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Post by mccoyblues on May 23, 2012 10:46:46 GMT -5
When you get into the amp discussion you get a completely different dynamic. The right amp and guitar combo are essential to the overall tone. But it all starts with the guitar.
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Post by aquaduct on May 23, 2012 11:02:17 GMT -5
When you get into the amp discussion you get a completely different dynamic. The right amp and guitar combo are essential to the overall tone. But it all starts with the guitar. I would disagree. It all started with Charlie Christian amplifying his archtop acoustic guitar. The amp is the birth of the electric and everything that follows can be much easier to understand if you first figure that out.
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Post by aquaduct on May 23, 2012 11:27:42 GMT -5
Alright, last primer on amplifiers.
As I've mentioned early amps basically delivered a single tone which meant that to get variety, you needed a good assortment of pedals. This is how a lot of players approach the instrument.
But there has been one more major development in amplification since then. In the 70's a guy named Elliot Randall was messing around in his garage in California hot-rodding Fender Princeton amps. He actually had a small electrical engineering company called Mesa Engineering and Carlos Santana stopped by his shop one day to try one of his early amps and is purported to have said, "Man, this thing boogies". Mesa Boogie was born.
In about 1981 he hit the third version of his second model which he called the Mark IIC and worked the last bugs out of it with the final 1500 built out of the 15,000 total designating it the Mark IIC+. That amplifier is widely regarded as the first "modern" amp and it went on to become a hallmark of the 80's and 90's (think Journey and Santana) with the "California" sound.
That amp has a couple of innovations. First, distortion is created by a series of cascading gain stages, essentially distorting already distorted signals producing a very lush, buttery, sustaining, "saturated" sound that is something players like J and I love.
The other advantage is that, since the distortion occurs in the preamp, the power amp is not really required for anything but making it louder. This allows for true multiple channel set ups where each channel can be an independent amplifier sound. It also means that you can have the preamp as a separate unit and run it into whatever power amp is available.
These days the Mesa Boogie Mark V has 3 independent foot-switchable channels. You can dial up 3 different amplifiers at a moments notice without any effects pedals.
This makes an amplifier extremely versatile for someone who isn't in a situation that really only needs one tone.
When I purchased my IIC+ in 1984 I aspired to be a studio player and I've used it from everything from pit orchestras to big band jazz to our current stylistic mish mash. For versatility, it's the schizzle.
Next, guitars.
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Post by aquaduct on May 23, 2012 12:16:31 GMT -5
OK, let's start the guitar post with an abbreviated nod to what's already been pretty well covered on pickups.
An electric pickup is a magnet wrapped in wire that generates a signal as metal strings pass through its magnetic field.
That's it. Everything else comes from dealing with the natural shortcomings of that simple design.
The more wire you get on the magnet the hotter the signal.
Certain magnets sound better than others.
A single coil pickup will tend to pick up 60 cycle hum from the surrounding environment. A humbucker puts two coils together next to each other to cancel the hum out. In doing so it also tends to cancel out high frequencies leaving you with a more mid-rangy sound than the single coil.
At really loud volumes the wires can move and feedback. Part of the Eddie Van Halen mystique is that he wound his own pickups and dipped them in wax to solve that problem.
Multiple coils can be wired in series, parrallel, in-phase, or out-of-phase. Various switches can also be wired in to change that as desired.
OK, next time will be guitars themselves. Promise.
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Post by mccoyblues on May 23, 2012 12:26:23 GMT -5
When you get into the amp discussion you get a completely different dynamic. The right amp and guitar combo are essential to the overall tone. But it all starts with the guitar. I would disagree. It all started with Charlie Christian amplifying his archtop acoustic guitar. The amp is the birth of the electric and everything that follows can be much easier to understand if you first figure that out. I guess it's all a matter of perspective. As far as I am concerned it started with Les Paul and Leo Fender. Sure there were earlier models and experimentations but it wasn't until Leo and Les got their hands on it that things really started to happen. Back in the day they weren't experimenting with amplification nearly as much as they were the guitar itself. The nuances of different amplification circuits came much later.
