Reproduced from: Builder’s Profile: Fil from SoloDallas
I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Filippo Olivieri the man behind all the stuff coming out of SoloDallas. Fil is a fun guy to talk to and one heck of a guitarist! He’s also extremely busy! Hope you enjoy this Builder’s Profile! (more…)
A great listen!
Ken Schaffer talks to Mick Marcellino and Jeff Bober about his many adventures inside and outside the music industry.
Sit back, relax and enjoy.
Just a note for you – the reader – as you approach this page: we suggest you click now on the media player and start listening to the audio interview and all the while, you read the preamble to the show as I wrote it below. Just read, look at the pics and listen.
Sit back, relax and enjoy your time here, as always. (more…)
Like many rock fans and aspiring guitarists around the world, Fil Olivieri had a musical epiphany the first time he heard the Australian band AC/DC’s classic 1980 album, “Back in Black.”
That epiphany turned into a decades-long quest for the Dallas-born, Rome-raised Olivieri, whose company, SoloDallas, will be an exhibitor at this week’s NAMM Show in Anaheim. For years, he sought to replicate the striking “Back in Black” guitar tones of AC/DC’s Angus Young, but didn’t know how.
“I became obsessed with it,” said Olivieri, 47, who now lives in La Jolla and was not yet a teenager when he became an AC/DC fan in 1978.
He bought the same guitars as Young (vintage Gibson SGs) and amplifiers (Marshalls). Still, the sound he wanted proved elusive.
Olivieri did not discover until reading an interview in 2012 that Young’s guitar sound owed much to a Schaffer-Vega wireless system. The same system had also been used by Eddie Van Halen, Peter Frampton and other six-string legends.
The long discontinued system, of which only 1,000 had been made, enabled guitarists to roam concert stages at will, without having their instruments plugged into amplifiers. The system included two controls that Young specifically credited for creating the over-driven guitar sound that is a trademark of AC/DC’s “Back in Black.”
After learning that Ken Schaffer had stopped making his wireless system in 1982, Oliveiri tracked him down in New York. They spoke several times at length.
Impressed by Olivieri’s enthusiasm, Schaffer gave the Italian-American his last two wireless units — and his blessing to create the Schaffer Replica, which Olivieri began marketing last year.
His company, SoloDallas, will display Olivieri’s Schaffer Replica wireless unit ($1,299 each) and foot-controlled stomp-box version ($399) at the NAMM show. That fact that AC/DC’s Young now uses Olivieri’s high-end product is an added bonus.
“Muse guitarist Matt Bellamy and Billy Idol’s guitarist, Steve Stevens, both have one now, and Lenny Kravitz, Keith Urban and other guitarists know about us because of AC/DC,” Olivieri’s said. “We made 850 units last year, and Angus has the first one. My company expects this NAMM Show to be really successful for us.”
Whew. I can finally say it out loud; or scream it. Or simply, continue to whisper it…ppst, the Schaffer Replica – an act of love initially, now a serious element of my entire life – has been used by Angus Young across the whole recording sessions for the latest AC/DC album – out on the next 2nd of December 2014 – “Rock Or Bust”.
The whole story is being covered by Guitar Player Magazine chief Editor Michael Molenda, who has interviewed Angus and Cliff yesterday in NYC (Michael was in touch with Ken Schaffer as well).
We will be interviewed as well for our side of the story next week, and the two stories – AC/DC’s new album and our “Schaffer Replica twist” will be mixed together in a main article on Guitar Player Magazine.
You can read of sneak preview of the paper article, due out on the January 2015 Guitar Player Magazine issue (thus out for us next December 2014, usually one month in advance) here
http://www.guitarplayer.com/artists/1013/a-sneak-peek-at-guitar-players-acdc-interview/49471
It’s funny, if you stop and think about the following for a minute: my search for AC/DC (Angus) sound certainly started many, many years ago, but only got its more serious twist when I read that article on Guitar Player Magazine from 1984. It’s funny (strange) that I happen to be covered on the same magazine, exactly 30 years later.
Wow.
Love,
Fil!
(PS expect loads more of information and stuff from us; we were only working behind for all of this; tons of news and goodies to come in 2015!)
SoloDallas featured in GEARPHORIA magazine: “JUST how much does Filippo at SoloDallas want you to sound like Angus Young? A lot. So much so that he has made it a mission to reverse engineer one of Angus’ trademark pieces of kit. Not an amp or pedal mind you… it’s his ‘70s era Schaffer wireless system. And we can attest, it makes a surprisingly significant difference. The SoloDallas Schaffer Replica gives both bloom and depth to your guitar tone… making a vintage Marshall sound more like three vintage Marshalls. It is a pretty impressive thing to hear in person. We suggest if you have the opportunity to hear one for yourself, do it. The replica does away with the wireless aspect, but not the punch it gave to Angus’ signature roar.”
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