The Stone Roses – Second Coming

Used for the snare on Second Coming, as mentioned by producer Simon Dawson in the January 14, 1995 Melody Maker interview "Diary of an LP: the Stone Roses' Second Coming, Part One" by Tom Doyle.

"Oh yeah, the same old skins and everything. I don't think he changed a skin in the whole time — they've probably been on there for years. Sometimes we'd use an acoustic tunnel if there was too much ambience, but not very often because we quite liked the live-sounding bass drum. The snare was miked up by a straight Shure SM57, the toms were all Sennheiser 421s, the overheads — which are probably the best overhead mikes I've heard in my life — were Neumann 56s, which are valve pencil mikes. In fact, you get a great kit sound just from the overheads, so we tended to build up the sound of the kit around those. We'd also use a pair of straightforward Neumann U87s and maybe an SM2 valve, either Telefunken or Neumann — it's a stereo mike and we used that sometimes in the corridor that runs along the side of the live room. We'd open the door and record the sound of the corridor as well."

Used for the overheads on Second Coming, as mentioned by producer Simon Dawson in the January 14, 1995 Melody Maker interview "Diary of an LP: the Stone Roses' Second Coming, Part One" by Tom Doyle.

"Oh yeah, the same old skins and everything. I don't think he changed a skin in the whole time — they've probably been on there for years. Sometimes we'd use an acoustic tunnel if there was too much ambience, but not very often because we quite liked the live-sounding bass drum. The snare was miked up by a straight Shure SM57, the toms were all Sennheiser 421s, the overheads — which are probably the best overhead mikes I've heard in my life — were Neumann 56s, which are valve pencil mikes. In fact, you get a great kit sound just from the overheads, so we tended to build up the sound of the kit around those. We'd also use a pair of straightforward Neumann U87s and maybe an SM2 valve, either Telefunken or Neumann — it's a stereo mike and we used that sometimes in the corridor that runs along the side of the live room. We'd open the door and record the sound of the corridor as well."

Used for the toms on Second Coming, as mentioned by producer Simon Dawson in the January 14, 1995 Melody Maker interview "Diary of an LP: the Stone Roses' Second Coming, Part One" by Tom Doyle.

"Oh yeah, the same old skins and everything. I don't think he changed a skin in the whole time — they've probably been on there for years. Sometimes we'd use an acoustic tunnel if there was too much ambience, but not very often because we quite liked the live-sounding bass drum. The snare was miked up by a straight Shure SM57, the toms were all Sennheiser 421s, the overheads — which are probably the best overhead mikes I've heard in my life — were Neumann 56s, which are valve pencil mikes. In fact, you get a great kit sound just from the overheads, so we tended to build up the sound of the kit around those. We'd also use a pair of straightforward Neumann U87s and maybe an SM2 valve, either Telefunken or Neumann — it's a stereo mike and we used that sometimes in the corridor that runs along the side of the live room. We'd open the door and record the sound of the corridor as well."

Used as a room mic for Second Coming, as mentioned by producer Simon Dawson in the January 14, 1995 Melody Maker interview "Diary of an LP: the Stone Roses' Second Coming, Part One" by Tom Doyle.

"Oh yeah, the same old skins and everything. I don't think he changed a skin in the whole time — they've probably been on there for years. Sometimes we'd use an acoustic tunnel if there was too much ambience, but not very often because we quite liked the live-sounding bass drum. The snare was miked up by a straight Shure SM57, the toms were all Sennheiser 421s, the overheads — which are probably the best overhead mikes I've heard in my life — were Neumann 56s, which are valve pencil mikes. In fact, you get a great kit sound just from the overheads, so we tended to build up the sound of the kit around those. We'd also use a pair of straightforward Neumann U87s and maybe an SM2 valve, either Telefunken or Neumann — it's a stereo mike and we used that sometimes in the corridor that runs along the side of the live room. We'd open the door and record the sound of the corridor as well."

