I'm sure an afficianado will tell us either before or after they're though chastising me.
BTW, no question that he did a great job on Disraeli Gears.
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Felix Pappalardi / Sunn help
- Thread starter eb3
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I'm sure an afficianado will tell us either before or after they're though chastising me.
BTW, no question that he did a great job on Disraeli Gears.
Felix was hand picked to produce "Cream" by Atco.
Felix was a very talented musician.
He played bass on "Badge". (Jack played piano)
He also played guitar, and keyboards. (with other bands before"Mountian")
I seen "Mountian"many times.
And got to know Felix a little.
He was always very kind to me.
He also got cough up in the Drug Culture of that time.
Back in the 70's I owned a Sunn 2000S head & ran it through 2 Sunn 2x15 cabs with JBL speakers , it would make your belly dance.......wish I still had it.
Well, it's good to know that he had his fans. I never met the guy so I'm just going by what Jay said. Maybe since Jay was also an authority figure, it was a battle of the authority figures, since Felix was Mountain's producer as well.
Felix was hand picked to produce "Cream" by Atco.
Felix was a very talented musician.
He played bass on "Badge". (Jack played piano)
He also played guitar, and keyboards. (with other bands before"Mountian")
I seen "Mountian"many times.
And got to know Felix a little.
He was always very kind to me.
He also got cough up in the Drug Culture of that time.
Felix was very nice for me and asked me to send him my bands tapes. I was with Leslie for about three hours and he too was a great guy and I felt no animosity between them. It was perhaps inappropriate to mention schisms when we are here to talk about the incredible Mountain Sunn backline. They are hearsay and like the guy Paul, "it's between Yall".
So on track. Felix's rig was loud. I used Sunns in those days and the only amp to give me Sunn like visual distortion now has been the IP153 and EX115 with a Kern Pre.
By visual distortion I mean on a clear day outside under the influence of nothing that much bass wave passing through you can cause a blurring of the event horizon. Sunns always did this. Pants flapping? Eyeball vibrating? Whole body!
So on track. Felix's rig was loud. I used Sunns in those days and the only amp to give me Sunn like visual distortion now has been the IP153 and EX115 with a Kern Pre.
By visual distortion I mean on a clear day outside under the influence of nothing that much bass wave passing through you can cause a blurring of the event horizon. Sunns always did this. Pants flapping? Eyeball vibrating? Whole body!
Absolutely. I've made referrence to the "vision blurring" with a 2000S rig in other posts, and I suspect that some think I was just embellishing the bottom end response of those massive cabs.
It's actually a little disorienting. Maybe that partially explains Sunn's popularity with the "drone" culture.
On stage the most obvious difference between this 32-year old bassist and his contemporaries is his instrument itself. Pappalardi went to the Gibson Company to encourage them to remake the old violin-shaped solidbody, because the one he had was stolen and he simply couldn't find another. The company finally did reproduce the violin bass, calling it an EB-1, and Felix has to be its biggest booster. "I just love it," he claims, "particularly the weight. I really like having a heavy instrument in my hands. It has more powerful pickups, too. And it only has two knobs. Man, I hate instruments with knobs all over. I want it all as simple as possible, nothing between me and my playing." About the only modifications on his bass are a lowered string action and the lack of hardware. "I take everything off that I can," he explains, "so I can have as much room to get around as possible." His strings are Dan Armstrongs, "they're super heavies," which he changes as seldom as possible. "Once they get broken in, I leave them as long as I can. I've only broken three, and each time it was the 6th string."
The amp system Felix uses is the Sunn equipment that he claims was first designed for Jimi Hendrix. "It was souped up some more by our Tom Lyle," he adds, "but I really don't know what he did. Something to do with the top, I think. I'm really not into all that electronic thing. As long as I have the bark, the attack, that I like, everything's fine."
When Pappalardi was born, the middle two fingers of his left hand were fused together, demanding an operation to separate them. Though his third finger still isn't as flexible as normal, Felix doesn't even notice it. "It's been like that all my life, so it's like that's the way fingers are supposed to be. What it does is give me tremendous power in those middle fingers so I can bend strings easily." As his right thumb anchors his picking hand, his left thumb serves the same purpose for the left hand, staying in the accepted position behind the neck and never coming over to fret the strings.
The amp system Felix uses is the Sunn equipment that he claims was first designed for Jimi Hendrix. "It was souped up some more by our Tom Lyle," he adds, "but I really don't know what he did. Something to do with the top, I think. I'm really not into all that electronic thing. As long as I have the bark, the attack, that I like, everything's fine."
