#SOUND LIKE POLYPHIA UPGRADE#

Since Elvis and the boys recorded live together in the room at both Sun and RCA, there was a lot of spillage. The microphone signal would have gone through a valve microphone preamp and everything was recorded onto tape. The 44-BX was a figure-eight ribbon microphone, so it picked up front and rear.īack then, microphones weren’t jammed up against the speaker cloth, so setting them further back ensures there’s a lot of room ambience mixed with the direct amp sound. Ribbons are clear and natural-sounding microphones with a full, fat tone, rolled-off treble response and soft transient response. My best guess would be the RCA, with the Shure on Bill Black’s double bass. It’s unlikely the delicate Altec would have been used on a loud guitar amp, so Scotty’s amp was probably mic’d with the Shure 55 or the RCA 44-BX. Although the Shure 55 is known as the ‘Elvis mic’, all the Sun Studios photos show him using the RCA 77-DX. So it makes sense here to consider the types of microphones that would have been used.Īccording to Jim Dickinson, all of the great recordings at Sun were made with a handful of microphones – an RCA 77-DX, Shure 55, RCA 44-BX and an Altec Lansing ‘Coke bottle’ condenser. Microphones tend to have very strong sonic signatures, which impose themselves all over your precious guitar tone. Sound engineers can get as obsessed over microphones as we can over guitars and amps. The crucial link in the signal chain that everybody seems to overlook is the microphone used to record the guitar.

#SOUND LIKE POLYPHIA UPGRADE#

Most of us will research the rig and maybe upgrade our gear with pickups, vintage-style speakers or even exotic amplifier components. Microphones Used By Scotty MooreĮvery guitar player has, at some point, obsessed over a favourite guitar sound and tried to recreate it. Staple P-90s are not widely available, but can be ordered from the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop. Any deep, fully hollow-bodied archtop with P-90 pickups should provide a strong flavour of early Scotty tone.

You can also find Epiphone ES-295s at more affordable prices. But Gibson did produce an ES-295 reissue as well as a Custom Shop Scotty Moore edition. Inevitably, ’50s Gibson jazzboxes are priced beyond many of us. This was the guitar he used for the rest of his time with Elvis, but you can also hear it being played by Reggie Young on Suspicious Minds and Kentucky Rain.

It was used on the final Sun Studios sessions and RCA recordings up until January 1957.īy that time, Scotty had secured a Gibson endorsement and he was sent a ’56 Super 400, also with staple P-90s. This all-out jazzbox had a carved spruce top rather than pressed plywood, and the staple P-90 pickups had a clarity and brightness that resembled the sound of DeArmonds. On 7 July, 1955 he traded in the ES-295 for a ’54 Gibson L-5.

Sound like polyphia