Aztec Camera & Aztec Camera – Stray

Aztec Camera's Slow Build from Musician, November 1990 by Scott Isler

In recording Stray he used it with a Power Soak; "I couldn't hear the track if I was doing an overdub." Onstage he uses a reissue Vox AC30 and, "for the heavier stuff," a MESA/Boogie combo. He thinks he's probably using Ernie Ball strings on this year's tour; Frame isn't a string fetishist, though he breaks more than his share.

"The guitar roadie tells me I've been using .010s. They don't bend as well as the light ones but they're harder to break."

Aztec Camera's Slow Build from Musician, November 1990 by Scott Isler

In recording Stray he used it with a Power Soak; "I couldn't hear the track if I was doing an overdub."

Roddy Frame tries to have it both ways: Most of the time he uses a 1959 cream- colored Stratocaster. Since his favorite guitar shape is a Telecaster, though, he also has a modified Schecter Tele with three Seymour Duncan Strat pickups for an out-of-phase sound "but it's not quite the same."

On Stray's title cut he played an Ovation stereo six-string, on the ballad "Over My Head" his red Gibson 355 - the very same one, trivia fans, Rick Derringer apparently used on the McCoys' "Hang on Sloopy." For amplification Frame boasts that he has "the loudest Marshall 100-watt head that has ever been invented."

In recording Stray he used it with a Power Soak; "I couldn't hear the track if I was doing an overdub." Onstage he uses a reissue Vox AC30 and, "for the heavier stuff," a MESA/Boogie combo. He thinks he's probably using Ernie Ball strings on this year's tour; Frame isn't a string fetishist, though he breaks more than his share.

"The guitar roadie tells me I've been using .010s. They don't bend as well as the light ones but they're harder to break."

He's not too big on effects either, confining himself to Boss distortion, Super-Feedback and compression.

For his acoustic- guitar sets Frame uses a small Takamine; "it still feels like I'm carrying a bathtub around with me", but he loves the sound. For recording, his acoustic is a Masano, a Japanese martin copy. At home he has a Yamaha DX7 and Akai S-900; on this tour he has access to a D-550 module and Korg piano, all of which he plays badly. He's also been singing ideas into a Sony microcassette recorder.

Home recording equipment includes a Tascam 388 eight-track and a pair of Yamaha NS-10 speakers. The latter haven't been the same since Frame's nephews poked them in. "I actually pulled them out with a vacuum cleaner attachment. But they're a little rough."