New Wave Outpost Forum

Any guitar experts out there?
What kinds of guitars were the most popular for new wave musicians?
Or were there too many to pin it down.
I'd bet someone out there could practically list them out by band.
I'll shut up and listen.
-Tobes
www.roar84.com

Telecasters, Stratocasters and Precisions were the choice of a lot of good punk bands.

Especially the Precision bass...most everybody had one...Fender made/makes really good growly sounding guitars due to the single coil pickup designs.
A tick on the noisy side, but way more raw and edgier than a Les Paul or the above mentioned Rickenbackers, which had a softer but more cut sound.

Go look through this site...

http://www.newwavephotos.com/

if you get the donate popup, just close it and reopen the frame...or just go donate...

Johnny Ramone and B-52's played the Mosrite guitar - - pictured on the inner sleeve of the B-52's debut.

Great topic! Some of my favs:

Depeche Mode's Martin Gore is a big fan of Gretsch. I do love those big ole burly hollowbodies myself. I know he's also quite partial to the Les Paul as well.
http://www.martinleegore.com/martguitar.html

As for Johnny Marr, how's this for variety: Stratocasters, Telecasters, Rickenbackers, Les Pauls, a Gibson ES-355. The man is a guitar G-O-D if you ask me. He freaking taught himself to play as a kid by trying to play all the instruments he heard on his favorite records SIMULTANEOUSLY. Hence his most unique sound. WHOA.
http://foreverill.com/interviews/post87/antihero.htm

Bernard Sumner of Joy Division/New Order: 60's Gibson SG Junior. I just love what he says about guitar palying here:
http://www.guitarplayer.com/story.asp?s ... ycode=9747

This is a hella topic. You could spend days researching who played what on what albums, tours, guest appearances, etc.

<a href="http://www.worldwildlife.org/cetaceans/index.cfm">I dig whales.</a>

Regardless of what guitars people are pictured with in videos, etc., the general "sound" of the "new wave" guitar seems to lean more towards the Fender side of things...telecasters and the more popular stratocasters.

They have a springy, quirky sound whereas Gibsons are more fat and distorty. This is a bad way to put it of course.

And naturally there are lots of variations...the guitar player for Wall of Voodoo (Marc Moreland?) was always pictured with a Gibson Flying V model, even in live photos.

During the 80s, people wanted more off-kilter/non-trad things and models by Yamaha (Big Country played these) and Ibanez (seen in the "True" video by Spandau Ballet) became pretty popular.

Again, all this is generalization. WIth effects pedals and amp settings, you can pretty much make any guitar sound like anything you want.

Personally I have a cheap no-name Asian gold sparle telecaster copy and an armful or two of effects pedals. Not due to skill but just knob-twiddling, I can replicate a zillion sounds and invent some new ones too!

i recall headless basses were big too, i play a headless hohner "jack" bass, the main benefit being the weight and the fact that you can tune with your right hand - although in the 80's most bassists had the roland stick bass.
i've also got the gibson sg guitar, coupled with a boss dynamic-wah for a nice grungy mosrite sound!

[quote][i]Originally posted by marvymarv[/i]
<br>Great topic! Some of my favs:

Depeche Mode's Martin Gore is a big fan of Gretsch. I do love those big ole burly hollowbodies myself. I know he's also quite partial to the Les Paul as well.
http://www.martinleegore.com/martguitar.html

As for Johnny Marr, how's this for variety: Stratocasters, Telecasters, Rickenbackers, Les Pauls, a Gibson ES-355. The man is a guitar G-O-D if you ask me. He freaking taught himself to play as a kid by trying to play all the instruments he heard on his favorite records SIMULTANEOUSLY. Hence his most unique sound. WHOA.
http://foreverill.com/interviews/post87/antihero.htm

Bernard Sumner of Joy Division/New Order: 60's Gibson SG Junior. I just love what he says about guitar palying here:
http://www.guitarplayer.com/story.asp?s ... ycode=9747

This is a hella topic. You could spend days researching who played what on what albums, tours, guest appearances, etc.

<a href="http://www.worldwildlife.org/cetaceans/index.cfm">I dig whales.</a>
[/quote]

That was some great stuff Marv!
Thanks

-Tobes
Check out my new wave cover band in Western New York:
www.roar84.com

[quote][i]Originally posted by Ape Module[/i]
<br>Regardless of what guitars people are pictured with in videos, etc., the general "sound" of the "new wave" guitar seems to lean more towards the Fender side of things...telecasters and the more popular stratocasters.
[/quote]

As this poster mentioned, there is plenty that affects the sound of a guitar other than the guitar itself. And looks can be deceiving too.

In Invisible Zoo I played mostly what looked like a Fender Strat but it was in fact a G&L Strat, the company Leo Fender started years after he sold Fender to CBS in 1966. Though it looked like a Strat it had a better neck, switchable 2-4 pole pickups and had an amazing floating bridge that allowed notes to be bent sharp or flat with the tremelo bar. You could also run over this instrument with a car and it would still be in tune! I also used a Roland Strat copy that controled a guitar synthesizer.

As important to the sound is the amp. I, and many other New Wave guitarists, used a Roland Jazz Chorus amplifier.

Also important were the effect devices. I used a bunch of them including delay, chorus and over-drive/sustain.

These days I use a newish Fender Strat most of the time and amplify it through a Line 6 Flextone Amp. The Line 6 digitally models a slew of amps including the Jazz Chorus.

Happy Holidays!

Doug



world of noise

[quote][i]Originally posted by avcool4u[/i]
<br>That was some great stuff Marv!
Thanks
[/quote]

No problem! Glad I could oblige. And you're all dead on about making any guitar sound completely different than it's original voice. I can make my classical acoustic guitar sound like a vintage sixties Stratocaster. I love production. There's a whole different level of creativity to be done there.

<a href="http://www.worldwildlife.org/cetaceans/index.cfm">I dig whales.</a>