Last August Steve Morse was interviewed in the Guitar Player cover story. Four months later he finished first in the most prestigious category of our Annual Readers Poll: Best Overall Guitarist. In addition, Steve's Iatest LP, the Dregs' Industry Standard [Arista, 9588], was voted by our readers to be the 1982's Best Guitar Album. Co-produced by Morse and Eddy Offord, Industry Standard show cases the guitarist's dazzling command of techniques and tones, as well as his ability to crossbreed heavy metal, Baroque/classical, country, freeform jazz/rock, bluegrass, Irishfolk, and other musical styles. The project varies from the Dregs usual all-instrumental format to feature vocalists Alex Ligertwood and Pat Simmons. ASIA's Steve Howe also appears in a classical duet. (Morse presents a classical flavored picking exercise in a companion piece on page 72.) In the following narrative, Steve explains his role in the making of an award-winning album.

Music is a combination of hardware and feeling. The hardware is about 5 or 10% of it, and the feeling is the rest because music is intangible. We visited Eddy Offord Studio in Atlanta, Georgia, and suddenly got this feeling about Eddy and the studio, that it was going to be easy to work there. Part of it is Eddy's personality: He's a genius at working with people. Suddenly there was absolutely no way that we were going to have any problems.

Being an album's co-producer is different from just playing on a record. First of all, you're there for every note. In our particular situation, I would press the record and rewind buttons when we were doing other people's parts. As far as the performances of the other musicians, I'd say, "No. No. No. Okay!" Eddy would do all the technical stuff like miking. and he'd give opinions about the part if he thought something was weird about it. He would basically come up with a good sound.

We spent on-and-off periods of about nine or ten weeks recording the album, putting in ten-hour days. In the early part of the album, we took a day off each week and played a local gig in the Southeast, so that we could keep everybody somewhat in shape. You miss playing on the road when you're in the studio. It's not nearly the same because in the studio you get second chances, and it's important to play live, where you don't get second chances. We played the most easy-to-listen-to parts of the album onstage, which was kind of confusing to the audience because they had never heard any of it. We saved the more difficult songs until the album came out.

About half of the material was very well rehearsed before we recorded. The rest of the album came together while we were in the studio because we were working with guest artists who weren't even committed to doing it until after we began recording. In two cases, we wrote songs around a situation that developed. I had these instrumental parts and progressions: still, we had no songs until the singers involved were actually there. First we did the songs we were sure of, and then later we came back and did the vocals and "Conversation Piece." The band didn't have anything to do with the duet I did with Steve Howe, which also came together in the later part.

I'd say it's advisable for a band to have songs well rehearsed before going into the studio. You should have a repertoire of material that exceeds the number of minutes that you need on the album, because it gives you something to start with. You can always go back and change things, even with splices–although it's not very common for people to do that anymore. You need some places to start from, and it's a lot cheaper to rehearse at home than it is in the studio. We prefer to work with package deals, where we don't have to worry about time. But it's my understanding that most people do work by the hour in the studio, and it's just too expensive to play around when you're paying like that. You have to experiment some in order to get the best product, but on the other hand, you've got to have a pretty solid base to work from. Decide things in advance, like whether you want to double the length of a guitar solo, or make it fade out or end. You can always change those things, but you've got to have the basic structure pretty well defined.

Eddy Offord Studio is actually a big theater. When we started to record a piece, we would set the drums up in the middle of the stage, so that we could record them at different distances. We had all the drums miked closely, just like in a rock and roll show, and then we had two or more mikes placed some distance away. We used the distant mikes on separate tracks, which enabled us to mix in a smooth sounding, real ambience, as opposed to using reverb or putting it in a live room. We got real delay, since the theater is such a long building.

Then we would all stand onstage with these special headphones that have six levels on a little stand, so every person could control his own volume and the volume of every other instrument. With this, we didn't have to worry about problems such as, "I can't hear myself, turn down the bass." We put most of the bass and keyboard direct, and put the guitar cabinets in one of about five rooms that are separate from the stage. When we did Mark O'Connor's violin parts, we had him way up in the projection room. We all played at once with the drums. I thought it was very important to do it that way, because then when we'd go back to overdub a part, we would always be able to say, "Well, here's how it sounds with all the parts in. Is this a good sound?" We could also see if it felt like the right tempo.

