I recently had three different 4 x 12″ cabinets here to play around with. They all were different, and they all had different speakers. In the video below I am playing various licks and chords over the three cabinets, it might be helpful to find out for yourself what you like most. But first, the candidates are:

Electro Voice EV 12

On the left you can see a birch cabinet made by House of Speakers, which we got on ebay for just 60 € (without speakers of course). It is equipped now with four Electro Voice EV 12L, the same that Mark Knopfler has in his two red Marshall cabinets. The EV 12L is not available anymore, but you normally can easily get one on ebay. It really is a workhorse that was found not only in countless guitar amps but also in PAs or stage monitors. Each of these speakers can handle 200 watts (!), the only drawback: it is very heavy. A cabinet with four of these is like a bank safe!

Celestion Vintage 30

These are in a Fame cabinet. They are very common because they are not too expensive, loud, and can handle enough power (60 or 70 watts). They are probably one of the most frequently used guitar speakers these days, although they have not that much to do with any vintage Celestion speakers (and do not even have 30 watts as the name suggests).

Celestion G12M “Greenback”

These are the current version of the legendary 25 watts Celestion speaker, as used in most cabinets from the late 60ies or early 70ies. Mark Knopfler uses these, too, he got some nice vintage Marshall cabinets in his studio. Brothers in Arms was a song recorded over these speakers for example.

The video

My verdict

I must say I like all of these. They all are different and each has some particular advantages over the others. The Vintage 30 always sounds transparent because of his strong high end, and it is also rather loud which is nice to save power (just 3 dB more volume of a speaker would require two times the power of the amp!). Having much treble always sounds nice in a shoot-out but  I think you need to be careful a bit because the treble can be too much in some situations.That Fame cabinet was returned by the way because it was not – as advertised – made of plywood (like the Marshall cabs) but of particle board. Nevertheless it is really good value for the money (a bit more than 400 € with speakers).

The Greenbacks have a very sweet sound, they never sound harsh, even if you dial up treble on the amp. On the other hand, they can appear slightly muddy compared to speakers like the Vintage 30. They also have a very deep and warm bass, and creamy mids.

The EV 12L finally seems to be a good allround speaker to me, the best of the different worlds. It has clear treble end, enough mids, and not too strong in the bass.  It might not win every shoot-out with the world’s sweetest sound, but it still makes a good figure in most situations. It is loud and can handle more power than any other speaker. Maybe Mark decided for these as the workhorses in his stage cabinets for the same reasons. If only they were not that heavy…

Your opinion?

Tell us in this poll:

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

Related articles

• The iSound-ST – New sounds for the Stratocaster – Does it help to get the Mark Knopfler sound?
• Trying to recreate that Sultans of Swing sound – The gear I used on the Puresolo competition.
• The DiMarzio FS-1 pick-up of Mark Knopfler’s red Stratocaster

With this blog post I want to introduce my latest product – the iSound-ST. The what you might ask? The iSound-ST is a rotary switch that is thought to replace one of the controls of your Strat, normally one of the tone controls (I recommend to make the other tone control a master tone control). It mainly changes the Strat’s behaviour when you put your 5-way switch into the 1&2-psotion (bridge & middle pickups), enabling new in-between sounds, plus some more.

What was the idea behind the iSound-ST

I came up with the idea some years ago. In a way it has to do with the mysterious black volume knob on Mark Knopfler’s Dire Straits Strats. From various pictures I knew that he did not have the original poti in his Strat (he had one with a solid shaft instead of a split-shaft) so there was a need for a new knob since the original would not fit anymore. The other thing I always felt was that especially his 1 & 2 sound was somewhat different from a normal Strat. This might be nonsense but I know of many others who feel the same. So I said to myself “What if the black knob (and the replaced poti) is not just a different knob but a hint to some modification of the guitar circuit?” In the seventies when he go his Strat such modifications were really common.

I took one of my Strats and  led out all pick-up wires to outside of the guitar. This way I could easily experiment with all kinds of circuit modification, like different pickup combinations and more. As it seems Knopfler’s sound at the positions 3 and 2 (neck alone, middle alone) was “normal”,  I was searching especially for modifications that affect the sound in the 1 & 2 position. In fact I found many interesting and good new sounds, and some of these seemed to be closer to what I was after than the normal Strat sound. Others gave me totally new sounds that also seemed very handy to me, e.g. the option to get sounds as fat as a humbucker pickup from a Strat, and all these were passive sounds, no active mid-boost, no battery was required.

