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Post by fenderplucker on Oct 27, 2013 8:08:05 GMT
Hi, We have just put up another article on the TVS website titled Some Guitars used by Hank, which describes and shows many of the guitars known to have used by Hank in performance at one stage or another. At the moment you have to click through two links to get to it, but we are working on it so that it comes up with just one click from the menu bar. Any comments or additions to this would be welcome. See: www.tvsspecialtyproducts.com/page9.htmRegards, Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Aug 11, 2013 2:09:12 GMT
Hi Ray, the advance footswitch on the Quad + will only advance (i.e. increase) the patch number. However, the range over which the advance occurs can be set by the Footswitch Range page accessed by the the MIDI then PAGE buttons.
Hope that helps, Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on May 4, 2013 3:51:40 GMT
And here is the response with the bass and treble at their mid positions. Again a fairly deep dip at around 800Hz. Paul. Attachments:
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Post by fenderplucker on May 3, 2013 8:24:17 GMT
hi again, for those without access to the tone stack calculator, here is the predicted electrical response corresponding to the measured acoustic response in the previous posting. Measuring the electrical signal at the output of the amplifier gives this response almost exactly. And by the way, the only "neutral" response of a Vox 30 is with the bass and treble both set at zero. The frequency response is then flat, as it is with the normal (i.e. non top-boost) inputs or AC15 or AC30/4. (My AC15 clone has both Normal and Top boost inputs.) Regards, Paul. Attachments:
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Post by fenderplucker on May 3, 2013 8:21:16 GMT
Hi Fenderwim, there must be something wrong with either your amplifier or your measurement technique. The measured acoustic response must follow that of the tone stack (give or take the bumps in the loudspeaker response). I have attached the response of my AC15 clone with the bass and treble on max, but had to use a sine wave signal so there are the usual interference dips and peaks. Nevertheless, I think the that dip is rather apparent, exactly as it should be. Regards, Paul. Attachments:
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Post by fenderplucker on Apr 25, 2013 1:55:16 GMT
Hi Shadowcarl,
In answer to your question, much of setting up for a soundcheck is waiting around! For those interested it went like this:
Pick up Hank's amp, guitar and TVS3's (also Nunzio and Gary, Hank's Gypsy jazz bandmembers). Drive 45 mins to venue. Unload gear to stage and wait until the all the other gear has been set up for Cliff's band. Set up the amp (head) and TVS3's offstage, and speaker box onstage and cable it all together. Find sound man to set up the microphone on the speakers and wireless link to the TVS3. Preliminary check with Gary playing to make sure it is all operating properly, and get amp settings roughly right. Also check TVS3 settings (same patches as used for the Reunited tour, just tweak the echo level to suit the venue), and set the wireless link output to suit the TVS3 input. Wait around while Cliff and the band go through a dozen or so numbers and the sound men do their thing. Finally run through the three numbers that Hank will do with Cliff, Gary playing and Cliff singing with the rest of the band. Turn down the amp slightly and bring up the echo level just a small amount. Find the VIP area, free wine, champagne, food etc to wait a few hours for the start of the concert. Hank arrives backstage backstage, guitar tech gives him the guitar. He runs through the three numbers with the band backstage but nothing plugged in to keep it quiet. Wait for the warm-up act to do their thing. Take up our seats front and center and enjoy the concert. Cliff is amazing but there is not as much interaction with the band as with The Shadows, loosing a bit of the dynamic Hank comes on and the concert comes alive. He clowns around as usual, plays flawlessly and sounds great! Audience goes wild. At interval we take down his gear, pack car and look for Nunzio who has turned into a groupie and vanished somewhere with Ben Marvin. Keep looking for Nunzio, give up and watch rest of concert from backstage. Finally track down Nunzio in the "Green Room" after the concert. Have a few drinks with Hank, Cliff and the band. Finally leave and get home about 1.00 am.
Total time on TVS3: less than 10 seconds!
Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Apr 23, 2013 13:22:16 GMT
Hi Fenderwim, If you have the bass, treble and cut all at zero, then the response of the amplifier is almost flat, as you have shown. However, if the bass control is increased then a dip occurs at about 800 Hz and is greatest when both the bass and treble are on maximum. This can easily be seen using the Duncan amp tools tone stack calculator (available as a free download from www.duncanamps.com/software.html ). It is very interesting to use this simulation to see how the tone controls interact sometimes in an unexpected way! (I tried to include some pictures but couldn't upload them for some reason). This dip is very important for getting the right sound in tunes like Wonderful Land. Keep up the fascinating work, Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Apr 18, 2013 11:15:56 GMT
Hi Andy,
CS 54's on all 3 guitars for the Reunited tour with Cliff, Kinmans before that.
Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Apr 14, 2013 3:30:31 GMT
Hi fenderwim,
I have been following your search for "That Sound" with interest, particularly the role of Abbey Road. You may have seen our videos on the same topic (4 That Sound videos accessible from the Sound and Video Files page on the TVS web site).
If I may make a couple of comments I think that there are two main areas that your sound is missing out on.
Firstly, your sound doesn't benefit from the very characteristic quality that a properly set up Meazzi (or TVS3) adds. Without this the echoes seem to be just “added on” and are not in any way integrated with the dry signal. This results in a loss of the singing quality and aura around the sound that is unique to the original Meazzi , particularly apparent in the non-damped sections of a tune like Wonderful Land. I suspect that you might have tried to get this through the reverb, but it is a completely different effect. Furthermore, the echoes of a unit such as the eTap tend to sound rather sterile and lack the “woody” character of the Meazzi, particularly apparent in the damped section. All of this comes from the way the Meazzi adds distortion and compression as well as the very important sonic effect of the wow and flutter in the tape/drum mechanics. I am aware that the eTap (and other such units) tries to emulate some of these effects, but the proof of their effectiveness lies in the sound produced.
Secondly, setting the top boost bass control at minimum removes the dip in frequency response that otherwise occurs at about 800 Hz in the top boost channel, and which is essential for many of the tunes recorded when the top boost AC30 became available. We give some suggestions for more effective tone control settings in our videos.
Best Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Mar 16, 2013 1:30:10 GMT
Hi Mike,
I have a medium size walk-in robe off the main bedroom that is stuffed full of my wife's dresses etc. (and I get one corner for a couple of jumpers and pairs of trousers!). With all that sound absorbing material it is acoustically quite dead. I put the amp in there with an SM57 or AKG C414 mic and shut the bedroom door and heavy curtains. All my recording equipment is in my study that is next to the bedroom and can hardly hear any direct sound (the house is solid brick). I can then play the guitar in the study listening to it and backing track through the monitors while recording.
The results are on the jukebox on the TVS web site.
Regards,
paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Feb 23, 2013 2:04:58 GMT
As we discussed above, I think the evidence on the recordings is that Hank was using round wound strings at least as early as Feb 1961, and possibly even before that. So it would seem that round wound strings must have been available in UK at least that early.
Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Feb 13, 2013 2:06:04 GMT
Hi Steve,
I am sure that there are many people who will tell you that they have a Squire/Mexican/Japanese/American Standard/brand X Strat that sounds and/or plays as good as or better than a Custom Shop instrument, and they may well be correct. However, I think that there is another factor that is important, particularly for a "special" purchase such as you are considering. This what I would call the the "peace of mind" factor: knowing that you have a CS guitar and not keep on wondering if you should have got one. I would say, go for it!
Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Feb 13, 2013 1:40:23 GMT
Hi Jay,
I thought I did describe how to do it. If you could let me know what else you need I will try to help. At the end of the day it is really just a matter of getting the software and trying things out.
Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Feb 12, 2013 2:23:37 GMT
Hi Charlie and Jay,
We use a number of different techniques depending upon how the source was recorded.
As Charlie said, if the original had Hank in one channel and the backing in the other, then you can simply replace the Hank channel with your recorded lead.
If Hank was recorded in the center of a stereo mix with the backing spread over left and right, the simplest method is to add the left and right channels with one having the phase inverted. This cancels any audio that was common to both channels (i.e. Hank in the center). This can be done with programs like Adobe Audition (Effects/Amplitude/Channel Mixer) or Steinberg WaveLab. If Hank isn't panned exactly to the center then it will be necessary to vary the mix ratios to get the best effect. This will also remove anything else panned to the center and so it might be necessary to add some back (e.g. bass, strings etc) by recording it yourself or using midi etc. Also, if there was a lot of reverb on the original then this may also leave artifacts.
