What on earth is that sound?

December 3, 2005 1:10 PM

At the end of Abbey Road, John, Paul and George are trading guitar solos and the section ends with John playing a guitar part that sounds like a howling or blaring car horn. How did he get this sound? Is it feedback? Or is it maybe some kind of pedal effect?
posted by gfrobe to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

I'm thinking this is John's Epiphone casino, very loud, through a leslie speaker cabinet (because it seems the have a bit of the warbly leslie sound) and he's bending a cluster of notes like mad as he thrusts the pick at 'em..

just a guess of course..
posted by The_Auditor at 1:57 PM on December 3, 2005

For a pretty comprehensive list of anomalies in Beatles music, there's always What Goes On
posted by Robot Johnny at 3:13 PM on December 3, 2005

he's just hitting the hell out of the strings as he plays, mostly ... he also might have had a wah-wah pedal set up so it was filtering out most of the treble ... one of the neat things about wahwahs is you don't have to actually move the pedal to get interesting tones out of them
posted by pyramid termite at 3:45 PM on December 3, 2005

I don't think there's either a wah-wah or a leslie at use in any of those solos. I agree that it's probably his epiphone casino, played through the Beatles' amp of choice, a vox ac-30, which is clearly turned up extremely loud.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 10:29 PM on December 3, 2005

Are you talking abou the chord stabs right before the piano comes in? I don't hear enough Q-style filtration to make me think of a wah pedal. My guess is going to be Casino, bridge pickup with tone all the way up and volume wide open into a smaller Vox (maybe an AC-15? Could also be something smaller), with wicked tape- or mixing board compression.
posted by electric_counterpoint at 10:47 AM on December 4, 2005

Response by poster: Yes, the bit right before the piano comes in is what I'm asking about.

I don't really understand how simply having an amp turned up really loud would produce this sound. The guitar sounds to me like it's cutting out so I also thought something like a wah wah pedal but I'd be guessing.

Thanks for the suggestions.
posted by gfrobe at 1:18 PM on December 4, 2005