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Post by millring on May 23, 2012 12:28:55 GMT -5
This might be a good thread to move to the library when we're done with it here.
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Post by aquaduct on May 23, 2012 13:09:04 GMT -5
Ok, guitars.
I tend to view the differences between Gibson and Fender as primarily 2 different design philosophies. As has been noted these days you can get damn near any combination of either, but there is some significant history there.
Gibsons came out of jazz and the acoustic archtop tradition. Early big band jazz used banjos until the archtop hit the ability to properly cut through the band starting around Eddie Lang's time. Lloyd Loar revolutionalized archtops with the L5 in the 20's. In the continuing quest to be heard and to become a soloing instrument in big bands, Charlie Christian became the first real electric guitar player by wiring up an ES150 (I think) acoustic archtop.
The reason this is important is that the Gibson design philosophy continues to draw from the acoustic archtop. Dovetailed necks. arched tops, sort-of-archtop-like bridges, and electronics routed into cavities in the body remain hallmarks of the brand. Even the wierd shape ones retain the dovetailed necks, bridges and the routed electronics.
Archtops have the inherent problem of feedback at loud volumes. The Les Paul solves that nicely by taking away all the acoustic nature of the instrument (although there are numerous Les Paul models with carved body chambers). This also tends to get rid of any big acoustic character so there are a range of Gibson designs between the full archtop and the Paul. There are thin archtops like the Byrdland that Ted Nugent prefers (sometimes feedback is the goal). And the semi-hollow ES335 runs a solid block through the middle of the body to help cut down feedback.
The dovetailed neck is also very significant. The early Les Pauls that are worth major dinero these days have long tenons running into the body as part of the neck joint. This makes for improved sustain and has made some lucky kids that didn't sell thier first guitars rich.
And the bridges of early electrics were the trapeze designs carried over from archtops. Eventually they developed the stop tailpiece instead of the trapeze (which you can still get if that's your preference), but the bridges remain very archtop-esque.
And there really isn't much of a control cavity on Gibsons. More solid wood.
Oh, and they tend toward humbuckers.
Fenders have a much different design approach. Necks are bolt on. Bodies tend to be flatter. Bridges are through the body and a lot of them have whammy bars. And the electronics all tend to be mounted to the pickguard which covers a large routed chamber in the top.
Now I will confess that I've never been comfortable with Fenders so I don't know the ins and outs, but I do own the one Gibson that was built to compete with strats directly- bolt-on neck, electronics on pickguard, whammy bar, flat slab of maple body. I love that guitar so my discomfort probably come from neck feel, etc.
Others may be able to fill the Fender story in better.
Next, my stuff.
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Dub
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Post by Dub on May 23, 2012 13:21:57 GMT -5
My knowledge of electric guitars only slightly exceeds millring's. I have owned a few and presently own two. One is my new Kennedy archtop that Marty fitted with a Kent Armstrong Handbuilt P.A.F. Floating pickup. The other is a "Franken-Tele" I picked up over 20 years ago in a local pawn shop. The Tele presently has who-knows-what for pickups but I really like the neck and body so I'm changing out the electronics. I also have two amps I'm very happy with. one is a 1961 Ampeg tube amp with a 15" speaker and the other is a Yamaha G50-II solid state amp with lots of knobby things and stuff. Both amps sound great.
My first Martin guitar was a hollow body electric with two pickups and a Bixby tremolo tailpiece. I had a Fender Twin Reverb amp to go with it. It was 1967. I just wanted to play like Merle... still do. My first "electric" was a National flattop With a DeArmond pickup across the soundhole. I had no interest in electric guitars until I heard Brownie McGhee play using a DeArmond pickup. The sound he got on that old Folkways 10" LP was just wonderful to my ears. So when I saw the flattop in a pawn shop with a DeArmond pickup on in, I had to have it despite it's $20 asking price. I had no amp but my dad had a tape recording machine that sat on a large speaker cabinet and I figured out how to play my guitar through that.
