Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

My Sunburst Schecter Strat Copy

Following on from Ingo’s  excellent article on the stolen sunburst schecter used on Tunnel Of Love.  I (Dermot O’Reilly also known as strat61 on some forums) have been invited to write a piece on my Schecter come fender strat inspired by that guitar.

Inspiration

Although I followed Dire Straits from 1978 with Sultans it was only Christmas 1980 when I started to play the guitar myself that I really locked onto Knopfler’s style and really fell in love with the strat. Tunnel Of Love has and always will be a special song for me especially the breakdown part in the song with the lines ..

Girl it looks so pretty to me
Like it always did
Like The Spanish City to me
When we were kids

.. and the subsequent play out. As a kid living in Doncaster in Northern England me and me mates (we don’t say “my mates and I” up there) we always kicked around the local fair that visited the Town Moor race course (not Newcastle’s Town Moor a ref for the song along with Spanish City). So at 16 years old having suffered a few life blows already it gave me a real lift.

My Sunburst Schecter Strat Copy

SchecterFender

SD530968

Even though the red schecter strat was used for live shows and TV at the time like Whistle Test because the sunburst had been stolen during Making Movies tour rehearsals Sept-Oct 1980 I later came to discover the Tunnel Of Love (stolen) strat which in the past few years I succeeded in a holy quest to replicate.

So basically it’s half original Schecter and half a 2006 Eric Johnson Sunburst Strat which is based on a 57 strat with the improvements Eric made, not so much for better sound (any strat has the potential for sounding great) but more for playability and stability. I liked the two piece alder body as the join wasn’t noticable and the very thin nitrocellulous lacquer finish. The neck is a 1-Piece Quartersawn Maple, Soft ‘V’ Shape with a nitrocellulose finish. I added an original schecter brass pick guard fully loaded with schecter F500 tapped pickups and original untampered (still waxed) wiring harness. The exact same as used by Knopfler in his sunburst schecter strats (1980 – 86). Also an original Schecter brass bridge with brass block plus brass “bath tub” input jack.
I always loved those Californian Schecter guitars that Mark used early on in Dire Straits and still untill very recently. I remember the day I read the reply from Andys a guitar shop in Denmark street as I read somewhere that Mark used the store and I wrote to them on “real paper” asking for more information. They said Mark used Schecters not Fender strats – I was shocked.  But that soon changed when heard Making Movies was recorded with schecter strats.

Sounds

Here’s a clip of me playing a few Knopfler licks.  Gear is my Schecter/Fender sunburst strat, 1977 Musicman 65W 212 amp. Also in the chain is a vintage Morley volume pedal, vintage MXR compressor, Boss Delay DDS-3 and an Aphex Aural Exciter.

Even though I have an old 1984 squier (The Popular) strat based on old 70’s fenders that I love this strat feels like a profession model, it’s well behaved, all the frets positions play well, but it is a fuller more smooth sounding strat – less brittle. I prefer the half tapped settings as they have a more open tone, the full bobbin is as a result more closed less harmonics but you can more easily get a pinched harmonic sound as is the case with humbuckers – I usually only use the untapped settings for blues or slide. In terms of matching the Tunnel of Love tones it’s pretty close, although I think my Music Man amp has a bigger part to play as any amp does in the tone mix, but this is the amp that was used on that album. The Schecter pickups can get some of the dynamics heard in that song especially the initial rhythm chops at the song start better than a bog standard strat. I’m still not sure whether Telegraph Road (played with the sunburst schecter replacement) uses the fully tapped or half tapped settings. Also an added plus is getting a great Walk Of Life tone as the pickups are the same as Marks Red tele and you can switch in the Neck and Bridge together.

What I like most about this strat apart from the looks of course is it’s ability to cover any type of style rock, blues different Dire Straits stuff over the years. It does a good impression of a Gibson Les Paul with neck/bridge non tapped and tone rolled off and as I just discovered yesterday with the bridge/mid non tapped you can get a good Ride Across the River tone – whereas sometime a std strat does only a few things well if your lucky. Thanks for reading.

