Month: February 2012

Guitars

The Häussel 1959 pickups for the Mark Knopfler Les Paul sound

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Those beautiful 1958/59 Les Paul Standards are probably the holy grail not only for Mark Knopfler fans – Mark owns a 1958 and a 1959 and plays them on all his tours – but for all guitar players. Unfortunately the prices for these are in the region you’d normally pay for a house, so most of us will hardly ever get the chance to touch one of these. They came with those legendary original PAF humbucker pickups. Germany’s top pickup winder Harry Häussel has tried to replicate all tonal nuances of these with his 1959 model. Here is what the manufacturer himself says about his pickup: The “Häussel-1959” model gives you that legendary old PAF sound, still sought-after by professionals the world over. Manufactured with […]

Guitars

National Style-O 1932 and 1936 – Double Power

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What can be nicer than one of those wonderful old National resophonic guitars like the Style-0? The answer is, of course, two of these! My friend Thomas brought his 1932 Style-O along for a photo session. And what a wonderful guitar this is – shiny and sparkling like one of the new reissues but real vintage, almost 80 years old. The pictures from the photo session show the guitar from all sides, and some in contrast to my battered-looking 1936 Style-O. Differences The National Style-0 from the early 30ies have a different, longer body shape. The body joins the neck at the 12th fret, while from the mid-30ies on the joint was near the 14th fret. For this reason the body was slightly larger, and […]