If you are searching for the early 78 "fat" Garcia tone, the answer is not in the pick-ups, it's in the amplification. If you followed that thread "Wolf 2.0 Pickup question Revisited" there was never any consensus to what pups the Wolf had in it. After finally aquiring a decent "wolf-like" custom guitar and much experimenting ……..and going back and re-reading the thread, I stumbled upon something Waldo said - that Garcia went back to the blackface twin for that tour. It makes a lot of sense because the tone has a lot of sparkle and chime sitting on top of it.
I was getting pretty close modelling the tone with the Fractal, getting the fat mids, think highs and tight bass, but that sparkle was still allusive so I decided to try something different. I ran a simple signal chain of a Boss OD-1 and and Boss OD-2 into a MXR micro amp into my Vibrolux (black-faced). The OD-2 has a tone pot so I cranked that to 10. The Micro-amp helps push the Vibrolux in to slight breakup when you really dig in and I'm guessing is doing the job that the Wolf's stratoblaster would help with - as my guitars don't have any on board blasters. The key to this tone are the two Boss pedals, they take a thin and chminy clean fender tone and simply fatten it up, in a transparent way, adding all sorts of mids, but in a way that still allows for chords to still sound out their individual notes with a bit of clarity. I think the secret ingredient in getting that sparkly high end is having blackface fender circuitry as your preamp. Also JBL D120s I believe are a requirement.
To add depth to the tone, I'm running my neck pick-up as a hum bucker and the bridge as a single coil. This adds to the fatness, but it still sounds like a ceramic single coil (similar to the SDS-1) because you hear the bridge pickup cutting through.
If you look back at the thread, an interesting discovery was made. It appears Garcia was swapping out pick-ups in the Wolf 2.0 all the time. One show they would have white covers, and the next they would have black covers, but the amplification stayed the same no doubt. I'm speculating Garcia experimented with some sort of transparent OD (probably a Boss OD-1 just because they were the pedal to have back then), which gave his blackface twin just the right amount added fatness, so the answer to the early 78 tone I believe - is in the signal chain and not the pick-ups. But equally important is having a bright and heavy guitar - something similar to his Wolf. You need a guitar that gets you that piano like attack when flat picking.
So I've documented my results in this recording. Custom guitar> hum bucker/ split hum bucker blend> Boss OD1 rolled right back>Boss OD2 rolled right back (treble at 10)>vintage MXR Microamp at 3/5> 1973 Vibrolux> hard truckers style 2x12 cab w/ D120F's. My Vibrolux also has a mid boost mod which I activated.
As an experiment I ran a stratocaster with a set of SDS-1's through the same signal chain. Using the middle pick-up and volume at 7. It's in the ball park, but a bit more woody and strat like. It's a very bright sounding stratocaster. This leads to me think that you can get in the ballpark by using and decent "bright and snappy" guitar with ceramic magnet pups. The key is in your signal chain.
I was getting pretty close modelling the tone with the Fractal, getting the fat mids, think highs and tight bass, but that sparkle was still allusive so I decided to try something different. I ran a simple signal chain of a Boss OD-1 and and Boss OD-2 into a MXR micro amp into my Vibrolux (black-faced). The OD-2 has a tone pot so I cranked that to 10. The Micro-amp helps push the Vibrolux in to slight breakup when you really dig in and I'm guessing is doing the job that the Wolf's stratoblaster would help with - as my guitars don't have any on board blasters. The key to this tone are the two Boss pedals, they take a thin and chminy clean fender tone and simply fatten it up, in a transparent way, adding all sorts of mids, but in a way that still allows for chords to still sound out their individual notes with a bit of clarity. I think the secret ingredient in getting that sparkly high end is having blackface fender circuitry as your preamp. Also JBL D120s I believe are a requirement.
To add depth to the tone, I'm running my neck pick-up as a hum bucker and the bridge as a single coil. This adds to the fatness, but it still sounds like a ceramic single coil (similar to the SDS-1) because you hear the bridge pickup cutting through.
If you look back at the thread, an interesting discovery was made. It appears Garcia was swapping out pick-ups in the Wolf 2.0 all the time. One show they would have white covers, and the next they would have black covers, but the amplification stayed the same no doubt. I'm speculating Garcia experimented with some sort of transparent OD (probably a Boss OD-1 just because they were the pedal to have back then), which gave his blackface twin just the right amount added fatness, so the answer to the early 78 tone I believe - is in the signal chain and not the pick-ups. But equally important is having a bright and heavy guitar - something similar to his Wolf. You need a guitar that gets you that piano like attack when flat picking.
So I've documented my results in this recording. Custom guitar> hum bucker/ split hum bucker blend> Boss OD1 rolled right back>Boss OD2 rolled right back (treble at 10)>vintage MXR Microamp at 3/5> 1973 Vibrolux> hard truckers style 2x12 cab w/ D120F's. My Vibrolux also has a mid boost mod which I activated.
As an experiment I ran a stratocaster with a set of SDS-1's through the same signal chain. Using the middle pick-up and volume at 7. It's in the ball park, but a bit more woody and strat like. It's a very bright sounding stratocaster. This leads to me think that you can get in the ballpark by using and decent "bright and snappy" guitar with ceramic magnet pups. The key is in your signal chain.
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