VG-99- Alan Murphy 'dirty clean' SFX tone

Started by Smash, April 13, 2016, 01:59:20 PM

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Smash

Alan Murphy was my guitar idol - a British session guitarist with fantastic control and tone. All his recorded solos were made with a Rivera era Superchamp.

SFX was his band that mainly played jazz/funk/fusion instrumental with blistering solos.

Anyway, I recreated the tone from a track SFX session on for a sax player called David roach. Alan co-wrote this track called Nerja. Only one studio CD exists of SFX which was sadly completed only after Alan's untimely death in 1989. Examples of the bands live outings can be found on the website alanmurphylive.com http://alanmurphylive.com/audio/audio.html

The whole dirty clean tone thing came from Alan's live tone using a splitter to route his guitar to both a Boogie and a Roland cube at the same time. This was a stereo set up with what was then a state of the art Delta Labs digital delay with left and right outputs run between amps. he'd often combine the dirt of the boogie with a clean tone.

You can hear this clearly on this particular track Nerja.

The patch has clean ADT'd strat and teh dirty clean tone switched between with CTL1 on the FC300

This is my recreation of the solo in Nerja using this patch:

! No longer available

And for comparison, this is the original (solo at 2'59"):

! No longer available

Posting this as a request from a soundcloud friend:)






Headless68

Alan is also one one of my guitar hero's - I didnt know that he used the cube via a splitter though - off to hack some patches now :-)

you nailed his style by the way - awesome!

Smash

Way too kind mate - but thanks!

Splitter only in early 80s - mid 80's onwards he had a JBL full range cab for clean (when he was doing the Go West stuff) and the super champ for dirt then he switched to just Boogie pre and power amp set up.

He describes the boogie/cube set up in a Guitar Player mag interview from 1980 I think - I have the it scanned and uploaded - I'll post a link when I get home.

I remember the first time I heard the solo on Warning Sign it was like my world had changed! My favourite stuff is what he did with Mike and the Mechanics - Take the Reigns from the first album and Beautiful Day from the second (short but totally sublime).

I guy I used to know (John Hill ex Fender) put the Fender Hot Squad together who went round UK demoing amongst other things the Superchamp. John has his original sunburst Squier Strat which was his main guitar - very priveleged that he let me play it. Funny thing is I started doing all these Smurph style bits with the trem and up pulls and had to stop myself when I suddenly thought - these are his original strings - what happens if I snap one!!

He endorsed the Yamaha MSG guitar in the last year of his life - he had 2 - one deluxe with trem and one standard. The standard was bequeathed to Nico Ramsden and I'm very happy to say I now own it. Funny enough an MP of all people now owns his white Aria RS Esprit from Go West days!


Headless68

Cool stuff - I was lucky enough to meet Alan while he was touring with Go West - he played my guitar! (....considerably better than I did)
:-)

TTNT10

Thanks a lot for posting it !  :D
I like any patch you made but this one is really a great work.

Best regards from France


vanceg

Quote from: Headless68 on April 14, 2016, 03:12:44 AM
Alan is also one one of my guitar hero's - I didnt know that he used the cube via a splitter though - off to hack some patches now :-)

you nailed his style by the way - awesome!

I'd go a bit further and say that I liked your style a good bit better.  Seriously - I felt more 'guts' in your recording than the original. 
Honestly, though, I didn't know Alan's work prior to this.  but I am serious - if I was going to listen to the two solos over and over, I think I'd rather hear yours.

Smash

#7
Woah....I mean, I really appreciate the vote of confidence but Murph for me had an incredible touch and was way more inventive than I'll ever hope to be.

SOS and Haunted solos with Go West, Take the Reigns with Mike and the Mechanics  - not only a great solo but the tone is incredible, all the SFX CD.

@Headless68 I never got to meet him - very envious!




Elantric


aliensporebomb

Gosh I must have been completely asleep - this is wonderful.  How did I miss it? 

Here's Smash's take with his patch:
https://soundcloud.com/smashmashups/nerja-sfx-alan-murphy-solo-tone-vg99?in=smashmashups/sets/vg99-patches

I can't wait to play with the patch - so many good ones appearing on my radar lately!

What a loss - that guy could seriously play.

My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.

aliensporebomb

#10
I found some live bootlegs of SFX playing in some small pub somewhere a while back - not great recording quality but the actual playing is fantastic and Laurence Cottle ended up playing on Alan Parsons Project Stereotomy later on.  There's an Alan Murphy memorial page where some of these things can be listened to.
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.


sixeight


BMapson


admin

#14
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?posts/27449440/

The late Alan Murphy used to use the 1982 Fender Super Champ for his dirty tones when doing sessions
The 3x solos on here were all done on the SC, the first and third solo (Which is one of my fav solos of all time, by anyone) were done on a Squire Strat with a Kahler, and the middle solo and clean was a Aria Esprit




https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?posts/27428060/

1982-85 Paul Rivera Fender Super Champ was 18 watts , pair of 6V6 output tubes and  has a custom Rivera designed high gain preamp , remote boost /reverb on off pedal

This one is all stock.
Some models have optional EVM 10L speaker .

















This is a Steinberger EMG fitted strat into a Big Muff, then into a Super Champ............which they then played through the PA at the LA Forum



Also used on the 1st RATT Album by Warren DeMartini

Quote"Yes, a Fender Super Champ, and I disconnected the speaker and plugged it into an EV speaker that was loaded in an Orange cab. I had an orange cab with four 200-watt EV speakers – the thing weighed about a million pounds. We went directly into one of those speakers and mic'd that up."


chrish

Wow Scott, that's really good lead work.


aliensporebomb

Seriously.  I keep going back to re-listen.  Longer version please!
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.