Religious Tone Experience

  • Thread starter Thread starter WhiteStrat
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Not quite. Two out of phase pickups will be hum-canceling; but they will sound out of phase. In order to make them sound normal together, you need to reverse the magnets on one of them. Then you get both hum-canceling AND a "normal" sound.


Yes, I know. That's what I meant when I said, "...not hum cancelling (or more accurately, it would be hum and signal cancelling)".
 
I could be dead wrong, but I thought I remember reading that somewhere, that the famous Strat "in between" sound was a product of dumb luck, and some old strats would do it stock if you jiggled the 3-way right, while some wouldn't.

Then again, the mythos surrounding those guitars is such that I've heard a LOT else about them, much of which I wouldn't believe. :lol:

Old Strats would all do it if you could get the switch to hang between positions. Hendrix (I have heard) stuck paper matchsticks in the slot to get the switch to do that. I have an old Strat and I used to do things like that before I broke down and replaced the switch with a 5 position one. I also put a RWRP pickup in the middle slot so that switch positions 2 and 4 are hum cancelling.
 
Old Strats would all do it if you could get the switch to hang between positions. Hendrix (I have heard) stuck paper matchsticks in the slot to get the switch to do that. I have an old Strat and I used to do things like that before I broke down and replaced the switch with a 5 position one. I also put a RWRP pickup in the middle slot so that switch positions 2 and 4 are hum cancelling.

Oh, gotcha, so they'd do the phase thing, but not the hum cancelling?
 
I have always had an appreciation for folks who can do this...really. Unfortunately...my own playing is not good enough without hiding behind at least some FX...though I use very few.

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Oh, gotcha, so they'd do the phase thing, but not the hum cancelling?

Actually, a flipped single coil (which flips only the magnets) will cancel both the hum and the signal. When you flip the magnets and the direction of the wiring, you've in essence flipped the signal twice so it's back in phase, but the ambient noise only once so it remains cancelling.

To understand how flipping the coil only flips the magnets and not the direction of the windings, envision a headless bolt going into a nut. If you flip the bolt around, it will still go into the nut. The threads are just like the windings, and a right hand threaded bolt will only go into a right hand threaded nut and a left a left, no matter which end you start with.
 
Guitar, cord, amp.

Pretty simple really.

It's nice to hear when someone has this kind of epiphany.

Welcome, and enjoy.

(But sadly, you are now going to be searching for the tone for the rest of your days).

:D
 
Oh, gotcha, so they'd do the phase thing, but not the hum cancelling?



Well, they aren't really doing the "phase" thing as such. There is a little phasiness to those in between positions, but it isn't because the pickups have different polarities - it's because they are picking up different parts of the string.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Guitar, cord, amp.

Pretty simple really.

It's nice to hear when someone has this kind of epiphany.

Welcome, and enjoy.

(But sadly, you are now going to be searching for the tone for the rest of your days).

:D

So true, so true...

When I plugged my Strat into his amp (mine being a 94; his a 64) it was eye opening. My strat has never sounded so "right." I've got other guitars, and other amps (mostly heavier stuff) but now it's like I've found the other half of my strat. Except he owns it. Now I have to find my own. :D
 
...it's like I've found the other half of my strat. Except he owns it. Now I have to find my own. :D


It's not that hard of an amp to build.

Scroll down to the 6A20 Combo

There are probably other kits which might work better for a AB763, particularly if you are not experienced (Weber kits tend to lack in instructions, I'm told), but if you have a friend who knows tube electronics, they could probably get your through it. If not, the folks on the Weber forum could probably help.

Just doing my bit to promote your financial ruin...;)


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Just doing my bit to promote your financial ruin...;)

And doing a nice job of it, too!

So after my "epiphany" I've been looking around at amps, and I don't think it was a Deluxe Reverb after all. I think it was a Pro Reverb. I know it had a single 10" speaker. (I'm gonna call him this weekend and find out for sure.)

