Pickups...

[dave robinson]

Thanks for that link Roger, this guy has done what we should all be doing and is a fine example of what I said about honing our craft.
I love his attention to detail, especially on Shadoogie and not a Meazzi or special set of pickups in sight, the guitar is a modern Strat, I rest my case.

[dave robinson]

As far as pick ups go, Leo Fender made the best I've heard yet and he fitted them to the G&L S-500 with a great tone circuit that gives the correct amount of bass cut required for the very early Shadows tone. With one of those strapped on you can throw away the EQ gadgets as they are not required. Why Leo didn't make the tone controls work this way from the outset I can't imagine, but I copied the circuit and had a technical guy fit it to one of my Strats with average stock pick ups and it works the same. There's no mystery, it's just finding the correct EQ, as Malcolm Addey did at Abbey Road using the desk, along with careful choice settings on the reverb high and low pass filters. It's that simple and I would go as far to say that we have ALL been chasing something and being shafted in the process, by paying top dollar for pickups we didn't really need. Same with the echo machines, it's all about TONE.

[roger bayliss]

Still got my S500 by G&L and rate it highly. Have the PTB tone system on a home built stat fitted with Tonerider Classic Blues pickups and that works well. I think Leo Fender back in the early days would probably not do that in the same way he did not put tone controls on bridge pickups or include the bridge and neck combo etc. Things obviously evolved with time and no doubt Leo had business pressures upon him as well that diverted his thoughts.

[Jetblack56]

Dave,

I can't agree in what what you say about pickups,strings,etc NOT being important. And neither would I think professor Paul Rossiter the brilliant inventor of the TVS3. If you have ever watched his series of video's on youtube regarding "THAT SOUND" he goes into GREAT detail about pickups,scatterwinding,string gauge,age,height. His TVS3 (Tape Voicing System) is set up to "emulate" the "UNIQUE" sonic voice of the Drum,and Tape Meazzi's,as well as Binson's etc etc. In the TVS3 All of the sound paths are analogue (with the 12AX7 in the dry signal path) and analog delay chips in the echo path. However, the settings for these (delay time, feedback, internal equalisation etc) are under digital control.If you have listened to the TVS3 recordings of the EARLY Shadows stuff,i,m sure you will recognize just HOW close they are to the "recorded Abbey Road sound".Of course as Paul say's a certain amount of EQ is required even with the TVS3. What is clear is that the "ESSENTIAL" CORE SOUND of the Meazzi IS THERE. I know Paul uses a standard american Strat with CS54 pickup's and his guitar has also been expertly"set up". He has built a "CLONE" VOX AC15 which is capable of copying all the EARLY VOX AC15's and Early JMI VOX AC30's etc. If you are a perfectionist,or as "fanatical" as ME and a LOT of other people about getting "THAT SOUND" you will KNOW..... all this is true and it DOES matter a great deal about ALL the things i,v talked about.

As for Christian's VST sound. I am a member of his VST forum,and Christian and I disagreed a few times on VST "DIGITAL SOUND" being able to faithfully copy the EARLY Analogue sound of the Shadows. VST uses e-Tap for echo emulation quite effectively. Most "ECHO" units WILL be able replicate the complicated echo patterns of the early echo units quite well. I have owned ALESIS QUADRAVERBS Q20's Q2's GT etc ALL of these do a good job with the ECHO's but the overall "sound" and "tonal" quality's go NOWHERE NEAR the TVS3, or the NEW LGK ECHOMATIC that I have just had built. Christian does a brilliant job emulating the "playing style" of Hank, but even with ALL his ABBEY ROAD plug-ins the "DIGITAL" SOUND IS TOO "CLINICAL" and lacks any character,.....life...... No one will EVER convince me otherwise.

