Walter Becker sound on "Do It Again"...?

[dpresley58]

Was trying to decipher what effects Becker was using on this solo and got stumped on the sitar-like attack.

Anyone have a clue as to what the lineup might be?

[Mark Hammer]

1) I do believe it was either Jeff Baxter (sounds like his style) or Denny Dias at the time, with Becker handling bass and songwriting duties.

2) Coral Electric Sitar.

[petemoore]

That sounds like 2 strings tuned to the ~same pitch for the unwound strings? 12 string?
 Just guessing...

[Rodgre]

Got to be a Coral Electric Sitar.



You can get the Rogue copy of it from Musician's Friend on the cheap. I have that one, and it's killer for that once-a-year guitar track.

Roger

[dpresley58]

Hmm..

In the words of my dear departed grandmother, "Well, I never..."

Didn't know that beast even existed. Was wondering if it was some sort of pedal, but it makes perfect sense.

Now, I guess the follow-up question for the $64,000 bonus round would be to see if the electronics could be unearthed.  :wink:

Thanks for the replies.

[Mark Hammer]

There ARE no electronics involved.  All of the magic lies in the bridge.  

In contrast to a typical guitar bridge where all the string pressure is concentrated in one spot, the "jawari" (sitar bridge) has a rather shallow profile that lacks an obvious "pivot point" for the strings that sticks up much higher than the rest of the bridge.  The result is that the plucked string vibrates against the bridge, producing a predictable and systematic filtering away of the harmonics as the note decays.  Those folks who like their strings set really low can sometimes hear a similar sort of effect as notes fretted near the nut buzz against adjacent frets.  In essence the mechanical *interference* with the naturally occurring decay of a freely vibrating string that is produced by the jawari or by adjacent frets takes certain harmonics away *before* they would normally disappear.  As well, it would seem that certain harmonics are accentuated by how the string beats against the bridge/frets.

Back when my "rig" consisted of my $25 Regent acoustic with different coloured fuzz/fluff at the end of each string, and the Beatles/Stones ruled the airwaves, I found I could achieve sitar-like sounds simply by removing the white plastic saddle from my guitar bridge.  This left me with the strings vibrating against an ill-defined pivot-point.  Of course, tuning the thing was an absolute bugger, but if I wanted to play "Norwegian Wood" or "Paint It Black", I could.  As Indiaqn instruments started to show up in music stores, I noticed the characteristic features of the bridge and realized the role it had in shaping the tone.

Can you fake it with a pedal?  Yes and no.  Tim Escobedo's "Jawari" pedal does a credible job of mimicking a Coral, though it is obviously miles away from an actual sitar and also has certain playing-style/signal requirements.  Danelectro issued the "Sitar Swami" pedal a couple years ago, though it wasn't received as warmly as they expected.  I have no idea what sits inside it, though I have a hunch that it is a sort of envelope-controlled downward-sweeping flanger.  If somebody owns one, I'd be interested in knowing what semiconductors are to be found inside.  In general, though, if one doesn't take the mechanical route of the Coral Electric Sitar (and all clones), I suspect the most faithful sitar-like sounds are going to come from digital emulations, rather than analog circuits.  You CAN nail it with analog, but the challenge is nailing it with every single note, regardless of picking style, distance from bridge, pickups, signal level, etc.  Digital emulation will cover those bases more effectively.

Incidentally, both the Coral and the actual Indian instrument also have sympathetic drone strings.  These are not part of the sound heard on the song in question.

[hairyandy]

I never thought I'd say this but you'd probably be better off getting a Line6 Variax.  I got to play with one lately and it's actually pretty cool.  I think where it shines is for those "once-a-year" sounds like a sitar, banjo, mandolin, etc.  Plus you get the added bonus of having all of those other electric and acoustic sounds that may or may not work in a given track.

[Mark Hammer]

I've never been a drug addict, nor even found intoxication to be mildly interesting.  Fifteen minutes with the Variax sitar setting, though, and I was willing to miss work and tell my wife I got fired because I was dickering around in a music store.  It is a LOT of fun.  I'm with you on this one.  The sitar setting is the star player, and all those other settings are simply bonuses included in the price. :wink:

[hairyandy]

The guy that I work for picked up a Variax for one song in which he needs to cover a banjo and a 12-string acoustic sound.  It actually works great.  The cool thing about it is that you can change where the postions of the different sounds are on the switch in the software so that you can make "patches" of sounds adjacent to one another.  Also, if you use it with a POD XT Live, the POD footswitch will change patches on the Variax!  That way he just plays the song and I can change his sound from chorus to verse offstage.  In my experience the non-electric emulated sounds are much more realistic when run through a DI rather than an amp as well.

