'One Of A Kind' by Bruford was 'the' album that spent the most time on my record deck back in 1979-1980. I almost wore the damn thing out.
Jeff Berlin's bass playing was breathtaking at the time, second to only Jaco, but the highlight was without doubt the unbelievable guitar work of Allan Holdsworth on this album.
He was beyond revolutionary when this was released. You have to understand that back in those days there was no-one even close to what he was achieving back then. He was truly unique in his abilities and vision at that time.
We lost one of the greatest and most influential guitarists ever in 2017
(pronounced: equal-sequel) "I suffered for my art.. now it's your turn"
Comments
So disappointing that he's gone .....
@Philtre I got the below info from a forum somewhere, it was saved on a text file on my computer. I set up a parametric EQ stompbox on my GT-1000 with those frequencies and it does give a Holdsworth like tone.
In my ears is Allan’s sound in this song a very “sweet” and soft sound with an almost sort of a growing, slow attack to it, still with out lacking any attack. The whole tone is almost sort of growing and the notes get bigger the longer they sustain. It has a very voice like quality to my ears, with most of it leading energy in the midrange, and it has very little low and muddy bas frequencies witch make it sound very open and clear.
I would say that most of the energy and what makes the sound, is focused between 600Hz and 1.5kHz (and most of it around the 600Hz area). The treble is very round and soft and there is almost no information above 2.6kHz, at all. It sounds like there’s not too much distortion in his sound and a lot of what makes the sustain and singing quality is the power in the midrange and obviously, Allan’s great technique.
His sound doesn’t sound like a loud guitar or like a cranked big amp, but it still sounds massive and big. It sounds like there are a warm sounding reverb (that is pretty big), and a very low volume delay on the sound, and maybe a little compressor. Other people might hear this completely different, but that wont matter sins this makes sense to me, and that is what it’s all about.