[quote="dimsim3478"]imo The Pillows sound better now on DVD than ever. back in the [i]916[/i] days, and actually all the way to [i]Wake Up Stand Up[/i], Sawao was playin a Fender Jaguar and always got a real crunchy tone out of it, which I thought was ugly as hell (although fine on the records) and only made worse by the DVD production (and the fact that Manabe also played a Jag for a good while before switching over to that white guitar which preceded the Sago).[/quote]

So:

Sawao used a white Fender Cyclone for the longest time, esp around 916, and then later switched over to his two-tone Squier Cyclone. Manabe's main guitar after his Mustang phase was a black and white Squier [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX4yAmNaKdY]Jagmaster[/url]. Then his white Sago. Now he's using his own signature model, the Seed "[url=https://global.rakuten.com/en/store/shimamuragakki/item/mt0024860/]Rutile[/url]". I can't recall if Manabe ever did use an Explorer live, but it was in the Third Eye video at least.

To my knowledge, no band member has used a Fender or Squier Jaguar either live or in the studio (though of course I could be mistaken, as I just haven't come across any mentions of Jags in the studio).

[quote="GoldenRhino"][quote="dimsim3478"]imo The Pillows sound better now on DVD than ever. back in the [i]916[/i] days, and actually all the way to [i]Wake Up Stand Up[/i], Sawao was playin a Fender Jaguar and always got a real crunchy tone out of it, which I thought was ugly as hell (although fine on the records) and only made worse by the DVD production (and the fact that Manabe also played a Jag for a good while before switching over to that white guitar which preceded the Sago).[/quote]

So:

Sawao used a white Fender Cyclone for the longest time, esp around 916, and then later switched over to his two-tone Squier Cyclone. Manabe's main guitar after his Mustang phase was a black and white Squier [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX4yAmNaKdY]Jagmaster[/url]. Then his white Sago. Now he's using his own signature model, the Seed "[url=https://global.rakuten.com/en/store/shimamuragakki/item/mt0024860/]Rutile[/url]". I can't recall if Manabe ever did use an Explorer live, but it was in the Third Eye video at least.

To my knowledge, no band member has used a Fender or Squier Jaguar either live or in the studio (though of course I could be mistaken, as I just haven't come across any mentions of Jags in the studio).[/quote]

Manabe also had a double cut Les Paul before his first Sago, I think that's what he based that Sago on. (Might be the white guitar dimsum is mentioning). I don't think he ever used the Explorer live either, it's rather unwieldy. Though Sawao did use that two-tone Flying V live and that's just about as unwieldy.

yeah. and he seems to be getting the same basic guitar remade in different body styles. The Jaguar-ish Sago Rutile is Gibson scale (24.75) like the Gibson/Sago Double Cuts he had for a while. There was also that red Sago tele with humbuckers and now the Jazzmaster style with humbuckers (humbuckers on a Jazzmaster, really?) and who knows what scale those are. must really like the Sago company.

[quote="GoldenRhino"]Sawao used a white Fender Cyclone for the longest time, esp around 916, and then later switched over to his two-tone Squier Cyclone. Manabe's main guitar after his Mustang phase was a black and white Squier [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX4yAmNaKdY]Jagmaster[/url]. Then his white Sago. Now he's using his own signature model, the Seed "[url=https://global.rakuten.com/en/store/shimamuragakki/item/mt0024860/]Rutile[/url]". I can't recall if Manabe ever did use an Explorer live, but it was in the Third Eye video at least.

To my knowledge, no band member has used a Fender or Squier Jaguar either live or in the studio (though of course I could be mistaken, as I just haven't come across any mentions of Jags in the studio).[/quote]
Straight truth, I have no idea what guitars are. But, my point stands: whatever guitars Sawao and Manabe were usin' back then sounded crunchy af on DVD (and on the studio recordings too, but they were more tolerable there).

I dunno wtf Manabe has been doing for the last ~8 years with his choice of guitars. The dude is obviously a much better and much more accomplished guitarist than I am but his tone has been super flat ever since he started using that double cut LP.

