Tony Hicks,,,,,

[Pol]

I totally agree that it was Eric Clapton who started the slack-stringing phenomenon in the UK. It was better known in the USA, of course, but Eric wasn't a major influence there until the days of Cream.

I give a lot of the credit (in the UK) to the weekly music paper "Melody Maker". For those of us slumming it in the provinces, Chris Hayes' weekly "Any Questions" column was the key insight into innovative use of strings, effects, amps, etc. Both Eric and Hank used to answer readers' questions all the time, as did Jeff Beck and Ron Wood (when he was the bassist with the Birds, prior to joining Jeff Beck's band with Rod Stewart). Even Bruce and John Rostill used to answer questions about acoustic guitars and rhythm playing. I can't offhand recall John ever answering a question ]about bass-playing!

JN

You are absolytely right Jim. The weekly "Melody Maker" and "New Musical Express" were essential reading also for us who were living in the swinging sixties outside UK. This brings back to my memory the time when i was really into Jeff Beck and was qurious about sound equipment. "Melody Makers Readers Advice Services" run by Chris Hayes kindly published in "Any Questions" column my enquiry, he also kindly sent me a personal letter dated July 30th 1966:

"Dear Mr. Lofberg, Jeff Beck uses two 100-watt Vox "Beatle" amplifiers and one AC 30, all wired up together. He uses a Tone Bender fuzz-box, made by Musical Exchange, 155 Burnt Oak Broadway, Edgware, Middlesex, England. This is specially vired. It costs about £15. Yours faithfully Chris Hayes."

Of course I wanted a Tone Bender of my own... It had to be ordered through our VOX national importer/distributor PSO, delivery took two months but was worth the wait. And I still have/own it.

regards, Pol.

[cockroach]

As well as the 'weekly comics'- NME, MM etc, monthly Beat Instrumental magazine and some others back then(mid '60's onwards) also had question and answer columns where you could ask about gear etc, and there were also the regular letters columns which often featured guitar related discussions - a bit like this forum in fact!

I remember that most of the questions back then were obsessing about getting 'THAT sound' - not Hank any longer(!) but the whining sustained finger vibrato sounds as made by Clapton, Beck etc - what guitar? what pickups? what strings? what amp? what effects box?

Some of the 'expert' replies were ridiculous, with lots of daft myths, and some totally misleading advice, especially in the light of what became common knowledge a bit later...and the answers to virtually any such questions are there in profusion for anyone to find out on the 'net these days...and everyone's an expert...

I recall that back then, you could get those sounds either by being able to afford to buy a Gibson or similar guitar with powerful pickups, and cranking a valve amp up to painful level to get the sustained feedback driven overdrive (there were no 'master volume' equipped amps just yet), or you bought some sort of fuzz box to get a similar sound more conveniently when required for a solo and at a usable volume level.

[GoldenStreet]

Some of the 'expert' replies were ridiculous, with lots of daft myths, and some totally misleading advice, especially in the light of what became common knowledge a bit later...and the answers to virtually any such questions are there in profusion for anyone to find out on the 'net these days...and everyone's an expert...

I recall reading a quote in Beat Instrumental by Steve Marriott that he achieved that mildly distorted, squeaky guitar solo in the Small Faces' What'cha Gonna Do About It by reversing the wiring of the pickups to the controls on his Gretsch (Tennessean, I think), which was subsequently contradicted by a dealer/expert to the effect that such a modification would make no difference whatsoever... I have to say I'm not sure who was correct on that one!

Bill

[RayL]

Reversing the wiring of one pickup in a two-pickup guitar will place it out of phase with the other. The result is that lower frequencies are cancelled, giving a thin, hollow sound. If that is what Steve Marriott did, then he is right and the 'expert/dealer' is wrong.

Humbuckers with all their coil wiring available can even be phase reversed within themselves, to give a very sharp tone indeed. This is not really useable on its own, but can add useful harmonics if added to the tone of a second (non-phased) pickup.

Ray

[GoldenStreet]

Thanks, Ray, for your technical insight - interesting.

By coincidence, the lyrics to that particular song were provided by Ian Samwell.

