This week I visited the Frankfurt Music Fair, the world’s leading trade fair for the world of music. On one floor it featured a special vintage guitar exhibition where you could see lots of wonderful guitars, even most valuable guitars like Fenders and Gibsons from the fifties. I took many pictures of all kind of guitars, but with this blog post I would like to feature those which are similar to some of Mark’s guitars. Since many of the presented guitars were labelled with a price tag, the pictures will give you a good idea about the value of some of Mark’s guitars (if these would not be owned by him, as this alone surely multiplies their value).

But first some nice guitars without price:

1968 Fender Telecaster Custom

The Telecaster Custom in three-tone sunburst is really a beauty. It is similar to Mark’s, which is from 1966. While the normal Telecaster had an ash body, Customs were made of alder (the standard wood for the Stratocaster at that time). There is a binding on both the front and the back side of the body.

1962 Stratocaster

Next we have a 1962 Strat, a guitar with the same specs as Mark’s #68354 Strat, his first red Strat on which he composed the final version of Sultans of Swing. While his was a bare wood finish when he got it (and was later painted red of course), this one is really light and has the standard sunburst finish of that time.

1968/1969 Telecaster Thinline

These Telecaster Thinlines were produced only in the late 60ies (later one had a humbucker pickup in the neck position). Mark played a black Thinline with the original Dire Straits setup on Water of Love , tuned to open A. Mark’s black finish was not original, also the f holes were closed before the paint job. Here is what they normally look like with their typical natural finish and the white pearloid pickguards (I guess Mark’s pickguard was also simply oversprayed with black). The Thinline was available with an ash and a mahagony body, see the pictures (we don’t know what Mark’s was).

1954 Fender Stratocaster

Here we are starting with the “behind glass” guitars (thus the reflections in the picture). With a price tag of about 49,000 Euros the first-year-of-production Strats are – together with custom colour Strats from the 50ies – the most expensive Strats. This one is very similar to Mark’s 1954.

1953 Fender Telecaster

A Telecaster very similar to Mark’s 1954 Telecaster. The finish in these years looks a bit different than the typical butterscotch of the Tele at that time. In fact the finish was probably the same but the kind of clear nitro overcoat in these years became less yellow than on the butterscotch Teles. The price tag of this guitar reads 45,000 Euros.

1958 Les Paul Standard

An original 1958 Les Paul Standard – 200,000 Euros, very similar to Mark’s.

Finally, a group picture of some nice Fender guitars…

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• Dire Straits Water of Love guitar tutorial
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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 original wire, original-sized magnets and our optimally-matched winding, this pickup will captivate you with its silky, ‘woody-warm’ sound – on chord work, the sound of each string is clearly defined, while the overall sound is breezy and slightly nasal, but never muddy. The extremely agreeable, sweet highs make each tone a desirable delicacy for sound gourmets, while solos become a symphony of soaring sonic satisfaction. The 1959 model ‘smacks’ beautifully each time you strike the strings, gliding effortlessly into harmonic overtones and feedback. This is a pickup with a powerful ‘hook’ -and perfect if you want to get that truly authentic PAF sound.

Of course I don’t own a 1958 or 59 Les Paul, just an ‘ordinary’ 1974 Les Paul Custom . With its cherry sunburst finish it looks nice, especially after I replaced the black plastic parts to cream ones, and I also like the sound.  I was really satisfied with the original pickups – and many commentators on my youtube clips on which I played this guitar agreed with me. Nevertheless, I recently installed the Häussel pickups to hear for myself what all the talk about the silky, woody tone of the Häussel 1959 is about.

I recorded a youtube video when I plugged in the guitar directly after putting in the pickups, so you will really witness my first impression of these pickups. Check out why I will leave them in my guitar and why I cannot go on with the original Gibson pickups anymore.

The Häussels are not cheap but if you like me become addictive of this warm but transparent sound, you can get them for a top price here in my online shop.

 

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For this week I had some nice borrowed guitars around which made me record a short youtube video comparing them with some of mine, all played over the same amp with the same setting – only the volume knob was adjusted for each. This was rather a spontaneous session recorded with the camcorder mic. I tried to play both some similar licks on different guitars and different licks that sound nice on the particular guitar.

The guitars were:

1 – Part-o-caster

This guitar is basically a copy of Mark’s Fender  which he used on that early Dire Straits stuff. It is not too accurate, wrong body wood, one-piece maple neck instead of laminated maple fingerboard etc. but it sounds nice in most situations. In the neck position it has a DiMarzio FS-1, in the middle position an old vintage Strat pick-up. One of the tone potis was replaced with a rotary switch that allows all kinds of pick-up combinations, even fat humbucker-like sounds.

2 – 1974 Gibson Les Paul Custom

70ies Gibson are surely not that much sough-after but this one is a nice guitar. It is tobacco sunburstwhich resembles a faded sunburst of those 50ies Paulas. Originally the plastic parts were black but they were replaced with white ones to look more like an ’58 Les Paul.

3 – 1983 Squier Stratocaster

These very first Squiers were really great, almost all of them sound cool. I put one of my loaded Schecter-style pickguards on it that allow a total of 27 sound combinations from the three tapped pick-ups.

