Robert Quine

Along with his first Strat, Quine got a Tremolux amp - one of Fender's first piggy-back models. He owns several vintage Fender tube amps, including: "The greatest amp I've ever owned - a little Fender Super Champ with the stock Fender speaker, not the Electro-Voice." Quine has used - on tours and in the studio

In the "Ask Quine" section of Robert's website, he answered a fan's question about Peavey amps. Said Quine, "My friend Jody Harris turned me on to Peavey stuff in the late '70s. Incredibly inexpensive, they sounded great, and the solid-state stuff could take a LOT of abuse. Most importantly, using the master volume for good distortion was an actual possibility, compared to the Fenders at that time. The only amp I ever used on the three Lou Reed albums I was on was a Peavey Bandit, upgraded with an EV speaker."

In 1996 Quine switched to the Fender Telecaster. "In the late '90s, Chris Cush of [New York City's] Mojo Guitars rewired a lot of Telecasters for me," Quine notes. My favorite right now is a Fender '52 reissue, with Seymour Duncan Antiquities pickups and a four-way switch. Rick Kelly of Carmine Street Guitars has been building some amazing Telecasters lately, and that's probably what I'll get next."

Ever in search of new and strange guitar sounds, Quine owns dozens of fuzz boxes - an original Fender Blender, a Dallas/Arbiter Fuzz Face, and the MXR Distortion+ among them - true classics, each with its own distinct sound. "Prescription Electronics has done a lot of amazing things in the last six years. Their Yardbox is my all-time favorite fuzz, a sound I'd been searching for for about 30 years. I'm a big fan of the Beck/Page Yardbirds sound, and this does it exactly!"

Effects:

"I've been using an Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man for about 21 years now, and nothing will ever replace it. I discovered [the] Memory Man when I played briefly with Robert Gordon, and now I'm totally addicted to it. I'm never without it. I practice with it and I've learned to use it as a real musical instrument," Quine says. "That particular box will get sounds that you can't get out of anything else. You could put another analog delay and a chorus together, and you would not get the sounds that this thing gets, because the chorus effect operates not on the direct signal but on the echo signal."

Premier Guitar:

The only constant with Quine would be the Electro-Harmonix Memory Man. But he could have been using any combination of things. He was an aficionado of pedals. He had anything and everything, or he would have tried anything or everything that was available at the time.”

In 1961 he got his first Fender Stratocaster ­ the guitar he has been identified with for most of his career. His infatuation with the Strat was directly inspired by his idol, Ritchie Valens: "I saw the picture on the cover of his first album, and he had a Stratocaster. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I had to have one."

Effects are a Boss TU-2 tuner, Prescription Electronics’ Yardbox and Experience pedals, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, and some variety of a Tube Screamer. At the moment my favorites are the Maxon OD 808 and Voodoo Lab’s Sparkle Drive. There are a few other things I use quite often, like a Voodoo Labs Analog Chorus and Pedal Power, Prescription Electronics Germ, and either a Carl Martin compressor/limiter or Boss CS-3 compressor/sustainer.

Effects are a Boss TU-2 tuner, Prescription Electronics’ Yardbox and Experience pedals, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, and some variety of a Tube Screamer. At the moment my favorites are the Maxon OD 808 and Voodoo Lab’s Sparkle Drive. There are a few other things I use quite often, like a Voodoo Labs Analog Chorus and Pedal Power, Prescription Electronics Germ, and either a Carl Martin compressor/limiter or Boss CS-3 compressor/sustainer.

Effects are a Boss TU-2 tuner, Prescription Electronics’ Yardbox and Experience pedals, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, and some variety of a Tube Screamer. At the moment my favorites are the Maxon OD 808 and Voodoo Lab’s Sparkle Drive. There are a few other things I use quite often, like a Voodoo Labs Analog Chorus and Pedal Power, Prescription Electronics Germ, and either a Carl Martin compressor/limiter or Boss CS-3 compressor/sustainer.

Blank Generation is mixed with Quine panned hard to one side and Julian to the other—a trick they learned from the Yardbirds’ album Over Under Sideways Down—with the solos right up the middle. For most of his solos, Quine played through a Fender Champ or a small Pignose amp, and sometimes had an MXR Dyna Comp out front.

Robert Quine's first electric guitar was a double-cutaway Danelectro with two pickups and a gold finish, which he got with a case and amplifier for $130. These days, though, "I pretty much stick to Fenders," Quine says of his impressive guitar collection.

In the "Ask Quine" section of Robert's website, he answered a fan's question about Peavey amps. Said Quine, "The Peavey Classics--they're great-sounding. I recorded with them a lot in the early '90s, especially the Classic 20. Since then, however, I've moved to the various Fender reissue amps—I love them. Obviously, there's no master volume or channel-switching, but this hasn't been a problem for me since I discovered Tube Screamers in the early '90s."