Basically, all we needed from those first tracks was drums. That was always the easiest thing to do, because Rod [Morgenstein] would get it real fast. We would fix any gross mistakes on the other tracks, and then go back and do all the other parts again. We started with keyboards first because they are the most consistent in tuning. You need some kind of stable base, especially when you are doing violins and guitars. The guitar has frets, but that doesn't mean it's easy to play in tune, especially if you're playing a song that has parts in the open positions all the way up to fourteenth-position chords. You have to be very careful. It takes a lot longer to record an album this way, but you can pay particular attention to the sound of each instrument and play around with the tones. After keyboards. we recorded bass. When we overdubbed Andy [West], we put one track direct and one track miked a slight distance from his amp to give his bass sound some of that upper midrange that you can only get from an amp.

I played very loud-always! For my guitar on overdubs, I put several cabinets in a relatively small, very reflective room. and then we miked close on one track and from a small distance on another track. We turned one mike toward the cabinet and another mike away to pick up the ambience, and we blended them together. I used two amps, mostly my Ampeg V4 with the stock speakers, which is slightly different than the Fender cabinets with JBLs I use live to cut through better. But in the studio, the stock Ampeg speakers are very smooth sounding. There are no radical peaks. I also used an old Fender Bassman with Fender cabinets and JBLs for the slide part of "Ridin' High."

Before recording. I put some foam under my strings where they pass over the headstock to keep from getting feedback above the neck. I also cleaned the volume and tone pots and restrung it - but other than that my rock and roll guitar was stock [Ed. Note: This hybrid instrument–which features a Fender Telecaster body, a Stratocaster neck, and an array of five different pickups–was profiled in the August '82 issue.] To stretch strings out before recording, I just pull them and pull them. It also helps to play scales. Strings feel a little funny to me when they are brand-new. They seem hard to grab. When I play scales on them, they become a little easier to play. I may actually make indentations in them. It's a compromise between the sound and playability. If I'm doing a part with just harmonics and I've got brand-new strings, I don't touch them. I just stretch them because I don't want to ruin any part of the harmonic.

I used the same effects as onstage, but they weren't wired in unless we needed them like that. All the outboard stuff was brought in through the board, but I used it all the time, just like I do onstage. Actually, I used a little bit more than I do live. In the studio it's easier to change from one sound to another just by going direct here and miking there, whereas live you're not going to change from direct to an amp. I mostly used my main guitar, but I also may have used my Fender Lead I once for the supersonic highs it can get. I played all of the-guitar parts on the album. except for the duet with Steve Howe. Mark played guitar on the rough tracks of "Bloodsucking Leeches," but I replaced him when we did the tracks over. By the time we do guitars, we are pretty much near the end of the line, so I just went ahead and doubletracked any line where there wasn't a violin. So without trying to, I had actually done all that we needed to do. I don't think I've ever double-tracked a solo on a Dregs album.

For me. it's always a rush to play a solo. But at the same time, I especially want my solos to be like little compositions, to be as good as the composition. That's why I'm picky about which one I keep. Just getting the sound alone for a solo can encompass five takes. You play it, listen to it, and see if it's really the sound you want. After that, hopefully there are several tracks open. I usually use two tracks for a solo, so that we make a subtle stereo sound. That's actually Eddy's idea: He mikes it with stereo ambience. It's a subtle effect, but it is there. So each guitar solo is a two-part stereo solo. but it sounds like it's coming up the center unless you really concentrate on it.

I first get a solo that has something I like, and then go on the other tracks and do one there. If that solo's better, I erase the first one. I keep doing it like that. I'm not one for plugging in notes, but I will take a part from this set of tracks and then switch it in as soon as the part on the other set of tracks doesn't sound good. If there are lulls in the middle, why not fix the part? If there's a lick where I went way down low on the guitar and I maybe should have stayed high, I'll go ahead and fix that and keep the rest of it. So sometimes I combine two solos to make one. That's a real common thing. The only way to tell how someone sounds for sure is to see them live!

The first tracks we recorded were "Bloodsucking Leeches," "Where's Dixie?", "Assembly Line," and "Vitamin Q." "Vitamin Q" and "Bloodsucking Leeches" were easy because they are kind of rock and roll oriented, and you have less problems with time and pitch when you are used to doing that kind of thing. "Where's Dixie?" and "Chips Ahoy" were a Iot harder because there was a lot of direct guitar, or else a real clean kind of distortion was needed. Parts were more rhythmically intricate on those tunes. If you're sitting in the studio, you want to get it right, so you end up really concentrating on it. Every little thing that is not just so is enough to make me want to go back and do it over. So those took longer than the rock and roll ones, where you just turn it on and get it.

