Mike Oldfield and David Bedford - First Excursion (cover)

First Excursion was co-written by Mike Oldfield and David Bedford and recorded at Througham in August 1976. It was included on the 4LP "Boxed" release in October of that year and also as the B-side on certain William Tell Overture pressings.

During an interview with Tom Mulhern for Guitar Player magazine in 1978, Mike Oldfield said of First Excursion: "If you get the level right, you can get your notes to sustain forever. And depending on what angle I hold the guitar at in relation to the speakers, I get feedback harmonics..."

By popular request here is some information about the guitar sound...

The guitar is a 1974 Gibson L6-S Deluxe with the original tarback humbuckers. The recorded signal is all digital, an AB Box splits the signal between the DAW and the amp.

Signal A: the recorded signal was direct injected into Blue Cat's Destructor in the DAW. The preset is: Guitar - Hi Gain / Into the Fire 4x12 and I cannot recommend this modeling sim highly enough for the price. It then goes through a digital amp/cab modeler (Convolution) with the Fender Bassman preset but there are other interesting presets which may work better for your guitar. Next a narrow band EQ boosting mids at around 500hz and 2K. Another broader EQ boosting low mids and up to 2k. These EQs are critical, it's surprising how much difference they make and I found it worthwhile spending some time tweaking these.

Apart from Blue Cat's amp sim all of this is done using the effects bundled with Reaper. You can try Blue Cat's Destructor for free with some demo limitations and you can try Reaper fully functional for free for 60 days and that is also very reasonably priced. A great place to start if you've never ventured down the DAW rabbit hole and very nicely supported with free updates from the developer and excellent tutorials from Kenny Gioia.

Signal B: goes to the practise amp which was not recorded and only used to get things excited enough to generate harmonic feedback. This can be done without entertaining the entire neighborhood by sending signal B to an amp powering a small exciter module stuck to the guitar body with some double sided tape.

There would be other and better ways of doing this but I just shut up 'n play my guitar at this point. The tone worked best for First Excursion on the bridge pickup.

Видео Mike Oldfield and David Bedford - First Excursion (cover) канала Glorfindel Box