The electric guitar sounds I admire are those of Brownie McGhee, Merle Travis, Muddy Waters, Clarence White, Joe Pass and Herb Ellis. Muddy used several different guitars but his key sound came from playing slide on a Tele. Merle was co-inventer of the solid body electric and had Paul Bixby build him several. The original Fender Broadcaster/Telecaster was modeled on those guitars. Clarence White famously played a Tele while Pass and Ellis played hollow body guitars with pickups mounted.
Solid body electrics are much less prone to feedback issues. My Kennedy archtop might feed back under some situations but I'll never hit those volumes so I don't really care.
But the tone of an electric guitar may be changed by many variables so that I doubt body and neck shape is a big part of the sound. It's mostly pickups, electronics, and hardware that determine sound, that and setup. String selection and the space between the pickup and the string can make a big difference. And the way pickups are wound is important. Fewer turns of heavy gage wire sound different than many turns of light gage wire.
I think the choice comes down to the same factors as buying an acoustic guitar. Find one you like at a price you can afford and make sure all the details are correct before you buy it.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2012 13:53:10 GMT -5
I think the choice comes down to the same factors as buying an acoustic guitar. Find one you like at a price you can afford and make sure all the details are correct before you buy it.
And then wait a while before you start going nuts thinking about all the after-market mods to make like PIO caps, vintage pick-ups, new pots, and a 50's wiring harness!
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Post by billhammond on May 23, 2012 13:57:33 GMT -5
Peter -- I am enjoying your mini-seminar on electrics.
One question -- are the OTHER electric guitar companies, like Yamaha and Paul Reed Smith, for instance, anything more than adjuncts to the original Gibson/Fender templates? Have any of them done anything to create their own category of type?
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Post by aquaduct on May 23, 2012 14:25:29 GMT -5
OK, here's my stuff. Hopefully this ties some of the other things I've mentioned together.
First, I was never the kid huddled in his bedroom trying to cop Jimmy Page licks. I pretty much learned the instrument playing it in backing bands for stage acts like Up With People (hopefully you won't hold that against me). So I've never been immersed in any one style. Versatility is key because I need to be able to cover whatever is called.
So my main electric is a Gibson ES335 special edition from 1979. The 335 is probably the most versatile guitar ever built. They're everywhere. Mine's been with me all over the country including to Carnegie Hall. Big band jazz, rock, country, does it all.
The main structural things that delineate mine from normal 335s is that it's wired in stereo, meaning you can run each pickup to its own amp. Never used it. But because it is stereo, it has only one volume knob compared to the normal 2. That's significant and much prefered by me in the convienience department. It's also fretted with shredder frets- as big as you can get. The goal is to glide along the top of the frets without having a heavy hand. At this point it's still a goal.
The main limitation to the 335 is that it can be tonally too big. Works fabulously in our duo, but with more pieces you often need to thin the tone down. My other electric is a 1976 Gibson S1. The aforementioned strat competitor. Shaped like a Les Paul with an Explorer headstock. A massive, flat plank of maple. Bolt on neck. Electronics mounted to the massive pickguard covering the routed hole in the top. And a whammy bar. The original electronics sucked so years ago I had it completely rewired like a Les Paul with two Seymour Duncans, one volume knob, and series/parrellel/coil cut pickup switching. It's great for any type of pop/R&B/rock music where the tone needs to be thinned out.
My main amp is the aforementioned Mark IIC+ (The 60 watt combo with the 12"EV speaker). One channel is clean like the nice Fenders that it was borrowed from and the other channel is distorted. The volume of both channels is balanced to be the same, just different sounds.
I use a TC Electronics G-System effects unit to control the rig. So as not to lose tone, the guitar volume is run full blast and the effects unit switches in 4 dB lead boost in either channel. The effects are split so compressors and modulation effects go in front of the preamp and reverbs and delays go in the effcts loop between the pre and power amps. It's done this way to keep noise down (it's a very 80's thing). Volume is usually not touched during a show, but there is a volume pedal into the effects unit if needed.
