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SurfGuitar101 Forums » Surf Musician »

Permalink How do you get that Spaghetti Western guitar sound?

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Thanks to everyone and their ideas. I now realize the term 'Spaghetti Western sound' is a broad term, and covers a lot of sounds.

Good ideas to try a little fuzz and roll off the bass.

" blondie! . . . . . . "

'Surf Music Lasts Forever'

Last edited: Feb 16, 2013 16:54:33

We contributed to a cd several years ago called "Six Gun Surf". It's instrumental bands doing all the old western tunes. We did "the Virginian" and used a fender VI baritone guitar for the lead. You can check that and the others at
http://www.dwmmusic.com/order.asp?product=SD044&artist=Various+(SGS)&title=Six+Gun+Surf&price=14.98
I think the melody has to be very strong and with ennio morricone, he left a lot of space in the songs. They were not to busy. They had many different types of guitars, nylon, electric, acoustic all carrying the melodies he wanted you to hear.

Craig Skelly

Little Kahuna
www.littlekahunamusic.com
The Breakaways
The Curl Riders

Also, the song "the Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is on the CD "Six Gun Surf", performed by Martin Cilia and the Atlantics. Amazing study in surf meets western. Be sure to check it out. Martin is one of my favorite surf guitarists today. He not only has amazing lead chops, but is a monster rhythm player.

Craig Skelly

Little Kahuna
www.littlekahunamusic.com
The Breakaways
The Curl Riders

For our first album Five Guns West, I played a combination of PRS, Telecaster Thinline, acoustic guitar, mandolin, electric sitar, and organ. We also added a lot of percussion. And then our trumpet player really helped to expand the sound.

Ted James
Deep Eddy Records http://www.deepeddy.net
The Nematoads http://www.nematoads.com

The Five Outsiders are the best suggestion I've got, their sound is a great combination of Surf and Spaghetti without losing the blessed reverb.

-Damon.

I played around with my Jazzmaster & Deluxe Reverb using the onboard reverb trying to duplicate what I call the "spaghetti drip". The original soundtrack tone not something from covers. I got there by opening the amp up until I get just a touch of overdrive and adjust reverb to taste. Bass set on 8 and treble about 6. I have a EVM-12L in the DR cab.

This DR is a home build with 6L6 power tubes to it is quite loud. I played around with the TS808 on my pedal board and could get close at lower volumes by adding just a hint of OD to the input. Driving the amp was better.

I did the same test with a home built 5E8-A Twin. I got pretty much the same results but found the amp more responsive and a little easier to push past totally clean on demand. I was also able to do this at varied volumes. The DR was more of a one trick pony set up this way. There is a pair of Weber Neo 12s with aluminum dust covers in the tweed Twin.

Either way the OD I hear in spaghetti drip is responsive to picking so I had to set either the amp or the pedal right on the edge to duplicate it. I played with a couple of fuzz pedals but liked the above results better and thought it was more authentic to the original soundtracks. Driving the amp hard was the key for me.

Keep it Drippy Brothers and Sisters!

JakeDobner wrote:

And that is my big problem with the "Spaghetti Western" genre. Nobody seems to listen or pay attention to Morricone.

... well put, Jake! Morricone, like many true masters, defined a genre with prodigious output, vision, finesse and consistency, for it to serve later musicians as inspiration – while none of those imitators came close to his originating genius. Essentially, the tunes he wrote for (mostly) Sergio Leone films in the 1960s ARE "SW". Orchestration, surprise, tension, breaking conventions (while clearly defining his own new ones) and bold craziness are happening in his music, in spades. We should remember that Morricone was avante-garde and an experimenter-innovator.
Without a deep imbibing of Morricone, no one should claim to know anything about this genre "SW". Lots of interest has been dedicated to him, notably among the avante-garde NY scene centered around John Zorn in the 80's, first with "The Big Gundown" album and later with The Naked City Orchestra (John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Mike Patton, Fred Frith, Joey Baron, Yamantaka Eye, Wayne Horvitz). I think their homage to his spirit is admirably fresh, though not always listenable.
None of this is to say in any way that guitarists shouldn't keep plugging away at 'nailing the tone/feel' of "SW". But it's a LOT more than guitar music...

Squink Out!

Thanks! I'll have to check out the John Zorn stuff. My bandmate just bought one of Bill Frisell's bikes, on a semi-related but off topic, note.

The Eliminator recorded a song in the spaghetti western style written by SG101's SoniChris. John Blair plays the lead on this.

