Guitars

Tremolo Setup of the Sultans Strat

When browsing Adrian Boot’s Dire Straits photos, I found one from early 1980 that allowed a very rare view on Mark’s 1961 “Sultans” Stratocaster: a view on the back of the guitar. As the tremolo cover plate is missing on this  guitar – back then and still today – we can see the inside of the tremolo cavity. From some other pictures or video stills, I already got the vague impression that Mark had five tremolo springs, but here it is finally proven. Besides we can see how the tremolo claw (the part that holds the springs) is adjusted. As you know, the two screws that hold the claw in the body allow to adjust the tension of the springs. The ditance between the claw and the end of the tremolo cavity (red arrow) seems to be an estimated 12 – 13 mm (1/2 “). With this setting, the springs are hardly stretched.

 

Dire Straits

If I set up my guitar this way, even with 010 strings the five springs have enough pull to keep the tremolo base plate fixed to the body, in other words, no floating tremolo. This matches  the picture below that shows the tremolo on Mark’s guitar. (Too bad, if it was floating, we maybe even could have been able to estimate the string gauge from the tremolo angle, note that we have no reliable information on the string gauge in the 1977 – 79 period at all, anything from 08 – 010 is possible!!)

No floating tremolo but flat to the body
No floating tremolo but flat to the body

I am not sure what we see in the red circle. As this is near the place where the grounding cable  from the electronics cavity enters the tremolo cavity, my guess is that the cable is attached to the spring instead of to the claw. As Mark used to swap the complete loaded pickguard from one of his red Fenders to the others then (see also here), it was possibly easier and quicker to do it this way. It should be possible to pinch the wire between the spring coil, but it looks rather to be soldered (?).

We know that the guitar was refinished to red (around summer or autumn 1978, it was bare wood finish before). Here is another proof: all screw holes of the tremolo cover plate are filled from the paint job.

The tremolo block looks original (the scratchy look is typical for old Fender blocks, compare picture below). At least we can tell from this that the Sultans Strat does not have a brass replacement block (seems trivial but thanks to companies like Schecter or Mighty Mite brass replacements were a very common upgrade in the late 70ies). I am not convinced about the originality of the claw which looks a bit too rectangular while the original ones are rather trapezoid (compare to picture below) but this might simply be an illusion (this part normally does not get lost, and why should someone exchange it?).

Original 1961 tremolo block
Original 1961 tremolo block

 

Original 1963 tremolo claw - note trapezoid shape
Original 1963 tremolo claw – note trapezoid shape

And one more conclusion from the picture:  Mark possibly played Fender strings then (confirmed for the 1980/81 period), but these do not seem to be the Fender bullet strings that were common  then as well  (which do not have the typical ball end but a more solid “bullet” end instead). I guess we should be able to see those bullets on the picture if he had these.

MK guitar style and licks

Mark Knopfler playing with a pick in 1979

While Mark Knopfler is strongly associated with playing fingerstyle, we know he always used a pick occasionally as well. Before he started Dire Straits, he did a lot of fingerpicking-  e.g. on his National resonator guitar – but also used a pick much more than he did later. With his band before Dire Straits – the Cafe Racers – he mainly played with a pick on his 1959 Gibson Les Paul Special.

With Dire Straits, he used a pick on the song Expresso Love in 1980 and later, but in fact he used one before for Twisting by the pool which was played live in late 1979. I recently found the first pictures showing a pick on stage in 1979. It was pinched behind the pickguard through most parts of the concert it seems (several pictures of the gig were available). The gig should be Ney York, Palladium, September 11 [wow, a famous date together with the right place!!].

The only time I have seen a pick here
The only time I have seen a pick here

A pick on Bernadette?

I wonder why he did it this way, and why we have never seen a pick there on other late 1979 pictures or videos. Maybe he used it not only on Twisting but on another song? A good candidate might be Bernadette which was only played on that US tour I think (a song composed and sung by David Knopfler). I listened to it again (there are three recordings with this song), and yes, it might be a pick (at least no clear finger-style techniques or sounds on this one).

Decide for yourself (let us know with the comment function): pick or fingers?

