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Old 05-15-2007, 09:29 AM   #14
J Kennedy
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: ocean mists
Posts: 860
Default Gibsons....your next stop.....the Funk Zone

Friends,

Had a visit from my long time no see buddy “Claw”, who dropped off a new Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor II hollowbody and wants the macho makeover done on it, wood glue and all. I gave him back $300 he tried to give me and told him that for an urban legend, if he got the parts, I’d do the stuff. Just hearing him play it would be payment enough. He’s got a very old Byrdland that he wanted minimal change to a few years ago so the original value was kept, which is what I want to get to..

Claw was evidently a terrible guitarist at one time, but guitar was his life. He met with a logging accident and ripped two of his fingers off the left hand and screwed the rest of them up and got the nickname “Claw”. After a couple botched suicide attempts he decided to kick the booze, got religion, went left hand guitar and practiced like a madman, stories about manic guitar rampages going on for days without sleep or food. The Byrdland is permanently stained with blood. He plays damn loud and I failed to get him recorded in a smaller setting since feedback was (is) king of his realm.

His setup is interesting. No effects, which he says are for wimps. “If ya can’t get an echo chamber and a flanger out of your head and guitar, ya got no business playing one”. Serious hardcore dude. He was inspired by Ted Nugent in the Amboy Duke days and uses about the same approach with a couple twists. Claw says he's thinks he's the reincarnation of Ted Nugent. I reminded him that he can't be the reincarnation of Ted because Ted's not dead yet, and if he wants to be floating on clouds jammin with the pope in the hereafter, he's got to stop talking all this reincarnation crap or he'll be jammin with me and the hindus.

Claw went left hand but didn’t restring, just flipped his Byrdland over and plays backward. Uses his thumbnail since the other two fingers aren't worth much after the accident and he can't hold a pick. His arpeggios are phenomenal.

Byrdland goes direct into two tube Fender Showman heads with 4 Fender twin 15” cabinets. Center two cabinets are angled in 45 degrees to each other and the other two are on the sides facing out to the audience. He plays inside facing the angle with volume all the way up in what he calls the “alchemy spot” where he mastered the control of feedback so that any note or combination of notes gets indefinite sustain. All volume is controlled by the guitar only. The guy sounds like a friggin 200db string orchestra. He does this lightfooted dance into and away from the speakers to alter the phasing of the feedback in a way that plays tricks on your brain. For whatever reason, this effect doesn't get caught on tape.

So regarding the modifications, Claw wanted something done to his Byrdland that would give some different options but wouldn’t kill the antique value, and this may or not be something to consider if you’ve got a real old antique. You can definitely make it sound better but any destructive modification will kill the original value. We redid his Byrdland with some simple mods that were invasive but not destructive, that could be returned to the original configuration if needed. You can try this on any Gibson with humbuckings to get maximum funk. Claw doesn't care about funk but likes the oboe and viola sounds he now gets from the Byrdland. His other problem was his feedback style hit up against a major limitation in Gibson circuitry in which you can’t get a specific pickup mix and alter volume from the guitar without altering the mix. They had to do this to compensate for undesirable rolloff characteristics with the volume controls. Anyone with a Gibson just puts up with the shortcoming. I’ll share an overview of potentiometers and how to solve the problems.

One thing double coils are good for is phase inversion that doesn't sound like a tin can. We redid Claw’s Byrdland by reassigning function for 3 of the 4 knobs and non-destructively reversing the phase of one pickup. This rephasing enters the realm of maximum funk, but at the non-destructive level (without adding a switch), you can’t revert to in-phase configuration without partially disassembling a pickup again. It does introduce another arena of sounds you currently can’t get off the shelf. Give this a try.

Unsolder the metal cap and simply turn the bar magnet around 180 degrees lengthwise. Reinstall the pickup. The isolated pickups will sound the same, but start mixing them….you’ll see.

Guess this opens up potentiometers and how to get a mix ratio to stay the same over the volume range and still sound decent for Gibson type wiring.

Claw said best not to tell my guitar sob story because all it would do is have the forum flying a flag at half-mast for a week and sending a lynch mob out after me. He said that it was okay for him though because when he gets down about his own past, he thinks about what I did and takes comfort that things could have been worse.

Be back with less stories and some considerations on volume and tone controls.


Best to all
John K

Last edited by J Kennedy; 05-15-2007 at 09:43 AM.
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