"That Sound"

[jay]

I suppose I'm not the only one who has read this book (by Pistolesi/Addey and Mazzini).

Has it been discussed here? If so, if someone would point me in the
right direction to have a read.

For those who haven't read it let me say that the principal author
(Roberto P.) reckons that HBM did not use a Strat on all of the major
early hits. What?? No, apparently he used a Gretsch Country Gent.
Oh dear, I don't have one of those..........

The funniest bit in the book is on pages 39 and 40.

"...if I was right, it meant that when playing Early Shadows tunes,
trying to copy the sound of the records,we had been using the wrong tools for 40 years. I began to share my thoughts with friends and fans around the world in order to give everyone who wanted it, the chance to reach That Sound. I quote some of the feedback I have received:

Bruce Welch (April 1996) "You are wrong, I was there!"

Priceless!

Anyway the book is an interesting read especially the chapter by
Malcolm Addey who was the sound engineer at Abbey Road during
the early Shadows sessions. He has some interesting things to say.

Can't remember now how I acquired the book?

Jay

[didier]

There has been many discussions on various Shadows' forums on the subject, particularly about of "Apache", which according to Roberto Pistolesi was recorded with the Gretsch.
Hank Marvin did own a Gretsch Country Gentleman, you can see it on stage as a spare guitar on some photos.
My own theory is that Hank Marvin couldn't have bought such an expensive guitar at this time, he was still using the first Strat bought by Cliff.
I once had the opportunity to ask Bruce Welch if Hank had the Gretsch in 1960, he said no, he bought it in 1961.
Roberto came to France in April 2006 for a ShadTech meeting in Rambouillet, a few weeks before his sudden death.
He made a long presentation about "that sound" (I translated it). A the end of the meeting , just before he left, I joked with him about the Gretsch, saying that Hank coudn't afford such a guitar in 1960, so if he had one, he could only have stolen it !...

Didier

[jay]

Apparently he did own a Gretsch and used it on Nivram but I would
agree with him in that RP simply demonstrated that you can reproduce
more or less the same sound with a different guitar.

I wonder why he went to all that trouble just to get close? I mean if
he was able to reproduce the sound exactly then it would be no better
than the original sound and if I want to hear the original sound I put
a record on.

Also it would be probably impossible to get the same sound live. If HBM cannot do it then no one can.

Jay

[Charlie Hall]

I understood that the Gretsch was used on "Stars Fell On Stockton".
Regards,
Charlie

[jay]

Feb 20, 2009 21:24:03 GMT Charlie Hall said:

I understood that the Gretsch was used on "Stars Fell On Stockton".
Regards,
Charlie

According to RP's book, it was used on just about everything in the
early years but apparently HBM admitted to using it on Nivram (again
according to a recorded radio interview which is track one on the CD
which accompanies the book).

Jay

[alanmckillop]

The whole debate around which guitar was used, was due to the fact that nobody (Shadows groups/guitarists) could produce a sound similar to the recorded studio sound. This was always going to be difficult to achieve as both reverb and compression were added after the recordings were made to varying degrees. The Gretsch, played through a normal valve amp gave a very close replication of the recorded sound, indeed, I remember Dick Plant (long time Shadows engineer) saying that Dave Robinson's rendition of The Savage at Blackpool, was the closest that he'd heard to the recorded sound. Warren was also present and subsequently asked Hank about the issue of the Gretsch. Hank confirmed that he only played one Shadows tune on the Gretsch (Nivram), but played it a number of times on Cliff's recordings. I too had a Gretsch and the sound was uncanny and I could see where Roberto was coming from, however, the use of the tremolo was the one thing (for me) that led me to conclude that it was unlikely, although the sound was very good.

We all live and learn and a few years on with the benefit of Roger Allcock's 'Vintage Unit' and the new Vox Heritage series of amps which have an EF86 valve set up, it is now clear that this alone was a major factor in the sound that Hank reproduced in the early years.

[tonybiker]

An excellent post Alan. I often ask myself the question. Could Hank produce that sound today that he did 59/60??

[fenderplucker]

Hi all,

The subject came up in a conversation with Hank a few days ago and (yet again!!) he said he used the Gretsch only on Nivram and A Girl Like You. He had it on stage as a backup since "it was the only other decent guitar that I had, but it was a bit silly really as it didn't sound at all like the Strat".

It seems strange that this Gretsch "conspiracy" thing keeps cropping up since both Hank and Bruce have discredited it and also I think that a number of us have shown that the early Shadows sound can be replicated with a Strat and other suitable gear.

