A Shell Pink Somethingcaster

[drogulus]

     

     I want this. I want to put it on a stand next to my bass so I can look at them. Maybe one day I'll be inspired to play them.

     

     I would need an amp that would serve both, not a problem as many would be excellent. The speaker cabinet and driver would be more difficult to fill the bill equally well for a bass and guitar. I do have ideas on that front.

[Bogey]

The first pic alone confirms your complete coolness.

[drogulus]

     But why, the crickets ask (I imagine they're unusually quiet crickets I'm not hearing), do you want a *caster of Surf Green? It's the fault of Syd Barrett. Not that he played this exact one, but he played a Fender Esquire, originally called a Broadcaster, then it gained a neck pickup and became the Telecaster of legend. The thing about the old single pickup versions and Barrett's "Piper at the Gates" guitar is the sound. I can't explain how it differs from the Tele, well, I can but even crickets don't care. If you listen to Piper you notice the snarling aggressive tone, one of the most distinctive in the rock guitar canon. Give me an Esquire and a Selmer Treble n Bass amp and I'll kill your mother, or give her a bad fright at least.

     A guy on YT played an Esquire though his Selmer and nailed the tone (I think a Vox AC50 would get you there, too).

     What a Surf Greenocaster would optimally sound like if you were going for pure uncut Syd tone is this:

     https://www.youtube.com/v/YIER8JSz9sA

     OK, the guy can't play Astronomy Domine for shit.

[drogulus]

      About an amp/cab with guitar/bass interoperability, my idea is to go back to the early '60s when the difference was much less than it is today. Today if you ask about playing guitar and bass through the same amp you'll be told some version of "it won't sound good" or "guitar speakers can't handle the excursion", something like that. But my point would be that anyone who aspires to a Starfire bass and an Esquire clone is not in the business of emulating modern instrument sounds. I hark back to an era when the same amps were often used for accordion, other keyed instruments, guitar, bass.....Carol Kaye played her guitar and bass through the same Versatone amp, studios all over the world still have an Ampeg B-15 sitting there because it's unsurpassed for bass tone and guitar players have used it for more than half a century. Garcia and Lesh played Twin/Showman preamps out to McIntosh power amps feeding JBL speakers.

      My first choice would be a Versatone Pan-O-Flex 133, unobtanium at this point. I could get one built at a ridiculously high cost if I could find a builder who wouldn't exclaim "you've got to be fucking kidding" in a David Clennon voice * upon studying the schematic.

     

     

      Why this??.... :

      https://www.youtube.com/v/cJ0onxQIY_w

      I rest my case.

      * David Clennon's moment of glory:

     https://www.youtube.com/v/832UnfMJyKs

[The new erato]

   
I rest my guitar case.
   

Fixed.

[drogulus]

      I took a left turn and ordered a cabinet for a single 12" speaker that I intend to serve my bass and the guitar I choose equally well. First I had to decide what kind of cab would do that, and the answer is a ported cabinet that would provide both some low frequency reinforcement with improved dispersion over purely closed back designs, which are notoriously beamy. Further refining the search, there are two kinds of such cabs that particularly appeal, Thiele cabinets and tone ring cabs. I chose a tone ring cab like the ones Fender used to make as a premium option for their Showman, Bandmaster and Tremolux amplifiers. I ordered it today. When I get it, or perhaps before, I'll choose an amp to mate with it, and the speaker.

      It will look like the cab here:

     

      But with a stained finish like this:

     

[snyprrr]

     But why, the crickets ask (I imagine they're unusually quiet crickets I'm not hearing), do you want a *caster of Surf Green? It's the fault of Syd Barrett. Not that he played this exact one, but he played a Fender Esquire, originally called a Broadcaster, then it gained a neck pickup and became the Telecaster of legend. The thing about the old single pickup versions and Barrett's "Piper at the Gates" guitar is the sound. I can't explain how it differs from the Tele, well, I can but even crickets don't care. If you listen to Piper you notice the snarling aggressive tone, one of the most distinctive in the rock guitar canon. Give me an Esquire and a Selmer Treble n Bass amp and I'll kill your mother, or give her a bad fright at least.

