Your guitar playing preferences live and in studio?!

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Jacki!

The approach of recording guitars in the studio vs. a live arrangement can be quite different.

In the studio we can layer different guitars (sometimes more than two), choose the perfect guitar for the sound we want and generally play around much more with licks and layers than during a live performance. When playing live, the overall groove and energy becomes a lot more important than intricate details we would focus on in the studio.

When you do a live show you are limited in a couple of ways. You can only bring a certain amount of guitars and gear on stage, so different songs that have originally been recorded on our Gretsch, Epiphone Casino and Les Paul (maybe even with some effects) will all have to be played on the Grestch as it’s not feasible to bring and swap that many guitars to a gig only for a little bit of tone variety. The sound engineer will be thankful too 😉

Also, we normally have to change up a lot of things for live shows, especially when we perform as a duo. Since you are suddenly missing the bass & drum parts (and whatever else we put on the record) we’d occasionally have to make up for that with a more solid guitar arrangement. That could mean adding a more rhythmic acoustic guitar part or dropping certain intricacies in exchange for a more solid groove.
On the other hand, live playing can sometimes allow for a lot of improvisation, and the added adrenalin might add an extra touch of energy that can be more tricky to access in the studio.

On our earlier songs (most of the “When We’re Together” album) we tried to make the recordings “playable” live so we didn’t go overboard with effects, different instruments and arrangements that you couldn’t reproduce as a 4-piece band on stage. With ORANGE we obviously went a bit more experimental, so we certainly have to adapt arrangements and our guitar playing styles to do those songs live. 🙂

All the best to Canada from Liverpool!!

[Jacki Hopper]

1. Hiya Mona????..  Thankyou for answering my Q in great detail… I appreciate it????… I can understand and agree on having less to bring on a gig and make the most out of what you have on hand…. And in same token… The more creative freedom in the studio to go Guitar Groovy Wild… ????????????????????????… You’ve given me the New Thing I Learned Today…I got musically educated with  Tuneful Teacher Mona????… Sending ???????? Cheers n Hugs to you all in Liverpool????????????✌️????☮️

[Thomas Randall]

Good question! Well Mona, you know what happened with The Beatles when they started adding too much extra stuff to the recordings, they couldn’t re-create it live. So keep things simple like your first album! Simple is better most of the time and it’s do-able live! “too many cooks spoil the broth” as they say.

[Stephen Krogh]

Great question Jacki! Thanks Mona for such a well thought out and complete explanation. It seems that some bands get to be known as “live bands” and others as “studio bands”, but one of the things I absolutely love is that you can do both so well!!! I treasure your studio work because it showcases your musical mastery without compromise. It truly is sublime. But watching your “live performance” videos imparts so much fun and energy! I frankly would do almost anything to get to see you perform live. Dream -dream, dream, dream…

[Michael Rife]

To mimic what Mona has said………I saw a guy in a studio once bring in a guitar just for one lick in a song.  He was trying to pay homage to the Beatles who paid homage to the Riverside sound in I Feel Fine (if you listen to the primary riff in I Feel Fine, it is a “nod” to Buck Owens and others) and he replicated the lick in part.  The guitar was used for nothing else and it was an old orange Gretsch Duo Jet.  I heard them do the song live in a show and the lick was not in the song.  Mike.