By the way the LINK works ok for ME. If THIS LINK does not work, try the links in the OTHER THREAD I posted in on HERE, or go on youtube and type in "LEADRYDER" that will let you see Kurt Frobergs channel, on which he demonstrates HIS NEW ECHOMATIC, the SAME as the one Lars built for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuS5bZF2VM0&t=14s


Steph

I don't mind whether you agree or not, but I too have had them all, Meazzi tape, Binson drum, ESE Echomatic (which was the closest) , Quad GT, Q2, various Zoom machines, Hall & Collins, eTap2, Klemt Echolette, Dynacord Echocord and the TVS3. Out of them I kept the Echolette, Hall & Collins, Catalinbread Echorec and recently acquired the Blue Nebula, all of which do the job as good as any of the others.
The key is in the tone of the amp, not the pickups or echo machine. The Shadows sound was borne a long time before Hank took the Meazzi on board, the magic is in the studio reverb on those records as there isn't a Meazzi in sight.

[Jetblack56]

Your missing the POINT, ..no MEAZZI, no SHADOWS sound. Hank Marvin...gets his Fender Strat,...Joe Brown gives Hank a Meazzi,Dick Denny builds Hank a VOX AC15. Hank has his "raw" sound. Abbey Road....engineers Fairchild's Altec's etc etc ALREADY THERE. Abbey road plus the Shadows EQUALS "THAT SOUND". YOU might be satisfied with "digital" echo but not for me. They "manage" vintage ECHO ..ONLY...there is no tonal quality's. As I said they work on principle of sampling an "ANALOGUE" signal,and then TRYING to reproduce an authentic VALVE sound, which they CANNOT do of course. They will always sound "lifeless" clinical. You cannot faithfully reproduce things like WOW & FLUTTER, digitally.

[dave robinson]

I'm not missing anything. I have just told you that the Shadows sound was there before the Meazzi arrived. If you listen to Move It, the Shadows sound was there without Hank, as he didn't play on the record. You can't have better proof than the records to listen to and the fact that the Meazzi had nothing to do with THAT SOUND as it existed on early records before it arrived. The Meazzi merely added delay. The guy Chris that I mentioned on you tube has the nearest vintage Shadows tone and actually made me listen twice, nobody else has done that for me. `i don't care whether he did it with a computer, digital or whatever, I have yet to hear anything closer.
I had a listen to the demo of your Echo machine on your link and it sounds excellent, it reminded me of my ESE Echomatic and is very authentic.
I sold the ESE because I programmed my Line 6 Helix for our shows with everything I needed including all the echoes as it's easier to use on theatre shows, but I sold the Helix after it crashed a couple of times and currently use two Boss Katana 100 heads programmed with the Tone Central software, achieving great echo sounds.
That said, you new tape echo sounds great, how much are those to buy ?

[Jetblack56]

Dave,

I think we could go on arguing all year about various facts,and opinions. You are right about Hank not being on the original studio recording of "MOVE IT" Ernie Shear was the "lead" guitarist and he played a Hofner President,probably through a Selmer amp. So that sound on MOVE IT was most definitely NOT "THAT SOUND". The Shadows backing Cliff around late 1959 certainly had a "thin" sound and when Cliff and the Shads were recorded at Abbey road different recording methods were used than when the Shads were recording instrumentals. "THAT SOUND" was established when they recorded "Apache",FBI,MAN OF MYSTERY,STRANGER,GONZALES , in 1960. Hank Marvin,VOX AC15 Meazzi Echomatic 1. This gear stayed the same until around 1961. Hank still used his Maple Strat,and the Echomatic 1 but he was using a more powerful VOX AC30/4 .January and February 1961 saw the Shads record KON TIKI,FIND ME A GOLDEN STREET,THE FRIGHTENED CITY and BLUE STAR. From April 1961 Hank asked Dick Denny to ADD a "TOP BOOST" to his AC 30/4, and they recorded SHADOOGIE,SLEEPWALK,WONDERFUL LAND,THE SAVAGE,PEACEPIPE, and PERFIDIA,in April 1962. From Nov up to Dec 1962 Hank was using a rosewood Strat, Meazzi echomatic 2 and his AC30/4 with Top Boost. they recorded DANCE ON,FOOT TAPPER,GERONIMO,ATLANTIS and IT'S BEEN A BLUE.Then came the "BURNS" era.

