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Acoustic backing tracks



   Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 13:28:02 +0000
   From: msecero@attmail.com (Martin J Secero)
   Subject: Re: TKAA performances

   As far as the acoustic guitar on WGFA's backing tracks, that dates back to the
   original PT WGFA demo, which most recently can be found on the "Lifehouse
   Demos" CD put out 4 years ago by Howdy Records, a bogus bootleg CD label. I
   don't know about the rest of you, but I've ALWAYS heard that acoustic track on
   WGFA. There once was an acoustic, LISTEN!! :) :)

Yeah, on the Who's Next version, the acoustic is most evident right at the
beginning of the long organ solo near the end, where all the instruments save
the acoustic have faded out.

Many Who songs from Tommy onward have both an acoustic and electric track.  In
most of these, the acoustic is pretty subliminal.  Mainly, you can hear the
percussive strumming sound, but if you concentrate, you can hear more.  (It
was *years* of listening to Quad before I noticed this -- that's what I love
about that album: after 12 years, I can still hear new things in it.)

The acoustic adds a sort of fullness to the mix.  Compare, for example, the
verse section of Punk Meets the Godfather (electric, acoustic, bass, and
drums) to the verse section of The Real Me (electric, bass, and drums only).
PMtG just sounds thicker.  (It's even more evident on the soundtrack album,
where there's less reverb to muddy things up.)

By the way, I never noticed these kinds of details until after I got Pete's
Scoop album.  For me, that album opened up a whole new way of listening to
rock music -- I had never understood the creative role of the recording
process.  Scoop is a real gift that way, in my opinion.  Anybody else have the
same experience?

Ken Traub