Pink Floyd Dogs Instrumental Cover with RA-200

Gilmour Tone Building
Instrumental cover of the song Dogs, from Pink Floyd's legendary 1977 album, Animals. Demonstrating the sound of the Alembic F2-B preamp into a Yamaha RA-200 rotary speaker combo amp, Electric Mistress flanger, and Colorsound Power Boost stacked into a Ram's Head Big Muff. Amps and effects gear used are mentioned in the video. Effect settings are also shown in the video. In these examples the PB is the driver and main distortion generator for the solos. It is set for maximum drive and the muff following it is set with a low sustain. The muff tone stage is really just being used as an EQ to color the distortion from the PB.Here are what my PB and Ram's Head settings would be for a similar sound on a modern EHX Ram's Head Big Muff and a Power Boost clone.

The RA-200 volume and tone pots are all set neutral, at 12:00. The tremolo pot is set for the slowest rotary speed. The F2-B settings are shown in the video.The Telecaster is a 2001 American Series Tele tuned down one whole step to D. String gauges are 0.10, 0.12, 0.16, 0.24, 0.36, 0.44. Mics used are a Cascade Fat Head ribbon mic and an e906 on the RA-200 rotaries and a Sure SM57 and Sennheiser e906 on the Hi-Tone speaker cab.

Here is a clip without the backing track if you are interested in trying to match the guitar tones with your own rig.

David was a master at coming up with unique and magical guitar tones, and Dogs is one of his master works. It is always a fun challenge trying to match David's tones and to figure out how the gear was used to achieve those tones. There is no definitive information on the exact setups David used in the studio or live for Dogs, but experimenting with the same gear can give you an ideas of what he likely used, and that is all I have done here.

My playing in this cover is a mix of the studio recording and various live versions from the 1977 tour, or my attempt anyway. I used the Alembic+RA-200 for the first fast guitar solo and the first dual-guitar harmony solo. I used a blend of the Dawner Prince PULSE (a rotary speaker sim) and PastFX Elastic Mattress (an excellent green Electric Mistress clone) pedals for the second (dry) solo, the second harmony solo, and the second fast solo at the end, just to show how that combo can achieve something with a similar feel as the RA-200, even though it is a very different sound.

There is not much information about the recording sessions or gear used on Dogs, but David said he used a Fender custom Telecaster tuned down to D. This Tele is the same one he used for the 1977 tour, identified as a 1962 Fender Custom Telecaster in Pink Floyd's Their Mortal Remains exhibition book. The neck pickup was replaced with a Strat pickup.

David has also said a few things about Dogs in various interviews over the years:
“I basically wrote all the chords—the main music part of it, and Roger and I wrote some other bits at the end.”

“I played it on a custom Telecaster. I was coming through some Hiwatt amps and a couple of Yamaha rotating speaker cabinets— Leslie-style cabinets that they used to make.“

Referring to the harmony guitar solos, which Roger accidentally erased in the recording studio - “It’s quite nice. I thought it was very clever. Then Roger went and wiped it and I had to recreate it."

Referring to the RA-200 used for Dogs when playing live - “I use two of those on stage, along with the regular amps. That slight Leslie effect made a big difference in the sound.”

And there is this interesting one from a Guitar Player interview in 2009. David was asked if he played a Tele on the Dogs solo. He said "Yes, that’s right. I think it was done using the neck pickup, which I changed to a Strat pickup, because the Tele neck pickups never seem to be quite up to the job. " I don't hear a neck pickup on any of the solos in Dogs.

Also check out these excellent Gilmour resources

[rico]

At age 13, I stood less than 50' in front of David Gilmour as he played that song live, at Tampa Stadium. Congratulations on doing a fine job on the tone I've chased for the last 46 years.

[robertreese]

I will never understand why this album wasn't as big as Dark Side Of The Moon. I appreciate the tremendous effort this was. Well done.

[boscoclavijo]

Im a simple man. I see Telecasters, pink floyd and actual dogs in a single video, I hit the like button

[matthopgood]

As much as all of David Gilmour’s leads are incredible, I cannot understand why the leads from dogs and indeed the whole Animals album aren’t mentioned and compared to as being as great as e.g. the leads from the Wall, DSOM, WUWH, etc. These leads are just magnificent ! Well done !

[pinkanimals]

This flanger/rotary setup is to die for. And on The Wall 1980-81 tour he'd add two Boss CE-2 on split L/R channels on top of that, the whole thing just went WET like the Pacific Ocean and like super super wide. All that clean headroom and sense of dimension and movement, OMG, that tone was literally massive.

[thewizard]

Saw them in Philly at the Spectrum in the late 70's..animals hanging from the ceiling, me on LSD, I swear that Pig spoke to me..

[DanielKomarek]

I love how the solos are a mixture of studio and live and the sounds are incredible

[DaDaDaddeo]

One of the best melodic guitar instrumentals of all time.

[JAM]

I got to see the Animals tours in NYC on July 3, row made me one happy show for sure

[moisesmangones]

No one had dared to do this! Thanks for this amazing and hard work

[fernandodemellopimentel]

Dogs is where David Gilmour showed what an amazing musician and composer he was (in addition to being a PHENOMENAL guitar player, of course!) Love his guitar chops in general. Animals sounds so different from anything he had done up to 1977. Thank you @KitRae for this most beautiful rendition of the almighty DOGS!

[TheOneAndOnlyKurtNobrain]

One of my favorite songs from my favorite Floyd album that's played by my favorite Muff expert.

[rangeledgar_]

This song resides deep along with so many memories. I love it so much

[Dreamman]

Love the dog! And the exceptional performance of Kit as well :) Great how he retrieved these 70's sound from modern equipment. Joy to listen to !

[joaopedrorey]

Good job man! Really very authentic tones, Animals is one of my favorite albums of Pink Floyd althoug are very underrated. Sir Gilmour did one of the most beautiful pieces of his carreer and develop his tones to another level of magic!

[bassandteacher]

I like the fact that you're not playing it exact but putting a little bit of your twist on it. And showing us the FX is also really helpful.

[WakeMikey]

Holy crap you nailed this so perfectly. Love the RA

[shearn]

The dual lead work is spot on. And thank you for revealing lots of little detail i was not aware of. One of my all time favourite tracks. Great work.

[metricdeep]

That RA 200 is the most amazing piece of gear...more so than anything else in my opinion. very well WELL. I'm also greatly jealous of your beautiful dog. Congrats.

[dextermaniac]

unconditional fan of pink floyd that I am. Congratulations for this magnificent performance. excellent👍👍👍