Bill

[JimN]

I give a lot of the credit (in the UK) to the weekly music paper "Melody Maker". For those of us slumming it in the provinces, Chris Hayes' weekly "Any Questions" column was the key insight into innovative use of strings, effects, amps, etc. Both Eric and Hank used to answer readers' questions all the time, as did Jeff Beck and Ron Wood (when he was the bassist with the Birds, prior to joining Jeff Beck's band with Rod Stewart). Even Bruce and John Rostill used to answer questions about acoustic guitars and rhythm playing.

JN

You are absolytely right Jim. The weekly "Melody Maker" and "New Musical Express" were essential reading also for us who were living in the swinging sixties outside UK. This brings back to my memory the time when i was really into Jeff Beck and was qurious about sound equipment. "Melody Makers Readers Advice Services" run by Chris Hayes kindly published in "Any Questions" column my enquiry, he also kindly sent me a personal letter dated July 30th 1966:

"Dear Mr. Lofberg, Jeff Beck uses two 100-watt Vox "Beatle" amplifiers and one AC 30, all wired up together. He uses a Tone Bender fuzz-box, made by Musical Exchange, 155 Burnt Oak Broadway, Edgware, Middlesex, England. This is specially vired. It costs about £15. Yours faithfully Chris Hayes."

Of course I wanted a Tone Bender of my own... It had to be ordered through our VOX national importer/distributor PSO, delivery took two months but was worth the wait. And I still have/own it.

regards, Pol.

That exact wording also appeared in the Melody Maker itself. It was the phrase "all wired up together" which struck me at the time. I had visions of the circuitry of the three Vox amps all being hard wired with detachable connectors - or something. It was only when Gary Hurst (who is nowadays someone I can call a friend) explained in "Beat Instrumental" how to amplify a guitar through more than one amplifier that I saw that "all wired up together" simply meant connected via the spare input sockets in classic chaining mode.

JN

[JimN]

The first Fender I ever owned - a 1962 Jazzmaster which I bought s/h for £90 in 1969 - had the pickup wiring reversed so as to give the out-of-phase tone when both pickups were on. I found it unusable as a tone. Mind you, I'm not all that fond of the sound of two pickups on at the same time in any case - though it's useful for mimicry effects*.

A guitar-playing friend, Bob Hobbs of Rushworth & Dreapers in Liverpool - took it home and re-wired it correctly. It was much more normal-sounding after that, though I still longed for a Gibson ES175 and a Burns Marvin instead.

JN

[* The version of Jack Trombey's The Callan Theme which appears on the Secrets' second album was played on a Yamaha solid with two alnico P90-type pickups, with both of them in circuit for that typical mid-sixties "session-man" sound.]

[Martin Page]

Some of the 'expert' replies were ridiculous, with lots of daft myths, and some totally misleading advice, especially in the light of what became common knowledge a bit later...and the answers to virtually any such questions are there in profusion for anyone to find out on the 'net these days...and everyone's an expert...

I recall reading a quote in Beat Instrumental by Steve Marriott that he achieved that mildly distorted, squeaky guitar solo in the Small Faces' What'cha Gonna Do About It by reversing the wiring of the pickups to the controls on his Gretsch (Tennessean, I think), which was subsequently contradicted by a dealer/expert to the effect that such a modification would make no difference whatsoever... I have to say I'm not sure who was correct on that one!

Bill

I've been in the presence of that very Tennessean. I was in a band back in the sixties and our rhythm player broke a couple of fingers in a motorcycle crash. Someone said that they knew someone over Manor Park way who could dep for us. That guy turned out to be Ronnie Lane whom we didn't know from Adam at that time. I had a Tennessean too so we must have been fairly unique in us having two Tennesseans in the group. Anyway, he ended up doing at least a couple of gigs with us before our rhythm guitarist came back. He must have formed The Small Faces shortly after that and ended up as bass player with them, whilst Marriott got Ronnie's Gretsch. The rest is history...

As an aside to that, the last gig we did with him was a (21st?) party in Ilford. There was lots of free drink available. Ronnie took advantage of that fact and was subsequently violently sick in our toilet when we got back to our house. My mother was pretty annoyed that about to say the least, although she certainly changed her tune when Ronnie (now called Plonk) was performing on Ready Steady Go! a couple of months later. She dined out on that story for ever after!

Martin.

[cockroach]

Regarding the 'out of phase' wiring thing, I think that's what happens when a totally 'electronics ignorant' twit gets when he tries to rewire his guitar- like ME for instance! I've done this at least twice over the years...I never learn

There needs to be a law to keep people like me away from a soldering iron...