In the "Ask Quine" section of Robert's website, he answered a fan's question about his recording setup for Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" album. The exchange went as follows:

Q: I am a guitar player. My introduction to your playing is Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend. Your playing on that record is absolutely phenomenal and unique. Your tone is also fantastic on that record. Would you mind sharing your setup on the song, 'I've Been Waiting'? Did you use the same fuzz pedal for the entire album? I can't get enough of that song and I listen to that record all the time. Thanks very much. —Gary Rosner

A: I didn't play on 'I've Been Waiting'. But on that album all I used was a Strat, a SansAmp, and various Fender amps. Thanks.

Mentioned the gear page of Quine's official website.

Ever in search of new and strange guitar sounds, Quine owns dozens of fuzz boxes - an original Fender Blender, a Dallas/Arbiter Fuzz Face, and the MXR Distortion+ among them - true classics, each with its own distinct sound. "Prescription Electronics has done a lot of amazing things in the last six years. Their Yardbox is my all-time favorite fuzz, a sound I'd been searching for for about 30 years. I'm a big fan of the Beck/Page Yardbirds sound, and this does it exactly!"

Mentioned on the gear page of Quine's official website.

Ever in search of new and strange guitar sounds, Quine owns dozens of fuzz boxes - an original Fender Blender, a Dallas/Arbiter Fuzz Face, and the MXR Distortion+ among them - true classics, each with its own distinct sound. "Prescription Electronics has done a lot of amazing things in the last six years. Their Yardbox is my all-time favorite fuzz, a sound I'd been searching for for about 30 years. I'm a big fan of the Beck/Page Yardbirds sound, and this does it exactly!"

Mentioned on the official Prescription Electronics "About" page.

Pedals used: The Yardbox, Experience, Germ

Effects are a Boss TU-2 tuner, Prescription Electronics’ Yardbox and Experience pedals, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, and some variety of a Tube Screamer. At the moment my favorites are the Maxon OD 808 and Voodoo Lab’s Sparkle Drive. There are a few other things I use quite often, like a Voodoo Labs Analog Chorus and Pedal Power, Prescription Electronics Germ, and either a Carl Martin compressor/limiter or Boss CS-3 compressor/sustainer.

Effects are a Boss TU-2 tuner, Prescription Electronics’ Yardbox and Experience pedals, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, and some variety of a Tube Screamer. At the moment my favorites are the Maxon OD 808 and Voodoo Lab’s Sparkle Drive. There are a few other things I use quite often, like a Voodoo Labs Analog Chorus and Pedal Power, Prescription Electronics Germ, and either a Carl Martin compressor/limiter or Boss CS-3 compressor/sustainer.

In the "Ask Quine" section of Robert's website, he answered a fan's question about amps. Said Quine, "As for the Deluxe Reverb reissue, I almost always use the left channel ('normal')—it's less trebly than the vibrato channel. When I roll off highs, I do it with the amp's tone controls—NEVER with the guitar's tone control. Also, I replaced the 12-inch ceramic magnet speaker with an alnico one—the Eminence Legend 1228K model with a Kapton voice coil. It's rated at 35 watts and is much less harsh-sounding when pushed into overdrive/distortion. By the way, my friend Marc Ribot also used this setup and he's been quite happy with it."

Blank Generation is mixed with Quine panned hard to one side and Julian to the other—a trick they learned from the Yardbirds’ album Over Under Sideways Down—with the solos right up the middle. For most of his solos, Quine played through a Fender Champ or a small Pignose amp, and sometimes had an MXR Dyna Comp out front.

Mentioned the gear page of Quine's official website.

Ever in search of new and strange guitar sounds, Quine owns dozens of fuzz boxes - an original Fender Blender, a Dallas/Arbiter Fuzz Face, and the MXR Distortion+ among them - true classics, each with its own distinct sound. "Prescription Electronics has done a lot of amazing things in the last six years. Their Yardbox is my all-time favorite fuzz, a sound I'd been searching for for about 30 years. I'm a big fan of the Beck/Page Yardbirds sound, and this does it exactly!"

While working on other projects, Quine and Maher recorded their 1984 duo release, Basic, at Quine’s apartment in the East Village, using a Tascam 4-track Portastudio and an Oberheim DMX drum machine. The album was recorded over a six-month period and, along with the 1981 release Escape, with guitarist Jody Harris, was the closest Quine came to a solo album.

Mentioned in the January 1986 Guitar Player interview "Robert Quine: Newark's Reverent Iconoclast" by Gene Santoro.

The next stage in Robert's musical evolution was obvious — and frustrating. "In 1958," he begins, "I got this cheap f-hole acoustic guitar and took lessons for a month from some guy about 70 years old. He gave me a 1938 Gibson guitar book with 'Yankee Doodle' and stuff like that. I kept telling him, 'All I want to do is play these simple chords,' and he kept telling me, 'You cannot do this. First, you have to learn how to read music and learn where every note on the fingerboard is. Then, after about a year, you can play these chords.' That quickly killed my interest in the guitar."