Comments on: Electric Guitar’s Unintended Consequences

By: Stratoblogster

Stratoblogster — Tue, 15 May 2007 05:00:57 +0000

Zappa was overdriving Pignose’s with variable DC power supplies, in the studio, to get what he called a “hockey rink” sound.

By: Ignacio

Ignacio — Tue, 15 May 2007 04:17:26 +0000

Tremspeed, thanks so much for your feedback. Really appreciate it. You’re absolutely right. EVH used the variac to lower the voltage, and thus modify his sound by manipulating the signal’s clipping under a lower voltage. Variacs allow you to lower and increase the voltage in general use, and in the piece I mention the “increase” half of it. Thanks for the clarification.

You know, Hawaiian slide guitars played a huge part in the development of electric guitar, you’re absolutely right. It’s difficult to bring all the elements together that led to the electric guitar as we know it today, but Hawaiian guitars were a big part of it. I focused on Gibson mainly because they were instrumental in creating the model that we have today.

I don’t know if you read my post on Tom Wheeler and his upcoming book on Fender amps (linked in this post), but he plans to feature “the” Fender Bassman amp that Marshall used, as you suggest, to develop his amp. Can’t wait to see that.

Thanks again!
Best,
IG

By: tremspeeed

tremspeeed — Tue, 15 May 2007 03:24:30 +0000

for one, the development of the electric hawaiian guitar had just as much to do with solid body guitar development as ‘spanish’ guitars did… pickups were more or less invented for really early electric lap steel guitars like the Rickenbacker frying pan models starting around 1930.

eddie’s variac actually stepped down the voltage… and there is much debate on how much affect this really had on the sound, but the consensus is that is helped reduce the failure rate of the transformers in his marshalls, as a result of overbiasing, mods, just plain cranking the shit out of the thing, or all three.

it’s interesting to note that the marshall was simply a localized copy of fender’s designs (themselves an iteration of public domain RCA schematics). in times before the ‘global village,’ fender amps were expensive and hard to get in england, so Jim Marshall, music store owner, starting making his own- substituting to a more readily available output tube.

and again with eddie van halen- the ever-iconic striped frankenstrat was born of necessity and again is the product of a simpler time. to think that someone would hack up 50s and 60s Gibson and Fender models in a series of attempts at learning how to repair and mod instruments today is positively unthinkable.