Meddle 1971

Read more: settings and setups

1971 was very much a transition period for Pink Floyd and David Gilmour. They still played a lot of their older material and the ongoing tour seemed to have lasted for years. This eventually led to a break late in the year, which saw the band write and rehearse a brand new suite, Eclipse/Dark Side of the Moon.

Meddle was recorded throughout spring and summer 1971 and was released in October. Same month as the filming of the Live at Pompeii concert film. Very little is known from the studio sessions but David Gilmour experimented with different guitars, effects and recording techniques. Perhaps more so than on previous albums.

Effects recording sessions and live performances

Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face (NKT275)
Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face (BC108)
Vox wah wah
Binson Echorec II
Binson Echorec PE 603 (summer European tour)
DeArmond volume pedal

One of the biggest changes in David Gilmour’s sound, mainly his live sound, was the introduction of the silicon transistor Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face. The silicon transistor has a brighter and much more aggressive character, compared to the germanium transistor model he’d been using previously. It is not known when the change appeared but it seems to have been sometime early in the year. It is however, hard to determine whether he used silicon or germanium fuzz on Meddle.

Guitars and amps recording sessions

Fender Stratocaster The Black Strat
– 1969 all stock with a black alder body, white pickguard and a maple neck with a large headstock.
Fender 1000 twin neck pedal steel
– One of These Days recording sessions
Bill Lewis custom guitar
– 1970 custom mahogany body and 24-frets neck (Echoes recording session)
Acoustic steel string guitar

Hiwatt DR103 All Purpose 100W heads
– with Mullard 4xEL34s power tubes and 4xECC83s pre-amp tubes
WEM Super Starfinder 200 cabinets
– with 4×12 Fane Crescendo speakers with metal dust caps

David Gilmour pictured in Lyon, France, in June 1971 playing the natural brown Telecaster. Notice the Binson Echorec 2 on top of the HH IC 100 solid state amplifier and the 3-head Hiwatt rig (bottom unit is a spare). Behind Gilmour is a EMS VCS3 synth placed on top of a Leslie 147 rotating spaker cabinet. Notice also the Black Strat laying on the floor in front of the Leslie cabinet.
David Gilmour playing the Black Strat in the Roman Aphitheatre in Pompeii in October (left) and in Sydney, Australia in August (right). Both images reveal his effects setup for 1971 – Vox wah wah, Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face (BC108), DeArmond volume pedal and the Binson Echorec 2.

Guitars and amps live performances

Fender Stratocaster The Black Strat
– 1969 all stock with a black alder body, white pickguard and a maple neck with a large headstock. The guitar is seen with a short-lived chrome volume knob at the Live at Pompeii Paris studio sessions in December.
Fender Telecaster
– Natural brown body with maple neck and white pickguard

3 Hiwatt DR103 All Purpose 100W heads
– with Mullard 4xEL34s power tubes and 4xECC83s pre-amp tubes (one head was a spare)
HH Electronic IC-100 100W solid state head
Leslie 147 rotating speaker cabinet
4 WEM Super Starfinder 200 cabinets
– with 4×12 Fane Crescendo speakers with metal dust caps

David would use one, sometimes two, HH IC-100 amplifiers during the latter part of 1971. They could have been used as pre-amps for the entire rig or as pre-amps for the Leslie cabinet, similar to how David later would set up the Alembic pre-amp in combination with the Yamaha RA-200 rotary cabinet.

The HH IC-100 solid state amplifier was also used to record the tremolo sound for the bass solo on the opening of One of these Days.

Acknowledgements and credits
Meddle (album 1971), Live at Pompeii (concert film 1971), Atom Heart Mother Goes on the Road (BBC live recording UK 1970-71), In the Flesh by Povey/Russell.