Next task was a way to get these sounds without having to rewire cables outside of the guitar. One thing was a must for me: the look of the guitar should not be changed, and I wanted to keep all the original Strat sounds as well. I found that it was possible to achieve this, the answer was … the iSound-ST.

The iSound-ST is a rotary switch with 4 positions, in each of these the 1&2-psoition sound of your Strat will be different (in fact it will be warmer or fatter the more you turn it anti-clockwise). At some positions it also changes some other sounds of the Strat (e.g. when using the middle or bridge position of the 5-way), but at one position of the iSound-ST – the ’10′ position, all turned up – your Strat will still behave as it did before, so you’ll lose nothing, just win new sounds.

After some time of using it I forgot to wonder if Mark Knopfler might had something similar in his Strat or not because I liked it so much. In fact you always heard it on most of my youtube videos, I think I really never used the ‘normal’ 1&2 position sound. So the ‘i’ in iSound might stand for your individual sound, or for Ingo’s sound. And I have it in all of my Strats (except those with the Schecter-style pickguards since these allowed many pickup combinations anyway).

Chances of a modification in Mark Knopfler’s Sultans Strat

Today his red ’61 Fender Strat has the normal white volume knob again, and his other red Fender Strat (the one with the maple fingerboard) was given away for some charity some decades ago, so there is no option to find out details of his guitars then anymore. In a Guitar Player interview he said that both of his Strats were stock (except the DiMarzio pickup in one of these). On the other hand, he got it 2nd-hand about 1977, it it imaginable that he himself was not even aware of a circuit mod (I think I heard something similar about Chris Rea’s red Strat who also found out years later that his red Strat had been modified all the time). Or he simply did not want to tell about it, remember, in the late 70ies he was new on the scene and his unique guitar sound was really one of key elements of their success then. Would you have told the world about a sound secret if there was really one?

Some years later he said in another interview: “I liked the 3-way switch better than the 5-position; it had a better sound. But I kept knocking it out. I have a 5-position switch on the Strat now. The roadies are always pulling bits out and sticking things in.” This indicates that he maybe was not always aware of what was in his guitar. One thing is sure: a 5-way switch cannot sound different from the 3-way, it is exactly the same switch with just an added notch to make it rest more stable at the in-between position! Maybe the roadies also changed something else here except replacing the switch.

Another detail: he had the black volume knob, and two normal white knobs. Have you ever noticed that these two did not say ‘Tone’ as they normally do, but the middle one says ‘Volume’?

And finally, he got a solid-shaft poti (or even switch?) in both of his red Strats at that time.

iSound-ST – more details

It seems we will never know all details behind those early Dire Straits sounds. I for myself stopped worrying about possibly modification of his guitar since I love the iSound-ST in my Strats. This is what matters for me. I get warmer sounds and can my Strat even make sound fat – very fat. I played Money for Nothing and Brothers in Arms with cover bands on my Strat, and I missed nothing.All in all, the iSound-ST gives you six new sounds, in addition to the normal five sounds of a Strat, so you will get 11 sounds from a Strat.

In some of my Strats I also added a second mod that is described in the manual of the iSound-ST: I use another of the Strat’s controls as a blender poti that blends between the normal Strat sound and the fat Strat sounds. This is really what does it for me: normal Strat sound which I can beef up to any agree whenever I need more warmth. (I took the volume poti for this since I use a volume pedal anyway, and it is still possible to mute the guitar with the blender poti and the 5-way at a certain position).

Installing the iSound-ST- Is it difficult?

You need to replace one (or even two if you want, see above) poti which requires soldering of course. In fact you will have to unsolder various cables and connect them differently with the iSound-ST. It comes with a detailled step-by-step instruaction, including different pictures of the curcuit, so it is not too complicated. You don’t have to drill or change anything else as long as your guitar has Standard Strat measurements ( I cannot guarantee for any Strat like Japanese copies from the 70ies that often had different internal routings  of course).

Note that my current version of the iSound-ST features a normal split-shaft so that you can use your existing knob, no change to the look of your Strat.

Check out the iSound-ST in our shop

Sound clips will follow, as said, most of my old youtube videos feature it anyway, however, there are none demonstrating the real fat sounds. Watch out for things to come. Feel free to use the comment function of this post to ask for more details.