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

Dire Straits pictures by Adrian Boot

Adrian Boot is one of Britain’s best-known music photographers. You might know his name  from  pictures in magazines  (e.g. in NME or Melody Maker) or books – e.g. from the Dire Straits book by Michael Oldfield  which features a lot of his pictures.

ZB3006_168257_0199While searching the web for unknown Dire Straits pictures, I recently found a website – urbanimage.tv – which has about 65 pictures of Dire Straits / Mark Knopfler by Adrian Boot. I have seen many of them before but I was surprised to also  find many which I did not know. As you know I am always investigating on all aspects of Mark’s gear – especially the gear used in the old days of Dire Straits. So I was pleased about some pictures from their rehearsal room that e.g. showed Mark’s 1961 Fender Strat from the back (5 tremolo springs, more details about this in one of the next blog posts), or some of the stolen sunburst Schecter Strat (it seems Adrian’s pictures from this photo session are in fact the only ones that exist of this guitar).

Dire StraitsYou can buy the pictures there, for personal or commercial use. Prices for personal use depend on the resolution, and are 10, 20, or 30 GBP. As I was hoping to find some new details, and being also curious about what is possible to see at the highest resolution of a professional photo, I decided to buy one. After paying with Paypal, you can immediately download the picture in a size of 2,500 pixels, and you will get a link to the full resolution picture (the resolution displayed below each pictures) in an email a bit later.

It is really fascinating how good the quality of such a picture is compared to the versions we see in a magazine. I was almost able to read the serial number of the guitar (at least if you already know it, for some reason the 68354 rather looked a bit like 68345 to me).

Personal use includes the right to print a picture (your favoured picture as a poster on your wall), use it as screen saver, or in the classroom etc. The price for a commercial licence is of course higher and depends on many aspects, like the place and type of your company, picture size, duration, and purpose.