FYI: The Eric Johnson Strat

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

Red Dire Straits Fender Stratocaster clone by XY* guitars

*Note: As there was an issue with this guitar – the neck warp was too big to play properly with 08 strings – the guitar was returned. For this reason, I removed all names – of the builder and the client.

XY* – a reader of this blog and singer / guitar player in the band XY*- recently sent me an email about his latest guitar: a clone of the famous original maple-neck Fender Stratocaster (# 80470) that Mark Knopfler used in early Dire Straits. The guitar was hand-built by XY* of XY* guitars.  I found XY’*s website some months ago and was indeed fascinated by his art of copying vintage Fenders.

Here is XY*’s report:
“I was lucky enough to  have a number of genuine old Strat parts that I had scrounged over the years that I didn’t really know what I’d ever do with; a ’61 pickguard and shielding plate, pickup covers, knobs and switch tip, an early ’63 neckplate and old saddles and bridgeplate as well as various screws. And a weird black knob that I can’t even remember getting. It’s bigger than a Fender so I’ve no idea what it is. It has nothing printed on it such as “TONE” or “VOLUME”. So who knows?
These I augmented with a few pieces from a number of “relic” sites. I also sourced a “relic” wiring harness for an early ’60s Strat. My original ’61 pickguard was in a rather poor state so I’ve retired it and was lucky enough to find a genuine cellulose replacement. I also wasn’t to keen to drill a hole through my ’63 neckplate so that was replaced as well. To this, XY* added the fake 80470 serial number.
I guess I’ve always entertained the idea of putting a really good retro Strat together at some point but I’ve never really known who to turn to. I’ve used a number of customised guitars over the years. Some better than others. I never had access to the fabulous guitars I saw in magazines but I’m a child of the post-Schecter tradition where guitar kits ruled and proved that the name on the headstock is just a way to throw money away. It’s ironic how those guitars are now so expensive themselves. The standard of what is out there these days is extraordinary: Musikraft make wonderful necks. The bodies from Warmoth are superbly machined and the likes of  XY* have shown that the accountants that run the huge “name” companies haven’t a clue about what goes into making quality instruments. Sims Custom guitars is very close to whereI live and Martin Sims, the owner, tells some wonderful horror stories of what he’s had to repair. He also recently received a number of old Schecter parts from a luthier who died recently and he let me have a look at them. Honestly, the workmanship and woods make the more recent Fender stuff look ridiculous. It’s sad but devolution is well on its way…

bravewood Strat 1

The reflected blue sky has mixed with the red to make it pink! As you’ve seen from the other pictures it is actually bright red.  As a rule, XY* never fits decals but for this project he kindly threw one in for me. Being the meticulous craftsman that he is, (yup, you guessed it) it’s a ’61 decal to go with the serial number.
The real cellulose pickguard is a lovely touch! I have chosen to go with hand-wound BK “Apache” pickups in the bridge and middle position as they sounded the best out of the choices I had tried and they work a treat. The DiMarzio FS-1 is in the front.

bravewood Strat 2

We decided not to “relic” the finish too much as the guitar had been recently been refinished back then but I look forward to letting it get a few miles on the tyres!
XY* added some lovely little touches: putting the “correct”  80470 serial number on the neckplate, flattening out the neck radius of the slab fingerboard (about 12″ so I don’t think it’s quite as flat as the original appears to be…) for those exaggerated bends and he did a fantastic job on the custom hot red nitro finish. He even gave the neck a “refinished” look; leaving the maple wood at the back of the neck a bit stained and used under the nitro finish as would be the case.

bravewood strat 3

There are a couple of personal touches in that the frets are a bit bigger (medium jumbo) and I’ve used a brass block instead of steel.
I’ve also gone for the very light strings; 8’s. XY* was a bit concerned about this, especially after the 11’s he favours, but I explained how, although lighter than what I’d normally use, it does seem to work for the early DS stuff and it certainly encourages a far lighter touch. He went on to admit that he got used to the light strings and was amazed at the tone that he’s able to get from the guitar.
I had no idea where this little project would lead me but it has been a wonderful, wonderful journey. Not the least of it being a rummage around the playing of Mr Knopfler. Your fine site has been invaluable in providing all sorts of information. I thank you… ”

*Note: As there was an issue with this guitar – the neck warp was too big to play properly with 08 strings – the guitar was returned. For this reason, I removed all names – of the builder and the client.

