“Everybody shouted at once, ‘No! Don’t touch it!’”: How a microphone mishap led Mark Knopfler to finding the perfect guitar tone for Money For Nothing
Dire Straits very nearly gave up on making their smash hit Money For Nothing, with guitarist Mark Knopfler struggling to find the right guitar sound – until a microphone quite literally fell into place, that is.
The track – known for its iconic isolated guitar riff and guest vocal contributions from Sting – formed part of the band’s fifth album, 1985’s Brothers In Arms. At the time, Knopfler wanted to recreate the guitar tone of ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, but with technical issues amid the early years of digital recording technology and creative blocks arising, he was ready to give up on it.
READ MORE: Sting’s guitarist explains why the Les Paul is the “perfect” instrument, and why it’s more “reliable” for tuning than a Fender
Speaking to Classic Rock in its new print edition, Knoplfer says, “It was an interesting period with the digital recording. An adventure as well. Neil [Dorfsman, producer/engineer] was chasing after what he ruefully refers to now as ‘perfection’, which is not something you can actually get, but he’d learnt his craft. He was a tremendous engineer. I used to just sit and watch him work, taking it all in, and he couldn’t tell me to clear me off because it was my record.”
However, following a fault with some digital tape machines, the band had to technically start things over for the record. Money For Nothing was becoming quite the slog to finish at this point, but after drums were completed by Omar Hakim, and keyboardist Guy Fletcher had put down a synth part, a new lease of life was given to the track.
It was just down to Knopfler to nail that guitar tone, and as Fletcher says, he was “always looking for something different, some other element that wasn’t in the room” – that later turned out to be a microphone which had drooped down from a speaker cabinet towards the floor, unlocking that Billy Gibbons tone.
“One of the assistants spotted the mic and went to move it,” Fletcher recalls, “and everybody shouted at once: ‘No! Don’t touch it!’ Once Mark had his guitar lick down, the whole song took off and became its own lifeform.”
Brothers In Arms celebrates its 40th anniversary this year – a special edition of the record is available to buy or stream now.
The post “Everybody shouted at once, ‘No! Don’t touch it!’”: How a microphone mishap led Mark Knopfler to finding the perfect guitar tone for Money For Nothing appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
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