Sir Needs To Mixalot

The dolceola is a small zither with a keyboard bolted on, made by the Toledo Symphony Company between about 1903 and 1908. Fewer than fifty are thought to survive. It’s a strange, lovely thing that sounds like a piano and an autoharp having a disagreement.

For a long time it was famous for one reason. It was supposedly the instrument on Washington Phillips’ gospel sides for Columbia, cut between 1927 and 1929. Those records are gorgeous, and nearly every reissue repeated the dolceola credit.

Then in 2002 Michael Corcoran, writing for the Austin American-Statesman, started pulling at the thread, and instrument collector Gregg Miner kept going. Their conclusion: Phillips played fretless zithers he built himself, not a factory dolceola. If you want to hear the real thing on record, Paul Howard plays one on Lead Belly’s 1944 Capitol sessions, and Ry Cooder used one in the ’70s.

We like this story because it’s a good reminder. Gear credits get copied from liner note to liner note and article to article. Where we can, we link the source so you can check our work too.

Watch and read

• Gregg Miner: Michael Corcoran on Washington Phillips
• Gregg Miner: The Washington Phillips study
• Wikipedia: Dolceola

Spectra Sonics was founded in Ogden, Utah in 1964 by William G. Dilley. It’s not where you’d guess a Memphis soul sound came from, but Spectra’s 101 preamps get described as exactly that: the sound of Stax Records. Spectra consoles also ended up at Ardent in Memphis, the Record Plant in New York, and much later at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound in Nashville.

The 610 Complimiter came out in 1969. It pairs a compressor/limiter module with 101-style make-up gain, and it’s fast. The published attack time runs from 100 nanoseconds to 2 microseconds, which is quicker than almost anything else you’re likely to plug in.

That kind of speed can be ugly in the wrong place and great in the right one. Dave Cobb has been loud about liking them. Vintage King quotes him: “I used the hell out of them on the new Jason Isbell record.” Vance Powell and Tchad Blake are fans too.

Where it works

Drum rooms, mostly. Something that grabs that quickly turns a room mic into a wall. It’s also good on bass when you want every note to sit exactly where it is.

Watch and read

• WhisperRoom / Recording Studio Rockstars: The Spectra Sonics story
• Vintage King: Spectra Sonics 610 Complimiter
• Vintage King: A short history of Spectra Sonics
• Tape Op: V610 Complimiter review

Gibson introduced the J-45 in 1942, and the nickname “The Workhorse” stuck. It’s a round-shouldered dreadnought without the huge low end of a square-shouldered Martin. What it has instead is a dry, punchy midrange that sits in front of a band without much help.

A short and very incomplete list of people who’ve played one. Woody Guthrie. Buddy Holly, whose early J-45 is in the MoPOP collection in Seattle. Bob Dylan, all over the early albums and back on a sunburst J-45 since the mid ’90s. John Lennon learned fingerpicking from Donovan in Rishikesh in 1968, on Donovan’s J-45. Elliott Smith. Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Jeff Tweedy, Phoebe Bridgers.

Recording one

Because the guitar is already mid-forward, scooping the mids to make it sound expensive usually makes it worse. Start with a small-diaphragm condenser pointed around the 12th fret, eight to twelve inches out, and add a second mic a few feet back if your room is any good. If it sounds thin, move the mic before you touch the EQ.

Watch and read

• Premier Guitar: A history of the Gibson J-45
• MoPOP: Buddy Holly’s Gibson J-45
• Wikipedia: Gibson J-45

Highland Dynamics is Bryce Gonzales in Los Angeles. Before this he built the Lisson Grove AR-1. The BG2 is a mono, all-tube variable-mu compressor, transformer-balanced and wired point to point.

It has two feedback modes. “British” is the cleaner one and “American” adds more harmonics. There’s also a line-amp mode for when you just want to run something through the tubes and transformers without compressing it.

Sound On Sound’s review called it astoundingly good on vocals. John Vanderslice, who runs Tiny Telephone in the Bay Area, told Vintage King they keep a BG1 and a BG2 in both rooms. That’s a decent endorsement from a place that has tracked a lot of indie records.

On a vocal

Set it so the loudest lines get three or four dB of reduction and then leave it alone. Variable-mu compression gets gentler as the signal drops, so the quiet lines barely get touched. Try both modes on the same take before you decide.

Watch and read

• Sound On Sound: Highland Dynamics BG2 review
• Tape Op: BG2 review
• Vintage King: Highland Dynamics BG2

The RCA 44 is the mic you picture when you picture 1940s radio. It’s a figure-8 ribbon, and when Bing Crosby leaned in close, the proximity effect gave him the warm, intimate low end that became crooning. Frank Sinatra sang into them early on. Les Paul used a 44-BX when he recorded “How High the Moon” in 1951.

RCA stopped making them a long time ago. AEA, in Pasadena, started servicing RCA ribbons in 1976, and by 1998 it could make every part of a 44 itself. That became the R44C, a replica of the 1936–38 44-BX. Les Paul told AEA’s Wes Dooley it was his favorite mic, and Eddie Van Halen bought a pair to record drums in stereo.

Singing into one

Distance is the tone control. Close in, you get the low-end bloom. Step back a foot and it thins out and the room comes in. Because it’s a figure-8, the back hears just as well as the front, so think about what’s behind it. Give it a preamp with a lot of clean gain.

Watch and read

• AEA: Our story
• AEA: The last 20 years of the R44
• Vintage King: The RCA 44