An observation on Jerry's use of auto-wah

[Jon S.]

I'm listening now, on http://www.nugs.net, to the show on Sunday, May 8, 1977 at Barton Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, set 2 (which I was actually at, being a college student at nearby SUNY at Binghamton at the time). An observation on Jerry's auto-wah use for the set: a significant amount of the time, he's picking too gently to trigger the treble portions of the frequency register so what we're actually hearing is a relatively minor amount of the available "wah" sweep with his overall tone centered more towards the bassier frequencies. If I were to go out on a limb, I'd say it's Jerry's own version of "woman tone" and a versatile contrast to his "straight ahead" tone on the other songs in the set. I'm realizing I sometimes approach how I pick with my own Tron model similarly. I wonder if this is something others have also noticed and make use of?

[waldo041]

this is jerry using his travis bean 500 #12 which has a couple high frequency robbing parameters at work. first this guitar has no buffer/preamp, not a huge deal but at play none the less. also none of the pedals are true bypassed and everyone of them have buffers at work in their bypassed states intermingling with eachother when that Mu3. this guitar also has NO obel switch onboard the guitar so the guitar is always going thru those intermingling effect buffers on or off.

just some observations from an equipment standpoint.

Awesome show to have been at!
http://www.archive.org/details/gd77-05- ... sbeok.shnf

peace,
waldo

[Jon S.]

Thanks for the specific gear info., Waldo. That's fascinating. I do love Jerry's tone on all of the shows that week. I didn't realize he was playing his Travis Bean for them.

Thursday, May 5, 1977 New Haven Coliseum, New Haven, CT
Saturday, May 7, 1977 Boston Garden, Boston, MA
Sunday, May 8, 1977 Barton Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Monday, May 9, 1977 War Memorial, Buffalo, NY

P.S. I know this is goofy, but a friend on The Gear Page took a jpeg of a pic of me in '77 and photoshopped it into this shot of Jerry with his TB ...

[Pete B.]

I hear the inconsistensies you mention with regard to not firing off the Mu strong enough.
FOTM around the 13min mark... on the bass-ee side.
Sounds like he forgets to turn it on at the beginning of Est-ee.
fwiw, My Mu's sound most stellar when in an effects loop all by themselves.... although I usually have to have the Mu Oct Divider in there too.

[TI4-1009]

Related but not on target- yesterday I bought my wife the Liquid Blue "Grateful Dead Road Crew 5/7/77 Cornell" t-shirt. She's famous in my book for actually having been at the show. She had just finished her veterinary Boards and was celebrating. And yes, we went back last year for the encore.