[Rudolf Wagner]

Thanks Howard, I could verify the error and have a look into it.

[Rudolf Wagner]

We spent hours trying to come up with potential label names which wasn’t as easy as we thought. We couldn’t believe it at the time that almost all of them were already taken. Often companies or bigger labels buy names and trademarks simply to re-sell them or keep others from using them (greedy bastards ;-)). So we had to think beyond the more obvious choices.

We eventually came up with “Woolgoose” as a loose play on the German expression “eierlegende Wollmilchsau”, which translated means “egg-laying Woolmilkpig”. Basically something that does everything, often used in a “too good to be true” context.

Eierlegende Wollmilchsau would have been a mouthful so we agreed on “Woolgoose”. We also liked the two double o’s.

Lisa drew up a little logo for it, Michaela tackled out the administrative work and voilá, the label was born.

[Rudolf Wagner]

I think we have twin gremlins at work here. One’s correcting, the other one’s messing behind their back. They’d even get Grammarly to blow up.

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Dale,

Thanks for letting us know. We went back to wiping our foreheads again. Feels much better …

[Rudolf Wagner]

Thanks very much, Howard! That’s certainly too prominent a place for gremlins to goof around.

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Peter,

First of all a big hello and thanks for joining us here at the Club! We hope you’ve already made yourself at home and that you’ll enjoy your stay.

Oh; the midlands are beautiful. We’d love to do more travelling across the country. When we used to play a lot more live shows a few years back, or while we toured the UK with Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel in 2015, we loved seeing more of England.

In fact, Birmingham was one of our favourite cities on that Steve Harley tour (your Symphony Hall is incredible!). We’d love to come back and play some more shows across the country but at the same time we really want to concentrate on new recordings, videos and stuff like the MLT Club and our online presence.

For the time being we’ve decided to stop playing live and focus on those things for now.
One chapter at a time 🙂

We’ll see what the next one will bring!

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Roger, the ones you are referring to have all been gifts, so we haven’t really thought about selling them on our website. They are super comfortable real leather straps so they would be quite expensive to produce and we’d have to sell them for a lot of money. But it would definitely be something we might add to the range later down the line.

Thanks for the interest 🙂

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Howard,
Just yesterday we posted a little video about our time in the States back in 2007, the holiday when the infamous “Alone” incident happened 😉 We didn’t include the video there, but we added some other super early performances we did on the trip.

Maybe we should have added some of the “Alone” video too but we didn’t want to make it too long and thought we might save that for another time. Or maybe I just don’t want to relive the trauma, haha. No, but it really wasn’t that great of a performance but we will have a look at the footage again and see if we find it worth posting.

Thanks for being so interested in our early, early beginnings. Back then we would have never ever thought that one day someone would care for those recordings.

And of course thanks for the nice words about Starman! We’re glad everyone seems to really like the video and setting. Yesss!

[Rudolf Wagner]

Oooops, thanks for making us aware of that 🙂

The Duo Sessions Page was set to only show 6 posts, when “In it for love” was the 7th. It’s fixed now!
♥

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Rick,

Of course, everyone goes about it a little differently, and the process changes depending on the song, setting, studio and equipment we have available but this is how we usually do it:

We normally work digitally, which means that we record audio through an interface into a computer (opposed to tape, like it was done primarily until the mid 70’s). Usually we start off with a super quick demo track where we play the song on our acoustic guitar and sing along, all in one microphone, so we have the structure and tempo mapped out. We use this as a guide to build the song around.

From then on it’s a bit like cooking 😉 Here’s a pizza analogy …
One by one we record each ingredient, normally starting with the “base” instruments like drums (pizza dough), bass (tomato sauce), rhythm guitar (cheese). Then one by one you add all the additional flavours like your vocals (peperoni), lead guitar (olives) and if you want to be a bit controversial, you add some pineapple in the form of Mona’s flute playing.

You record all the individual tracks (lay out your ingredients) and later, in the mixing process, make sure you add the right amount of each. So no ingredient overpowers the other in volume and the flavours you want to shine through, don’t get lost.

You add your effects like chorus, reverb, etc. like you would your spices – until you have the perfect balance 😉

Then it goes into the oven – the mastering stage – where you add some compression, and additional little tweaks to make it all blend together and become one coherent dish, uhm song.

You get the point 😉 It’s a big layering process. At least in the studio, that’s how you’d usually go about it. If you’re recording a live session, you record the whole performance in one go, but if possible, each instrument on their own track. Which is why normally everyone’s got their own microphone, each guitar is amp’ed separately, etc. So that later on you can still tweak the overall mix, add some effects like reverb, compression etc. and make it sound as well rounded as possible.

