make his guitar talk. I mean he was damn good at it. He would make it sound like a baby crying and all sorts of cool shit. Anyway I tried for awhile to find anything like that and I haven't had much luck. Does anyone know of any artists that do this kind of thing with a guitar? Maybe someone could point me in the right direction.

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Probably was a pedal steel guitarist. Sorry, but I dont know the answer to who it could have been.

However, I once saw Albert Collins, a blues musician - and he could make his guitar talk.

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PETE DRAKE

Pete Drake, was a major Nashville producer and steel guitar player. His innovative use of what would be called the "talk box", which would be also used by Joe Walsh and Jimmy Page, took the pedal steel guitar to a new level. The album "Pete Drake and His Talking Steel Guitar", harkened back to the sounds of Alvino Rey who originally used the talk box when Alveno Rey was with the King Family. The unique sound of the talk box with a steel guitar was very new in the 1960's, and it made the sounds of vocalizing along with the strings of the steel guitar. In other words, it sounds as if the guitar sang. This is according to an interview with Pete Drake:

How did the talking guitar work?

You play the notes on the guitar and it goes through the amplifier. I have a driver system so that you disconnect the speakers and the sound goes through the driver into a plastic tube. You put the tube in the side of your mouth then form the words with your mouth as you play them. You don't actually say a word: The guitar is your vocal chords, and your mouth is the amplifier. It's amplified by a microphone.

Pete Drake has also played for George Harrison and Ringo Starr after the breakup of the Beatles.

PETE DRAKE WAS THE INNOVATOR OF THE "TALKING STEEL' SOUND INTO COUNTRY AND ROCK MUSIC, NOTABLE STYLIST, RECORDING ARTIST, SESSION PLAYER AND STUDIO OWNER WHO HAS ADVANCED THE STEEL SOUND INTO ALL FORMS OF MUSIC. .

BORN: OCTOBER 8, 1932 AUGUSTA, GEORGIA

DIED: JULY 29, 1988

"He brought new sounds and new ideas to steel playing, the best-known being the famous 'talking steel' as heard in his 1964 smash, 'Forever'. "

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http://tech2.nytimes.com/mem/technology/te...751C1A9659C8B63

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On "Rocky Mountain Way" Joe Walsh introduces the talk box in an interlude near the climax of the tune to add a new timbral element. An effect rarely heard on record (Link Wray of "Rumble" fame used one in the '50s, as did Pete Drake on "Forever"), the talk box came to Walsh by the way of Bill West, husband of country & western singer Dottie West. After its inclusion in "Rocky Mountain Way," it was assimilated into the rock mainstream--surfacing conspicuously on '70s records by Jeff Beck ("She's a Woman") and Peter Frampton ("Show Me the Way"), in the '80s by Bon Jovi ("Livin' On A Prayer"), and surviving into the '90s with Alice In Chains ("Man in The Box").

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"The talk box was invented by Douglas Forbes, an engineer and musician, from California. The talk box is a simple musical device that is used to manipulate the sound of an instrument, typically a guitar. The talk box produces an amplified sound with a horn driver. The sound is subsequently directed through a tube, that is commonly taped to the side of a microphone. The musician places the tube in his/her mouth and "shapes" the sound with mouth movement."

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I remember reading a Zappa interview in which FZ said (i am paraphrasing here) that his solos were often based around the idea that he was making his guitar "talk" in much the same way that a human voice is lyrical and dynamic, growing from soft or loud an d back in the same phrase, changing pitch, or sometimes holding the same pitch, full of inflections and punctuations, in a way that was interesting to try to duplicate with his intrument.

Listen to "Shut Up and Play Your Guitar," "Son Of The Lost Solos" or "Trance Fusion" for some pure unadulterated guitar conversation...

Edited by CTC Command
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Probably was a pedal steel guitarist. Sorry, but I dont know the answer to who it could have been.

However, I once saw Albert Collins, a blues musician - and he could make his guitar talk.

saw something similar Dude quite awhile back, with Albert Collins, and you are right, he could make his guitar talk

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  • 4 weeks later...

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