Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

New Theory on the Sultans of Swing Sound: DiMarzio FS-1 Pickup in the Middle Position

Mark Knopfler’s guitar sound on the first two Dire Straits albums is firmly associated to the 1 & 2 position (bridge & middle) of the 5-way switch. This position causes a special, nasal “out of phase” sound. The term out of phase is technically incorrect as both pickups are still in phase but – similar to a true out of phase wiring – certain frequencies are cancelled or at least decreased and others boosted so that the resulting sound of both pickups together is totally different from the sound of a single pickup.

In one of his two red Fender Strats Mark had a DiMarzio FS-1 pickup (confirmed in a Guitar Player interview from early 1979).

He often swapped the pickguards of his two Strats at this time, so the one with the DiMarzion was found on both his rosewood and maple neck Strat.

This DiMarzio pickup can be heard in the neck position on countless bootleg live recordings of the original Dire Straits setup. It has a louder, warmer and fatter sound which on stage Mark played on songs like Single Handed Sailor,  Once Upon a Time in the West (only live versions), Follow me Home (live), or sometimes on Wild West End (live). He also liked to switch to the hotter FS-1 sound just for the solo, e.g. on Sultans of Swing (live in late 1978), or Where Do You Think You’re Going.

 

The FS-1 in the Middle Position

 

Both the stock vintage Fender pickups and the DiMarzio FS-1 have staggered pole pieces (the stagger on the FS-1 is a bit different), for this reason they are hard to distinguish on pictures. However, the pole pieces of the FS-1 – then in 1978 being rather new compared to his 1961 Fender pickups – are shinier than the old corroded Fender pickups.

I recently was watching a picture (below) of  Mark’s maple neck Strat from early 1978 (backstage at the Marquee club). The guitar had the pickguard that came of his 1961 rosewood Strat (the one that often had a black volume knob), the  pickguard normally with the DiMarzio. I clearly had the impression that there is a stock Fender pickup (with corroded, slightly bevelled pole pieces) in the neck position. Instead, the middle pickup looks much newer and might be the FS-1.

The DiMarzio FS-1 in the middle?

The picture quality is too bad to be a real proof but at least it is a hint. When thinking about it I realized that on all the live recordings with this pickguard from that time (Chester, Birmingham, London BBC, Revolver TV, Greenwich rehearsals) there is not one single example where Mark plays the neck pickup (!). All 1978 concerts on which he plays the neck pickup (in fact astonishingly often) are after October 1978 (Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris Chorus TV) , just after his 1961 was refinished to red. So I assume the DiMarzio moved into the neck position at the break when the 1961 Strat was refinished.

OK, no neck pickup on the summer 1978 gigs. So the next question was, can we hear the middle pickup alone on any recording from that period? If it was the FS-1, the sound should be fatter than normally. If not, it might have been a stock Fender pickup in the middle, and the FS-1 was purchased in late 1978.

A song that normally was played with the middle pickup (compare e.g. the Rockpalast video from 1979) was What’s the Matter with you, Baby. And in fact, there is an ultra-fat middle pickup sound on this song on the recording from Birmimgham, Barbarellas club ( July 4, 1978).

The only other existing recording with this song from this period is the one from London (“Live at the BBC” CD). On this concert the guitar sound is extremely bright. What’s the Matter with you, Baby was also played but does not seem as fat as on the Barbarellas gig. But when a/b compared with the other songs it becomes clear that it is the middle pickup and that there also is less treble but more distortion than on the the other songs. Likewise, you can compare Water of Love from these recordings with What’s the Matter with you, Baby to find that the sound is fatter on the second – generally, a stock Fender Strat pickup is about as loud and bright as the neck Telecaster pickup on Water of Love, or even brighter (the metal cap on the Tele reduces treble), not so here.

Another  song that seem to feature the middle pickup is Lions. Mark sometimes played the intro or middle solo with the middle position (sometimes even the bridge position. There is a video of Lions live at the BBC Whistle test, and the sound is also astonishingly fat and warm here.