Here are a few comments from user reviews:

Dermot aka Strat61:
“If you have a few strats put this on all of them starting with your favourite one – you can’t lose.”
“The iSound-ST will give you additional extremely useful range sounds and tones regardless from Tele tones through to a beefier out phase to even a Les Paul type tone”
“Well on a decent stock strat and a good tube amp you may already be getting good out of phase DS tones, but this switch will provide additional clarity and boost to those clean out of phase tones from normal setting (thin) to stronger (thick) – now that has to be good as the normal strat out of phase tone can be sometimes too weak especially in a live setup.”
read the full review

TheWizzard:
“The new combinations are great for those old Dire Straits songs, as your guitar will sound much fatter and warmer now. But it is also very useful for other music styles too.
For me the iSound ST is one of the best sound-tools I have ever bought because it’s much easier now to get excellent tones out of your guitar and that just by turning a rotary switch.”
read the full review

 

 

 

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

Related articles

• The DiMarzio FS-1 pick-up of Mark Knopfler’s red Stratocaster
• What are Mark Knopfler’s vintage guitars worth?
• They all look the same – How to tell Mark Knopfler’s different signature Strats apart
• Mark Knopfler Signature Strat with lipstick pickups played on Forever Young (duet with Bob Dylan)
• Mark Knopfler Signature Strats vs. 1964 Stratocaster
• Speaker shoot-out for the Mark Knopfler sound: Electro Voice EV 12L, Celestion Vintage 30 & G12M “Greenbacks” in 4 x 12 cabinets

Like many others,  I recorded an entry for the Puresolo competition (you could play your solo over one of the following backing tracks:  Sulans of Swing, Calling Elvis, or Speedway at Nazareth). I always find it a bit frustrating to take part in such a competition because as it seems nobody knows before who decides basing on what criteria (authenticity, accuracy, originality, creativity, …??) Anyway, as the backing track was really great – the original recording of  Sultans of Swing without the lead guitar -  I simply used the opportunity to try how close I can get to the sound of the original. Note that you had to record the guitar with Puresolo’s software which did not allow you to fix mistakes later, so you had to play the whole song in one part and leave in all mistakes, or try it again with a second attempt.

Instead of a link to the competition entry, you will find a  player module with my version  at the end of  this post, mainly because Puresolo only plays back uploaded stuff in a horrible quality (something like 64 kbs). The guitar sound is surely not 100% as the original but closer to it than any of my previous attempts so I thought you might be interested in some details on the gear and settings.

The gear I used

I first played a few guitars I had here to see which one sounds closest over the backing track. I originally felt to go for one with a maple neck, but finally my ’62 Strat with rosewood fingeroard had something the others had not. This does not mean that Mark also played his rosewood Fender Strat instead of his maple-neck, you can never be sure of these things.

I first played the guitar through a Morley volume pedal which makes the sound generally sweeter (it takes out some harshness) but for this particular recording I felt I need a lot of treble, so I left out the pedal. For the same reason a Fender Pro Reverb made it compared to an old Music Man amp. I dialed in enough treble and put on the bright switch. The sound was much brighter than I normally play here in the room but sounded alright over the backing track.

I tried an exciter effect – an old Pearl Thriller – which made the sound even shine a bit more.The last effects I used was some chorus and a limiter. Here I took a software plug-in from my Creamware Scope system.

I used an old Schoeps CM64 tube microphone which sounded sweeter than the Shure SM 57.

Which Pick-Ups?

The next decision was the pick-up combination to use. Normally you’d say Sultans of Swing was the bridge & middle pick-up. I am still not sure what it was but bridge & middle definitely did not sound right here. The middle pick-up alone was too sharp, so I ended with the neck & middle pick-ups. However, note that this Strat has a Dimarzio FS-1 in the neck position, and this pick-up has a totally different impedance than a stock Fender Strat pick-up. This is why it does not sound as nasal when you play it together with another pick-up.

I had rather thin (08) strings on the guitar, maybe too thin. I also did not more experimenting to get that little bit of distortion that seems to be on the original recording. It sounds like an abrupt clipping, maybe from the desk (?!).

So, here is the result in uncompromised sound quality (MP3 320 kbs) as I can hear it from my hard disk. Unfortunately Puresolo compressed everything down to 64 kbs directly after the upload, what a shame since some of the entries are really great!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Simply click on the blue progress bar to make the player play a different part of the song.