gallery

Amps, Mark Knopfler gear
Amp Settings of the Tone King Imperial on Privateering Tour
Aa I included the Tone King Imperial amp settings of the last tour (Get Lucky, 2010)  in this blog post, I did not want to miss the opportunity to take a photo of the amp on this tour (I was in Cologne on July 3). Of course the Reinhardt amps are used for most songs, and the Tone King only on some songs, mostly with a clean Fender-like sound (e.g. Postcards From Paraguay or Our Shangri-la).
A new Tone King Imperial (black tolex instead of turquoise), and new Marshall cabinets
A new Tone King Imperial (black tolex instead of turquoise), and new Marshall cabinets. Just like on previous tours, the two Reinhard amps are just dummies . The Reinhardt amps in use are located behind the keyboard riser and are adjusted for each song by Mark’s guitar technician Glenn Saggers.
Unfortunately the pictures are not as sharp as I wished but the quality is good enough to see the positions of all relevant controls. Here is a zoom on the amp.
imperial-settings
It seems this year the left (Lead) channel was not used at all (all controls down to zero). The three controls on the clean channel are volume, treble, and bass (from left to right, compare with the picture from the manual below).
Volume seems to be at 6 – 7, treble on 3, and bass on 4 – 5.
imperial-controls-1
The reverb (third control from right)  and tremolo (last two controls) seem not to be used (the reverb normally comes from the mixing desk).
Guitar in general, Guitars
Show your own Dream Machines: Gallery with user pictures online now
I added a gallery where all customers can upload pictures of the guitar they build with mk-guitar.com products, mainly with the loaded pickguards. I started with some pictures that satisfied customers sent me during the last months, but uploading is easy for everyone, not even a registration is required. So don’t be shy and show us your Dream Machine. You can also add a description for each picture, with e.g. details on the other parts you used.
You will find a link to this gallery under ‘Pages’ in the left side bar, or simply
click here to visit the gallery now.
user-gallery
Guitars
Building a Telecaster Dream Machine – Part 3 – The wiring
This blog post is about the next step in my Tele Dream Machine project – the wiring of all controls. The main difference to a standard Fender Telecaster wiring is due to the tapped Walk of Life pickups (or Schecter F521T / F520T in the original)
Unfortunately the original Omni Pots, those square conductive-plastic potis with the push-pull switch that Schecter used in the Van Nuys era, are no longer available. These were made by Allen Bradley – who are out of business for a long time – or by Bourns who also dropped these from their product range. The only alternative are standard push-pull potis. You can get these here in my online shop, also from Bourns by the way.
Generally, the original Schecter wiring is like the standard Tele wiring – with exception of some different component values and the Omni Pots that were required to switch the tapped pickups between their normal and the fatter sound. The potis had a 500k value, something that seems a bit unusual for a Tele (Fender first had 250k and later 1 M). 500k seems to be a good compromise for both the normal and the full coil of the tapped pickups.
The tone cap was a 0.02  uF ( sometimes also 0.025 uF or 0.01uF) ceramic disk cap. This value is much smaller than the Fender standard (0.05 uF).  Schecter used a 680 pF treble bleed cap with a 150k resistor in parallel on the volume poti (Fender standard: 0.001 uF = 1000 pF and no resistor).  The resistor changes the taper of the poti.
One problem is that normally all ground wires of a Fender Telecaster are soldered on the back of the potis. This was not possible with the Omni Pots as these had a plastic case, and is neither ideal with a standard push-pull poti. Schecters solution was to use a small brass soldering plate that was hold by the two potis. All ground wires were soldered to one point on this plate then. As an alternative to cutting such a plate from a metal foil, you can use two washers with ground lugs, and connect all ground wires to these instead (see photo below).
8 different pickup combinations on a Tele
Operation is like on any Tele, with exception of the push-pull potis. Pulling out the VOL poti enables a beefier sound on the neck pickup, while pulling out the TONE poti does the same trick for the bridge pickup. This way you can get 8 different sounds of the two pickups instead of 3 sounds on Fenders (n, b, n+b, N, B, N+B, N+b, n+B, with small letters for the normal and capitals for the fatter sound).
Here is a schematic:
(3-way connected in Schecter style)
3-way connected in Schecter style (click to enlarge)
Alternatively, the 3-way switch can be connected like this (Fender style), the result isthe same:
(3-way Fender style)
3-way connected in Fender style (click to enlarge)
The wiring on the two push-pull potis is shown in a separate drawing here:
push-pull diagram
Wiring the two push-pull potis. The one on the VOL poti switches the neck PU, the one on the TONE poti the bridge PU. (click to enlarge)
The following picture shows how you can use two washers with soldering lugs (included with my push-pull potis) instead of the brass ground plate that Schecter used.
Soldering all ground wires to washers with soldering lugs
Soldering all ground wires (black) to washers with soldering lugs (Note: Different from this photo, I now have the red and purple wires on top of the push/pull, and white and yellow at the bottom, which means the full coil is in the down position of the knob and the tapped coil when being pulled, see diagram above)
 
 
Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos
Gator Blood live on the white 1964 Strat
Mark’s Privateering tour has started, and they played the first 8 concerts around south-east Europe and Italy. One song that has been played on some of these  – compared to previous tours they vary the setlist a lot – is Gator Blood. I saw the picture of Mark with the white Strat – it seems to be the 1964 of Sailing to Philadelphia – some days ago and was wondering on which song it was played. The capo at the 3rd fret and the bottle neck are a hint of course, but I did not associate it with Gator Blood. In fact the sound of the album version is different from a typical Strat sound, maybe he played his Danelectro on the album, his main axe for bottle neck these days.
Here are some youtube videos showing Gator Blood. The tuning is open G (D – G – D – G – B -D), capoed at the 3rd fret (key of Bb). Mark played a similar picking 34 years ago on a song called Do right unto others on Bob Dylan’s Slow Train Coming album by the way. Enjoy!
Guitar in general, Vintage guitars
Abigail Ybarra winding pickups
I recently watched this video on youtube and felt to share it with all readers of my blog. It shows Abigail Ybarra winding a pickup in the Fender custom shop. In case you haven’t heard of her, she started to wind pickups at the Fender factory in 1956, and again does so at the Fender custom shop today. She is the mother of pickup winding so-to-say.
 
