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Tiny Music...(1996) and Talk Show (1997)

About "Tiny Music... songs from the Vatican Gift Shop"(1996) and Talk Show's self-titled album (1997), Dean says: "...there isn't a single humbucking pickup on the entire record. I used all single coils and P-90's and mostly amps with 8- or 10-inch speakers."

Here's which amps he used on those records:

a little Sixties Supro 1606 Amp;

a couple of Magnatone Amps;

a 1950 Student Amp;

a 1959 280 Amp;

a Vox AC10's;

a lot of lap steel amps such as Thirties Nationals (made by Valco);

a 1964 Gretsch 6150 Amp; (Dean's favorite)

a 1965 Gretsch 6154 Amp;

These are all tiny old amps, and Dean says he also used a few big amps in the studio:

a '61 and a '64 Vox AC30

a '60 Selmer Tru-Voice

a rack consisting of a VHT stereo power amp, a Demeter preamp and two marshall 4x12's

The guitars Dean used on these records are:

a 1958 Kay Pro, a small hollowbody. (Dean has a 'burst and a blond. He used the 'burst on the Talk Show album).

a 1959 Premier hollowbody

a 1959 Gibson ES-195 hollowbody

a 1968 Fender Electric XII

a 1956 Fender Stratocaster

a 1967 Fender Telecaster

a 1967 Gibson SG Junior

a 1945 Martin 0-18 (Acoustic)

a 1950 Gibson J-50 (Acoustic)

a 1993 Guild JF6512 (12-string)

When Guitar World asks "I don't hear too many effects on the [Talk Show] record", Dean answers: "There really weren't On 'John' and 'Hello Hello' I used a Sixties Vox Wah. On 'Hide' I used a Rotovibe, and for the solo on that I used a Boss DS-1 distortion. On 'Behind' I used a Boss Chorus."

Dean and Robert basically say that they don't need that many effects pedals, because "there's a beauty in plugging a certain guitar into a certain amp. It can have enough power to dictate a song."
Dean says: "One of my favorite pairs for tracking that I used a lot on [Talk Show] and "Tiny Music..." is a '58 Les Paul TV Special that I played through a '66 Marshall 18-watt 2x10 combo. That amp loves P-90's. I used that combination on 'Big Bang Baby' and 'Everybody Loves My Car'. Even though you're hearing different tones coming in and out, most of it was just one track of guitar instead of layers. I didn't do too much overdubbing. There may be a certain tone happening in the verse, the we'd introduce another tone in the track by using another guitar. Things stay a little less cluttered that way."

Robert says he played his basses through guitar amps for "Tiny Music...". He did it again on the Talk Show record because "it worked so well". The amp setup he used is:

a '61 Fender Bassman with a 15" speaker, mixed with a block-logo Marshall '65 head.

a Marshall keyboard cabinet with eight 10" speakers.

Robert is more talkative about which instruments he used on particular songs, and he tells Guitar World: "I pretty much get what I want out of Schecter basses, but I also used this 'Orlando'. It's $200 Japanese bass from the Sixties that's kind of like a scroll-headstock Hofner. I used that on 'Behind', 'Big Empty' and 'MTV Unplugged'.
I also used this $100 bass called a 'Limgar'. The only other one I've seen belongs to (collector) Teisco Del Rey. It's a very kooky-looking Sixties hollowbody bass. We used that on 'Creep'.

When asked if they used any weird recording techniques for the Talk Show album, Dean replies: "The weird sounding piano that you hear at the end of 'Everybody Loves My Car' was recorded with a 1/4-inch mike that was run into a 1958 Fender Vibrolux amp. And the vocals on 'Hello Hello' were recorded through a little Bronson amp from 1946."

In another interview with Guitar Magazine in 1999, Robert tells us that he also used his $200 Orlando bass on 'Atlanta'. He used a mid '60s pelham blue P-bass on 'I Got You'. Dean played a (Gibson) ES-296 hollowbody on Tiny Music's 'And So I Know'. Again they say they don't need effects pedals because of the special guitar/amp combinations they use. However, Dean jokingly adds that he has one great effects pedal "that was made by a friend of mine in San Diego. It's called a 'Veridrive' and it almost gives me another amp at my foot. It's a box with a treble, mid and bass, volume and gain, and it has 12AX7 in it. The company is SIB, Shit I Built."

In a last note about guitar string gauges, Dean says that he uses .010's for the most guitar stuff, and lighter gauges for 12-string stuff. On ES-295's he uses .014's for a bigger sound.

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