A more sophisticated way is to restrict the material that is removed, (eg by restricting the bandwidth of the material processed so that bass and cymbals are not affected, for example), by varying the amount of cancellation and also by allowing for some spread across the center channel being processed. This can be again done with programs like Audition, using the Effects/filters/center channel extractor function. The GTX function within JamVOX does a similar thing. Again, it will usually be necessary to vary the parameters to get the best result. However, if you try to go too far the sound will take on an "underwater" sort of character.
Finally, by using spectral analysis it is possible to remove just certain frequency components, either as the main method or to clean up any residual unwanted sounds left over by one of the above methods. This can be done in the spectral analysis view in Audition or more dedicated programs like Magix Audio Cleaning Lab or Sony SpectraLayers Pro. The latter is the best one (though most expensive) as it allows you to select just the fundamental and it will automatically remove all the harmonics. In the others you have to select each harmonic for removal. You might need to also chase down all the echoes as well, so it can be a very time-consuming process. Nevertheless, with this method you can even extract a backing from a mono recording (and this is the only way that one can be recovered from a mono recording, though you will likely go nuts in the process!).
While we have produced a number of such backing tracks, we have done so mainly for our own research in developing the TVS3 to get the closest possible sound to the original recordings (and where it is important to remove just about all traces of Hank's guitar or the result is unfairly enhanced). We respect the ownership of the original material and so have no intention of making them available for sale.
Hope this helps,
Regards,
paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Feb 3, 2013 6:22:25 GMT
There seem to be a number of string squeaks on the lead in Blue Star, most noticeable at about 90.5 Sec. That tune was recorded at the same session as Frightened City so I would guess that Hank was using round wound strings by then (Feb 1961). Were there any earlier squeaks? There could be one in Theme for Giant (Oct 1960) just before Hank goes into the high damped note section for the second time. Can anybody else hear this? However, I’m with Charlie on the noise in Theme from Shane (Aug 1960); it is much the same as on Back Home where Hank clearly switches pickups after the main theme and the guitar tone changes. I don’t think I can detect any squeaks on any earlier tunes. Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Dec 9, 2012 1:05:16 GMT
Hi Steve,
the echo timings are given on the TVS web site and are different for the 301 and 501. I can't say why Hank might have chosen the 301 instead of the 501 since both were available for most of the period that they were used. Maybe Hank preferred the timings of the 301?
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Jul 31, 2012 1:06:56 GMT
Hi Steve,
The clarity of echoes produced by the Meazzis (and most other machines that use a magnetic recording medium) depends upon how hard they are driven. This is because the echo signal becomes more compressed and distorted as the drive level is increased. This dynamic response is lacking in most current digital units, and the advance sought in echo machines like Charlie's new unit is to be able to properly replicate this behavior. Thus, while they certainly should be able to be set up to correctly produce the echoes at the end of tunes like The Savage and Kon Tiki, they should also be able to produce the correct dynamic behavior and more compressed echoes heard on some other tunes. Charlie is well aware of this and mentioned it in his early discussion on the new unit.
Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Jun 25, 2012 14:01:21 GMT
Hi Malcolm,
He used two pedals for the live concerts: a tremolo pedal (to replace the Q20 he used in the studio) and an A-B switching pedal so that he could switch between the two TVS3's in the rack just in case there was a problem. Fortunately the TVS3's performed without fault and he never had to switch to the back up unit.
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Jun 25, 2012 1:50:10 GMT
Hi, Just to clarify Steve's remarks, Hank used a TVS3 for the echoes on all tracks and only used a Q20 to provide tremolo on a couple of tracks.
Regards, Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Dec 12, 2011 3:29:22 GMT
Hi Charlie,
Good to see you having an increasing presence on the site again! I thought that the decision not to comment on each other's units in this site was by mutual agreement?
Best Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Jul 26, 2011 1:54:14 GMT
Hi Simon,
Hank's 58 Strat still has the original pickups fitted and sounds quite bright compared to the 92 with Seymour Duncans.
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Jul 15, 2011 2:00:48 GMT
Hi Jono, Just following up on your comment that you could hear Hank's beautiful tones coming stridently through in the backing used by Gary on the TVS website. I have attached a section of the backing we used and I think it might be somewhat of an overstatement that Hank's tones are indeed coming stridently through. Maybe you were just listening to Gary? Regards, Paul. Attachments:
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Post by fenderplucker on Jul 14, 2011 14:39:20 GMT
Hi All,
I have been following comments on the developement of the new echo unit with considerable interest but, being associated with TVS, have so far declined to enter into the discussion. However, I cannot let the comments about "ridiculous pricing, stupid strategy and inaccurate echos" made by Peter Bower go unanswered. These comments are unjustified and likely to be offensive to the 100+ people who have purchased TVS products (many of whom are members of this site).