When Pappalardi was born, the middle two fingers of his left hand were fused together, demanding an operation to separate them. Though his third finger still isn't as flexible as normal, Felix doesn't even notice it. "It's been like that all my life, so it's like that's the way fingers are supposed to be. What it does is give me tremendous power in those middle fingers so I can bend strings easily." As his right thumb anchors his picking hand, his left thumb serves the same purpose for the left hand, staying in the accepted position behind the neck and never coming over to fret the strings.
Felix used two, sometimes three Sunn 200S amps that were modified with sort of a top boost circuit and pilot lamps stuck in the middle of the amplifier face plate. The bottoms were usually four Sunn 200S double 15 cabs with JBL D140's though I have seen photos of him using six of them with an extra head. The basses were either a Gibson EB-O or EB-1 reissue. For those who love the sound Pappalardi got you can get very close to it with a Sunn model T amp, especially the early version with out the midrange boost switch. I have also come very close with Sound City 120 guitar amps though you better be ready to pop for a lot of power tubes. The real secret to his sound was that big old Humbucker Pickup on the Gibson basses. They suck in general but for Pappie's cranked up tone it was essential. You have to have the JBL 15's as well. It all works together.
BTW, I went to GC the other day and they were playing the Cream Reunion DVD, and Jack was playing an EB-1 and sounded fantastic. That's even more murderous sounding than the Hofner violin basses! Gotta get me one of them one day...sigh...
Heres a great piece on some cream stuff from that time period;
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I read somewhere that was Pappalardi's bass Jack used at the reunion concerts. I was a huge Mountain/Pappalardi fan back in the day. Pappalardi knew great bass playing, he also produced the 8th Street Nites album by Back Door with the great Colin Hodgkinson on bass.
Usually Sunn 4xKT88/6550 2000S heads with 200S cabinets, but there are some photos of him with 2000S cabs as well.
The real question is;
How did he balance those stacks?
Having lifted many Sunn 200S and 2000S cabs, I certainly wouldn't want to stand on a sometimes rickety stage in front of a 15" deep 100lb+ cabinet balanced on a 9" deep head that was itself balanced on another 15" deep cab.
Particularly when they were pumping as much air as Pappalardi's did!
When I filled out my profile upon joining this forum I forgot that I had a coliseum set up. The two I remember seeing were the coliseum and concert models if I remember that far back, senior moment here! Thats what I remember seeing him use (again along time ago). I used it with a 4 x12 and a 1 x18(?)
That's a great read, it's basically an interview with the genius Atlantic Records engineer Tom Dowd. If anybody here isn't particularly familiar with Tom Dowd, get the DVD about his life, it's mind-blowing how important he was in the development of jazz, pop and rock recording.
Felix Pappalardi isn't mentioned in the Mix magazine article. I'm curious if he was the executive producer; wondering what he brought to the Disraeli Gears sessions.
A correction to my earlier post, Felix used Sunn 100S amp heads exclusively not the 200S and definately not the 2000S heads or bottoms that some others have claimed. This Sunn 100S rig was at one time the rig that Noel Redding used with Hendrix, given to Mountain when Jimi went to Marshall's. Just FYI
I refer to my earlier post. I stood in front of his rig for two days. I stood next to his rig for two whole shows. The safest place! Georgetown University and George Washington University. Three Sunn 200s bottoms, three heads the small ones 200s size. The center head was a Sunn PA head and said Master on the back. The other two said slave. Felix would only adjust the center head. The cabs were arranged in a bay window shape convex if you were in front. The center cab being closest to you and the left and right angled to the sides and back. The heads were on each cab. The second set of cabs were sitting on the heads with the wheels dangling in front and behind the cabs. Leslie West's rig was identical except it was a 100s setup with PA head.
There was a time when the Experience used the 100 and 200 series Sunns. When that ended and Jimi went to Marshalls Noel used the 2000s series.
I didn't read this anywhere I stood on these stages with the gear. I just have to say while Felix got his sound out of Sunns other players using Fender basses through Sunns where getting a clear fat tubey hifi sound with big lows and great mids and highs out of them. No mud!
As a gear head it was quite exciting when walking into the concert site at Woodstock in 1969 to look across the road to a paddock filled with big trucks. On the sides of each truck was emblazoned......Ampeg or Sunn. Factory trucks!