Last edited: Mar 09, 2013 11:12:40

JObeast wrote:

JakeDobner wrote:

And that is my big problem with the "Spaghetti Western" genre. Nobody seems to listen or pay attention to Morricone.

... well put, Jake! Morricone, like many true masters, defined a genre with prodigious output, vision, finesse and consistency, for it to serve later musicians as inspiration – while none of those imitators came close to his originating genius. Essentially, the tunes he wrote for (mostly) Sergio Leone films in the 1960s ARE "SW". Orchestration, surprise, tension, breaking conventions (while clearly defining his own new ones) and bold craziness are happening in his music, in spades. We should remember that Morricone was avante-garde and an experimenter-innovator.
Without a deep imbibing of Morricone, no one should claim to know anything about this genre "SW". Lots of interest has been dedicated to him, notably among the avante-garde NY scene centered around John Zorn in the 80's, first with "The Big Gundown" album and later with The Naked City Orchestra (John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Mike Patton, Fred Frith, Joey Baron, Yamantaka Eye, Wayne Horvitz). I think their homage to his spirit is admirably fresh, though not always listenable.
None of this is to say in any way that guitarists shouldn't keep plugging away at 'nailing the tone/feel' of "SW". But it's a LOT more than guitar music...

Nailed it. Zorn is one of the few artists that "gets" Morricone. He created a distinct identity for each film that he scored with his chord voicings, unconventional orchestration, and inclusion of otherwise "inappropriate" instruments and timbres.

Part of this was creativity, but most of it was out of necessity: They couldn't afford a full orchestra. What he was able to do was take that necessity and develop/refine it over the course of his career. The dirty fuzz guitar present in Once Upon A Time In The West was carried onto countless other films in the 1960s and 1970s. Crime, Eurospy, Horror, anything!

As much as I love the For A Few Guitars More compilation, it really shows what is lacking if you don't translate the particular chords, and really skip over the orchestration. The melody can be distinctly Morricone-ish, but it's only a small fraction of the equation.

Anywho, I'll stop rambling now- I can go on and on (and on and on) about Morricone.

andtheLiquidmen wrote:

... I can go on and on (and on and on) about Morricone.

Does anyone know of an authoritative musicological treatise on Morricone?

This is Noel. Reverb's at maximum an' I'm givin' 'er all she's got.

Well said andtheLiquidmen

Ran

The Scimitars

I go to all the libraries and look up "Morricone" in the card catalog. Usually DVDs and CDs, a couple "Best of the Movies" music books, but no musical criticism. I don't think anyone's written a book in English about the music in Italian films. There is a book about Reverb & Echo 1900-1960 which to my mind misses out on all the really extensive and fun use of both effects...
Listening to Il Maestro Ennio, I am struck by the sense of space, emptiness, aridity, melancholy, dread, wistfulness and of course heavy doses of the'redemptive violence' Sergio Leone films rely on in their narratives.
A lot of instro music is simply too busy and claustrophobic to be able to capture this quality. The stories a lot of our guitar-band tunes tell are really about guitars playing in smallish rooms with bass and drums. Nothing wrong with that – it's a matter of our focus and imagination. Peter Doyle writes in his book, "Echo and Reverb: Fabricating Space in Popular Music Recording, 1900-1960" that reverberant spaces are expensive, privileged spaces: temples, corridors of power, made of polished marble.

As for 'nailing the sound' on electric guitar – spring reverb does not help much. I have been playing through an Alesis Midiverb III set to various "plate reverb" emulations to good effect. For the harsh fuzz of "Like a Judgement" and "Man with a Harmonica" a hardtail Strat (bridge PU) into an Octavia clone and the digital plate reverb gets it fairly close, to my ear.

Squink Out!

DannySnyder wrote:

For me personally, the spaghetti western guitar sound is not defined by trem or baritone or actually any lead. It's those intense slicing distorted and heavily trem-barred chords. The Bradipos IV on their version of Titoli(Fistful of Dollars) performed this to perfection. On the latest podcast, the Twin Tones also have mastered this technique, which done right makes the hairs on the back of my neck go up. It's like a cry to the gods!

My god that is amazing

*Noel wrote

Does anyone know of an authoritative musicological treatise on Morricone?

The only valid scientific study I read is in german:
Christiane Hausmann: Zwischen Avantgarde und Kommerz. Die Kompositionen Ennio Morricones, Hofheim 2008.
(I don't have to translate that title, do I?)

I read parts of it for my final exam in musicology (wow, that was four years ago!), for which I chose the score to "Once upon the time in the west" as one of the topics.