My alternative amp rig goes places like airplanes that won't accomodate the 85 lb. Boogie. It's a small 6 watt Valvetrain Lexington Reverb that fits in a carry-on. Again, a butt simple little amp with a volume, tone and reverb knob. In front of it I use a Mesa Boogie V-Twin tube preamp pedal which does a decent job duplicating its big brother's 2-channel set up. And then through a Digitech Hardwire delay pedal.
That's it. The advantages for me are versatility first and foremost. The footswitch controls really help limit the amount of mental cross-traffic and makes it easier for me to focus and play.
And there really isn't another experience quite like being in front of 1500 people with the 335 in front of you, the Boogie behind you and pointed up so you can hear it and then kicking in the distortion and boost and suddenly feeling like you're 15 feet tall and bullet proof.
I love the topic, John. Don't get to discuss this much with anybody. I love to hear about other experiences.
Thanks.
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Dub
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Post by Dub on May 23, 2012 14:32:10 GMT -5
Great job, Peter. Keep it up.
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Post by aquaduct on May 23, 2012 14:34:46 GMT -5
One question -- are the OTHER electric guitar companies, like Yamaha and Paul Reed Smith, for instance, anything more than adjuncts to the original Gibson/Fender templates? Have any of them done anything to create their own category of type? As far as basic design philosphies, not really. Of course they all have their unique combinations of characteristics, but nothing overall. Unless you count things like plexiglass Kramers or headless Stienbergers or Parker Flys. Even then the primary design characteristics tend to be derivative from those two.
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Dub
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Post by Dub on May 23, 2012 15:18:50 GMT -5
I think the choice comes down to the same factors as buying an acoustic guitar. Find one you like at a price you can afford and make sure all the details are correct before you buy it.
And then wait a while before you start going nuts thinking about all the after-market mods to make like PIO caps, vintage pick-ups, new pots, and a 50's wiring harness! Exactly. My tele was built by a local player and feels great to play. But I'm guessing he swapped out the electronics before pawning it those many years ago. I actually don't like electric guitars very much but bought the Tele because friends wanted me to join them in a garage band. Since I own it I may as well make it right. Electrics just don't feel or sound like guitars to me. I almost never like the sounds I can make on them. Maybe that will change. Should I install a B Bender?
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Post by aquaduct on May 23, 2012 15:39:30 GMT -5
Should I install a B Bender? I sure as heck would. One of the great things about electrics is they can be cheap and there are plenty of goofy gizmos to explore.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2012 16:47:54 GMT -5
Try a good (tube) amp, Dub. My Les Paul sounded like crap through a 15W solid state Peavey. So did the Strat. They both sound fantastic through the tube amp (Fender Blues Jr w/ Jensen Speaker) that I have.
I wouldn't do a B bender until you got comfortable with the guitar. Have you seen the crazy routing and link-a-ma-jigging you'd have to do to put a B bender in? All that before you figger out how the crazy thing works. Thanks, Graham Parsons. Yoikes.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2012 16:49:26 GMT -5
<Gene Parsons> My brain sometimes...
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2012 19:02:56 GMT -5
When you get into the amp discussion you get a completely different dynamic. The right amp and guitar combo are essential to the overall tone. But it all starts with the guitar. Matching the guitar and amp IS essential to getting the tone you want but not totally essential to getting a good tone. The best guitar in the world will only sound as good as the amp you play it through. A mediocre guitar through a really good amp will get a good tone while a great guitar through a mediocre amp will sound, mediocre. . This one: or this one?
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Post by drlj on May 23, 2012 21:19:25 GMT -5
When you come over next I will let you play the 1965 SG Special with P-90's and the ES-335 semi-hollow body with humbuckers. We will run them through the amp with various settings, go through the sustain peddle and add some tremolo for rock-a-billy and you will get a few ideas of your own
There were always Gibson guys and Fender guys. Bolt on necks versus set in necks. I have never been a Fender fan, although I have played a strat in the dark when no one could see me. I doubt I would ever own a Fender, though. Just my own bias. Fender amps are a different matter, of course. Come over. I have guitars for you to try out.