Hope that helped. Now I’m hungry 😉

P.S. Here is an article that summarises the basics of studio recording pretty well and in a more structured way, in case you are interested in reading up on the process a bit more: https://www.wikihow.com/Record-a-Song

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Roger,

We loved following the “guitar heaven thread” in the “general discussion” forum! Your guitar collection is astonishing! Quite different to ours but really interesting choices.

Anyway, sorry that it took us a while to get back to your question here. We’ve been thinking if there’s a way to make your request happen but we realised that we have so many of our guitars spread across the studio, home, storage, Vienna and the UK that we can’t really get one picture with all of them. But another MLT CLub member, Angelo, recently sent us a file in which he documented all our guitars wonderfully. He collected all the pictures, specs, etc. and made a pretty comprehensive list.
We will ask him if it’s okay to forward you his document, if you’d like to 🙂

Hope that helps!
Thanks and stay groovy,
Lisa

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Tomás,

That 12-string guitar has been on quite the journey, halfway around the world.

You might have read that back in 2009, at the age of 14/15, we had spent half a year in Australia for student exchange. Even before we left for the trip we knew we wanted to buy two acoustic guitars there and bring them back home with us afterward. While roaming the music stores of Adelaide we found this 12-string as well as the other 6-string Maton we own and immediately fell in love with them. We didn’t plan on getting a 12-string but it sounded so great and once we picked it up we couldn’t put it down anymore.

They became our “working horses” for the six months we spent in Australia. We took them busking, carried them to school and back most days and played them a LOT.

We brought both Matons home with us, and it was the only 12-string we owned for quite a few years after. I love the tone of it, it’s full and warm and extremely well balanced even when plugged in.

The action on it is not the best. If we don’t stay on top of it and adjust the neck every few months it gets out of shape, and the chunky neck isn’t helping with the playability. Compared to the other 12-strings we have played and owned since, it might not be the most “finger-friendly” one but the tone, as well as the story, make up for it, and I do tend to gravitate towards it for performances! 🙂 For noodling around at home, I would probably choose a different one though.

Also yes, it does have the Queensland Walnut back and sides which is gorgeous and so different from what you usually see. The model number is EM425C/12 by the way.

We all hope you’re well, thanks for the question and all the best from both of us!

Mona

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Angelo,
It’s one of the guitars we bought when we first started playing. It’s supposed to be somewhat of a Gibson 335 copycat, made by a cheap online brand called “Santander”. It was long before we invested in some higher end guitars and it introduced us to different sounds and guitar styles from the usual “strat” style guitars we had in school.
But to be honest it wasn’t a great guitar, especially for beginners. Really heavy, didn’t stay in tune and felt quite clunky in general. But hey, you work with what you got and we felt super sophisticated playing “Smoke On The Water” on it, when we first got started 😛

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Howard!

Overall, loved the movie! It was a Father’s Day present so the whole family went (equipped with snacks and blankets). Doing anything outdoors in the UK is always a gamble but thankfully it didn’t rain!

It was the first time Mona and I watched the whole thing. We’ve seen other Monty Python movies and sketches and several clips from it but never in one sitting from start to finish. We’re glad we did it though, and it really was the perfect setting. We think it’s all the little details that make the movie work so the more attention you can pay the better.

There’s obviously the very British, silly humour which we love but as you said it’s the underlying satire on politics, religion and society that makes it such a classic movie that has already proven to stand the test of time. None of the topics really aged which you could say is rather tragic! But it makes the movie work to this day (and probably for a long time to come) 🙂

Ni!

[Rudolf Wagner]

Holy cow, how did I only now see this? That is so cool!! Do I have to pop over to the studio to double check whether you stole my guitar? 😛 But seriously, that is quite impressive. When you posted the pictures of the bridge and tremolo I thought it was some pictures from the internet, not that you actually got them for your own Duo Jet.
That makes me really happy!Please tell me how you find it, whether you like the playability and sound. Also, how are you fixing the Bridge to the body? I used some double sided sticky tape to avoid it sliding around too much and for a while I stuck some black plastic pieces between the pickup and bridge to avoid my hand pushing it out of place. That was more so an issue when playing in hot & sweaty places like the Cavern so I’ve been fine without it for a while.
Also thanks again for the email with all the guitar specs! We got back to you there earlier today.