 
The youtube video shows you what is meant with hand-winding a pickup, or scatter winding. Of course noone wounds a pickup by hand in the sense of laying single turns of thin wire around the coil, and neither by turning the coil by hand. For this always machine have been used, but the wire is led by hand. This way the person who operates the machine controls where exactly the next layer of wire goes, and also the tension of the wire.
Scatter winding means all the time the wire is  led from one side of the bobbin to the other, and back again. Such details are of importance for the sound of a pickup because they affect physical values, e.g. the capacity of the pickup. It is a mistake to think only the number of turns and the material of the magnets matter, it is much more. Even the insulation of the pickup wire – normally something like enamel or a material called Formvar – is of  importance, and both the thickness of the insulation and the material cause clearly audible differences. Of course it is still all physics and not vodoo, but a pickups is really a highly complex issue.
Guitars
Building a Telecaster Dream Machine – Part 2
After the Walk of Life pickups – a  reproduction of the Schecter F520T / F521T sound – are availabable now, I can continue with the next steps of my Dream Machine Tele project (see part 1 here). I meanwhile found a vintage Schecter brass Tele bridge some weeks ago, so – with my own highly-ploshed brass Tele pickguards  – I have nearly all essential parts for one guitar together now.
This is the body which I found on ebay some weeks ago. It is one-piece mahogany, not sure which (Honduras, Khaya,...) but it seems nice anyway. Here I put in the two pickups for a picture.
This is the body which I found on ebay some weeks ago. It is one-piece mahogany, not sure which (Honduras, Khaya,…) but it seems nice anyway. Here I put in the two pickups for a picture.
 
Here I installed the brass pickguard. I used the Schecter-style version with only 5 screws, and the pickup is attached to the pickguard (instead of directly to the body just like in a Fender)
Here I installed the brass pickguard. I used the Schecter-style version with only 5 screws, and the pickup is attached to the pickguard (instead of directly to the body just like in a Fender)
The face plate is black on this old Schecter neck. The plastic nut and the silver butterfly stringholder do not seem to be original and must be replaced with brass parts (which I don't have yet). One problem are the tuner holes which are too big for Kluson-style tuners (they are correct for Schaller tuners)
The face plate is black on this old Schecter neck. The plastic nut and the silver butterfly stringholder do not seem to be original and must be replaced with brass parts (which I don’t have yet). One problem are the tuner holes which are too big for Kluson-style tuners (they are correct for Schaller tuners)
Original would be Kluson Deluxe tuners but I will install a set of Japanese gold-plated Kluson-style tuners. These work fine, and originals are hard to get and more expensive. Schaller tuners are no option for me as I love the Kluson way to put the end of a string into the tuner and bend it into the tuner slot.
Here is my solution: I wrapped the tuner ferrules with self-adhesive copper foil until they fit nicely into the oversozed holes. 3 to 4 inches were enough.
Here is my solution: I wrapped the tuner ferrules with self-adhesive copper foil until they fit nicely into the oversized holes. 3 to 4 inches were enough.
 
Nice, problem solved.
Nice, problem solved.
Tuners installed
Tuners installed
 
To be continued soon…
Vintage guitars
No Vintage Guitars with Brazilian Rosewood at the Frankfurt Music Fair
I reported about the increasing problems concerning guitars with Brazilian rosewood (used e.g. for fingerboards on vintage Fender or Gibson guitars) last year (see here). As a consequence of this, Germany’s biggest vintage guitar  show last November was cancelled, as the CITES restriction does not allow to display a guitar with parts of Brazilian rosewood in public without a special licence.
With this short blog post I just want you to inform that in fact at this year’s Frankfurt Music Fair (the biggest trade fair for musical instruments worldwide) no vintage guitars were displayed at all for this reason. Last year there was a special display area with lots of vintage Fenders and Gibsons (see this blog post), like Strats from the 50ies and 60ies, even 50ies “bursts” (Les Pauls from 1958-1960) . The only exception was one booth by No. 1 Guitar Center from Hamburg, Germany, who had some old Fenders – but all with the required papers directly next to each guitar.
Last year you could see lots of vintage guitars-  not this year
Last year you could see lots of vintage guitars at the Frankfurt Music Fair – not this year
This shows that the  EU law is really repected meanwhile. It is almost impossible to sell or even display a vintage guitar with the protected Brazilian rosewood – unless you have the proper papers for it. And as this is an EU-wide law (to be correct, even a world-wide law), it will soon be similar in all other European countries soon (German authorities are often said to be more correct than others so no wonder they made the start).
I also phoned the authorities office for my town to inquire how to get such CITES papers. I will keep you updated after getting these, hopefully soon.