The the opening riff for "Bloodsucking Leeches" was pretty much just standard, straight rock. I thought it was reminiscent of Jimmy Page. The rhythm tone changes kind of drastically in the middle of the song just before the organ solo: It goes from the guitar through the amps to the guitar direct. But every time I did a direct guitar part, I used real subtle effect so it doesn't sound quite as clean. In this case. I used a Lexicon delay for the very slightly modulated effect with the digital reverb set on a slight pre-delay. Any time where you can hear distortion, it's through the amps. Any time you can hear more than one note at a time clearly, it's probably direct [laughs].

In "Leeches" you can hear how when one rhythm guitar is playing over another in the fast rhythm lines in A, every time the melody happens over that, the guitar is muted with my hand. Every time the melody stops, the guitar is played straight, but it sounds like the guitar is playing continuously with the same sound. This technique enables the melody to come out a little bit more. It was designed to not be noticed, but it made a big difference when I did it from one way to another. The solo in that song was done with a wah-wah pedal partially depressed all the way through for more of a tortured sound rather than sustain. I just moved it very, very slightly as I went up higher so it got more highs. That's why the tone is so weird.

The horn-like line beginning "Vitamin Q" is double-tracked, but I only played one of the three notes. It's synthesizer, guitar, and two violins. In one part of the song I play a little counterpoint line where I'm hitting one note with a pick, and the other note with my finger. I can bring out the bass note more with my pick, and since the higher note is going to come out more anyway, I pick it with my finger.

Mark and I did the fast violin-guitar unison lines in "Where's Dixie?" together on the rough tracks, and they were pretty close. Since we were in the studio, though, we went ahead and tried to get them perfect, so that meant one person at a time. I always went before the violin. For the chicken-picking part of the solo, I went direct, using the lead humbucking and the bass humbucking pickups mixed together. The effects on the guitar included a studio compressor, as well as the Lexicon PCM 41 with a short delay, a sinewave modulation, and a little bit of that short concert hall reverb.

"Assembly Line" has a slow, melodic riff. That's a good example of what I've always tried to achieve with the balance of guitar and violin: You can get a blend where you can't tell what it is. We are both doing approximately the same thing. I get that tone by using the bass pickup on my guitar through the Ampeg totally flat-out, using a lot of ambience. All that together softens the attack. Even though I am picking it real hard, the amp is compressing it some anyway, so it's distorted. We used acoustic violin to match that, and chopped just a hair of the highs off. If they are in tune, the two blend together so well. I got this really strange harmonic–like somebody's killing a guitar –on the first note of the original solo track. I had gotten to love that one note so much, I had to put it in, so I used that original harmonic as the first note of the solo on the record.

Our decision to use Alex Ligertwood on "Crank It Up" was totally based on his singing ability. Eddy played us some tapes he had done with Alex, and it sounded like he could sing anything. We flew him down and he did it all in one day, just like a pro! It was interesting because the song is about a band. When we did the vocals, everyone sat around and made little contributions to the lyrics. It was really the closest thing we have to a band song. The solo was pretty standard stuff, real similar to what I did on the rough track from the standpoint of playing kind of sparse.

Pat Simmons basically wrote the lyrics for "Ridin' High." We sat down at my place and he pulled out the words he had, and we changed a few little things. At first, having vocals made the tune real easy to arrange. But then I realized I wanted something to be different about each verse, rather than just having sheer repetition. So we made some little changes. I was real concerned about it being boring. I didn't want it to sound like a typical rock and roll song of any kind, so I spent a lot of time looking at it from a distance, trying to put in just the right amount of Dregs influence.

It took me some time to get the slide solo in "Ridin' High," because I'm not really a slide player. I borrowed Twiggs Lyndon's guitar–a tobacco sunburst Les Paul once owned by Duane Allman–and plugged it into the Fender cabinets and put a lot of high end on the guitar. I then put that sound through every Lexicon effect I had, with just slightly different delays so the part–which was going to come in after the vocals–would stand off a little bit in the distance. The Lexicon Prime Time was set up in stereo, and I used a real subtle pre-delay chorus that you don't normally use a digital reverb for.

