Re: Who's That Flanger

[Travis Hartnett <travishartnett@gmail.com>]

The rest of his answer to that question continues:

See, there's a knob that can't be put on high-tech synthesizers or
equipment.  It's a knob called 'feeling'.  If that knob could be put
on any instrument, then you could say 'Well, give me the same feeling
that we had on so and so,' and it would come out just like ketchup or
mustard.  But it's not quite like that.  Obviously 'That Lady' has
never been played the same way again since it was recorded.   There
are 400,000 different ways of going at it, with 400,000 different
tones.  You never play anything the same way again exactly, because
you're always going to feel it a different way.

and later he says:

There were two versions of 'That Lady': the first version was kind of
like I was plugged into an amp, and I had one foot on earth and the
other foot on Mount Olympus.  It was just basically guitar, and then
the session stopped.  The song just blossomed into something we didn't
know it would be.  I mean, I turned into the Hulk for about a
half-hour: "My God, the feeling! Release it like that, as an
instrumental.  Just put 'Isley Brothers' on the bottom."  It was that
dynamic, that striking.  My brother Kelly looked out the glass window
at me for about 15 minutes without blinking.  He was catatonic.  See,
'That Lady' was originally a bossa-nova style song.  If it had left up
to me, I would have said, "Let's not do it," because I didn't see how
it could change into what it changed into.

Unfortunately, they erased that take, and I was so royally pissed.  I
understood the reason for erasing it--you got to make room for the
vocal.  On the other hand, it was like, "Hey man, let's try to find a
way!" But we were under a 'you gotta finish the record' deadline. 
Then I took another run at it, and after I finished it, I said, "Okay,
now erase that, because that's a piece of crap."  The insisted that I
come in and listen to it the next day.  I came in, and it was like.
"My God!  I'm glad you didn't erase that," because that was went on
the record.


On 4/12/05, samba - <sambacomet@hotmail.com> wrote:
>   Odd that what Ernie says and the engineers say seem to contradict each
> other. Maybe the engineers are trying to take too much credit,maybe Ernie
> doesn't know exaclty what they did ,and that's how he gets that sound
> now.Who knows.