I asked LARS to build me a NEW Echomatic when I heard Kurt Froberg playing through his. Not sure if Lars will build any more. Kurt said that the "demo" he played had no EQ at all, So pretty near "studio recorded" sound. I did actually EQ parts of Kurts demos, and if you played me a 30 second blast of that EQ'd demo I would quite honestly "struggle" to tell THAT from a 30 second blast of the "original" Shads version.

Anyway not sure WHY your interested as you reckon you can get THAT SOUND from pretty much ANY old set-up.

[dave robinson]

You have just confirmed what I was saying, as Move It IS what we call THAT SOUND and it was created by by Malcolm Addey in the studio with Ernie Shear and his 1958 Fender Tremolux amp, using his Hofner President with DeArmond pickup - Malcolm's words.
Out of interest I bought a 1959 President and got the DeArmond fitted and it does sound right through the AC30/4 using my Abbey Road reverb settings provided by Roberto Pistolisi via Malcolm.
I do have the perfect replica of the Shadows AC30/4, built by Rod Jinks in Australia, with which I use Jensen P12 Alnico speakers. I also tried it with my Celestion Blues and the sound was identical, so I left the blues in my AC30 that I acquired from Jet Harris. The AC30/4 cost around £2500 back in 2007 and I don't know if Rod still builds them, but that is the sound - with ANY echo machine, even digital ones. I have it set up in my studio and often couple it with the Klemt Echolette, as I like the additional drive that it provides, but the Echolette only has two play back heads and three record heads, meaning that it's limited in it's patterns for the Shads stuff. Hence my interest in your machine. Even the Meazzi that had briefly had didn't have the correct head spacings and needed doctoring, nor did the Binson or Dynacord.
My friend Alan Jackson has one of the original Meazzi 'Vox' drum machines which he was restoring, as does Phil Kelly and I'd be interested to hear just what they do sound like, maybe one day it'll get finished and I will . . . .
Meanwhile as I told you, I don't use any of my old school gear on stage, as I have modern kit that has the parameters to replicate what the old stuff sounded like, which makes the job easier. The trick is to know what you're doing with it to get the sound.
My interest in the cost of your echo machine is merely how much money one is prepared to spend on this ?

[Jetblack56]

Move it is "NOT" what I call "THAT SOUND". "APACHE" is "THAT SOUND". That is "THE" bench mark for true Shadows fans around the world. Move it sounds "NOTHING" like APACHE or ANY other of the early Shads sounds. Again we could argue all day on various points. The thing is....you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Phil Kelly knows this,that is WHY he bought an original Meazzi, that is WHY he bought a 1959 VOX AC30/4 that's WHY he fitted SLIDERS VINTAGE 1959 pickups...in fact, that is WHY I payed Phil £300 for one of his set's of "Sliders". Just out of interest I would love to hear some of YOUR soundbites so I can do an A/B comparison alongside "original Shadows" recordings.....THAT,is the "ULTIMATE TEST" Paul Rossiter did that with his TVS3, and as far as I am concerned PASSED with flying colours. I don't yet have my Echomatic,but when I get it I will record some tracks,using my 1964 JMI VOX AC30 (TOP BOOST) with original Celestion Blues, and my Heritage AC15 handwired with the EF86 for Apache.

[dave robinson]

I don't have owt to prove any more, our soundbites with me on lead guitar are all over youtube to favourable acclaim thanks and they are live performances at Shadowmania and other theatre gigs, played on the spot without any twiddling or setting up for hours on end. Simple plug and play with the gear doing the business. Check out The Warren Bennett & Friends band 2006 at Shadowminia and 2009 onwards Past Masters, there's loads to see, I just found Cosy.

https://youtu.be/1eQMHQiPXOw