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

Related articles

• Sultans of Swing – backing track for long live version available
• Speaker shoot-out for the Mark Knopfler sound: Electro Voice EV 12L, Celestion Vintage 30 & G12M “Greenbacks” in 4 x 12 cabinets
• The iSound-ST – New sounds for the Stratocaster – Does it help to get the Mark Knopfler sound?
• Alternate Sultans of Swing solo take from first album session – unheard before – exclusively on mk-guitar.com
• Rasgueado and other flamenco techniques in Sultans of Swing
• Rhett Davies and the sound of the first Dire Straits album

According to an interview with Guitar Player magazin from 1979, Mark Knopfler played a DiMarzio pick-up in one of his two red Fender Stratocasters that he played around the time of Dire Straits’ first two albums:

On one there’s a DiMarzio pickup for the bass, and I like it because it just seems to give a fatter, louder sound, with more clout than the standard pickup Fender uses.

DiMarzio has been producing replacement pick-ups for Fender and Gibson guitars since the early 70ies. Back then, a lot of players had the wish for hotter pick-ups to get more distortion from their amps – remember that high-gain amps, tube pre-amps and the like were a development that started in the 80ies. So most DiMarzio pick-ups were simply hotter replacements for the standard pick-ups. Hotter normally means the pick-up is wound with more coils. This does not only lead to more output but also to a fatter tone with more midrange and less treble. Consequently one of DiMarzio’s most popular models was the Fat Strat, or in short FS-1 (today also called model  DP-110). There is no direct evidence that it was this model in Mark Knopfler’s Strat, however, the DiMarzio product line was not big, and the only other Strat pick-up they offered at that time was the SDS-1, which had adjustable pole pieces – something you would see on pictures, and Knopfler’s Strat did not have these.

The FS-1 had a DC (direct current) resistance of 13.35 kOhms (a stock Fender vintage Strat pick-up has about 6 kOhms). The DC resistance results from the length (and the dimensions) of the coil wire – if it is the same wire you need more than twice as many coils as on the vintage Strat pick-up to get this value. The pole pieces were made of alnico 5, just like stock Fender pick-ups. The higher resistance results in a lower frequency peak, so the pick-up has less treble and instead a boost in the upper midrange – as the name suggest it sounds fat. The pole pieces were staggered (different length) but not as much as on Fender pick-ups – mainly the magnets for the d and g strings were a bit higher (see picture).

Most players installed hotter pick-ups into the bridge position because the stock Fender pick-up is in some situations too weak to overdrive the amp, and it often sounds too crisp. Nevertheless, Knopfler played it in the neck position. This was in a way similar to some Telecaster players’ approach who like to play a normal bridge pick-up for that twang and a humbucker in the neck position for warmer jazz or blues sounds.

The guitar with the DiMarzio was originally Knopfler’s Fender Stratocaster S-No. 68354 – the one with the rosewood fingerboard. Of course noone knows for sure but I suspect that it was already in when he got the guitar which was only shortly before Dire Straits started. Note however that for some periods Knopfler used to swap the complete pickguards between his two red Fenders. It seems he favoured the one of the rosewood Strat and often put it into his maple-neck Strat (which was the guitar he mainly played on stage in 1978 – 1979). To my knowledge today the DiMarzio is not in this guitar anymore.

There are many old live recordings on which you can hear hear the fatter sound as soon as he switches to the neck position. For some reason Knopfler did not play the neck pick-up often on the first two albums – much less than he did on stage. The only song with the neck pick-up seems to be Single Handed Sailor from Communique, and in fact this seems to be the FS-1.

On the following video I am demonstrating the sound difference between the DiMarzio FS-1 and a normal Fender pick-up. Note that the guitar used here with the FS-1 has a rosewood fingerboard and for this reason sounds darker anyway than the other with a maple neck, but the difference between the pick-ups is still easy to spot. You will find some licks from Once Upon a Time in the West and from Single Handed Sailor on this video.

Finally, here is a video that shows Mark Knopfler on stage in 1978 where he plays the FS-1 on Sultans of Swing : note the sound difference between the standard pick-ups 1 & 2 and the FS-1 in the neck position which he plays on the guitar solo (starting at 2:11, the video is edited, no final solo).

The DiMarzio FS-1 is still available, unfortunately most shops don’t have it on stock because it is not much requested.

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

Related articles

• The iSound-ST – New sounds for the Stratocaster – Does it help to get the Mark Knopfler sound?
• What are Mark Knopfler’s vintage guitars worth?
• They all look the same – How to tell Mark Knopfler’s different signature Strats apart
• Mark Knopfler Signature Strat with lipstick pickups played on Forever Young (duet with Bob Dylan)
• Mark Knopfler Signature Strats vs. 1964 Stratocaster
• Speaker shoot-out for the Mark Knopfler sound: Electro Voice EV 12L, Celestion Vintage 30 & G12M “Greenbacks” in 4 x 12 cabinets