LJ
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2012 0:38:57 GMT -5
Calling a Danelectro made from various parts a "Jizzcaster" is a bit of a homage to Fatdog at Subway guitars in Berkeley, CA. He and his crew have been putting together serviceable instruments for working musicians from all sorts of oddball pieces, with Danelectros fitting prominently into that practice, since way back when. He also calls them Jizzblasters, and refers to Seymour Duncan pickups - one of the original "boutique" pickups makers - as Dunkmore Semen. I'll let the Freudians sort out Dog's preoccupation...
As far as electric guitars...gosh, I dunno. As Marty chimed, I'm way more of an electric guitar guy than my current occupation would suggest. I love acoustic instruments, and acoustic music; but for the 25 or so years I've been playing, electric guitar has by far been the center of my musical comfort zone.
While I can draw comparisons between electrics and acoustics in acoustic terms - like the differences between various acoustic body sizes, scale lengths, and tonewoods as compared to electic body styles, scale lengths, and electronic configurations - there isn't a really useful comparison when it comes to comparing the marriage between a guitar and an amplifier to an acoustic guitar.
I'm probably more in agreement with Marty than Peter in terms of the importance of the guitar or amp - though I think Peter is only SLIGHTLY overstating the case. To wit - give me a cheapish MIM, stock Tele or funky parts tele and a decent Tweed Deluxe or Blackface Fender (Princeton, Deluxe, or Vibrolux) build, and I can do my thing and sound like me. Give me one of my nice Teles and a crappy amp, or even a nice amp that I'm not comfortable with (pretty much anything with a master volume gain stage or EL84 power section), and I'll be all thumbs. It really is that different!
And while I'm most comfortable with a tele style guitar, I can roll pretty well with most Gibsons - oddly enough, an easier transition for me than to a Stratocaster, which despite having owned several good ones over the years, I can't pull a workable tone out of to save my life. In fact, I played a Les Paul for years - my first nice guitar - and as circumstances have it, I've recently had the chance to play that very guitar, sold about 14 years ago! Through a series of sales and swaps, it came to belong to one of our teacher's students recently. I had lost track of it after is passed through about four sets of hands that I knew of...until now.
For a bunch of years, I variously made a living or supplemented my day job income selling (mostly) electric guitars. Typically vintage or rare instruments to dealers, buyers, and collectors. The rise of the Internet put a damper on this for the most part, as my accumulated knowledge and experience, and rolodex of obscure contacts around the country, became more or less obtainable to anyone with a few keystrokes and a couple of mouse clicks. The market also changed with the times, and only folks with deeper pockets than mine have weathered that change well. So, with my last two vintage guitars in hand - and before the economy tanked - I got out, and paid for grad school with no real debt to speak of.
I still love electrics, but enjoy them now as a pleyer - not as a collector or seller. Selling acoustic guitars is fun, and gives me some of the same joy of meeting interesting people, and sharing the moment when someone finds "the one", and you're the one handing it to them. But, I still miss traveling around, going down the old rickety stairs into some guy's basement in Ohio, and seeing him pop open the case of an early 50s tele...telling me stories of where he played and who he played with...and when he put it down a lifetime ago to punch a clock and raise a family. The sparkle that came to his eyes when he saw in my eyes the recognition of what a treasure was in the case...and for me, not just because of the name on the headstock, but because of his story.
I feel good about every guitar I ever bought in those instances. I always paid a fair price, and sold at a fair price, and never took advantage of a seller's ignorance. A few insisted that I pay less than I thought I should, and I've gone as far as to slip a few benjamins in the pile when I thought they weren't looking out for their own interest as well as they ought to.
Apologies for my meandering...
Anyhow, electrics are a whole 'nuther ballgame - as different as fingerstyle is from flatpicking, as gypsy jazz is from classical, and so on.
John -
There are more decent, relatively inexpensive-but-nice electric guitar now than even before. If you buy used, you can find a nice enough guitar and a little tube amp for ~ $500 that would give you an honest enough taste to see if it is something that you like well enough to pursue. And by buying used, you should be able to recover your investment, nearly in full, if you find out that it isn't your cup of tea. If you ever want any suggestions, ring me at The Podium (any day except Monday or Sunday), and I'd be happy to help you figure out what you might want to look into.
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