Inside the band’s East Nashville studio, we zoom in on the multi-instrumentalist’s string-driven things.
Mike Harris says he “Forrest Gump-ed” his way into the Grammy-winning Americana string band Old Crow Medicine Show when he was drafted to join in January 2021. But rather than picking his spot in the group from life’s box of chocolates, Harris’ initial connection was his friendship with drummer Jerry Pentecost. He quickly proved himself an important member of the Nashville-based outfit of “Wagon Wheel” fame, thanks to his flexible guitar, mandolin, banjo, resonator, and vocal abilities.
Harris invited PG to Old Crow Medicine Show’s East Nashville studio, where they recorded their latest album, Paint This Town, for some show-and-tell about his favorite traveling and recording instruments.
Brought to you by D’Addario XS Strings.
Tale-Telling Tele
Mike Harris’ main electric instrument in Old Crow Medicine Show is his well-loved 1968 Fender Telecaster with a maple-cap fretboard. The guitar has had a few changes over the past 54 years—the biggest is its Lollar neck pickup—but is mostly stock.
From Fessler’s Lane
Famed Fender luthier Greg Fessler, who’s made guitars for Robben Ford and many others, created this Custom Shop ’62 Tele in 2017. The speed dials and saddles are by notable vintage-style parts maker (and builder) Glendale Guitars of Arlington, Texas.
Gift Jag
This stripped 1964 Fender Jaguar was a gift from Chris Stapleton. The tuners and bridge have been upgraded, which is common for pro-player Jags.
Harris’ Martin
For a guitarist in Old Crow Medicine show, a classic Martin seems like a requirement. Harris’ 1960 D-28 features a Brazilian rosewood back and sides. The headstock has been repaired and a bridge plate saver installed.
Mondo Mando
This Collings MF Mandolin features an Adirondack spruce top and an Eastern flamed maple back and sides. It has a V-shaped neck and wide string spacing, for easy finger placement. Harris has a Fishman pickup installed.
Barking Banjo
Amplifying a banjo can be tricky, so Harris has a microphone installed behind the head of this Deering Sierra model.
A “Handy” Les Paul
This 2012 Gibson R7 Les Paul has a mahogany top, Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickups, and a Bigsby BP-15 palm-pedal tailpiece installed with a Vibramate V5 bridge plate. The R, by the way, stands for reissue, and the 7 designates 1957 as the year of origin for the guitar that inspired this goldtop.
Here’s Pearly!
The Rev. William F. Gibbons’ very own monster ’59, dubbed Pearly Gates, is the inspiration for this Gibson reissue. Of course, it also sports a pair of Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates Pickups. Only 350 of these came out of the Gibson Custom Shop in 2009.
Meteor Shower
This mid-1960s Harmony Meteor actually belongs to Harris’ great uncle, Howard. True to its birth-era, the guitar stays strung with flatwounds. It also possesses its original D’Armond-made gold-foil pickups, which were introduced with this model back in the day.
I’ll Have a PBR
This Gold Tone PBR Paul Beard Signature-Series Roundneck Resonator with a cutaway gets carried to the PA via a Fishman Nashville Series spider-style resonator pickup. Harris always plays the guitar through a Fishman Jerry Douglas Signature Aura Acoustic Imaging pedal.
Reso-Whammy
And now for something unusual: Harris has his PBR resonator tricked out with a Bigsby BP-12 palm pedal tailpiece.
Stompin’ Rompin’
Harris’ pedalboard starts with a XTS custom pedalboard interface and routes to a Fancy Boy Klon clone, an Origin Effects Cali76 Compact compressor, a Walrus Audio 385 overdrive, a Demonfx King of Drive, a Shnobel Tone-modded Ernie Ball VP Jr. with a built-in TC Electronic PolyTune, a EHX Micro POG, an MXR Phase 95, a Moog MF Delay, and a Strymon Flint Tremolo & Reverb. All are powered by a Truetone 1Spot CS 12 and wired with Mogami cable with SP500 plugs. The board also houses a Magnatone reverb/tremolo controller.
Other elements of Harris’ gear include D’Addario American Stage Cables, BlueChip thumb picks, ProPik fingerpicks, Fender medium triangle plectrums, Dunlop .88 mm Flow picks, and Clayton thin triangles. He uses Dunlop slides: a 224 Heavy Wall Brass for resonator and a Derek Trucks signature for electric.