     A guy on YT played an Esquire though his Selmer and nailed the tone (I think a Vox AC50 would get you there, too).

     What a Surf Greenocaster would optimally sound like if you were going for pure uncut Syd tone is this:

     https://www.youtube.com/v/YIER8JSz9sA

     OK, the guy can't play Astronomy Domine for shit.

i'm sorry but that just reminds me of those awful tones of the early distorted players... I mean, after 50 years we have the means to get better tones... I know the guy can't play, and maybe that guitar is out of tune, but the actual tones are kinda farty, no? I do understand the retro appeal, but- oy, I can't remember who had the worst biting treble screech tone from the late '60s?? Page is really kind of sckrankly in my opinion- Billy Gibbons had the best tone for me.

[drogulus]

     Well now, this is a problem guitarists become familiar with if they ever play as working musicians. What sounds right in your bedroom playing alone is not what sounds best in a band situation playing at stage volume. Listen to Barrett on Piper and you hear his famous sound in its context. The guy on YT did nail that sound, and indeed it screeches. Good, he's doing it right. Is that the Barrett sound? It is.

     This by the way is the lesson Leo Fender learned. His amps were great sounding in the early "tweed" era (the '50s), then became ever brighter (screechier) until the pinnacle was reached in the mid-'60s with the legendary Fender "blackface" amplifiers. Leo learned that his amps had to cut through the mix so they would sound best in the mix. I know from my own experience how this works. Your bedroom tone is mush on stage. Jim Marshall learned, too. His amp was a nearly exact copy of a Fender tweed amp with the same midrange bump and soft top end, but his Marshall amps got brighter and brighter over the years just as the Fender amps did. Today a half century later the great majority of guitar amps use the same tone control values as the old Fenders or Marshalls, including most new amps from those companies. Studio preamps have the same tone circuit as a blackface Twin Reverb from '65.

Most of the better tones you hear come from that circuit. I don't know what Gibbons is using now. He's a connoisseur of equipment. It wouldn't surprise me if he was into the oddball stuff like Page, Valco/Supro, Magnatone.....

[drogulus]

     I have black nylon tape strings on my bass. As the Universe knows, you're supposed to put Pyramid Gold chrome nickel flat wounds on it. I don't mind the expense, but the scale length requires a special order from Germany. The Pyramids were developed for the Höfner 500/1 Bass which has a 30" scale. The Starfire has a 30.75" scale, just too long so players have to cut off some of the silk wrap, hence the need for a special order if I don't want to mess around and screw them up. In the meantime I love the La Bella nylons.

     Children, with their small hands, love Höfner basses. They are so easy and fun to play it encourages some of them to pursue bass playing as a serious hobby.

     

[drogulus]

 
         
     

      There's something a little off here, isn't there? The bottom cabs look a bit elongated to me. Did Segovia ever use the Tremolo Superlead with G12H-30s?

[The new erato]

I think he called the electric guitar an abomination? Fun manipulation though.

[drogulus]

I think he called the electric guitar an abomination? Fun manipulation though.

     He exempted the Surfocaster. Anyway didn't Our Ford say when he was in the desert surrounded by the flying monkeys:

     Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

     ?

[drogulus]

    I feel an obligation to keep up to date. Today I got an email from the guy building my cab. It's going to ship soon, and below are pics.

    You can see the tone ring mounted to a separate baffle which projects into the space in the primary baffle so the speaker is flush with it. For my 12" speaker the outer hole is 15". In the old Fender Showman cabs with a JBL D130-40 the outer baffle has an 18" opening.

    For now I'll defer the decision on a hideously expensive driver and have an old Utah installed. I happen to have one, and it might serve well enough that I don't feel the need to replace it in the near future.

    More, much more will follow in good time.

   

[drogulus]

     To answer the question of ampage between my bass and my speaker cab I require a solution that will more than suffice for guitar. Unlike the guitar/bass speaker conundrum no great issue is raised. There are many choices that would be not only adequate but outstanding, even allowing for different styles, volume levels.

     Today I bought my new old amp from a store in Indiana, a Vox AC50, the amp the Beatles used when they no longer could hear themselves play with the AC30s they had used before the screaming girls arrived in 1963. By the time they got to Shea Stadium they were all using 100 watters, the same circuit as the 50 with 4 power tubes instead of 2.

