Parthenon Huxley’s Six-String Orchestra is part of the appealing Sony’s Sound Series Loops & Samples Premium collection. The six strings refer to electric guitars. Guitarist Parthenon Huxley recorded a remarkable collection of 15 rock and pop song sessions played on significant vintage electric guitars.
Parthenon Huxley is a well-known electric guitarist and producer who worked for many years in the Chapel Hill and Los Angeles music scenes. For the sessions, Huxley worked with three other musicians wh also have their own collections of loops: drummer Siggi Baldursson, bassist Tony Franklin and keyboardist Matt Fink. "We used a Matchless Chieftain, which is a 2X12. and what we love about the Matchless is the transparency of it and the clean signal. It doesn’t color what you get bock, " explains Huxley in the liner notes. "When you plug a Les Paul In, it sounds like a Les Paul. When we did the Telecaster, it sounded like a Telecaster. We had a Shure SM57 shoved up against the grill, off-center of one speaker but on axis.
We also had a RØDE NTK cardioid tube microphone about 24 inches from the center of the other speaker. The RØDE mic was run through a Focusrite pre-amp and compressor, while the SM57 went through a Summit Audio TPA-200A tube pre-amp, and a Summit Audio DCL200 tube compressor. The outputs of the compressors went directly into the ProTools interface, but the sessions were recorded in Digital Performer.
I used a late ’70s Telecaster, a Gretsch Anniversary semi-hollow body, a ’70s Strat, a ’78 GIbson Les Paul, and my "new but looks old" Gibson SG. (Laughs) I wanted to use all the classic guitars. We also used a Mesa Boogie V-Twin distortion pedal with a tube pre. The Les Paul through that thing had the creamiest, most wonderful tone. I kept going back to that. We did all the other guitars as well, but the Les Paul through the Mesa Boogie through the Matchless was pretty awesome. I did parallel lines with a lot of Tony’s bass riffs, which will be a fun thing for people to discover."
Six-String Orchestra includes two discs with 831 original royalty-free loops and liner notes that feature an interview with Huxley about the recording.
Get the collection from sonycreativesoftware.com.
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.