Sergio Miceli's "Morricone, la musica, il cinema" was also translated in german. Which again, is not really helping you guys, is it? Rolling Eyes

The only english book I could find is:
Charles Leinberger: Ennio Morricone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". A Film Score Guide, Lanham 2004.

I only skimmed through it on googlebooks, but it seems promising, although it is limited to a single film score.

Los Apollos - cinematic surf music trio (Berlin)
"Postcards from the Scrapyard" Vol. 1, 2 & 3 NOW available on various platforms!
"Chaos at the Lobster Lounge" available as LP and download on Surf Cookie Records!

JObeast wrote:

I go to all the libraries and look up "Morricone" in the card catalog. Usually DVDs and CDs, a couple "Best of the Movies" music books, but no musical criticism. I don't think anyone's written a book in English about the music in Italian films. There is a book about Reverb & Echo 1900-1960 which to my mind misses out on all the really extensive and fun use of both effects...

Italian 20th Century Music: The Quest For Modernity by Michael D Webb. There is a chapter listed as:The good, the bad and the popular (Modugno, Garinei & Giovannini, Marini, Gaslini, Berio, Gentilucci, Manzoni, Bussotti, Castiglioni, Chiari, Morricone). 2008

Source: I'm a librarian!

To Boldly go where no Tiki has gone before...

Last edited: May 02, 2013 10:22:25

DannySnyder wrote:

For me personally, the spaghetti western guitar sound is not defined by trem or baritone or actually any lead. It's those intense slicing distorted and heavily trem-barred chords. The Bradipos IV on their version of Titoli(Fistful of Dollars) performed this to perfection. On the latest podcast, the Twin Tones also have mastered this technique, which done right makes the hairs on the back of my neck go up. It's like a cry to the gods!

Love that track! Sounds like JM with stainless flats to me and through something like a BF amp, maybe a DR or PR

He who dies with the most tubes... wins

Surf Daddies

Thanks Art, for the ref. I can buy a copy for $41 or try to get an inter-library loan from UC Santa Cruz. No public libraries seem to carry it in LA.
artdecade wrote:

JObeast wrote:

I go to all the libraries and look up "Morricone" in the card catalog. Usually DVDs and CDs, a couple "Best of the Movies" music books, but no musical criticism. I don't think anyone's written a book in English about the music in Italian films. There is a book about Reverb & Echo 1900-1960 which to my mind misses out on all the really extensive and fun use of both effects...

Italian 20th Century Music: The Quest For Modernity by Michael D Webb. There is a chapter listed as:The good, the bad and the popular (Modugno, Garinei & Giovannini, Marini, Gaslini, Berio, Gentilucci, Manzoni, Bussotti, Castiglioni, Chiari, Morricone). 2008

Source: I'm a librarian!

Squink Out!

Interesting read. So in short terms what are the reccomended pedals etc... to get the spaghetti western sound? I asked a fellow guitar player at work ( and hes a classic rock guy) and the answer was Tremolo, delay and compressor....
My take was Tremolo and Fuzz. either through the Strat or Jaguar. Ampflifier model is not a consideration at this time.
Thoughts anyone?

I am not obsolete, I am RETRO.... Cool

Teiscofan wrote:

Interesting read. So in short terms what are the reccomended pedals etc... to get the spaghetti western sound? I asked a fellow guitar player at work ( and hes a classic rock guy) and the answer was Tremolo, delay and compressor....
My take was Tremolo and Fuzz. either through the Strat or Jaguar. Ampflifier model is not a consideration at this time.
Thoughts anyone?

On pedals, for certain takes on the genre, FUZZ is a very common choice. I'm sure there are plenty of experiences and opinions to be shared, but I offer this option & example plus a great Moriccone reference.

The only thing I can compare with is the Ashbass. Lots of great things said about that pedal, but I couldn't get the sound out of it I had in my head. That C'bread Merkin definitely does it for me. I've embedded the link below at the Spaghetti Wester sample, but suggest checking the whole thing out - it covers a lot of ground. The only thing I wish they did differently on the demo was follow suit of most of their other demo's where they talk about setting used on guitar, pedal and amp.

Oh, and one thing I've come to learn... perhaps more than any other effect, pickup selection + guitar volume knob + guitar tone knob + pedal knob's are reeealy interactive. It's pretty crazy how broad the range of Fuzz can be when I fiddle with each knob and combination of knobs.

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

Last edited: Feb 18, 2015 19:58:49

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