Frank Zappa

One of the greatest musicians of the 20th century was also a damn good guitar player, he stands alone as a composer, instrumentalist and satirist beyond compare. His name was Frank Zappa. Frank is still IMHO the most underrated musician in the rock and roll era.

Frank was a master at the use of wahwah (check out his early wah solo on Orange County Lumber Truck from the album Weasels Ripped My Flesh), one of his techniques was using the wah as an EQ boost. His feel for the wah was so good he could feel the notch in the pedals throw that would give him (for most part) that growling round sound that Frank was known for during the 70’s. Try it yourself plug in your SG (or any humbucking solidbody guitar) and get your favorite distortion sound. Now go to the neck pickup crank it up but do not roll off the treble as you would if you were trying to cop the Clapton ‘Woman tone’, leave it up full and roll off the highs using the wah. This will give the wah a full spectrum signal for it to work with.

Another Zappa secret was his uncanny ability to combine exotic scales with the pentatonic blues scale. If you watch any videos of Frank playing you will notice he is not in the “normal guitar boxes”. Viva la Frank!!!

Speaking of Frank Zappa, it is well documented that growing up two of his favorite guitarists were Guitar Slim and Johnny Guitar Watson. Frank in a Guitar Player magazine interview said that his favorite guitar solo of all time was Guitar Slims Story of my life. This solo has a tone and approach that is very Zappaesque.

Guitar Slim

One of the secrets of Guitar Slims sound was the fact that he preferred to plug his guitar into a PA amp as opposed to a guitar amp. This was probably a Bogen or Premier. What Slim liked about these amps I am sure was the loudness (I have seen p.a. amps from the early 40’s using 2 6L6’s way before Fender used these tubes for his amps) their high end, and most important their reaction to the signal of his guitar (Slim was reported to be using a Strat and a 52 Les Paul) which gave out more signal than the microphones of that era. End result? Distortion mmmm yummy yummy!!!

Jimmy Page with his Fender Telecaster

How come I don’t sound like Jimmy Page when I play the intro to Heartbreaker when I use my Les Paul? Is it because I don’t own a 59 Burst? What can I do to make my Les Paul sound like Jimmy’s? Well first of all you would have to transform it into a Telecaster. That’s right a Telecaster. Now let me explain how this happened.

A young Jimmy Page was the protégé of British studio legend Big Jim Sullivan. Jim was a member of an elite group of cats who like their American counterparts the “Wrecking Crew” played on most of the hit records of the 60’s recorded in England. The fact is that 95% of the records we grew up listening to in the 60’s were made by the same two dozen or so musicians. The truth is no producer (the music industries version of a movies director) would put his reputation on the line using some prettyboys who were signed because of the haircuts or their trousers. (Rutles 101). This fact by itself is what separates the Beatles, the Stones from everyone else, they were the first truly self contained band.

Now back to Sully, Page and the Tele. Sullivan could be seen weekly in the UK and US as a featured player on the Tom Jones Show. Sullivan was known for his swarthy good looks and his White Telecaster. Being a studio player Jim knew the merits of the Tele, how it cut through the mix and was a safe bet at sessions as far as its versatility. (A side note; there was a guitarist across the pond making ground breaking records with his Telecaster, his name was Joe Messina one of the house guitarists of Motown’s Funk brothers).

When Jimmy took his formidable talent and studio experience to the studio to produce the first Led Zeppelin record Jimmy had an early 60’s rosewood board white Tele in tow just like Big Jims.

Jimmy had already toured with the Yardbirds using the Tele as well as the first go round with Zeppelin in the UK (check out Zep on the DVD Supershow). But Page felt that the Tele was not fat enough sounding for a power trio setup, Jimmy soon switched to the Les Paul for good.

Jimi Hendrix in Studio

Jimi’s tone using the Fuzz boxes of the 60’s. We all know how thin sounding the fuzz boxes of the 60’s were. Whether it’s a Big Muff, an Octavia,or a Tonebender, they were all pretty thin sounding. Jimi Hendrix used all of these at one time or another, yet his tone was mostly pretty fat and round sounding (unless he was looking for a special effect) This leads us to Jimi’s secret tone maneuver.

It’s a really simple one. We all know now that Jimi used Marshall’s most of his career and we also know that Jimi made use of the channel jumper cable (as seen in many of Jimi’s live video’s) Jimi’s trick was to boost the bass sounding channel to even out the thin sound of the fuzz box. This gave Jimi the desired fat tone he was accustomed to when he came up using Fenders and Ampegs. The other benefit was that when Jimi would simply turn down his volume for his rhythm sound it was still quite big sounding. Rarely in the videos I have seen (many) did Jimi ever step on a fuzztone for a lead, when you have seen him go to a pedal for a lead it was to a wah for the tone boost.

