While it’s most well-known for creating the rumbling faux bass parts scattered throughout the LP, the pedal was also used to take the guitar to new, ear-piercing heights, best heard on Black Math and the guitar solo on There’s No Room For You Here. The other guitar pedal that’s vital to Elephant’s guitar tone is the Digitech Whammy WH-4. White’s tone was heavily reliant on the famous Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi, which he uses for most songs from the touch of gain on Ball and Biscuit through to the rough, crunchy swagger of Black Math. Though Jack White achieved a myriad of different guitar tones throughout the album’s 50-minute run-time, he does so with just two guitar pedals. This was often plugged into a Fender Twin Reverb amp or a Silvertone combo miked with Shure and AKG dynamic mics, with each amp having usually having its own track. Other than the previously mentioned Kay Hollowbody guitar, White’s main axe for the album was a 1964 ‘JB Hutto’ Res-O-Glass Airline guitar. Jack White’s setup was kept relatively straightforward. Looking to thicken the sound of the band, Elephant saw White experiment with guitar overdubs, allowing the songs to feature both a rhythm part and a wailing solo simultaneously. The bass drum, for many songs, has its own track, which was compressed and brought to the forefront of the mix, particularly on album cuts like the opening number and The Hardest Button To Button.Īt the core of The White Stripes’ sound is the blues-heavy and often-erratic guitar tones of Jack White. On many songs, the drums are mixed onto one track – except for the bass drum.
This was achieved by miking Meg’s Ludwig Classic Maple kit with both AKG dynamic and condenser microphones, as well as a Shure dynamic mic for the snare. One of the hallmark qualities of Elephant are the head-bursting thuds of Meg White kick drum. Nonetheless, her laidback drums fused perfectly with the frenetic energy of Jack White’s guitar, and on Elephant, her beats were given a much-needed boost. Chest-Thumping BeatsĪ key component of The White Stripes’ garage-rock sound has been the drumming style of Meg White, who usually takes a more reserved, simplistic approach to the drums than most of her contemporaries.
Boasting breathy vocals stacked on top of each other, rhythm and lead guitar tracks and a heaving organ deep in the mix, The White Stripes were able to mimic the grand scale of a Queen song – no easy feat for a band limited to a worn-out eight-track tape recorder. This is perhaps best put to use on There’s No Room For You Here, a song that sounds somewhat out of place on the album due to its grandiose arrangement. While other tracks on the album like In The Cold, Cold Night and I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother’s Heart use organs and piano for a fuller and richer tone, no recording technique was more effective in adding scope to Elephant than multi-tracking.
With the pitch on the Whammy pedal set an octave down, White’s menacing riff was suddenly given a ton of weight and depth – an effect also used on the opening beats of The Hardest Button to Button.
Instead, Jack White used a semi-acoustic 1950’s Kay Hollowbody guitar and ran it through a Digitech Whammy, one of the few post-1960’s pieces of gear used on the album. Released as the album’s lead single, the song’s iconic bass riff was actually recorded without a single bass guitar. This challenge saw the duo incorporate an instrument not yet heard on a White Stripes song: a bass guitar (or so it seemed).įew rock songs in the 21st century have had the impact and legacy of Seven Nation Army a sleek and sinister descending riff that has since been etched into the minds of literally everyone across the globe. The less you do, usually the better it sounds.” Crafting Their Sprawling SoundĬooped up in the retro-tinged confines of Toe Rag Studios, Jack White acted as the producer for Elephant, wanting to specifically explore just how big of a sound two artists could create, while being limited to just eight individual tracks per song. Speaking with Sound On Sound in October 2003, Watson spoke on how high-end, modern recording gear can at times negatively affect the process: “You don’t need to f**k around with stuff because if it sounds good in the room, if you’re using the right microphones in the right positions it should sound good in the control room as well. Not only did the antiquated equipment provide the songs with some ham-fisted gritty warmth, it also helped the duo’s streamlined, on-the-fly recording process. Utilising a beaten-up eight-track tape recorder, an 18-input Calrec M-Series mixer and the plethora of weary microphones laying around Toe Rag – including an old STC 4021 microphone more commonly known as a ‘ball and biscuit’ – The White Stripes were able to create fourteen songs over the space of ten days that dripped vintage allure.
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