Video & comments: https://youtu.be/9Ns6R-p7Ap4
Recording sheets and details: link
Recorded & produced: Jun 2019
Backing tracks: link
I first heard 5 AM while watching the 2016 Live at Pompeii concert. It's the opening performance and I instantly fell in love with it.
Although the lead follows a Bm pentatonic scale, the devil is in the details. The techniques, the choices of notes and patterns are what makes this song so pleasant to play and listen to.
To record it I used the 1952 Gibson® Les Paul® “Goldtop” sound of my Variax guitar. That seems to be the one Gilmour is using and the single coils give it that warm sound.
While it follows a progression of mostly open chords, I found it difficult to play the Bm consistently without buzz while finger picking the strings.
Initially I didn't even notice the bass line in the original but then I started hearing the root note at the beginning of every bar. And that's what I reproduced.
Backing and lead strings were recorded separately. There's one and two octaves between their pitches but I used the same virtual instrument. It was a similar strategy to that of Summer Wine's recording.
The last addition to the recording, the pad starts towards the middle and remains a consistent tempo device.
I worked every track with reasonable amounts of reverb and compression. Then for the master track I also used a bus compressor to make the sound louder, but not too loud.
The background image was actually taken by me around 5 AM on a weekday morning at the Palm Springs airport. It's always eerily quiet at such early hours.