|
Steves' Gear
1962 Fender Stratocaster.
The words of Tammy my wife and the look on her face when I unveiled this, after weeks of obsession and the excitement of a six year old at Christmas will stay with me forever "what on earth have you brought that for its knackered!"
When I got this guitar all the hardware was original and it did need a little clean. So to make it play as best as poss I changed the saddles, the nut, had it refretted and put in a five way selector. It is tuned down to D with a custom set of strings 12, 15, 18, 30, 42 with 54 on the bottom. I tuned it down because I love the "piano tone" it gives on the low notes plus I kept the 3rd string light because you can have a lot of fun with the vibrato and bending. Also as we started out as a three piece it gave me more scope with the keys for my vocals. Basically I love the sound of this guitar.
1964 Gibson 345.
All original, I was the first person to have this guitar refretted and I have changed the saddles from the original nylon to nickel plated replacements. Tuned as standard using 11 ups. I use a stereo jack at the guitar, shorted out to a mono at the other end. There's not much else to say, it just has that classic "semi" sound and the perfect partner for my strat.
The Amp. A story.......
A Cornell Journey Man made by tone hound and amp guru Denis Cornell. Acquiring this amp and then tweaking everything to get the right sound for me, was, Bern and Rob have said "bordering on the obsessive", basically I had a sound in my head that I wanted to achieve, based on getting a warm clean sound with loads of dynamic headroom. No probs you would think. Before Denis became famous for making EC's amp he was little known in the big wide world, but as I found out was much respected in the inner sanctum of pro musos, obviously I had to blag my way in. When I got the amp it was very clean, we're talking "Hank" here and would not "give up" at all with the dynamics of playing and pick attack. So I contacted Denis directly and he invited me up to see him (the fool) so we could tweak things. After 2 or 3 trips, a dozen gigs with Bern and Rob threatening divorce, we got it right. This involved Denis soldering wires and changing things whilst I was playing - brilliant. Sorted you would think but "No!" what about the speakers they still sounded too bright, the original cabinet had new Vintage 30 speakers in it. So I did some more research and stumble across the idea of mixing the speakers, keeping one Vintage 30 for the highs and lows and staying slightly cleaner at 30 watts rating, put with a 25 watt Greenback for the mid punch and a bit of give. This was getting close but it all still sounded a little harsh to me compared to old stock speakers. This I raised with Denis and eventually we found a way of removing the glue from the front edge of the speakers, to give that 30 year played in sound and that was it, perfect. I then set about getting Bern and Rob out of therapy and the Sunday tea dance band they had joined, to get on with the job of gigging with my great sounding rig. Phew!!!
|