[Rodgre]

veering off topic here, I would like to put in my vote against the Variax, and expecially the Variax with the POD XT Live.

I found that there is actually so much latency with it that I couldn't even play in the pocket. It was so strange. I had to go in and shift all the tracks ahead in time to line it up.

I use PODs and Bass PODs and Line 6 effects all the time, but the Variax gets a thumbs down from me.

Roger

[dpresley58]

There ARE no electronics involved.  All of the magic lies in the bridge.  

In contrast to a typical guitar bridge where all the string pressure is concentrated in one spot,....

Thanks, Mark. I spent some time looking it up and was surprised how many variations there are on that theme. One site even gave some tunings for the drone strings.

Interesting.

[petemoore]

I wish I could see a picture or picture what you've described better Mark, I might like to try a bridge like that on one of my 'clone my own's', or just do a derivitave design if it seems feasible.

[Manolo Dudes]

You also may find this interesting:

Göldo Sitar Tele saddles

[petemoore]

So...it looks like the string has 'multiple length' tone...as it moves at the speed it vibrates, the 'stop' at bridge point 'moves'...making the play length longer and shorter ? Also this makes the 'buzzy' sound.
 Sitar...I wonder which word came first, guitar or sitar.

[Doug_H]

I can't believe that electric sitar is only ~$200. :shock:

I've always wanted one of those. Ever since I saw that film about Ravi Shankar when I was in 6th grade...

Doug

[Mark Hammer]

So...it looks like the string has 'multiple length' tone...as it moves at the speed it vibrates, the 'stop' at bridge point 'moves'...making the play length longer and shorter ? Also this makes the 'buzzy' sound.

Not exactly.  The resting/pivot point for the string IS fixed, and the string IS freely vibrating.  The thing is that the resting/pivot point has an "altitude" only slightly higher than the rest of the bridge, such that the vibrating string keeps "bumping into" the bridge.  Remember that the different harmonics co-exist on the string at the same time, and that each of those harmnics shows up in the form of "wiggles" that occur at different places on the string.  As the string keeps vibrating in close proximity to the bridge, some of those "wiggles" (i.e., the lowest order harmonics whose maximum wiggle is closer to the middle of the strength length) are *physically* interfered with by banging into the bridge.  I guess one way to imagine it is if you had the magical ability to mute the harmonics of your choice with the butt of your hand, as opposed to having to mute the whole string on an all-or-nothing basis.

You might note some similarities between the drone-like sound of a fretless bass and a sitar.  This illustrates the principle nicely, except in this instance the bridge is a standard bridge but the selective harmonic cancellation is produced by the absence of frets and the way the string bumps into the fretboard at the *other* end of the string.  Same principle, but turned around, and lower down.

You also may find this interesting:

Göldo Sitar Tele saddles

If it works as claimed, that's one brilliant little product, and certainly targeted for just the right instrument.

[petemoore]

I'd like to try that on my clone my own LP Specail double cutaway...
 Too bad there isn't a tune o matic type sitar bridge.
 Look like alot of fine machining, not easily replicated...

[Mark Hammer]

You can probably buy yourself a rosewood or ebony acoustic bridge blank from Stewart-Macdonald, pop a couple of holes to mount it to the bridge posts, and use a wood file to do the rest.  It wouldn't be instantly reversible, but it would work.

[SeanCostello]

So...it looks like the string has 'multiple length' tone...as it moves at the speed it vibrates, the 'stop' at bridge point 'moves'...making the play length longer and shorter ? Also this makes the 'buzzy' sound.

This is correct. The sitar bridge is curved, which means that the length of the string is smoothly changing during the period of vibration. You can think of this as frequency modulating the string by its own vibrational frequency.

The tamboura also changes the length of the string, but since it uses a small string to create the buzz (the jawari), the length modulation is not continuous, and the duty cycle of the length modulation varies with amplitude.

Sean Costello

[soundcollage]

Those cheap ones you will find in musician's friend are junk. If you want a reliable instrument Jerry Jones is producing a line of well made electric sitars including a doubleneck.http://www.jerryjonesguitars.com/Supreme_sitar.htm