Used as a room mic for Second Coming, as mentioned by producer Simon Dawson in the January 14, 1995 Melody Maker interview "Diary of an LP: the Stone Roses' Second Coming, Part One" by Tom Doyle.

"Oh yeah, the same old skins and everything. I don't think he changed a skin in the whole time — they've probably been on there for years. Sometimes we'd use an acoustic tunnel if there was too much ambience, but not very often because we quite liked the live-sounding bass drum. The snare was miked up by a straight Shure SM57, the toms were all Sennheiser 421s, the overheads — which are probably the best overhead mikes I've heard in my life — were Neumann 56s, which are valve pencil mikes. In fact, you get a great kit sound just from the overheads, so we tended to build up the sound of the kit around those. We'd also use a pair of straightforward Neumann U87s and maybe an SM2 valve, either Telefunken or Neumann — it's a stereo mike and we used that sometimes in the corridor that runs along the side of the live room. We'd open the door and record the sound of the corridor as well."

John famously used a vintage '59 Les Paul throughout the Second Coming recording sessions and the subsequent tour.

Used for the guitar on Second Coming, as mentioned by producer Simon Dawson in the January 14, 1995 Melody Maker interview "Diary of an LP: the Stone Roses' Second Coming, Part One" by Tom Doyle.

John Squire opted for a tried and tested combination of guitars, amps and effects that he's used for years.

"Most of the lead stuff on the record he did on a lovely old 1959 Les Paul, although he's got another Les Paul which is newer and he uses that for slide. Other than that he's got a pink Strat that we used for quite a lot of things. He's got a whole load of pedals as well — obviously the wah-wahs, but also Echoplex and a lot of the old Roger Mayer and Electro-Harmonix ones.

"He plays mainly through an old Fender Twin which has been hotwired — you can buy this hotwire kit from California, it's an amazing little thing that only costs about $50 and you get your technical guy to wire it in for you, and I dunno, it bypasses something or other and it just makes it sound great. I don't think it just works on Fender Twins, I think you can hotwire any amp, but it sounds great on his old Twin. John's got a newer Fender Twin as well, but mainly he uses the old one and sometimes an old Orange amp and cab. In front of the Twin — it was the most amazing thing — I just stuck up an SM57 and a 41, straight up the channels on the desk through a bog-standard DBX 160 compressor, and he got the most amazing sound. And that's it. That's the guitar sound on most of the record. We'd sometimes try different combinations of guitars and amps but we always ended up coming back to that. If you've got a great guitar and amp, it'll always sound great, as long as you can play of course."

Used for the guitar on Second Coming, as mentioned by producer Simon Dawson in the January 14, 1995 Melody Maker interview "Diary of an LP: the Stone Roses' Second Coming, Part One" by Tom Doyle.

John Squire opted for a tried and tested combination of guitars, amps and effects that he's used for years.

"Most of the lead stuff on the record he did on a lovely old 1959 Les Paul, although he's got another Les Paul which is newer and he uses that for slide. Other than that he's got a pink Strat that we used for quite a lot of things. He's got a whole load of pedals as well — obviously the wah-wahs, but also Echoplex and a lot of the old Roger Mayer and Electro-Harmonix ones.

"He plays mainly through an old Fender Twin which has been hotwired — you can buy this hotwire kit from California, it's an amazing little thing that only costs about $50 and you get your technical guy to wire it in for you, and I dunno, it bypasses something or other and it just makes it sound great. I don't think it just works on Fender Twins, I think you can hotwire any amp, but it sounds great on his old Twin. John's got a newer Fender Twin as well, but mainly he uses the old one and sometimes an old Orange amp and cab. In front of the Twin — it was the most amazing thing — I just stuck up an SM57 and a 41, straight up the channels on the desk through a bog-standard DBX 160 compressor, and he got the most amazing sound. And that's it. That's the guitar sound on most of the record. We'd sometimes try different combinations of guitars and amps but we always ended up coming back to that. If you've got a great guitar and amp, it'll always sound great, as long as you can play of course."