James Joseph McGuinn III was born on July 13, 1942. He changed his name to Roger in 1967 after it was suggested by the founder of a spiritual association he was exploring at the time because it would better "vibrate with the universe." McGuinn developed innovative styles of playing the electric guitar during his time with The Byrds: one was the "jingle-jangle." "The 'Ric' [Rickenbacker guitar] by itself is kind of thuddy" said McGuinn. "It doesn't ring. But if you add a compressor, you get that long sustain."

"To be honest, I found this by accident. The engineer, Ray Gerhardt, would run compressors on everything to protect his precious equipment from loud rock and roll. He compressed the heck out of my 12-string, and it sounded so great we decided to use two tube compressors [likely Teletronix LA-2As] in series, and then go directly into the board. That's how I got my 'jingle-jangle' tone. It's really squashed down, but it jumps out from the radio. With compression, I found I could hold a note for three or four seconds, and sound more like a wind instrument. Later, this led me to emulate John Coltrane's saxophone on "Eight Miles High". Without compression, I couldn't have sustained the riff's first note."

The HD7 Roger McGuinn Signature Edition, released by the C F Martin Guitar Compamy, claims to capture the "jingle-jangle" tone McGuinn created with 12 string guitars.

James Stiltner via YouTube

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