KIA Sportage Commercial Tone: Real Wood!
Have you seen that commercial for the new Kia Sportage, the red one? Or I guess I should say, Have you heard that commercial? If you have, you may have recognized woody tone jumping out at you from your TV speakers. I did – though I had some trepidation, like “is that a Pod or a Line 6 or some amp plugin artfully recorded?”
Dang, I hoped not. So I tracked down the folks who did the sound for that commercial. here’s what I found out: Wood!
But first, here’s the commercial:
HA! Just messin’ with ya. Here’s the one I’m talking about, which it seems KIA has not posted in full yet:
The Gear
Thad Spencer – creative director and founder of Asche & Spencer, which supplied the music for the commercial – had this to say to my questions:
1. Whose tune is it?
This song was written by Asche & Spencer. We’re a group that writes music for TV commercials and feature films. Please check out our website for a more complete listing of our work history. Currently we are scoring Marc Forster’s latest film, The Machine Gun Preacher.
2. Who played the guitar part?
Chris Beaty.
3. What was the exact signal chain?
Guitar-cable-amp. [Yeah!]
4. Make, model and year of guitar please.
Custom-made Strat with Boogie Bodies and Warmoth parts. [Boogie Bodies, eh? Hmm….]
4a) What was the pickup brand and model used for the riff, and any other tweaks to the guitar too, like an onboard boost or whatever.
EMG single-coil pickups, bridge pickup.
4b) Strings and picks, if known.
GHS Boomers (11s), and Tortex yellow picks [I assume .73mm?].
5. Make and model of any effects used.
None
6. Amp make and model.
Bad Cat Hot Cat 15. [Shweet!]
7. Make/model/year of cab, exact speakers if known.
Internal cab. [Combo – anyone know the stock speaker? I couldn’t find it.]
8. Mic used and where the cab was mic’d.
SM57, straight on.
9. How recorded (e.g., Pro Tools, etc.).
FMR mic pre to Pro Tools 888-24/16 bit.
_____
And there you have it tone brothers! Many thanks to Thad for knowing this stuff and taking the time to pass it on.
Category: Bad Cat, EMG, Random Tone
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
I was reading in bed last night while my wife watched bad TV. Is there any good TV? Well, not much of it. Anyway, I heard this playing and sat straight up "What is THAT!?" Wife: "A… Kia?" Me: "No no no, that MUSIC!"
Very cool.
This was recently released as a single on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/pin-drop-single/…