Sonic Vista
In the studio, Harris uses a lot of amps. On tour, however, he carries two, including this Magnatone Panoramic Stereo 2x10 combo. These come with Jensens, but Harris replaced those with a pair of Eminence Legends.
No. 2 for the Road
His other touring amp is a Fender Chris Stapleton Signature ’62 Princeton with an Eminence George Alessandro GA-64 12" speaker.
Wall of Sound
Here’s a look at the studio amps he keeps on tap—mostly classic-style Fenders with a little assist from a Silvertone and that Magnatone.
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We’re giving away more gear! Enter Stompboxtober Day 24 for your chance to win today’s pedal from Maxon!
Maxon OD-9 Overdrive Pedal
The Maxon OD-9 Overdrive Effects Pedal may look like your old favorite but that's where the similarity ends. Improved circuitry with a new chip yields the ultra-smooth dynamic overdrive guitarists crave. Drive and Level controls tweak the intensity and volume while the Hi-Boost/Hi-Cut tone controls adjust brightness. Features true bypass switching, a die-cast zinc case, and 3-year warranty. From subtle cries to shattering screams, the Maxon OD-9 delivers a huge range of tones.
Features
Improved circuitry with a new chip yields ultra-smooth dynamic overdrive
Drive and Level controls tweak the intensity and volume
Hi Boost/Hi Cut tone controls adjust brightness
True bypass switching
Die-cast zinc case
AC/DC operation (order optional Maxon AC210N adapter)
Product Specs
Input: 1/4" mono jack
Output: 1/4" mono jack
Power: 9V DC, 6 mA, center pin minus (not included)
Dimensions: (WxDxH) 74 mm x 124 mm x 54 mm
Weight: 580g
Your 100 Guitarists hosts are too young to have experienced SRV live. We’ve spent decades with the records, live bootlegs, and videos, but we’ll never know quite how it felt to be in the room with SRV’s guitar sound.
Stevie Ray Vaughan was a force of nature. With his “Number One” Strat, he drove a veritable trove of amps—including vintage Fenders, a rotating Vibratone cab, and a Dumble—to create one of the most compelling tones of all, capable of buttery warmth, percussive pick articulation, and cathartic, screaming excess. As he drew upon an endless well of deeply informed blues guitar vocabulary, his creativity on the instrument seemingly knew no bounds.
Your 100 Guitarists hosts are too young to have experienced SRV live. We’ve spent decades with the records, live bootlegs, and videos, but we’ll never know quite how it felt to be in the room with SRV’s guitar sound. So, we’d like to spend some time imagining: How did it feel when it hit you? How did he command his band, Double Trouble? The audience?
SRV was mythical. His heavy-gauge strings tore up his fingers and made a generation of blues guitarists work a lot harder. And his wall of amps seems finely curated to push as much air in all directions as possible. How far did he take it? Was he fine-tuning his amps to extreme degrees? Or could he get his sound out of anything he plugged into?
This episode is sponsored by Divided by 13.
Learn more: https://dividedby13.com
By now, we’re all familiar with the many options out there for amp modeling. Mic modelers are another reliable asset to digital recording tech, and can rapidly grow your inventory with just a few clicks.
As guitarists, we’re very aware of amp-modeling and profiling technologies, such as the Line 6 Helix, Fractal Axe-Fx, Neural DSP Quad Cortex, and Kemper Profiler. While our bases are covered for these (with modelers available for every “holy grail” amp under the sun), we are still missing another vital area of the recording process—microphones—for the acoustic instruments and vocals we might want to capture.
What if we could record them using holy-grail-modeled microphones? This month, let’s evaluate microphone modeling to help you make better-sounding recordings. Tighten up, the Dojo is now open.
The Sincerest Form of Flattery
Microphone modeling is an intriguing advancement in recording technology, offering great flexibility and possibilities for musicians, producers, and engineers. Makers like Slate Digital, Antelope, and Antares make many offerings, from hardware to software.
Universal Audio’s Sphere DLX ($1299 Street), LX ($799), and their six new Standard Mic series have impeccably modeled classic mics, and when coupled with their classic mic pre and compressor plugins, you can enjoy the same highly coveted mic chains appreciated the world over.