 

The DiMarzio FS-1 and the in-between (1 & 2) Position

 

1979: the DiMarzio FS-1 in the neck position
1979: the DiMarzio FS-1 in the neck position

While the DiMarzio alone sounds totally different from a Fender pickup, it also changes the in-between sound (bridge & middle, 1 & 2 ) significantly. The interesting thing here is that the 1 & 2 sound will not become fatter and warmer, but sharper and less nasal. This is because the high frequencies do not cancel themselves to that typical nasal Strat tone as they do with two identical pickups. Instead, the 6k ohms Strat pickup and the 13k DiMarzio blend differently. The sound is more like the sum of both: the warm midrange from the middle pickup plus clear treble from the bridge pickup. I see this as the formula for Sultans of Swing on the first CD. The sound on this song is noticably different from most others of the first album. I assume he plays the 1961 Strat (he calls it his Sultans Strat…) on Sultans, and possibly the maple neck with its original pickguard (probably with three Fender vintage pickups) on most other songs ( This makes sense as he favoured this guitar on the previous tour with the Talking Heads directly before recording the first album).

On all 1978 pictures and videos after the recording of the album, we see him with the maple neck Strat which then has the 1961 pickguard of the rosewood Strat (with the DiMarzio), until in October 1978 he plays the rosewood 1961 Strat, with its own 1961 pickguard again, and the DiMarzio now in the neck position.

The 1 & 2 sound of Sultans of Swing (first album) and on all live recordings (e.g. Live at the BBC) after the album and before October 1978 feature the DiMarzio FS-1 in the middle position.

After October 1978, the DiMarzio moved to the neck position and the 1 & 2 sound became “normal” then (compare e.g. the Rotterdam 1978 bootleg).

I myself already found out that the sound of the DiMarzio in the neck position plus the Fender in the middle (3 & 4 position) is similar to the Sultans sound so that I used this for the Puresolo competition some time ago. With the DiMarzio in the middle and a stock Fender at the bridge, it sounds even more original to me.

(Youtube video demo / sound demo to come)

The VFS-1 as the ideal pickup for the early Dire Straits tone

 

With what was said before, it seems difficult to obtain all the different sounds of the first two albums and the live gigs from this era, as these require different pickup setups:

**  three Fender vintage pickups (all that was played with the original pickguard of the maple neck Strat, e.g. many songs of the first album, the January 1978 tour with the Live at Leeds or at the Roundhouse bootlegs, the early 1979 concerts like Rockpalast,…)

** a DiMarzio FS- 1 in the middle (1961 pickguard before October 1978, e.g. Sultans of Swing (album), Live at the BBC, Live at the BBC Whistle Test,..)

** the  DiMarzio FS-1 in the neck position (1961 pickguard from October 1978 on, e.g. Single Handed Sailor (Communique), the late 1978 concerts and all other live recordings from March 1979 on)

What we ideally need is a pickup that can be switched from vintage sound to DiMarzio sound, to put this one in the middle and the neck position. Then we can get all sounds mentioned before. Dreaming? No, this pickup already exists – the VFS-1, which I designed myself exactly for this purpose (this Youtube video compares it to a vintage pickup and to the DiMarzio pickup.

The VFS-1 is a tapped pickup (two different sounds switchable) made to my specs exclusively for me by Germany’s high-quality pickup guru Harry Haeussel. I have been offering it with the loaded Schecter-style pickguards for some time now, as it is also ideal to get the Alchemy sounds without loosing the option for fatter sounds and the 26 sound combinations of the three mini switches on a Schecter vintage pickguard. I also recommended it for the neck position to get the DiMarzio sound or the vintage sound for early Dire Straits tones. But now, with the DiMarzio FS-1 in the middle and its effect on the 1 & 2 sound, it really becomes the ultimate sound tool.

Without the three mini switches (with up, off,  down positions each) the two sounds of a VFS-1 can be switched with e.g. a push/pull poti. Note that you can wire the push/pull switch as you want to make the fat or the thinner sound the “default” sound with the poti pushed in. Pulling it will enable the other sound then.

 

Buy the FS-1 or the VFS-1 directly here

I am official DiMarzio dealer and offer the FS-1 brandnew at the hottest price. So if you read about it here and feel the urge to get one, you can support this site by buying it here instead of somewhere else.

 DiMarzio FS-1

(click on picture to get the DiMarzio FS-1)

VFS-1

(click on picture to get the VFS-1)

 

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…