.

One of my favourite guitarists. Certainly one of the more unusual. All the performances from Ashes of American Flags feature standout work from Cline.

Great player and I love his tone. Not a lot of people seem to know Wilco in SA. Great band IMO. Would love to see them live. Of course then I might be obliged to steal one of Nels' '59 Jazzmasters. I really don't want to hurt him, but for a '59 Jazzmaster I'd sell my own family into slavery so his possible concussion and internal injuries are a small price to pay. ?

I had impossible Germany stuck in my head for over a week, not too long ago. ? Thanks for reminding me... ?

Here's a great interview with him: http://www.premierguitar.com/magazine/Issue/2010/May/Interview_Nels_Cline.aspx

Its such nice tone...... I wont lie, I am gonna get one of his jazzmasters, then buy an amp like his, and then i still will suck when compared to him

I shouldn't agree with you, but...probably. ?

Mr T wrote: I shouldn't agree with you, but...probably. ?

Hahaha... ? so much for sugar coating...

Ps: I only discovered wilco like a month or two ago, the guys arrangements an tone is really something to enjoy and learn from... Wow I sound old

Cline gets an interesting effect - almost like riding the volume control to "fade in" a note, but a little quicker rise of the attack and also, as you can see by watching the DVD that Stratisfear refers to, he's not manipulating the volume knob. Also he seems to get it on every note of an arpeggio - which is quite interesting. It gives him almost a steel guitar effect. I can only think it's some kind of pedal, but what? See above, it seems to identify each note of an arpeggio and modify the attack in the same way for each one.

Must have a look at Wilco, I see he has a new solo album as well.

Quite interesting how Cline (in that clip) talks about how important sound is to him. This is something I thought I picked up on in the Ashes Of American Flags DVD. Not sound as in "hi fidelity" but the importance of sounds and sounds working together. I think. I need to mull this over a bit more. I may have not properly understood what the band is about. There's some of this in Verlaine's work I think (and Cline refers to Verlaine) in that sound is clearly important to him even though he aims for a retro overall sound - sometimes at the expense of being a little low-fi. Verlaine's last two albums (released as a pair, one all instrumental, the other mostly songs) had some very unusual and extremely effective sounds on them.

Not that I'm saying that Cline is a Verlaine clone or wannabe. He isn't.

X-rated Bob wrote: Cline gets an interesting effect - almost like riding the volume control to "fade in" a note, but a little quicker rise of the attack and also, as you can see by watching the DVD that Stratisfear refers to, he's not manipulating the volume knob. Also he seems to get it on every note of an arpeggio - which is quite interesting. It gives him almost a steel guitar effect. I can only think it's some kind of pedal, but what? See above, it seems to identify each note of an arpeggio and modify the attack in the same way for each one.

From the first clip, he does do a bit of the sneaky Fender-player's pinkie swells, but a compressor can be set up to swell and "violin" each note (slower attack and a volume boost).

Ja. He does do the finger swells in that clip, but I paid attention to him when he was in shot on the DVD and a lot of time you hear the swells but they're not being done with the pinky on the volume knob.

Hmmm.... many years ago a guy I played with had an effect (I think Boss) called a "slow gear" which did the swell effect for you - though from memory that didn't handle arpeggios very well.

X-rated Bob wrote: Hmmm.... many years ago a guy I played with had an effect (I think Boss) called a "slow gear" which did the swell effect for you - though from memory that didn't handle arpeggios very well.

The SG-1 was pretty crude with only a sensitivity control and an attack. The attack regulated the speed of the swell, but couldn't be set low enough to do faster stuff. Roland still include it as an effect in all the GT-series multieffects where it is nice for chord pads ('specially with some octave up and down shifting added and some delay - yum!).

Still, a good and properly wielded compressor is the best thing when you want to fiddle with your attack or decay in any way.

X-rated Bob wrote: Ja. He does do the finger swells in that clip, but I paid attention to him when he was in shot on the DVD and a lot of time you hear the swells but they're not being done with the pinky on the volume knob

Well some of these guys get real sneaky.

I'm sitting at home watching the bonus tracks on "Ashes Of American Flag" and I hear some licks that have to be from Cline and I think "Wow! He's REALLY got that steel guitar effect going there."

Then the camera pans over to Cline's side of the stage, and he's sitting there playing lap steel.