Diamond Head era Phil Manzanera

[bwanasonic]

Any tone historians here have a clue what Phil Manzanera was using for his sustainy signature lead sound circa 1975? I have a general interest in the Prog and Art Rock sounds of the the 70-75 era ( The three Steves: Howe, Hackett, Hillage. The two Phils: Manzanera and Miller. The Fripp: Robert ), and some variation of Tonebender or proto-Big Muff seems to be present in most cases. Any tips on Mr. Manzanera's gear circa Diamond Head would be appreciated ( well, Firebirds of course).

[Rodgre]

Great question and great tone! Sorry I can't answer but I'll give him a listen.

[analogguru]

Probably treated with an EMS VCS3:
http://www.sonicstate.com/articles/article.cfm?id=110

1972 - Blistering songs, razor sharp production and a glamorous image catapult Roxy's first album to the top of the charts. The album showcased Eno's VCS3 processing techniques on ..... Manzanera's guitar.

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/midiguitar/message/32382

....... Also, Brian Eno's first few solo albums featured Phil Manzanera's guitar plugged into Eno's VCS3 synth.

http://manzanera.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=eno&action=print&thread=21

However Robin Wood tells me ..... that Phil Manzanera was rumoured to have a synth setup and it may be that.

Eno: ....it was essentially an EMS VCS3 synthesiser built into a unit that I designed. With Roxy you see, a lot of the time I was taking live instruments and feeding them into the synthesiser and treating them, so what I had was the basic synthesiser with some extra bits to help me...

or an EMS Synthi AKS:
http://zvito.com/c192-31943.html

The Synthi AKS was used extensively by Brian Eno ..... to add colour to .... Phil Manzanera"s guitar work.

analogguru

[bwanasonic]

Thank you for the research! I'd love to have a detailed account of some those "treatments"! From a general stompbox perspective, it seems the prog era fuzz box was a tonebender variant with also maybe an octave-y fuzz or something goosing the tonebender. Mid-to-later 70's was likely to use a Big Muff. Of course the secret ingredient in many cases was sheer volume.

[runmikeyrun]

Thank you for the research! I'd love to have a detailed account of some those "treatments"! From a general stompbox perspective, it seems the prog era fuzz box was a tonebender variant with also maybe an octave-y fuzz or something goosing the tonebender. Mid-to-later 70's was likely to use a Big Muff. Of course the secret ingredient in many cases was sheer volume.

Yeah, sounds like a totally cranked amp to me whenever I listen to them.