Pulled out Dire Straights "On Every Street" the other day and can't stop listening to it. Does anybody know what amps he uses and what effects to get his signature sound?

i know he uses Texas Special Single-Coil in his signature strat. I dont know if this helps you though sorry

He uses any guitar into any amp. And he has a load of em from every price point from every manufacturer.
To make matters worse he runs em through a million effects and layers guitar parts too. With other guitars and amps from other manufacturers than used on the first guitar track.

In other words forget it. Get a strat into a JC120 and forget the rest.

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No no and no

The sound Mark is most identified with is on a Stratocaster using the bridge and middle pickups. A Fender tube amp without any effects on a cleaner setting will get you in the ball park for lots of his stuff.

That is not to say that he doesn't use a ton of diffent gear. Here is a partial list at this site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Knopfler

I think he uses a Les Paul Standard on Money for Nothing, but that is a long way off from his more signature sound.

Legend has it that Mark used a brownface '62 Vibrolux with a Fane 12-inch speaker for the Sultans Of Swing album.

HTH

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Yeah, the "Sultan's" sound is just how a Strat sounds and nothing more. Sure, the engineer in the studio at that time probably put a simple SM57 on it and I can't imagine it being much more complicated than that. It almost sounds finger picked. That is the sound that most people buy a Strat for and delivers it in spades if you don't clutter it up with anything.

Yes, I've seen him play that with a Les Paul and also with his flamed maple Pensa Suhr. He was using an SLO100 quite a lot during that period and convinced Clapton to get one. Not exactly a cheap setup!!

http://www.mark-knopfler.info/guitarspensasuhr.htm
He was using a lot of Pensa Suhr's at that time but I would of thought you could get pretty close with a Strat.

Mark's signature tone is synonymous with the snappy Strat quack he gets in positions 2 & 4.

The quacky Stratocaster sound became a Fender trademark with the introduction of the 5-way switch in 1977.

It really isn't, though. Bridge+middle through a clean amp is the beginning. Knopfler also very famously used a Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer compressor on Sultans and other early material. And there's plenty of reverb on that track too, as well as delay set around the "is it there or isn't it?" level.

And reputedly miles of studio processing as well. Though that is the part of the recipe we never get to hear about in precise detail.

Those of us who were around at the time remember the first Dire Straits album as a landmark in the processed studio sound. It became so ubiquitous afterwards that it is hard to recapture the sensation now, but the very intense amount of studio geekery on those tracks was something new to most of our ears at that moment and it made a huge impact. I don't expect they actually did any techniques for the very first time on that album processing-wise, but as a complete package on a commercial record it was very new.

In other words, that is absolutely not just a pure "guitar and amp" thing we're hearing on those numbers.

As regards Knopfler's gear: I've seen him numerous times over the decades, from tiny clubs to stadiums. To date I have never seen him use the same rig twice. That guy changes his set-up the way the rest of us change our socks. I've seen him play one number on a vintage Les Paul (apparently he's a big collector of massively expensive guitars) and then do the next one on a $300 Danelectro. And he always sounds like Knopfler whatever he's using.

My theory is that he's on a mission to tell us: "The sound comes from me, not from the brand name on the gear".

Cheers - C

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BALONEY!

Guitarists have been using the "in-between" pickup positions on a Strat switch almost from the moment of the instrument's introduction in 1954. I've personally been a "quacker" since '67.

Mebbe you ought to find some some better books to plagiarize.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

You nailed it! He doesn't use a pick:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clawhammer

+1
I remember my uncle showing me that when I was a youngster,he said "look here,you can get this switch to stay in between if you put it just right and it sounds like THIS".
I've read where people have used matchsticks and the likes but I never did,you could get the switch to hang in the right spot.

Dead right - Ceri nails it here.

The "Analogue Man" company made their own virtually identical version of the Armstrong Orange Squeezer compressor (bit more headroom than the Armstrong and it's a more conventional footpedal casing - not the square box that used to plug into the guitar), and that's what dedicated Knopfler fans go for to recreate his sound. Hard to find though.

As for the rest - any good Fender clean amp, Strat switch position 2, and the use of p.i.m. (Pulgar Index & Medular or thumb index & middle) finger style will get you so close to that early signature (Sultans) tone.

I use a Blues Junior and a humble Boss CS3 compressor (if you're using modern gear), and the finger style technique (ex classical player), and my version of Sultans always gets me comments afterwards..

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

Pretty sure he was in his Pensa Suhr and Soldano phase for the On Every Street song/album and tour?

Hi Adey: yes, those Dan Armstrong boxes are a bit unwieldy, to say the least. However, for those as just must have the real thing his son, Kent Armstrong, has reissued them and they are available from WDMusic in the US and UK:

http://www.wdmusic.com/dan_armstrong_effects.html

http://www.wdmusic.co.uk/manufacturer/A ... cts,b.html

Strangely, I'm not seeing the Orange Squeezer on the US version of the site. But I'm sure they have it available - it's their most famous effect, after all!


Gosh, I'd love to hear that, if you felt like sharing! (Speaking as someone who's cranked out his own version of Sultans on many an occasion too. )

Miami Mike gave many of us the heads-up on Monte Montgomery's amazing playing recently. So happens Monte does an acoustic version of Sultans as well - though actually it's amongst my less favorite of his things. Much better stuff to be had from that gentleman. Worth a quick YouTube though maybe...

Cheers - C

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