Just the components in a TVS3 cost over 1000 pounds at the current exchange rate. Analog delay electronics, and particularly the incorporation of valves to get to desired tonal characteristics, increases the cost considerably. Add to that the cost of shipping and insurance to UK and the VAT/import duty and the cost is then over 1500 pounds just for the bits. Then there is the 3+ years of R&D that went into the design and development of a commercial product and the 3 weeks that it takes to assemble each unit. On a normal commercial costing we are in fact selling them little above total cost.
With regard to accuracy of tone and echoes, I have always avoided the temptation to post direct comparisons with other products, even though we do a lot of comparative testing ourselves. The reason for this is that I think we should encourage all the developers of products that keep the Shadows sound and tradition alive, and recognise that there is a place for all of them at the different price points, from free upwards. However, if Peter can give an example of where he thinks a TVS echo is not completely accurate to the original I will be happy to respond with a complete analysis.
Finally, good luck to Charlie and John in their endeavours, I wish them every success and are sure that the new unit will bring pleasure to many Shadows fans. Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Jul 12, 2011 0:34:06 GMT
Hi again Peter,
Prompted by you comments I had another look at the echoes on Walking in the Air and found that thay could indeed be produced by an RE-3, with different delays in the right, centre and left channels. Thanks for that, I will update the article on the TVS web site accordingly.
Back to the theme of the thread, I could find no evidence so far, anecdotal or otherwise, that Hank ever used an Echolette.
Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Jul 8, 2011 2:38:10 GMT
Hi Peter, Walking in the Air is an interesting case. It has different echoes in the L, R and centre channels, but they are not just single echoes (with repeats) as would be produced by the EC-3. Do you have any particular evidence that it was used on that track (maybe in conjunction with another machine??). Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Feb 2, 2011 13:50:30 GMT
Hi, The echo timings on the clip are roughly 123, 431 and 605 mSec and so correspond to the unit used for Apache and other early tunes. This was a 5 head Meazzi (possibly model F?) and as Charlie said above, definitely not the later 4 head unit usually called an Echomatic 2.
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Jul 27, 2010 5:00:30 GMT
Hi everyone,
I would like to thank all those who have commented on this thread, particularly acknowledging the contributions from the TVS owners. I would also like to make a brief comment on any sense of a "TVS vs Charlie/EFTP" element that might be seen to be lurking behind it.
I don't think that either Charlie or I would see our involvements in the echo "business" in this way and I agree with the all comments acknowledging the enormous contribution that Charlie has made in helping many people gain enjoyment playing Shadows (and other) music. Indeed, whenever I am asked about an inexpensive way of getting the right sort of echoes I invariably recommend Charlie's various products and hope that I might have turned some business his way. I often also get involved in sourcing and maintaining some of the now-discontinued units that they use. Charlie and I have also had many informative exchanges (both public and private) about echoes, Alesis circuits, working with Hank and other things. If however someone wants an uncompromising approach to recreating the actual sounds of the early Shadows recordings or valve/tape-based echoes in general then I imagine you can guess that I would be recommending TVS. That is after all why we developed the TVS3 and, as noted in a posting above, the TVS1 that is designed to work with echo units (hopefully running Charlie's patches) and go some way further towards achieving the desired sound. So I think that we are both addressing a spectrum of interests and expectations in the hope that more and more people can enjoy their music whatever their means and willingness to invest in equipment. I would thus like to support the view that our approaches be regarded as entirely complimentary rather than competitive and continue to give credit where it is due.
Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Jul 5, 2010 12:27:26 GMT
Ho Tony,
Sorry about my "senior's moment" with your surname, my apologies!!
Best Regards,
paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Jul 5, 2010 11:22:03 GMT
Hi Alan,
See Tony Palmer's comments in the Apach thread on the Shadow Music site for one such response.
Regards,
Paul.
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Post by fenderplucker on Jun 26, 2010 1:34:48 GMT
Hi Alan,
Hank used a TVS3 for the last Cliff and The Shadows Reunited CD and the recent tour.
Paul.
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