All of his guitars since then seem like he's been trying to clone that LP in a different body because they all have the same configuration of Gibson hardware, bridge, stoptail, scale length and double humbuckers.

[quote="dimsim3478"]
Straight truth, I have no idea what guitars are.[/quote]

Allllright? I just dont know why you'd get so specific and assert a wild guess as the truth, when you don't actually know. It's not a big deal or anything, you just made me feel Fucking Crazy for a minute, like we've been watching totally different live videos for years.

Also, agreed about the tone. There's a lot of beef I have with modern pillows, much of which can be summed up with "songwriting" and "the kind of music these guys wanna make", but the nasal, flat lead tones are definitely an issue for me too.

[quote="GoldenRhino"]I just dont know why you'd get so specific and assert a wild guess as the truth[/quote]
I genuinely thought they were Jags. Of course, I was totally wrong. I suppose it's more accurate to say that I know nothing about guitars but sometimes I think that I do. Sorry about the confusion.
[quote="Spike"]his tone has been super flat ever since he started using that double cut LP. [/quote]
[quote="GoldenRhino"]the nasal, flat lead tones are definitely an issue for me too.[/quote]
I have a different view of the tone on the newer Pillows live DVDs: I take it as being "smooth" and "clean" rather than "flat". On older vids like [i]916[/i] and [i]Lostman Go to America[/i], I think the trebly, jangly Fender tone sounds needlessly oppressive; it's got a nice aggression to it but is often so loud and rough that it kinda distracts from the songs themselves. imo a song like "Little Busters" sounds better on [i]Don't Forget Today[/i] than on [i]916[/i] because there isn't that fuckin constant snarl from the Cyclone and Mustang in the mix, so the real power of the song (which imo comes from the epic vocals and the songwriting itself) shines through and it's consequently transcendental. "Little Busters" is a particularly good example of that but for me the same logic applies to pretty much every Pillows song from the old days (except maybe like "Waiting for the Busstop"): yeah, they've shed the alternative/punk inspired aggression and volatility in their sound (although they certainly still have a good amount of the energy) and adopted much cleaner tones, but what I think is the real beauty of the pillows' songs--Sawao's pop songwriting--is better represented as a result of the change.

If that's your opinion that's cool but mine is the complete opposite. Modern performances of their old songs really highlight just how flat (and more specifically, compressed) their sound has gotten.

Let me throw up a comparison using two performances of Swanky Street. One comes from the Bubbletown DVD (one of their best Live shows ever) and the other is from the Zepp concert in 2007 (bear in mind that even this performance was [i]10 years ago[/i]) when the white DC Les Paul started appearing. Sawao is using his cyclone and if you listen to his guitar you can hear his tone is similar, but as soon as Manabe starts playing it sounds like somebody's tossed a wet blanket over his cab.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMriW_DzFXc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U37HlvJXFFY

Pay special attention to the solo in each song, notice how you can still pick out all of the individual notes in the Bubbletown solo despite a [i]fuckton of gain[/i] but it decays into a fizzy, muddy mess in the Zepp show.

[url=https://youtu.be/lMriW_DzFXc?t=105]Zepp Solo[/url]

[url=https://youtu.be/U37HlvJXFFY?t=103]Bubbletown Solo[/url]

It's the opposite of what I would describe as "clean." It's just flat and lacking dynamics and it sounds like he's dimed the treble on whatever gear he's using to try and brighten up those dark humbuckers. Weird shit started appearing on his board around this time too like the MXR Full Bore and I remember talking to people here about it like "wtf is he doing with that??" and in my opinion it's because he was trying to brighten up that Les Paul with some really trebley pedals.

Manabe was as smooth as a slip-n-slide lubed with KY on Living Field, [i]that[/i] was smooth. The stuff he's doing now isn't what i'd call smooth it's what i'd call [i]inoffensive.[/i] It gets the job done. And it's a shame to me because I know he can play.