Mark Knopfler gear, Misc, Misc

Old Geocities Dire Straits Guitar Page down – Please update links and bookmarks

On October 26 Geocities finally closed. Geocities was one of the first hosts for free websites. They were taken over a few years later by Yahoo who now finally decided to drop Geocities forever.

When I built my very first website in 1996, it was Geocities who hosted my original “Dire Straits Guitar Page” at http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/3399/. Although hardly updated within the next years, it was nevertheless one of the first and most complete sources about Mark Knopfler`s gear and sound, and for this reason it had an incredible number of links through all kinds of guitar forums or websites, including the BBC ,  Rockpalast, and numerous guitar magazines.

dsthumb

Unfortunately it was not possible to redirect from a geocities page to some new domain. For this reason I started to make a copy of the original site at my own domain (http://ds.mk-guitar.com) last year and put some internal links from the Geocities page to the new site so that visitors coming from some links find the way to the new location.

From late October on there is only a “This site is no longer available” message but all the content is still available at the new location. If you run any websites that linked to the original site, I would be very thankful if you update your links and your bookmarks.

Guitar in general

The Tai Chi of guitar playing

taichiRecently my son started to practice Tai Chi – an internal Chinese martial art that is often practiced for health reasons. Tai Chi is originally a sophisticated martial art in which you learn to control and relax your mind and your body and to win over the hard with softness this way. It is not really about fighting these days but rather about practicing ultimate principles that enable you to reach a certain state of body and mind in which you can do unbelievable things, fighting is just one of these.

I find that applying the very same techniques and principles to guitar playing makes a lot of sense. Maybe it is not ideal for all music styles but surely for the Mark Knopfler style. It even seems to me that it is not possible to play this way without these principles. So what are these principles in detail and how do they refer to playing the guitar for this style?

Relaxation

One key element is relaxation. The whole body should be as relaxed as possible. And the mind, too. Your muscles become loose which allows extremely fast movements. If you want to play fast guitar licks this will not work with hard and cramped muscles – at least it will not sound the way you want it to, and playing with a lot of muscle tension will get you in trouble like becoming RSI.

Concentration

A relaxed mind allows you to concentrate. In return, keeping up a high level of concentration will reduce your muscle tension. After some time doing so the mind becomes extremely calm and clear. It should be no question how this will benefit for playing ultra-accurate, percussive rhythms or super-fluid casual licks like Mark Knopfler is famous for.

Yin and yang

yin yang pictureYou might have heard about these: the contrast behind all aspects of life that is the cause of all changes and all movements. It is an easy but at the same time very complex philosophy. In short: nothing can exist without its counterpart, without the opposite. Applying to music and guitar playing would mean for example to leave adequate pauses between the notes you play, or contrasting loud notes  with very soft,  low  notes  (just listen to the legendary first solo of Sultans of Swing). Everything in a perfect guitar solo must be in harmony with everything else, everything must be balanced. Bass notes require a contrast of treble notes,  short staccato licks should be contrasted with sustaining singing notes, and so on. I think you get the idea.

While these were really ultimate principles, the next ones are rather concrete details:

Body posture

The body can only reach its full potential when all parts of the body are exactly in the position they are really meant to be. Only this way relaxation is possible. This means the spine should be almost straight with only minimal pressure on your intervertebral discs. The shoulder must be relaxed. If you keep them slightly lifted (like we almost all do most of the time), your arm muscles cannot operate properly. All false positions of any body parts will block the flow of energy through your body.

Breathing

The breath should be deep and even. Try to “breathe into your belly”, not into your chest. Especially try to avoid holding the breath while playing, and to inhale quickly in breaks between licks. Ideally breathing should be natural and not be interrupted when trying to do something comlicated, like playing a special riff or lick. Probably you never payed attention to this aspect. Watch yourself and find out what you do under which circumstances.

