Elbow – Little Fictions (Fickle Flame Version)

The reliable one. That ability to link channels to mix a clean sound and an overdrive is a real bonus. All through recording I wanted to avoid using pedals where I could use the amps direct, and the sound from this features all over the new album [Little Fictions]. It just sounds better than a pedal sound, end of!

The AC30 combo is visible in this 2010 picture from Total Guitar magazine.

"I used it a fair bit on ‘Little Fictions’ (the track). The mayhem and craziness at the end of the song came from a wild sample that Craig found, along with me playing. I used this and a piece of hoover tubing, and the idea was to play randomly which is the most difficult thing you can do. I remember Les Dawson playing the piano badly, and later on you realise just how hard it is to actually do that! A friend said the end of the track sounds like galloping horses, and that’s something like what we were trying to get. A lot of sound creation went on in the album and the end of that track is the most obvious example of it. Everything is random on there."

"I bought this off Nathan Sudders of The Whip, who also played with Guy [Garvey] on Courting The Squall. It’s on every track on Little Fictions. It’s a really nice, short-scale bass – totally playable. This was the first time I’d used it: on previous albums, the bass you hear is a Fender Jazz. It worked brilliantly for ‘Magnificent (She Says)’, really delivering the sound we all wanted on the bottom end of that tune. It helps that it looks cool as well. I’d like to work it into more of the older stuff and see how it delivers live on those tracks."

"I heard about this via a couple of friends on Facebook who have bad backs, and recommended this as a way of being able to mix for long periods without ending up in massive pain – something I’ve got plenty of experience with! It’s a desk that you can lift up so you can stand and mix as well as lay flat for sit-down mixing. It enabled me to walk rather than crawl out of the studio on many occasions whilst making the album – but there is a downside that I hadn’t thought about. You’re supposed to take a decent amount of breaks when mixing, and sitting down meant I had to do that, but with this, I can mix for a lot longer on each stretch. Then again, the last mixing session on Little Fictions turned into a twenty-two hour overnight marathon, so it probably saved me from a fair amount of physical pain. It also means I can do a little dance when the mix is going well. That’s how I know we’re getting there, when the little dance starts coming in."