Regards,

Paul.

[alanmckillop]

The nature of any web site, is that new members are continually attracted to join and as a result, much of which is old hat to some, is new to them and they ask questions. Most people are aware of what both Hank & Bruce (& Jet) have said, but there are those who don't, so questions are asked and answers given and in this case, it was about the book 'That Sound'.

[alanmckillop]

There are a lot of contributing factors to producing his 59/60 sound Tony. If you mean his live/tv sound, of which there are many samples around I'd say yes, he could, but he hears things differently now and has tended to go for a fuller sound over the last number of years. One of the main ingredients is his picking style and I was in the front row at Birmingham in 2005 (in front of Hank) and I couldn't believe how hard he hit the strings, probably why his action is a little higher than normal, so that coupled with a Magicstomp, Heritage series JMI amp and a strat without Kinmans, I believe he could get the right sound.

As for his recorded sounds, I doubt it, for no other reason than studio techniques have advanced greatly. It was very basic in their early days and it would be hard to recreate the correct atmosphere, imo.

[jay]

Hi Alan,

I wonder whether anyone has asked HBM if he would even want to re-create exactly his original recorded sounds? Personally, I prefer the Shadows original recorded sounds but I would think any musician would like to believe that their playing and sound improves with age.

I have never seen them play live and I doubt I ever will, but I have seen various YT videos etc. and have found them a bit disappointing.

The sound is not exactly what I have in my memory and there is even some deviation in the notes played. As there was a lot of overdubbing done in the studio, this surely cannot be recreated live on stage but only simulated.

The other thing I would mention is that I've stopped referring to "the sound of the Shadows". There are so many variations of it, it is better to refer to "the sounds of the Shadows".

Jay

P.S. Rookie question: Do you know how Hank came to use "Marvin" at all?

[fenderplucker]

Hi Alan,

you make a good point re the nature of web sites. Perhaps a "FAQ" section pinned at the top would be very useful for newcomers and also build up a wealth of knowledge worth preserving?

Also, on the EF86 issue, this tube was used only in the AC15's and AC30/4's. These were replaced in 1961 by the top boost AC30/6 amps that had the more robust 12AX7 input tubes and, according to Hank, were used for most of their early recordings.

Paul.

[alanmckillop]

He took it from Marvin Rainwater I assume because he had heard of him musically and also it sounded a bit American, where a lot of his early guitar heroes originated.

Re Hank's sound, I was answering Tony's question about his ability to reproduce them, which I think he is more than capable, but I did say that he has gone for a more mellow sound over the last twenty years or so and I'm sure Charlie can give a bit more info as he was involved with the KCP for example.

[alanmckillop]

No argument about amp timelines Paul, but it was always the early stuff eg, Apache, MoM, The Stranger, Mustang and F.B.I. to name a few, that presented the challenges for a lot of guitarists to replicate the 'recorded' sound. As we moved into the 60's, the sounds became clearer and less distorted (could be for a number of reasons) and slightly fuller, which were a little easier to replicate.

There is a classic undubbed version of Happy Birthday which imo, is a classic sound (very similar to Live in Kingston) where AC30's with TB were used, however if you listen to some of the numbers that I've mentioned above and do a comparison, there is a difference in the sound which I think, is down to the EF86 valve in the circuit. The debate/discussion over the years is not what is the best sound between these early examples, but what can be replicated as near as possible.

[fenderplucker]

Hi again,

This is another example of the benefit of a "FAQ" (or somesuch) section. I recall that MeBHank did a great analysis last year of "what amp was used when" from YouTube videos of the various early live performances by The Shadows and there is a lot of similar information from various other sources. What about it Charlie?? Three interesting possibilities could be the chronology of guitars, echo units and amplifiers used by the Shadows and if you or someone else started it off we could all contribute what little knowledge we might have and slowly build up a valuable resource for lovers of Shadows music, both old and new.

The EF86 issue is ineed intriguing and when I built my AC15 replica I included both EF86 and top boost channels. The EF86 channel has three main differences: it has slightly higher gain, it has a flat mid range frequency response with a little bass cut (via the "brilliance" switch, and the EF86 is a pentode with a different distortion characteristic to the12AX7 triode. However, if the top boost channel is run with the bass and treble controls fully off it also has a fairly flat mid range and, if some external bass cut is provided by an outboard filter (but not the amp's bass control which also introduces a dip in the mid range) then the sound of the two channels is very close (a good trick for non EF86 Vox owners to try!). With regard to the different distortion characteristics, I made up a preamp with both EF86 and 12AX7 channels but balanced the gains and frequency responses of the two channels to be the same and nobody has been able to tell which is which when the channels are switched. I thus think that at least part of the magic of the early AC15's and AC30/4 was due to their flatter mid range frequency response rather than any particular virtue of the EF86. Finally, a number of the soundfiles posted that seem to be very close to the original recorded sound of the early Shadows numbers (such as done by Dave Robinson, Gege and even our own TVS website) were done without an EF86 in sight.

