Temolo-ish Sound in "Wild Thing" Monterey Pop

[Brandon]

Can anyone tell me what that tremolo-ish sound going on in Wild Thing at Monterey Pop Festival ('67) is?

You can hear it most promenently at the begining when he strikes those intro chords.

What's going on there?? It doesn't sound normal or like an effect to me at all. Were there any 45/100's with tremolo?

It almost sounds like the amp is going out or something.

[Ydna]

I think it is a combination of going out of tune, and I think the power tubes were on their way out. I know the guy that bought the amp in 71, Dickinson, he said it came with those tubes, and he got that crackling sound out of it. Maybe the tubes were unmatched or something. Idk. There are 45/100s with tremelo, though I have never heard what it sounds like. But the Dickinson amp doesn't have tremelo.

[Tone seaker]

he was daisy chained into those fender amps that were a supplied back line and they probably had tremolo

[Xplorer]

i don't hear any tremolo amp into wilde thing, i can hear these tremolo from the very loud sound, distortions, whammy bar , harmonics, strings dissonances.

[parkhead]

the sound is more like two frequencies beating against each other as if the amp is failing or power supply is pumping trying to keep up with the demand ... if you ever wound out a tweed champ and made it completely saturate youd recognize the sound

p

[Ydna]

I was on amp archives, and came arcross this:

http://www.amparchives.com/album/Marsha ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The tremelo isn't there on the stuff without a univibe.

[Tone seaker]

that is the Dickinson/Monterrey amp

[Ydna]

Yea, that is the amp that Brandon is talking about.

[garbeaj]

I have always believed that tremolo sound results from beat tones created by out of tune strings...The guitar was indeed out of tune and it has just that pulse created by slightly out of tune notes. You hear the same sound at the very end of "You Shook Me" towards the end of the call and response interplay between Jimmy and Robert when Jimmy plays an "octave double bend"-bending the A on the 14th fret,G-string up to B while simultaneously plucking and holding the B on the B-string, 12th fret and holding until you hear the beat tones. You can control the speed of these beat tones by slightly releasing or bending the string back up-almost like kicking off the "Fast" speed on a Leslie cabinet to the "Slow" speed and getting that Mars Bonfire "Born To Be Wild" effect.

But I think Hendrix got this sound quite by accident from the chaos at Monterey. The amp and Fuzzface accentuates these "pulses" as well...the volume is turned down on the guitar putting the guitar in "rhythm mode" while the Fuzzface is engaged and you can really hear this tremolo-like effect when he is strumming. He later turns the volume knob on the guitar full-up to engage the full throttle fuzz for leads. This of course is what he does for the entire Monterey show-switching from overdriven rhythm to full out fuzz by raising and lowering the volume knob of the guitar, controlling the always-on Fuzzface.

[Ydna]

I don't think the fuzz face was on the whole set though.

[heatpad]

I don't think the fuzz face was on the whole set though.

It certainly was.

[garbeaj]

Here is a clip of me playing a quick instrumental verion of the Monterey arrangement of "Killing Floor" (badly) at an open mic at a small coffee house in Houston,TX in 1993. You can hear how I roll the volume knob to go from rhythm to full on fuzz lead as Hendrix did...the Fuzzface stays on the whole time. I used my '68 Strat, my '65 Super Reverb, an original TS-808 Tube Screamer and a Dunlop reissue silicone based Fuzzface I bought in '88...it is low volume and not my best tone or playing, but I think you can get the idea of what I'm talking about here...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWUY3ewSErA[/youtube]

[swankmotee]

Because of that model's lower filtering you are hearing A LOT of the effect we call "ghosting" where two notes that are slightly out of pitch are beating against each other and the power supply is struggling to keep up. Consdering that Jimi had it dimed with the Fuzzface maxed it was really puking the amp and speakers which sounded like they were all on their last leg!LOL!

[Xplorer]

No fuzz on monterey's wilde thing, about the way the amp produces cracks. just the amp ... the amp doing cracks into the distortion. this is not a fuzz. the amp is fuzzy by itself. special amp ...

[swankmotee]

No fuzz on monterey's wilde thing, about the way the amp produces cracks. just the amp ... the amp doing cracks into the distortion. this is not a fuzz. the amp is fuzzy by itself. special amp ...

You know, sometimes I wonder if some of you know and have had any experience at all with using a fuzzface into a dimed Marshall at all?!!!! The amp is cracking all through the feedback intro and through the entire song due to a bad cord or probably an arching in the amp, most likely a tube going south or tranny arching internally. It could have been any of those things since Jimi was so rough on his rig and it was obvious it was acting up. The fuzz is left on for the entire time as can be easily heard when he turns the volume up and down for the wild feedback intro and the "Stranger's in the Night" solo. The rig was raging, wide open and there is no way all that cacophony can be created using only the amp by itself!