Surf guys outboard reverb unit trick. Boy did the surf records of the early to mid 60’s blow my mind. Imagine guitar records with no singing, simple melodies that almost everyone could cop, and tons of self important guitar slinger attitude. I ran into a surf guitar legend years ago and I asked him how he ran his reverb, because I could see that he had something funky going on there as I saw that his guitar was plugged directly into the amp.

He smiled and told me that he and some of the other cats of that era were using a primitive effects loop so to speak. Here’s how they did it.

He ran the guitar into input one of his Showman and then ran a cable from input two to the input of his Fender reverb unit and ran the output of the reverb to the input of channel two (or normal channel). This way he could not only tailor the sound of the unit with the onboard controls he could also utilize the second channels volume and tone controls.

One benefit he did not realize too, was that the guitar running direct into the first channel did not have its dry input signal colored by the reverb unit! This setup is also called the poor mans effects loop.

Adrian Belew - The Twang Bar King

What the hell is all that duct tape doing on the stage? Did you ever notice that when you have a single coil guitar plugged in that the amount of noise changes as you turn or move around? Yeah me too! Did you also ever notice that there were certain spots on the stage that you could get really good feedback if you turned a certain way? Yeah me too!

Over the years I have heard stories about how Hendrix would spend over an hour at his sound check finding those hot spots on the stage. Legend has it that Twang Bar King Adrian Belew took it to a new level by incorporating this feedback and sustain into his tunes as part of the melody and arrangement. This made it necessary to make these markings on the stage part of his setup. No room for spontaneity for Mr. Belew, he needed what he needed when he needed it.

So here’s the trick after the band sound checks bring out the tape and find your hot spots, even if you don’t utilize feedback you will still benefit from knowing where on the stage your guitar will be most responsive.

Joey Leone with his amps

That’s it for now my friends so, “keep those cards and letters coming in.”

Secrets of the Great Guitar Players from MyRareGuitars.com

Rickenbacker 360/12 Old Style 12-String Electric Guitar

For me, it all started with the two Godfathers of the electric 12 string: George Harrison of the Beatles and Roger McGuinn of The Byrds. Obviously, the first ingredient is a great 12 string. The Granddaddy of them all is the Rickenbacker 12 string.

Ricks have been handmade in the same factory in Santa Ana, California for many years and if you can find a dealer that sells and stocks Rickenbacker, you will pay thousands of dollars and you may end up waiting many months for the model of your dreams. I waited 8 months for my 360/12 Old Style when I bought it in 1990.

If you play in a weekend band or jam with your friends, you may find that the electric 12 string, once you have done all of the mandatory Beatles, Byrds, Animals, Who, Tom Petty, R.E.M., and Smiths tunes, has a rather limited use for the rest of your repertoire. Or, maybe not. If you’re like me, you’d happily play the electric 12 all night!

12-String Guitarist: David Love & His Rickenbacker 12-string

Crank up the input gain, compress the bejeezuz out of your 12 string and jangle away!

Tone Secret Number One: Compression!

George Harrison’s great 12 string tone came from a combination of three things: his matchless technique, the venerable Vox AC 30, and the Altec limiter that was in the Abbey Road studios. The Vox, with its all-tube EL 84 platform and its GZ34 rectifier gives any guitar that creamy, brown, compression sustain and chime but it really sparkles when you play an electric12 through it.

The Altec limiter is an old tube-type studio compressor/limiter that squishes the sound at the mixing console and simply enhanced the sound of those old AC 30’s.

Roger McGuinn of The Byrds has said that his tone came from recording his Rickenbacker directly into the console and running it through not one, but two Pultec Limiters at the same time! Listen to the opening figure of “Mr.Tambourine Man” and you’ll hear those compressors squeezing away!

Now I know many of you don’t have George’s or Roger’s technique (neither do I), or access to old AC 30’s (that can cost upwards of $5,000 for collectible examples) or old pieces of studio gear like Altec or Pultec limiters, but you can achieve the same effect with a good quality stomp box compressor. My personal favourite is the Diamond Compressor made here in Canada but any good compressor will do: Keely, Ross, Analog Man, Barber, MXR DynaComp, and the old standby BOSS CS-2 or 3.

Tone Secret Number Two: Flatwounds!

I discovered this Tone Secret the day I got my Rickenbacker 12. I had played other makes of electric 12’s before but they had never produced “that sound” that my Rick had. What was different about it? The single coil pickups that come standard on a Rick? The way Rickenbacker arranged the strings with the root string on top and the octave string underneath?

Both of these things had an influence on the way it sounded but the most important difference to me was the strings. They were not round wound like 99% of the strings that are on the market these days: they were flat wound!

Back when George and Roger were young men (1964), and before the late Ernie Ball started making round wound light gauge guitar strings in California, almost everybody played flat wound strings – that’s what was widely popular and available at the time. Round wounds were available but it wasn’t until The Shadows made them popular that there was a demand for them in Europe. The best flat wound strings in the world came from Germany (and still do) and were sold under the brand names of Pyramid and Thomastik.