     Here's the lovely beastie at home in Indiana:

     

     The business end of another one:

     

     To sum up, what's good for McCartney, Lennon and Harrison ought to be good for me. Anyway, I happen to be personally acquainted with the high priest of Voxness hisself (a long time resident of Arlington as it happens) in case I need a Brimistor or other exotica.

      Oh, AC50s are reasonably priced, much less than you might expect.

     

[drogulus]

     I won an auction on eBay for a JBL D123 12" speaker, at a pretty decent price, too, well below what I was prepared to pay if it came to that. Guitarists for the most part don't know this speaker, even vintage heads like me, as it's really a studio monitor woofer repurposed as a home hifi woofer. Here's mine:

     

     I don't know if you can read the number on the back of the cone, it's 123-504. This speaker was made between 1958 and 1965, but unbeknownst to me until a few minutes ago it has the original cone, which fact I only happened upon at a site populated by Deadheads IOW JBL fanatics. This group overlaps markedly with steel guitar players, it turns out, which makes sense in a kind of post facto way. The upshot is if this speaker is as pristine as it appears after a half century of existence, I got one hell of a bargain.
     

[drogulus]

     Yikes! My Greenie is turning Shell Pink.....

     

     But what does it all mean really? The only way the guitar must diverge from a basic Jeffcaster...

     

     ...is my preference for a rosewood fingerboard. I've never cared for the maple, it doesn't feel right to me.

     https://www.youtube.com/v/f9mQkFpkShg



     

[drogulus]

     Here they all are, minus guitar for now.

     First impressions are that the amp is very loud and clean like one originally designed for McCartney's Höfner needed to be. Next I've got to get the JBL outta there! It sounds fabulous but it can't take the power. I'll get another smaller cab for it and a ~20 watt head which should be safe. So I'll give my Utah a try in this cab. Down the road I'm thinking about getting a speaker with a neodymium magnet to save weight.

[drogulus]

     I had to resolve my indecision and choose either Shell Pink or Surf Green for my guitar, and today I came down decisively for the Pinkster.

     

     Just to correct the record a little on the Beatles use of big bottle Vox amps, Harrison and Lennon got the first AC50s and McCartney the first 80/100 in late '63 to early '64. When they came to America in '64 they were so equipped. There are numerous films and photos that document this.

[drogulus]

     While I wait for Pinkie to arrive I need to get my antique amp in tiptop shape, mainly fixing a hum and crackle sound, common to old equipment that hasn't had a thorough tuneup in many years, if ever. I'll be curious to see if the original Mullard tubes are in there (my much loved '65 Cambridge Reverb, though it was an American made Vox, had all its Mullards, so the rule should be "never replace a Mullard just because it's old").

     I have a suspicion the amp's been, how you say, messed with. I thinks a 12ax7 has been subbed for the righteous 12au7 in V1. I don't know that, it just feels like it. Unless an immortal ultratube of the right kind resides in V1, I will sub my own. With what? I'm pulled in different directions as one part of me says get a Russki new production, they're really not so bad if you buy them prescreened. But the other part says "You may not crack the case for years, it's worth it to get the best now now now". How do you argue against that?

     Lookie here:

     

     Made in Great Britain? Not exactly....it was manufactured at the Mullard factory in Bombay in the '60s.

     

[drogulus]

     I have this speaker (JBL) that can't handle the power of my amp, and since I also feel I should have a less powerful amp for my bedroom playing needs I decided to get one.

     

     It's about 25 watts, a good fit for the speaker. It's octal! I never had one of those. The Sovtek in V1 will have to go. I don't imagine myself a tube roller and I'm not about to start now, but subbing a real '40s tube in the first position is just about mandatory for a '40s circuit like this. Other than octality the amp looks like a conventional Fender/Marshall hybrid.

     I'll get a small cab for the JBL when I think through what kind that should be, then I'm done with that side of things.

     Oh, this little (12" x 8") baby comes not with a wood box but a metal cage like so:

     

     The input tube will be:

     

     It's vintage 1942, left in a warehouse somewhere in Europe by the Army. That should do the trick I reckon.