Regards,

Paul.

[didier]

Feb 21, 2009 15:33:27 GMT fenderplucker said:

The EF86 issue is ineed intriguing.

A few years ago I attended experiments with friends who fitted an EF86 add-on preamp to an AC30. We made a lot of alternate listening tests using or not the EF86 preamp. The disappointing conclusion was that the EF86 preamp didn't brought "that sound", compared with the usual ECC83 preamp.

A friend who built a Meazzi drum echo clone from a heavily modified Binson valve echo unit (the head spacing was modified to match the Meazzi one, and the unit was totally rewired according to Meazzi schematics) obtained far more convincing results.

What's more difficult to get are the Abbey Road Studio 2 acoustics, Malcolm Addey's EQ settings and Hank's playing with heavy gauge strings...

Didier

[twang46]

Hi Paul & Didier

I agree that the ef86 is not the "magic bullet".

To me the guitar is easy, Re-issue strat + "heavy" strings

The amps/speakers are available

The echo's are available

The big problem is ..........the mikes/ambience/cables & recorders at Abby Road + the added reverb/eq together with the tape format & headroom

Add to this the technique of the player (Hank) it is then almost impossible to replicate the recorded "1960" sound

A more realistic target is the 1961 "Kingston" live concert sound, and that will be for me my "Holy Grail" If anybody has details of the amps/mikes & recorders used I would be grateful for any help.

Cheers

Dick.

[Charlie Hall]

Having had only about 2 X 20 minutes sleep in the last 2 days or so, I will hopefully sleep well on all this and try to put something into action later.
Regards,
Charlie

[Deleted]

HI TO ALL ,, What an interesting topic this is especially the EF86 information coming forth from ''allan&paul'' reguarding the tone & allan has mentioned this before reguarding the ''component's '' surrounding the Ef86 & now paul has backed that up with his finding's reguarding the EF86 & 12AX7 & I know how much time & effort paul has put into this vintage sound,with his development of the his AC15 clone & of course all the time put in emulating the ''meazzi'' sound that is the ''dry'' sound as well as the ''wet'' as well with the TVS1!!!! & tvs3 .. & his version of ''atlantis'' back's that all up in my opinion, & of course many other post's on the ''juke-box''..

BUT saying that I have heard other tunes posted that also are as authentic as well using other equippment !!!!!!
I think what I am trying to say to all is It is a combination of the way every thing is set up in the chain of effect's ,guitar property's ,& playing style [& mine is not so good] ..
We are given the tool's by the ''magic'' talent of ''charlie-hall'' who has been involved with the analizing of ''that-sound'' from years &years of working withit & of course programing the digital unit's for hank himself & of course modifying amplifier's & so many other talent's as well..

SO we are lucky to have these 2 ''guru's'' to help us to get" The-sound-we want to hear'' & to me that's what count's as we all have different expectation,s sound-wise,,

I have recently been playing around with ''fet's with the preamp& comp that I have built & have spent countless hour's changing capacitor's value's etc etc to get combined with the charlies 79-09 Q2 patch set ,after 3 year's of buying effects etc etc I now am happy with ''The-sound- I have been wanting to ''HEAR''..And I am not talking about a recorded sound [as I don't record as yet anyway] but the sound in my room at home!!!!

So what ever the unit's'' one'' is using whether ITS ''charlie's programed unit's or ''paul's'' tvs3.
IT"S still up to the set-up & user to come up with the sound he or she ''want's to hear''..

As,has been said many time's ''there-is-no-magic-bullet'' in my opinion!!!!!!!& I have found it to be a great ''learning process''even at ''69'' years old & I am having a good time doing it!!!

WEll thank's to all & a big thank's to ''PAUL'' for his informative input ............barry..