Rickenbacker in California was buying Pyramids from Germany at the time (presumably because of the relationship they enjoyed with West German music retailers who were selling Rickenbacker guitars) so that was the string that was being installed on Rickenbackers from the California factory in early ’63 and ’64. So, the sound you hear on Beatles, Byrds, and The Who recordings – those are flat wound strings! The great Pete Townsend refers to them as “tape wound”. He won’t play his 12 string with anything else but!
Pyramid strings are still available to this day (you can find them on the Internet) and Rickenbacker still sells their Number 95404 Compressed Medium Round Wound.

(ground wound) set for about $20.00 a set. I buy them by the box of 12 from a store in New York. I prefer the Rick strings: just a tad brighter than Pyramids.

Round wound strings on an electric 12 string sound like doo-doo. Too crashy and too clangy. Flat wounds or ground round wounds are the way to go if you want “that sound”. If you can’t find Rickenbacker strings where you live, your local music store probably sells or can order D’Addario Chrome singles in a flat wound with which you can assemble your own 12 string set.

The string gauge shipped on every new Rickenbacker is as follows from low to high:

• .042/.026
• .034/.020W
• .026/.013plain
• .020wound/.010
• .013/.013
• .010/.010.

12-String Guitarist: David Love & His Rickenbacker 12-string

Tone Secret Number Three: Use a light gauge pick!

Try it! It works! A medium is too stiff and , in my opinion, “sends” too much signal to the pickup. I have found that with a light gauge pick, you can strum harder but still have a sound that doesn’t break up from string distortion (over strumming).

That kind of vibe (string distortion) works great for, say, a PRS through a Dual Rectifier but not for the sweet chimey strings on your 12 string. I keep a medium and a thin pick in my back pocket whenever I’m on stage depending on whether it’s a 12 string song or a 6 string song.

The great Colin Cripps of Hamilton, Ontario, revealed this Tone Secret to me many years ago. Colin is the guitar player/composer/producer of bands like Crash Vegas, Junkhouse, The Jim Cuddy Band, and Kathleen Edwards.

Tone Secret Number Four: Get your 12-string set up!

Find yourself a good guitar technician and get him or her to set up your 12 string.

The #1 complaint I hear from new 12 string players is that they put the guitar down because it’s too difficult to play.

The 12 string, by its design, is a different and difficult instrument to play because basically you are stuffing 12 strings into the same real estate as 6 strings. Players with small hands (like me) don’t find a problem especially with Rickenbackers, which have notoriously narrow necks.

A good guitar tech will straighten the neck as well as it can possibly can be – this is really important. He/she may also suggest that the frets be “dressed”, polished and leveled. This will benefit your 12 string and make it very playable. Ask him/her to set the action as low as possible – this is really important!

Another innovation that Rickenbacker has developed is the 12 saddle tuneomatic bridge, which ensures near-perfect intonation. If your 12 string doesn’t have one, don’t despair. Any good guitar tech worth his or her salt will get your 12 string intonated as close as it can possibly be even if you have a 6 saddle bridge – very important if you want those big jangly chords to be as sweetly in tune as they should be.

A well-set electric 12 string should play like a brand new PRS or (insert your favourite guitar brand here). If it doesn’t, find yourself a new guitar tech!

The best affordable 12-String Guitars

As a professional musician – yes, I’ve got the Vintage AC-30 and the Ricky 12 – hard to see it any other way. However, there is a price to pay for perfection, and therefor II recommend to my guitar-playing friends who jam for fun, to buy an electric 12 that’s a little more affordable than a Rick. There aren’t many electric 12 strings on the market these days but a few models by Eastwood fit the bill very nicely, such as the Eastwood Nashville 12 (discontinued) or the Classic 12.

The Eastwood Classic 12, setting a new standard in price vs. affordability

Mike Robinson from Eastwood consulted with me prior to the development of the Nashville 12. We discussed a variety of options and settled on this style as is was possible to achieve the tone (mini-humbukers) and setup (flat neck, low action) that would make it a “professional” grade instrument at an affordable price. Last month I visited Eastwood Guitars and took the prototype for a test drive. Two big thumbs up…… jangle away!

Currently, though, the hugely popular Eastwood Classic 12 is the model setting the standard for affordable, high-quality 12-strings, and is the best bet if you want to discover the joys of playing a 12-string guitar:

Still want more? Visit the Eastwood Guitars website for a look at their full range of 12-string guitars:

Suggested Listening:

• Mr.Tambourine Man by The Byrds
• I Should Have Known Better by The Beatles
• A Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles
• The Waiting by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
• Kicks by Paul Revere and The Raiders
• You Were On My Mind by We Five
• Turn!Turn!Turn! by The Byrds
• Can’t Explain by The Who
• The Kids Are Alright by The Who
• It’s My Life by The Animals

Tone Secrets of the Electric 12-String Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com