Does that make sense for a '66? How different would that be than a Deluxe Reverb of the same era?

And does that still line up with the kits to which you so mischievously pointed me?
 
And doing a nice job of it, too!

So after my "epiphany" I've been looking around at amps, and I don't think it was a Deluxe Reverb after all. I think it was a Pro Reverb. I know it had a single 10" speaker. (I'm gonna call him this weekend and find out for sure.)

Does that make sense for a '66? How different would that be than a Deluxe Reverb of the same era?

And does that still line up with the kits to which you so mischievously pointed me?

A DR would have a 12" speaker, not a 10". I thought a pro reverb had a 12" or a 15", but I'm not positive. Could it have been a Princeton that he had?

FYI, I'm in the process of building a Weber kit right now: a Marshall 18-watt design. It's taken a little research, but the layout is very helpful, and as Light pointed out, there are many very helpful people on the Weber forum (as there are here).
 
You'll never get that sound out of an amp with a Master Volume. It just won't happen.

Light, do you mean that one will never get this tone out of an amp with a Master Volume, or would you qualify that one would get that tone only if the MV were cranked?
 
Light, do you mean that one will never get this tone out of an amp with a Master Volume, or would you qualify that one would get that tone only if the MV were cranked?

He has given us his opinion on that several times. He believes that the added complexity in an amp with a master volume detracts from its sound.
 
I don't want to highjack this thread, but I recently had a chance to run a '54 Strat through an Orange Tiny Terror. I was a wonderful marriage of guitar and amp. If your application is recording I would encourage you to test drive one.
 
Blackface Fender amps:

Deluxe Reverb - one 12" speaker, twenty-two watts.

Pro Reverb - two 12" speakers, forty watts.
 
Two things I've learned -

1) No-master tube amps RULE.

2) 95% of the tone comes from the FINGERS.


:D

Nice work!
 
And doing a nice job of it, too!

So after my "epiphany" I've been looking around at amps, and I don't think it was a Deluxe Reverb after all. I think it was a Pro Reverb. I know it had a single 10" speaker. (I'm gonna call him this weekend and find out for sure.)

Does that make sense for a '66? How different would that be than a Deluxe Reverb of the same era?

And does that still line up with the kits to which you so mischievously pointed me?


Frankly, after a while all the circuits in Fender amps were remarkably similar. They varied a bit in the features they had, but the basic circuit was remarkably similar, with the major differences being in either a 2 or 3 control tone stack, and the type/number of tubes used. By the mid sixties, they almost all had tremolo, most had reverb, and the rest was just power and speakers. The other interesting thing about those old Fender amps is their circuits were almost entirely in the public domain (the only exception being the Tremolo circuit they used). Leo was really smart with the design of those amps. He opened up the RCA Tube Manual, and took the various blocks of circuitry directly out of it (which RCA encouraged, of course, as it was a good way to sell lots of tubes), and just put them together. The 50's amps had a lot of differences in certain areas (most notably the phase inverters and the rectifier circuits), but by the sixties a lot of those differences had started to disappear. The cheapest amps were still single ended, but other than that, most Fender amps from the sixties have the same preamp circuit, the same tone stack (with the mid control sometimes left off), the same PI, the same tremolo circuit, and the same reverb circuit.

You know, I'm not sure about the speakers. I've spent a fair amount of time (particularly recently, as I'm contemplating another amp build) looking at the Fender amp circuits, but I'm by no means an expert on the speakers in them. Mostly Jensen's, I know (which you can't really get anymore, no matter what the label says).

When you get that old Harmony back, just wait until you see how much more your volume control can do than it does right now!


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light, do you mean that one will never get this tone out of an amp with a Master Volume, or would you qualify that one would get that tone only if the MV were cranked?


Depends on the Master Volume design. Some are supposed to be better, but I've never heard those - only the Marshal and Mesa types which suck balls.



Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
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