Practicing slowly

In Tai Chi complex movements (which are normally whole-body movements) are practised extremly slow – like in slow motion. This way you will become aware of any wrong details like a too high muscle tension, lifted shoulders, or anything else that does not feel perfect. Do the same when practicing guitar: slow it down extremely and try to pay attention to **all details at the same time** – something you are noromally not able to when doing the same thing at a higher speed.

I am convinced that applying these rules will help you a lot to become a better guitar playing – it is not possible to overcome certain limits without them. And what seems to work for fighting or guitar playing also will work for nearly all things in our lives. So applying these principles for all things in life makes a lot of sense – you will not only be able to do things you cannot do otherwise, you will also feel much better and happier. And what can be more important than this?

Recording

Recording acoustic guitar with two microphones – Audio Technica AT 4050 and Schoeps CM 64

I recently recorded an acoustic guitar for a cover version of Brothers in Arms. I used two different microphones – a large diaphragm condensor  Audio Technica AT 4050 near the bridge and a small diaphragm condenser Schoeps CM 64 over the neck. I had seen pictures showing Mark using a similar approach from a radio promo recording he did a few years back.

I recorded both mics to separate channels of a stereo track into Cubase. When hearing the result I was pleased with the broad stereo sound and left it as it was. Of course you can mix both sources with different panning and volumes to be much more versatile.

I made a sound file for you for demonstration, you can hear the mix of both microphones but also both individually (in the mix and alone) to judge about their different sound capabilities. The old (1962) Schoeps is a great mic. It has a tube circuit and a nice treble boost for that warm and crisp high end. Of course there are many other great ways to position two microphones, this being just one.

The guitar is a 1976 Gibson MK 81 by the way. It will be featured in a future article.

Effects, Guitar in general, Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

The Synclavier – The guitar sound of Dire Straits So far away

I recently saw a few threads in numerous forums about the guitar sound of So far away on Dire Straits’ fifth album, Brothers in Arms. People speculated that there was a flanger, a delay, a chorus, or other effects involved to create the rather unusual sound of the lead guitar.

And unusual it is in fact. This is because it is not really a guitar what you hear – instead it is the Synclavier by NED – a synthesizer – that is triggered by a special controler guitar.

The Synclaviar

I don’t want to go into too many details about the Snclavier since there are enough articles in the web about it, including this Wikipedia article. In short, it was a very complex – and thus expensive – system that was similar to the Fairchild synth. Due to the high price – I heard Knopfler payed something like 300,000 $ US in the mid-eighties for his Synclavier – both systems were mainly used in big studios or among top-selling artists. The Synclavier was not only a synthesizer – which means a device that generates sounds combining basic waveforms – but also one of the first high-quality samplers – a device that generates sounds from recorded (=sampled) waveforms of real instruments or real sounds or noises.

It was one of the first high-end workstations that allowed you to produce an entire album with almost nothing else. No wonder that it was used on some of Mark Knopfler’s soundtracks in the 80ies, like Princess Bride or Last Exit to Broklyn. I remember reading that even one of the guitars on Princess Bride was sampled (most guitars here were really played of course).

Synclavier II from the mid eighties
Synclavier II from the mid eighties

The Pensa controller guitar

To trigger the sounds from a synth with a guitar you need a special guitar – one that sends MIDI commands or some other similar electric signals. For this purpose Mark Knopfler had a special guitar build by Rudy Pensa’s Music Stop. It had a Stratocaster shape and lots of switches and knobs. As it also had two conventional pick-ups, you could play it as normal guitar, or blend the guitar sound with the synth sounds.

Here are some pictures showing this guitar. I have no idea what this guitar was used for on the concerts these were taken from, at least to my knowledge it was never used live for So Far Away which was played on the red Schecter Strat on stage in 1985.

