The ShadowMusic Web Community

abstamaria wrote:That's probably all true, Gary!

Stupid question: to replicate the sound of Hank's pickups, wouldn't the best approach be to copy them, warts and all? Ditto trem blocks, strings, etc.

Best,

Andy

Hi Andy, I reckon the pickups on 34346 have been replicated many times by fender, I dont know what research went into the oasis strat but I guess mick johnson gave fender the specs for that strat, I doubt he took readings for the pickups or pots. Although Fender use the same machine for winding pickups I believe the wire and magnets were different back then,Also..what about the pickups from Hanks rosewood strat ? I personally think the most contributing factor to the Hanks sound was the echomatic 2 (as we know it), Sure, we can nitpick about tracks recorded with only Abbey Rd Reverb or songs recorded with the Ist echobox, I would imagine amps were prototypes and not the ac30s we know today, (Im talking about the 18 month period--Apache to Wonderful Land). I sold some guitar parts to a guy a while back that owned a 58/59 ac30 with an audiom 15" speaker in it, I regret not recording something with it just for curiosity. Take the last tour with Bruce playing through a jmi ac30, nothing like the old sound, is it ? Thats not to say he couldnt get it..... Yeah I reckon the pickups could be replicated but would it bring us any closer ? If you listen to this take you hear that Hanks strat sounds like any other (until the reverb is added in other takes) regards Gary

Strat ?
It looks like a Burns to me.

Thanks, Gary. My only point in relation to pickups is that an "improved" pickup might lead one farther from the Holy Grail.

Best,

Andy

Quite right Andy. In reality, you'd need the pickup to be wound by a young Mexican girl in her late teens or early twenties, who is so busy gossiping about make-up, clothes and boyfriends with the girls around her that she ends up putting on about 1000 turns too many.

Hank and the rest of the Shads ARE indeed playing Burns guitars! Just thought I'd say that.

Strummer wrote:Hank and the rest of the Shads ARE indeed playing Burns guitars! Just thought I'd say that.

But not on the sound track...

That's a fascinating sound track which I have not heard before.

Brian's drums and Jet's bass are both well-developed parts and they rock along really well. Bruce and Hank are quite different and I like the rough edge to both their guitars. A great example of a top notch rhythm section at work.

Who on earth set it to that TV footage? Nice idea but...

KurtFroberg wrote:

Strummer wrote:Hank and the rest of the Shads ARE indeed playing Burns guitars! Just thought I'd say that.

But not on the sound track...

No! On the cover portrayed.

During the past few days I have been pulling guitars apart and rebuilding them, interchanging and trying different pickups along the way. As a result of this I'm finding that there's an awful lot of rubbish talked about which pickups are best, or not.
I have set up a Strat with some expensive 'Sliders' piickups costing in excess of £200 and the guitar sounds amazing and very 'early Hank' sounding, with all the same tonal characteristics that contribute to THAT SOUND - whichever one you choose dependant on how you set up the amplifier.
I then removed the 'Sliders' and fitted some Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II pickups, carefully setting the pickup height the same as the 'Sliders' only to find them equally good, albeit very slightly different but in a good way.
This prompted further investigation and I did the same with some Ironestone, Toneriders and cheap ones costing £19.99 that came on a pickguard with the knobs and switch from AGC guitars that I bought recently.
I have to say that all of them did the business, it's just a case of careful 'set up', getting the heights to the optimum level, getting the bridge and nut levels correct, even with light gauge strings (9/42) after using 11/52 & my current 10/46, the sound is there in spades.
I have heard some poor pickups, normally glassy, harsh sounds on some cheaper guitars, but these are usually the ones with the bar magnet underneath them, ceramics I believe. The ones I have are all alnico, even the really cheap ones and I'm realising that it's all in the set up, after all how many times have people said that pickups are just wire wrapped around magnets ? A crude assumption I agree, but I don't think that the high prices are warranted given that there is so little difference in the examples that I had at my disposal.
I have some Kinman and Fender Noiseless that I no longer use and fancy giving those a crack, just to see that if with more care in the set up, it may be possible to achieve similar results, sound-wise to the normal pickups.

The footage (not the recording) was from one of the Cliff & The Shadows ATV shows from 1965 (I think).