This one almost isn't even fair- I Want to be Sullivan, Bubbletown vs. Tokyo 2014. Listen to Manabe on Bubbletown, [i]f u c k.[/i]

https://youtu.be/g8LqsVCyyf4?t=39

https://youtu.be/uNNkFPux-jA?t=1487

I'd agree with that assessment. It's not even held to live tone in my opinion. Manabe's tone in general has been much less dynamic in the past few years. I've found certain songs tones to be just very much the same, and have thought the same about a blanket seemingly being placed over the amp. I hate that in my own tone and feel very attuned to it...

I remember seeing him having replaced the black Sovtek muff which is known for being bass-heavy with a Metal Muff with Top Boost and being like

I have no idea why Manabe sounds so whack on Wake Up Stand Up; he sounds fine on some parts of the DVD and on later DVDs with the same guitar but that cardboard-scratching-against-sandpaper tone is always just around the corner on Wake Up Stand Up.

Regarding Sullivan, I can't say it sounds bad at all on Don't Forget Today - it's just that Manabe's comparably less bold guitar sound on that DVD doesn't suit that song or flatter his playing. There's undoubtedly songs where the bold, aggressive, crunch-and-jangle of the old Fenders is more fitting (e.g. Waiting at the Busstop, Third Eye; usually the band's more rockin' numbers), but I think there's just as many that sound better nowadays (usually the band's real emotional or light-and-fun songs).

Overall, I think it's fair to say that there's an abundance of instances on the DVDs where either the new performance or the old performance will be better for a variety of reasons -- not just guitar or production tone -- but the reason that I generally enjoy the newer, more "compressed", "inoffensive" sounding DVDs more is because imo they're more flattering to Sawao's songwriting (and also, they've gotten better as players, but that's beside the point). The compression and weaker guitar tone do have the result of making the performances sound less offensive and less bold, but I think they also have the effect of blending all the tracks together so that everything's more cohesive and you can more easily listen to the band and the song as a whole. With the older DVDs, I find it hard to keep the whole of the band in focus because there's usually a guitar popping out of the mix to screech into my ear.

Bubbletown would be the exception because even with the crunch-and-jangle Fenders, everything's really well balanced and the guitars in particular aren't super oppressive like on 916 and Lostman Go to America. I think in one of the threads a while back someone said Bubbletown is overdubbed, which could explain why it sounds so clean, but I doubt it's overdubbed significantly cuz it all still sounds live and raw.

We were talking about Sawao's vocals being overdubbed with pitch correction in some places, not the guitars. Pretty sure it's done to some extent on all of their official DVD's.

What you're saying about "cohesiveness" isn't wrong, but I would describe it less favorably. Yes, all of the edges have been rounded off and they sound very nice and plain now. I don't hear the individual members in the songs I just hear [i]"Sawao And Accompaniment"[/i] which might as well be him singing over a pre-recorded backing track done up by anybody, and obviously some people will like that.

I used the Live shows for comparison because Manabe usually makes [i]some[/i] effort when they play older songs to match his old sound, and it really highlights how he just can't get there with the gear he's using which was my original point regarding his odd guitar choices. The [i]albums[/i] are a whole other story and everything from his tone to the overall production sounds worse to me.

The production on all of the middle-era King albums is [i]fantastic,[/i] creating these big layered sounds with tightly woven lyrics and songwriting where each member of the band has a distinct contribution to the whole of the song. The guitar, the drums, the bass all form an emotional component of the song, a piece of the puzzle with Sawao's lyrics locking it all together, not just an indistinct blob of sound designed to be an in-offensive platform for Sawao to sing on.

[quote="Spike"]The production on all of the middle-era King albums is [i]fantastic,[/i] creating these big layered sounds with tightly woven lyrics and songwriting where each member of the band has a distinct contribution to the whole of the song. The guitar, the drums, the bass all form an emotional component of the song, a piece of the puzzle with Sawao's lyrics locking it all together, not just an indistinct blob of sound designed to be an in-offensive platform for Sawao to sing on.[/quote]

This is a bigger issue than I've actually realized, I think. the pillows' sonic palette for the last several years (in studio and live) is so loud, undynamic, and sterile, that I'm not really sure if I'd recognize if they'd written a great song. Zhelanie sounds like it might be pretty decent, but it *sounds* pretty mushy and indistinct, so it's difficult for me to hear the quality in the songwriting. It makes the experience of listening to the new albums not that enjoyable.