Mark Knopfler with Bob Dylan who was a guest on the Brothers in ARms tour in Australia, 1986
Mark Knopfler with Bob Dylan who was a guest on the Brothers in Arms tour in Australia, 1986

synthguitar 003a
synthguitar 004

And finally the official video of So far away:

Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos, Mark Knopfler gear, Misc

Dire Straits 1979 concert photos from Liverpool and Birmingham by Alan Perry

Those early years of Dire Straits are still a very special period for me. 1979 was the time when I first heard the band and became a fan of Knopfler’s guitar style and sound. For this reason I still have a deep interest in any live pictures from this time but more and more I got the impression that I meanwhile have seen most existing pictures from those early years. What a surprise when I found Alan Perry’s website. Alan Perry has been a professional concert photographer since 1975 and you can order all his pictures on his site. There are little preview pictures of all his photos. And he took pictures on two different Dire Straits concerts – from the Empire, Liverpool, June 8, 1979 and the Odeon, Birmingham, June 13, 1979. All in all more than 50 pics of each concert.

Prices seemed reasonable to me – 30 British pence for a standard size photo- so I simply ordered all of them. The quality of the pictures is great. Of course there are always some that are better than others but all in all they all look good.

Unfortunately I could not spot any exciting new details about Knopfler’s equipment yet – no new insight into the effects he used, no picture that revealed details like the amp setting.

Knopfler played his red Fender maple board Stratocaster with the greenish pickguard of his other Strat (see here for more info), the black Thinline Telecaster on Water of Love (more info), and David’s black Strat on Setting me up (more info). The guitars went through the Morley volume pedal (more info) and the MXR analog delay into two Music Man amps (more info).

Here are a few samples. Check them out all at Alan’s site (www.concertphotos.uk.com): Birmingham 1979 Liverpool 1979

MK guitar style and licks

Sultans of Swing solo

Last weekend we had guests and one of them had this new photo camera – a Panasonic Lumix FX 37 which costs less than 200,- €. Besides taking great photos you can also record videos in HD quality (1280 x 720 pixels). As I was curious what these look like with my stuff I played Sultans for them and we filmed it. The result is really amazing – much better than that old camcorder I normally use – and this from a small, pocket size camera.

I wanted to check what it looks like on youtube so I uploaded a part of the final Sultans of Swing solo. The audio is of course also recorded with the camera itself (I recorded audio on a special track for the Six Blade Knife cover I did a few days ago).

A few notes on what I am playing here

It is just a mixture of different licks from different live versions plus some improvisation here and there. I played some of those staccato things from the Alchemy version  at 0:30  – although it seems noone knows for sure how Knopfler did that exactly. The lick at 0:40 might be similar to one from Wembley 1985, I always liked this one. I am not sure myself about the next one at 0:43 – it was suddenly in my head one day, not sure if I heard it from Knopfler somewhere or not.

The next lick (0:46) is from one of the 1996 versions if I remember correctly.

I messed up the part around 0:57 a bit, I never know when the backing track goes for that bass string lick (I need to build in a small drum fill to identify this part for me).

At 2:00 you will find another example of Knopfler’s 6 chord – a shape he uses quite a lot lately.

The backing track I used – the only one of the ‘long’ version with the piano part in the middle – is available here.

Easy stuff for beginners, MK guitar style and licks, Understanding music

Chord changes for ending of Romeo And Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a song I have been playing on my National for many years, but I never tried to play the wonderful ending of recent live versions where the piano leads through a rather unusual chord sequence. Yesterday I played around with the piano a bit and had a look at this.

After the last verse Romeo and Juliet features a two-chord sequence over which Knopfler plays solo: Bb (or Bbmaj7) and C.

When the drum stops, this sequnce (Bb – C ) is repeated two more times. Next comes a sequence of five chords, the piano is the dominating instrument here:

Bb – Am – G – F (9) – E

Note that Romeo and Juliet is in the key of F, so you would expect a sequence that leads to an F chord. This one however completely ignores the key – the G and especially that last E do not belong here in any way. Thus it functions as a surprising change in the mood of the sound, highlighting the carefully constructed composition. Wonderful.