How It Works
The technology behind microphone-modeling systems relies heavily on convolution and impulse response techniques. These techniques involve capturing the unique sonic fingerprint of a microphone by recording its response to a wide range of frequencies and sound pressure levels. The immediate benefit is that this means you can grow your mic locker exponentially and gain access to a wide range of legendary microphone tones and textures all from a single mic! Most modeling microphones are usually either small- or large-diaphragm, multi-pattern, condenser microphones that are capable of capturing a wide frequency range and dynamic response. By adding other modeling mics, you can record in stereo or surround, and/or record multiple instruments at a fraction of the cost of owning multiples of the modeled mics themselves.
A Wealth of Options
One significant advantage of mic-modeling systems is their ability to offer a vast array of microphone options within a single session instead of having the time-consuming duty of swapping them out to achieve different sounds. With a modeling system, you can switch between different mic models instantly and audition various mics to find the perfect tone for the recording.
“The same vintage microphone can sound different on different days depending on temperature, humidity, and the voltage from the wall.”
Another lovely bonus is that microphone-modeling systems also offer the ability to swap microphone characteristics after the recording has been made! Want to swap your AKG C12 for a Neumann U 47 long after the recording session is over? No problem! This is especially useful when the initial microphone choice may not have been ideal or when the production requires a different tonal character than originally intended.
Weighing the Pros and Cons
Some audio purists argue digital emulation can’t truly replicate the sound of a physical microphone, especially when it comes to vintage models that have unique characteristics developed over decades of use. The subtleties of these microphones and their aging components shape the way they interact with different preamps and compressors.
After making over a hundred records at Blackbird over the last eight years, I’ve grown quite familiar with a good portion of our 1,800-plus vintage mics, like Telefunken 251s, AKG C12s, Neumann U 47s and KM 84s, Shure SM7s and SM57s, RCA 44s and 77s, and Royer R-121s. These are the very same mic models that most modeling mics are trying to capture. But experience has taught me that not all microphones sound identical even if they are the same make and model (and year). Also, the same vintage microphone can sound different on different days depending on temperature, humidity, and the voltage from the wall (that’s why Blackbird has its own regulated power and all the studios strive for consistent temperature and humidity year-round).
For home studios and smaller production environments, microphone-modeling systems can be a game changer. You’ll get a wide range of high-end microphone sounds without the need for a large microphone collection, and the ability to change microphone models after the fact gives budding producers and engineers greater confidence and flexibility in their work.
In reality, most users find that the convenience, cost savings, and versatility offered by modeling systems far outweigh any potential shortcomings. Finally, keep in mind that even though the mic “profile” you choose (U 47, U 67, SM7, etc.) will be consistent day in and day out, the modeling mic itself is also still a mic and will require you to be mindful of these same issues I mentioned above in order for your mic “profile” to be as accurate as possible.
Until next time, namaste.
With simple controls, models from the award-winning HX family, and the option for battery power, this compact unit is designed to be perfect for Metal guitarists seeking versatile tone options.
Simple controls make it easy to use, while models derived from the award-winning HX family of processors ensure exceptional hard-driving sound quality and authentic feel.
This new unit gives players seven amps, seven cabs, and 17 distortion, modulation, reverb, and delay effects—including a looper—and it may be powered by three AA batteries (included) or an optional 9-volt power supply.
Guitarists can also download the free POD Express Edit app for their computers or mobile devices to quickly and easily access a world of deeper tone editing, preset management, and global settings.
“For a wide variety of Metal guitarists, the POD Express Black is a great all-in-one modeler that gives them a unique selection of high-gain tones, plus essential effects,” says Rick Gagliano, Line 6 Director of Product Management. “It’s compact, fun and easy to use, affordable, and—most importantly—it features tones derived from the Helix family of products.”
Additional features include stereo outputs, tap tempo, a tuner, a noise gate, a headphone output, and a USB-C audio interface with re-amping capabilities. Add an optional expression pedal for volume control, or up to two footswitches to select presets or turn effects on and off.
The POD Express family, which also includes the previously released POD Express Guitar and POD Express Bass, represents the latest evolution of a line that began in 1998 with the groundbreaking red "kidney-bean" POD—the portable processor that pioneered the amp modeling revolution.
POD Express Black is $179.99
For more information, please visit line6.com.