Tom Waits' Amplifiers

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Tom Waits was seen playing a '65 Deluxe Reverb Amp for his performance of "Lie To Me" on Letterman in 2006. The faceplate can be seen at 1:56 of the video.

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Used for the electric guitar on Bone Machine, as stated by engineer Biff Dawes in this February 26, 2015 Mix Online interview.

Dawes describes what he recalls about placing those mics in 1992: “Usually I would take Tom’s guitar direct and I would close mike his amp [either a Princeton Tweed or a Fender Deluxe Reverb],” he says. “Sometimes I would tape mics to the guitar, and then we would add in the more distant mics from the room. Prairie Sun has a wide selection, so we used a lot of Neumanns: U 67s, U 87s, M 49s, that kind of thing."

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Mentioned in this interview from the October 1987 issue of Musician Magazine, as documented in this page from the website Tom Waits Library. It is erroneously transcribed as "basement".

MR (1987): "Not too surprisingly. Waits prefers "mostly tube stuff' to digital equipment. Microphones of choice include a Ribbon ("Dave Garroway") and RCA high-impedance mikes; Waits usually sings through a Shure Green Bullet (used mostly by harmonica players). Also an Altec 21D vocal mike- "because Sinatra used it." On guitar, Waits likes his Gretsch New Yorker "with old strings" played through an old Fender tweed basement [sic] amp. When recording, he says he uses a lot of heavy compression with room sound; to do that he'll sometimes push the track into the room through Auratone speakers, and then mike that. It's not his only technique, "but I don't want to give away all my secrets." (Source: "Tom Waits is flying upside down (on purpose)" Sidebar. Musician: Mark Rowland. October, 1987)

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This is a community-built gear list for Tom Waits.

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