4 – 2006 Suhr MK-1

This guitar looks and plays like a dream – and it sounds fantastic, too. The top is one of the fanciest I have ever seen, the wood looks almost three dimensional. Unfortunately it is here only for a couple of days, a guitar you can easily fall in love with.

5 – Fender Stratocaster

What to say about this one? The neck pick-up is not original (a FS-1), bare wood finish, needs to be refinished but it looks cool as it is, too.

6 – 68 Fender Telecaster

The late 60ies Telecasters are really cool, so is this one. The combination of the ash body with the maple cap neck  sounds really bright, but alwasy war at the same time. The neck pick-up is a Japanese copy, the owner still has the original pick-up that needs to be rewound.

7 – 77 Greco Super Sounds

Greco guitars are better known under tha Ibanez label. I think the domestic guitars were called Greco, the export guitars Ibanez. It sounds amazing – especially for its price! The gold anodized metal pickguard is not original.

Here you can vote for which one sounds best to you. You will see the results so far after voting.

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Related articles

• What are Mark Knopfler’s vintage guitars worth?
• Mark Knopfler – Guitars on the Get Lucky tour 2010
• They all look the same – How to tell Mark Knopfler’s different signature Strats apart
• The Häussel 1959 pickups for the Mark Knopfler Les Paul sound
• Dire Straits Water of Love guitar tutorial
• Mark Knopfler Signature Strat with lipstick pickups played on Forever Young (duet with Bob Dylan)

The US leg of Mark Knopfler’s 2010 Get Lucky tour is over, and we in Europe are looking forward to the next part. Due to the new recording policy on all MK concerts,  there seem to be less videos on youtube than we had the years before, but still we have some On the base of mainly these videos I put together a list of the guitars Mark has used on the different songs on this tour so far:

Red MK Signature Fender  Strat(s)

Of course he played his signature model, and probably more than just one. He played it on:

Border Reiver, What it is (not confirmed) , Sailing to Philadelphia (not confirmed), Romeo & Juliet (outro solo), Sultans of Swing

The guitar on Border Reiver is tuned to Eb (one half tone lower than standard tuning). On the 2008 tour he played one Strat with 010 strings on What it is and Sailing to Philadelphia, and another one (owned by Glenn Worf) with 009s on Sultans of Swing and Romeo & Juliet, might be similiar on this tour.

Gibson Les Paul

The following songs seem to be the ’58 Les Paul. I can’t tell if the ’59 was also used.

Why Aye Man, Hill Farmer Blues, Cleaning my Gun, Speedway at Nazareth, Brothers in Arms

Fender  ’54 Stratocaster

So far away

I first listed So far away for the MK Signature Strat, because of this video (bad quality, red or sunburst Strat?) but on all other ones I have seen so far it it the sunburst ’54 Strat.

Pensa

Telegraph Road (2nd part)

National Style-o

Romeo & Juliet, Telegraph Road (part 1 – until “three lanes moving slow”)

Don Grosh Electrajet

A rather new addition to Mark Knopfler’s collection.

Piper to the End

Martin 0040S

The Ragpicker signature model

Get Lucky, Marbletown

Danelectro

Tuned to open E, slide

Donnegan’s gone

(No information yet)

I cannot tell which guitars he played on the following songs. If you have been to the US tour or know more from other sources, please use the comment function to let us know.

Prairie Wedding, Monteleone, Remembrance Day, Coyote

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Related articles

• What are Mark Knopfler’s vintage guitars worth?
• Comparing different guitars
• They all look the same – How to tell Mark Knopfler’s different signature Strats apart
• The Häussel 1959 pickups for the Mark Knopfler Les Paul sound
• Mark Knopfler Signature Strat with lipstick pickups played on Forever Young (duet with Bob Dylan)
• Mark Knopfler Signature Strats vs. 1964 Stratocaster

Normally I use my Music Man 212 HD 130 amp for clean guitar sounds, but the other day I was tinkering around with the Les Paul jamming to Brothers in Arms. The Music Man has a solid state pre-amp section which is not ideal for distorted sounds. Yet, I was surprised to get some really nice, fat and warm sounds out of this combination.

Knopfler uses Marshall cabinets which allow a very deep bass sound, but I was pleased with the rich bass response from the Music Man, not bad for an open back combo amp.

I feel that it is important for that Brothers in Arms tone to play really softly and gently, don’t bash the strings or tear them. This way you get a great dynamic range.

And before I forget to mention: I rolled back the tone control on the guitar to 2.5 !

Unfortunately the sound on my youtube videos is not as good as it is before uploading a video. I don’t know what exactly it is, seems like a built-in denoiser or something, which produces a wobbling sound and other artefacts. Any help how to eliminate this is really welcome.

"Buy me a beer" - donate for the site via PayPal. Or buy a backing track in my online shop :)

Related articles

• What are Mark Knopfler’s vintage guitars worth?
• The Häussel 1959 pickups for the Mark Knopfler Les Paul sound
• Comparing different guitars
• Mark Knopfler – Guitars on the Get Lucky tour 2010
• Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms – Cover by Ingo Raven
• Thomas Schwarze / Ingo Raven – Jamming on Stratocaster and Telecaster

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