lbpesq wrote: ↑Sun May 02, 2021 11:53 pm
I find guitars to be like cars ... they all work essentially the same, but each has its own idiosyncrasies and has to be driven slightly differently to obtain the same results. I have a couple of guitars where the high E string puts out less signal than the others. It is especially noticeable when the E doesn’t trigger the envelope filter. So on those guitars I just hit harder on the high E. If I were building an “exact” copy and could fix this, I would, rather than recreate the issue.
I think if Jerry were to play two otherwise identical Strats, one with ‘54 stagger and the other with the ‘56 stagger, he would figure out how to get the G on both to sound the same, just how he wanted it to sound. I think what I’m trying to say is that Jerry dictated the instrument’s sound far more than the instrument dictated Jerry’s sound.
Bill, tgo
What your saying makes sense but “tone” coming from the instrument is different than “sound” created by technique etc. For example he couldn’t make Fender A3s sound like Dual sounds regardless of his technique. If you could make any guitar sound the same then why would you ever change the components of the guitar?
With the high E issue I just tilt my pickups so that the gradually slant up toward the high E string and so that they are lower under the low strings - that way you don’t have to play differently or think about hitting one string harder than the other.
Interestingly here is an audio clip of Jerry snorting it up with some fans back stage before a show - around the 18 minute mark he talks about the magnetic pull of pickups and how he prefers pickups with less magnetic pull -
Also my research has turned up that (according to Irwin via Waldo’s Instagram feed) he had prototype Dimarzio FS-1s in Wolf along with a Fender pup in the neck during this clip being recorded in 1977 (he says he doesn’t remember the name of who made them)
Interestingly he also had SDS-1s in Wolf for much of 1978 after he switched to them in the middle of a show. Then the Dual sounds arrived and the rest is pretty well known.
https://youtu.be/awgXd6sezF4