To hear what I am talking about, check the following youtube video, starting from 8:55 :

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, Misc, Recording, Vintage guitars

Installing a Highlander iP-1X – The best pick-up for the National resonator guitar

I have my National for some years now but never found the time, money, and courage to install a pick-up into this sensitive instrument. But a few weeks ago I decided to order what is said to be the best available pick-up for single cone Nationals: the iP-1X pick-up from Highlander – the same model that Mark Knopfler has in both his beautiful 1937 National and his new National.
I bought it new on ebay for USD 239 (169,- €), quite a lot of money for just a pick-up with an internal pre-amplifier, well, but a lot cheaper than the recommended retail price of USD 329.

What is always annoying here in Germany is that you have to pay not only customs (which in this case were only 2.7 %) but also 19% VAT, and this not only on the price of the item but also on the shipping costs (!?). You even have to pick-up the package from the local customs office.

In the box were the pick-up itself which is installed into a new biscuit (the piece of wood that holds the bridge) – so you have to exchange your old biscuit – the pre-amp which has to be installed in the interior of the guitar, a case for the external battery (replacing batteries inside of a National is no fun and puts stress on the cone construction), a guitar cable (stereo, one lead for the 9v battery power), and some velco tape to fix the cables inside the body of the guitar.

Highlander iP-1X

Installing the pick-up

Unfortunately this is a job that is not easily done, and does not take just a few minutes. The new biscuit with its bridge is much higher than the original one and has no grooves. It took me almost three hours to transfer the shape and height of the original bridge to a cardboard template, then to transfer it from the template to the new bridge, to cut it out roughly with a fret saw, to fine tune the contours with a file, and to saw the new grooves, again using the template. Of course I did this extremely carefully and slowly because I was afraid to cause some irreversible damage. Fortunateley the new bridge soon looked fine and was ready to install.

This picture shows the difference in height and shape of the bridges
This picture shows the difference in height and shape of the bridges. The old biscuit looks much cooler, doesn't it - but you don't see much of it when installed into the guitar.
I used such a cardboard template to transfer the bridge contour
I used such a cardboard template to transfer the bridge contour
The new biscuit after sawing
The new biscuit after sawing
From the installation description - you need to pierce a hole into the cone
From the installation description - you need to pierce a hole into the cone

Normally you would ask a good local luthier for this job, but (a) there was noone near who had experience with Nationals and this pick-up, and (b) I like to do all kind of jobs on my guitar myself anyway. An experienced repair man surely will get this job done much quicker than me.

The external case for the battery
The external case for the battery

One thing that worried me was the fact that you need to drill a small hole into the cone (!) for the cable from the pick-up to the pre-amp. Besides two tiny screw holes on the wood stick inside the body to hold the pre-amp, this is the only irreversible modification of your guitar. I was reluctant when I learned about this before I ordered the pick-up because the cone is extremely sensitive, and also in my opinion a major sound difference between a vintage instrument and a new National. The hole could be pierced with a small prick first, then carefully drilled to 2,5 mm (3/32 “).  After threading the pick-up cable through the hole, I had to solder the RCA connector to the cable that is plugged into the pre-amp.

The rest was easy: the pre-amp is held by 2 little screws, like Mark Knopfler I used the f-hole for the output jack (no drilling required), and fixed all internal cables with the velcro tape.

The sound

After restringing the instrument, I was extremely curious how it will sound. I went directly from the pre-amp into the mixing desk and played the guitar over my studio monitors. What should I say, the sound was …. wonderful, sounds as you hear it from Knopfler’s guitar on his live recordings. The output seems to be rather hot, and the pick-up delivers the full range from bass, middle, to treble end. It is so balanced that I even did not have to adjust any EQ, sounded fine as it was. After adding some reverb it was perfect. I also could not detect any sound difference with the acoustic sound. Even at high volume I did not get any feedback problems, great!

Now it was also time to add a strap button to the heel of the neck so that I could play the guitar when standing, something I did not need before. I did not produce any sound clips because it really sounds just like the recent Knopfler live recordings (he had different pick-ups installed in the past I think), listen to Romeo & Juliet on the roadrunning live CD for example.

I would give 5 stars for this product.