When I got a big glass slide and tried to play the Les Paul, I discovered the action was too low because it was set up for regular guitar. I wanted to raise it without messing with the bridge, which had lock-nuts on it, so I ended up sticking a toothpick under the 1st fret just to physically push the strings up about a 1/16th of an inch higher. The toothpick caused a really dead sound; the only way I could tune it was to hold the slide on the 12th fret, hit the notes, and reach up with my right hand and change the pitch. If I was careful, I wouldn't knock the toothpick out. I damped behind the slide. The main technique that made a difference in the sound, though, was using my fingers and thumb to pick the strings. You can kill the strings you don't want to use, and there is something so different about the sound of an electric guitar when you reach under a string and pluck it. The intro to "Ridin' High" is done the same way, with the thumb and finger plucking the strings up and letting them slap back down.

"Chips Ahoy" has sort of an Irish feel. I got a lot of influence in that area from the Chieftans and the Bothy Band. They are Irish pop, but they sound like an Irish folk group. They do things that are actually a lot more intricate than "Chips.” I love the feel that they have, the real lyrical melodies that go all over the place. They are a challenge to play, and I love to write and hear them. That cut's solo tone has less ambience than usual. The very first lick is the unusual one: There's a pull-off every other note on that, which makes it sound more smooth and keeps it from having a percussive sound. Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, and Allan Holdsworth sometimes sound so smooth from getting that balance between a pull-off and a picked note. After that first lick, I went straight back into my regular technique. In the middle of the solo you can hear it changing pickups. That's not from going from one track to another. Right in the middle of a lick, I'll reach down and slap the pickup selector. During the piano solo in "Chips Ahoy" there's a fast Leslie-type effect on the guitar that was done with my Boss Chorus. That was with the Strat pickup, so it sounds like a different guitar than the one I'm playing.

"Up In The Air" features Steve Howe on classical guitar. You can distinguish us because Steve's guitar has more ambience on it. Actually his guitar has a nicer sound than mine. He recorded his parts in a stone room in England, which apparently made a big difference in the sound. It has a lot of highs, whereas my guitar is very strong in the bottom and middle ranges. I played the middle solo with a pick. Getting him on the record was a last minute thing, because at the time he was in the studio with some unknown band called ASIA. I told him they'd never get anywhere [laughs]. He had to cancel my appointment to come over there. As a last ditch effort, I said. "How about if I just send you the tape?" With no assistance other than a rough practice tape I had made a few weeks before, he did all the parts by himself. It was quite an achievement. The only problem was we got the tape about three hours before we were supposed to leave to master it. It was 4:00 A.M. and we just worked with it, mixed it on the spot, and then hauled ass to the airport.

All the tunes that I do in the vein of "Conversation Piece" are almost like classical pieces played on electric guitar. To make them sound more interesting, I divide the parts up: play the melody separately with distorted guitar way back, play the continuous picking parts with a cleaner sound. There is a chorus effect in the beginning, which comes from the Lexicon digital equipment. The guitar solo comes in with volume swells. I thought of the faster passages as sets of six notes. I would accent every sixth note heavily, but it didn't come out as heavily as I did it because the amps smooth these things out. They are actually sextuplets, but you think of them as triplets doubled–divide the beat up into three and then double that which would come naturally if you played picking exercises every single day for your entire life! The problem with solos like these is that I get an adrenalin rush, and it's so easy to overdo it. I'm sure some people think it's already overdone on the take we kept, but some of the takes we didn't keep were so crazy! That's why it's always fun to play live.

I'm very happy with Industry Standard from a lot of standpoints. The music came out the way I had imagined it. It was more experimental in nature due to the fact that we had guest artists and even vocals. I'm hopeful that we can do the same sort of thing next album, except maybe without vocals. If I had to do the album over again, though, I would change things. There is never anything that has to do with music that I wouldn't change. If somebody said, "You're stuck in the studio for a year," I could work on one tune. Sometimes I need people to pull me away, because I get fanatic about it.

The album wasn't very expensive to record. The guest artists were very reasonable, bordering on charitable [laughs]. Pat Simmons did his part for a cheeseburger and french fries–and I've got the receipts for those!

Since the last album, there have been some changes. It gets crazy. The band broke up early last summer. We missed playing, and realized there was something special about us doing gigs together. Mark was already involved with something else at the time, so we decided to experimentally gig again as a four-piece. This wasn't experimental for some of us, since the Dixie Dregs were a four-piece in the initial stages. It's turned out really good. and the plan at the moment is to carry on. In fact, we've just finished recording a master demo tape for a singer named Fiona Flannigan. One of the hardest aspects of working in a band is the things you don't see that are apart from the music, like compatibility and having similar goals. If the right situation came along, we might end up five-piece again. But I can't stress enough the importance of the harmony of personalities. That's got to be at least as important as the music.

Transcribed by John D. Smith