It's not just that the older albums are less shiny-sounding and therefore more endearing. It's that they sound like songs, existing inside of a space. Take something like the original recording of Funny Bunny - a pretty squeaky clean pop song on its own, but it has[i] breathing room[/i]. It's not in-your-face and maxed. The bridge of Midnight Down. The pillows are not a heavily atmospheric band, but you can step inside these sounds.

[quote="MyFoot"]a blanket seemingly being placed over the amp.[/quote]

i'd guess it has more to do with the effects he's using nowadays than even the humbuckers. if you recall he played a dual humbucker ESP jag during the Runners High days. i blame that crappy line 6 multipedal on his board and the lack of blues driver/non-metal big muff. c'est la vie

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ThaqEXv.png[/img]

speaking of which, i need to revisit Runners High pronto...

You have to wonder how much is Manabe doing his own thing with tone and how much is him trying to accommodate to Sawao's current obsession-of-the-month with rock sounds. The tones right now are very "grunge" to my ears - big, crunchy, and loud. I know that I myself have gone through various cycles of tone preference, and some of my friends will absolutely HATE some of the heavier sounds that I like. Different strokes, different folks, I think you'll find as always that there are people who both prefer the newer production styles and people who prefer the older, as well as those who find aspects of each appealing more than saying one is outright better/worse. Nothing new under the sun haha.

Myself, I think the guitar tone on the sample that Mafu linked for Ousama ni Nare sounds great (https://streamable.com/ybc6d). I can especially see that in person that tone would sound and FEEL very, very pleasant, even in a large space. This brings me to something that I don't really think is though of much, but lastdino (I think?) touched on - mixing the sound for the space and such. I get the sense that the current pillows sound is absolutely killer in person but the DVD production is simply not doing it justice, but that's me take as a crunch/fuzz-obsessed guitarist.

[quote="GoldenRhino"]It's not just that the older albums are less shiny-sounding and therefore more endearing. It's that they sound like songs, existing inside of a space. Take something like the original recording of Funny Bunny - a pretty squeaky clean pop song on its own, but it has[i] breathing room[/i]. It's not in-your-face and maxed. The bridge of Midnight Down. The pillows are not a heavily atmospheric band, but you can step inside these sounds.[/quote]

Totally get what you're saying, all of the instruments have room to breathe. It's not "spacey" but rather the sounds are "big" and wrap around the listener. This is partly due to the use of stereo panning done on these albums where Sawao's vocals are mixed across both channels to be in the "center" while the instruments are panned between the L/R channels, sometimes appearing in both or only in one.

Kim Deal is a great example, Sawao & Shin are right in the center with Manabe's guitar pushed dominantly to the Right channel mirrored by some kind of synth buzzing in the Left channel right over the bassline, then you get to the chorus and the harmonies are pushed to the Left channel while Sawao remains in the "center" (both channels) and Manabe is on the Right. It creates this sweeping sound where the chorus sort of crashes across the listener. In another chorus with harmonies, on Back Seat Dog the "woah woah yeahs" are instead right next to Sawao in the center creating the impression that they're singing together, vs. Kim Deal where the harmonies are predominantly in the Left channel giving the impression that they're far away from him.

Then, on the same album, heavier songs like Rush have Shin pushed up right behind Sawao in the "center" and it creates the impression of the song being "heavier" but then you get to the chorus and Manabe is pushed to the Right with a 3rd overdub and Sawao's guitar is pushed to the Left while his voice remains in the center, creating the impression of the song "opening up" before going back to the heavier verses.

The effective use of panning is just one example. These techniques create an emotional response that people can "feel" and the thing you have to remember is that this wasn't a happy accident, it didn't just happen on its own, it was carefully engineered to sound that way.

[size=85]edited to fix a typo[/size]