There's No Way Out Of Here

I got a question about the song on Gilmour's first solo album (1978) "There's No Way Out Of Here".

What instrument is that wailing intro being played on? I've had the album for years, and I always thought it was a harmonica. But now I'm starting to think that it's an electric guitar played through a talkbox. This could very well be likely since Gilmour used the talkbox on "Animals" which came out before this did.

Anybody know for sure which one it is or if it's both?

No credit on the original album jacket. But you probably knew that already.

Yeah, that's why I was wondering. Nobody was credited for harmonica, but if it was a talkbox, then crediting Gilmour for "guitar" would suffice.

Yeah I bet it was that.

I got to thinking about this...

First, I burned it onto CD from my vinyl at 64k... took it into the lab... hooked it up to an HP spectrum analyzer through an adaptive filter bank.

I also brought an old Hohner and mike I have & can't play for crap...

After filtering out as much of the other stuff as I could, it shows about the same frequency distribution as the Hohner, with a notable increase in amplitude at the center frequency (the Hohner is pretty even). It also shows a severely compressed dynamic range (difference between loudest and softest notes), and the wave form lacks the 'fur' (harmonics) I see from the harmonica.

My conclusions? None. It's been run through all sorts of processing and mixed with a bunch of other stuff, so I'm wasting my time. But I think it's not a harmonica, because the changes in the notes are too smooth and because of the louder center frequency - I couldn't get anything like that out of the Hohner (did I mention I can't play harmonica?).

I have GOT to get a life.

i used to have a video of dave playing this song live. it is a guitar

just sounds like a guitar with a slide to me

You coulda said something before I wasted an hour on that stuff.

An hour spend on floyd is not an hour wasted.

You're having a laugh, right? Right?

Unfortunately.... No.

I need help.

There is indeed a harmonica in there, doing little fills and doubling the lead guitar part. Unfortunately, it's buried in reverb and placed low in the mix so I don't see how you would be able to pick it out with any certainty from the rest of the instruments. The midrange boost is probably just that... some extra EQ added to make it stand out a little more. And drastically compressing the harmonica's dynamic range is certainly not an unheard-of recording practice! That's what gives it that smooth, guitar-like sound. I guess Dave just didn't want to bother with it for live performances, or add a credit for "harmonica - Dave Gilmour" in his liner notes.

it is a guitar no doubt my uncle played it and he used a little soundfxpedal or something...it was that sound exact!!

What about that sound on Pigs (Three Different Ones)... at about the 5:11 mark of the song... i always thought that that was a harmonica with some weird effect on it... n e ideas about that?

It's Dave playing guitar through a talkbox: a device which modulates tones depending on what shape the player's mouth is in. He also uses it for the solo on "Keep Talking."

But there is both a guitar (with that wailing, high-pitched effect) and a reverb-drenched harmonica playing on There's No Way Out of Here, I'm pretty sure of that.