rogb wrote:
Now that is sensational tone and playing, and all done by adding a cap to a Fender Twin, I hear.
When I finish my 50w #102 style combo, this will be something to go for.
Thanks to all who give us such great information and inspiration.
rogb wrote:Now that is sensational tone and playing, and all done by adding a cap to a Fender Twin, I hear.
When I finish my 50w #102 style combo, this will be something to go for.
Thanks to all who give us such great information and inspiration.
If your "sensational tone and playing" comment should refer to this YouTube clip of RF with the Miles Davis Band, then you should perhaps keep in mind that these clips have been recorded before RF's ODS #102 had been updated to skyline specs.
So what you hear in the YouTube clips of RF as a member of the Miles Davis Band (and BTW on "Talk To Your Daughter", too) is #102 still with a "classic" tone stack, with a deep switch, and with a Fender Twin PT etc. So at this time the circuit of #102 may perhaps have been more similar to this circuit https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.php?t=12872
than to this circuit https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.php?t=12873
These points of reference are so important and useful.
Gotta say when I have done this one, I an going to go for the SSS cleam sustaining tone on a100w build for sure.
I have got a beautiful AB763 amp at the moment, that has gained nothing but praise, but for me the Dumble clean and drive channels have what I really like.
Erik, the specimen of the Rick Turner Model 1 guitar I know and wrote about is a specimen of the "Mahogany" version with internal preamp, "quasi-parametric" EQ, coil split function (magnetic), piezo bridge, and blending (piezo/magnetic) control: http://www.renaissanceguitars.com/model ... hogany.php
The blending control is IMO rather usefull to finetune the attack and timbre of this guitar.
In the Alembic days we went to very low impedance pickups to get this wide-frequency response, but now I'm into this very high-impedance pickup coupled with a buffer that's tailored to control the resonance of the magnetic pickup. Magnetic pickups tend to have sweet spots of impedance matching, and this is not stuff that you can measure. You try different resistors on the input until it sounds good, and there it is. In this case I'll have 20K-25K DC resistance on the pickup, and match it up to 125K input, or go down to 80K input until I've got the sound right. Once the sound is right it stays right because it's being preamped so it's not going to change. So I get a very hot ceramic-magnet pickup to sound warm and clean at the same time. Now ceramic-magnet pickups sound different from alnico pickups. They tend to sound harsher. There is a kind of magnetic resonance, if you will, that is a high-frequency boost that they tend to allow. Part of it is the inductance of the coil, which is different for an iron load. A coil wound on a ceramic magnet has very different magnetic characteristics. Its field doesn't collapse in response to the vibration of the string, and it tends to sound more brittle; but if you surround it with a really high-impedance coil it starts to mellow out. If you then start messing around with the input impedance of the preamp you start to get some very interesting results, and even if you are losing some output, so what? The signal doesn't have to drive 30' of cable. It's just going to a preamp. I'm not going for output, I'm going for tone. You can always get output. That's a piece of cake. So we've got magnetic pickups that are twice the DC resistance of a Gibson humbucker, but with more highs. That is totally opposite to what I had previously believed possible. To me it's almost counter intuitive, which is great because it forces me to really think. These pickups are very stable and very dynamic. It's just a different sound, and that's what it all comes down to: how good does it sound? The measurements are great for checking quality control, but they don't tell you whether it is musical or not. A lot of this is just fiddling around with variables until you are happy.
The other thing we have discovered is that coil-damping material is incredibly important. I used to superglue my coils. Now I am vacuum impregnating them in shellac, and the pickups are much mellower. Who'd of thunk it? And that's because there are physical coil resonances. With superglue-soaked coils you had a much more brittle-sounding pickup. Now we are using shellac, and I really like the results. They are a little squooshy, but you don't get any obvious ringing. They are very quiet when you tap on them, and they sound great. They are closer to the wax-soaked, and with the vacuum impregnation the shellac is going all of the way in. This is within the last month. I've been making magnetic pickups since '68, and thirty years later I'm still going, "Whoa! Lets throw out everything I knew and try this!"
Max- Turner's got a lot going on in that brain of his, the thing I like most about him is he's willing to step outside tradition with his instruments with out ending up with a steinberger of modulus looking (or sounding) instrument. There are a number of companies putting all their eggs in one basket on technologies he has long since abandoned.
Have you looked into Bill Lawrence's Q-control? It is along those same lines of thinking but without the batteries; http://wildepickups.com/Q-filter.html With a push pull pot it may make that strat your desert island guitar.
I'm using bill instrument cable for the shielded runs in my amp, 20pF/foot teflon and a little easier to work with than the thick coax stuff. I've thought a lot about input impedance and strat compatibility, often wondering if 22k or 33k is enough compared to the fender usual of 68K, and now Turner talking about 120k-80k? I know what a difference it makes to spend some time here with my moving coil phono cartridges, I can only imagine it can do the same for a guitar pick-up.
I have a VHS copy of an SRV tribute concert full of the usual suspects...Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, et al. She uses an ODS head/cab and has the best tone of the whole thing. I suspect, EC, BB King, and others were using rentals. Historically, she's also a Jim Kelley user.
boldaslove6789 wrote:Kinda hard to tell if she's using the ODS but I don't know who else would be using it other than her...
I think I was home sick once and I watched the whole thing trying to figure out who went with what amp. My recollection is that the amp was in a different position while all the other guitarists were featured -- it was moved for her. I also tried to study the guitar cords. Hers seems to go in the right direction. Decent Fender sound with a bit more to it. If Landreth was there, he didn't make the final cut.
Last edited by jaysg on Mon Mar 26, 2012 11:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
