Last month I made a video of a mahogani body Strat. Mahogani is a standard wood for Gibsons but not very popular for Stratocasters. Nevertheless, Mark Knopfler’s metallic red Schecter Strat is said to feature a mahogani body, and possibly his red ‘Walk of Life’ Schecter Telecaster as well. I also built a Telecaster with a mahogani body some time ago – unlike the Strat this Tele was not built […]
Here you can watch me trying out another guitar I am building at the moment: with a Mahogani body, a dotless birdseye maple neck, brass tremolo, and the Alchemy loaded pickguard it should be obvious that this was inspired by Knopfler’s red Dream Machine Schecter Strat. The guitar is still in a rough state so ‘unfinished’ does not only mean no red finish yet but also a lot of other […]
One of the things I was a bit busy with over the last years is guitar building. The guitar in the following video was inspired by the vintage Schecter Dream Machines that Mark Knopfler started to play in the early 80ies. I also built some models closer to the particular ones that Mark had – like the stolen 1st sunburst, the 2nd sunburst to replace the first, or the red […]
In the following video you can watch me jamming to a blues backing track. The guitar is a 1974 Ibanez 2351 Les Paul copy, all stock with exception of two MK58 pickups. It is not a close copy of a Les Paul but a model with a bolt-on neck, and the top is not solid maple but a bent piece of thin wood. Nevertheless, it has a nice warm sound. […]
The Electro Voice EVM12L is a legendary vintage guitar speaker, favoured not only by Mark Knopfler who uses this speaker in various 4 x 12 speaker cabinets. I have these in a 4 x 12 cab as well, and I like the sound of these very much. The last time I played with this cab there was an unpleasant surprise: one of the speakers produced a strange noise as soon […]
Chris Rea is an artist that has surely more than a few things in common with Mark Knopfler – playing a red Fender Stratocaster is one of them. Chris plays a lot of slide guitar, so his Strat is normally tuned to open E, and his sound is different for this reason but often his clean Strat sounds are still similar to some early Dire Straits stuff. I found this […]
This is what I consider good news for all of us guitar players – after severe CITES restrictions for trading guitars with parts of rosewood or bubinga that were introduced in 2017, these woods can soon be used for musical instruments again, without any horrifying paperwok that almost made many companies stop using these woods that are essential for e.g. fingerboards or bridges on acoustic guitars. An exemption for finished […]
I guess most fans are already aware that a new Mark Knopfler album called Down the Road Wherever will be released on November 16. You will already find a track list and the lyrics to all songs here on the official Mark Knopfler website. A new single called Good on you son is already available, see the official video below: And finally, the tour dates of the coming world tour […]
With this blog post I just want to make you aware of a possible sound loss due to a wrong setup. This affects all Strat or Tele bridges with the ‘block’ saddles instead of the bent steel pieces of the vintage Fender design, like the American Standard bridge, or vintage Schecter bridges and consequently also the Dream Machine Tremolo and Tele bridges. I found that you need to make sure […]
In addition to the rumour that Mark Knopfler used the Orange Squeezer compressor in the 70ies with Dire Straits for his unique guitar sound, here is a confirmation coming from an interview with Mark himself: In the September 1979 edition of the Portuguese magazin ‘Musica & Som’ we find an interview with Mark, most likely dating from the gig in Freiburg, Germany, June 2, 1979. Mark was asked for hig […]