[Charlie Hall]

I have now created a new board called FAQ relating to Hank and Shadows and as you will see, this thread has been moved into it to start it off.
Regards,
Charlie

[Charlie Hall]

EF86 valves actually have a lot more gain than ECC83 valves, maybe around 5 to 6 times the gain. The EF86 is a pentode valve and as such it has typical pentode curves which do differ to those of a triode (although the EF86 does have triode characteristics when configured as a triode, basically done by connecting the anode with grid 2). The curves can make a difference to the harmonic content because the signal is "bent" into a different shape to the original sound, more so as the input is increased up to the maximum before clipping occurs, and the bending differs according to the type of valve used and the circuitry around it. Because of the higher gain of the EF86 when configured as a pentode, which it almost always is, this means that the headroom is much lower. I tested the output of my Strat on a 'scope and found that I could get as much as 1 volt out of it. The EF86 has a much lower headroom than 1 volt so it follows that it would be easy to make it clip. The thing we need to know is what the clipping of the EF86 does to the sound, which is possibly different sounding to the ECC83 clipping. If it could be established that there is little or no audible difference, then perhaps it would be a good idea to build a cascode stage (basically both halves of the valve in a series chain from HT to earth) based on an ECC82, something I have thought of doing for a while. This won't work as well as one would like with an ECC83 because the impedance matching from one half of the valve to the other is not very good so the gain is not as high as it could be but with either valve it should be higher than a normal single stage triode. Maybe a valve that has one half as an ECC82 and the other half as an ECC83 (they do exist as the 12DW7 or JJ's ECC832) would be very good for high gain. The main advantage to this idea would be longer valve life than the EF86. But unless it sounded near enough the same as an EF86 it wouldn't be worth bothering.
Regards,
Charlie

[fenderplucker]

Hi ,

The gain distribution through the different amplifier stages is indeed interesting as it determines the "overdriven" sound of the amplifier. As you say, an EF86 as normally biased in an amp has a high gain and one might expect that it could start to overload if driven by a guitar signal as high as 1 volt. Similarly, the top boost channel has two halves of a 12AX7 in series giving a higher total gain than the single EF86, but the loss in the tone stack which follows makes the gains of the two channels roughly the same. However, the second 12AX7 is working quite hard and would certainly overload on a 1V input signal. Under such circumstances one would expect the different operating curves of the pentode and triode would lead to different sound colouration, particularly near the clipping point. It is thus likely that the two channels will sound different if driven that hard, but at lower signal levels (which seem to be more the norm with Shadows music and the lack of booster pedals etc), they both sound very similar.

This is probably because one has to consider also the dynamic range of the phase inverter and output stages. In some cases the preamp starts to overload first, but in others phase inverter starts to overload first and in others the output stages reach saturation first. All of these considerations lead to the perceived dynamic characteristics of the amp and whether it produces pleasant or unpleasant sound when driven hard. Even this is partly in the ear of the beholder as some prefer output stage saturation and some prefer preamp saturation. It's all part of the fascinating "art" of good amplifier design.

Getting back to VOX amps and Shadows music, I think that the output stage is actually the first to start sagging and saturating and adding colour to the sound. This would explain why the listening tests don't seem to reveal much difference between the EF86 and top boost preamps, if all else (ie the tone shaping networks) is equal.

Regards,

Paul.

[twang46]

Hi Charlie & Paul

I think that you have the answer Paul with the o/put sagging & the interaction with the varying supply from the valve rectifier as to why, in the a-b tests the ef86 does not make the large difference that was expected by many.

I certainly think your "cascaded gain" thoughts need more investigation Charlie & would be very interested to hear more.

Cheers

Dick

[Deleted]

HI TO ALL ,, IT's so nice to have you 2 ''guru's'' of ''sound''!!!!! openly dicussing these topic's on ''site'' in an ''unbiased''!!!!! fashon ,as we the member's will gain some insite into the working's of the various amp's & associated unit's invovled with ''that-sound''..

I would like to congratulate the two of you for ''coming-together'' in this way,It can only be for the benefit to all of us not so well versed in the technical procedure's.& At the end of the day it will can only help the both of your product's that you offer!!!!!!,as we all are interested to obtain ''that-sound'' one way or the other........ .''GOODONYER'S'' .cheer's .....barry..

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Paul,
You have to consider that the volume control is after the EF86, and then the signal goes more or less direct to the phase inverter, so the EF86 could overdrive with a large signal regardless of the volume control setting.
With the top boost circuit, the volume control is after the first stage, so the volume control setting alone dictates how much the next stage with the cathode follower is being driven. The cathode follower itself does not likely contribute to harmonic content due to there being plenty of negative feedback and will most likely hard clip when overdriven, probably assymetrically. The guitar will be very unlikely to clip the first stage ECC83. If the tone controls are at reduced settings, then a higher volume control setting will be needed to compensate and then it is likely that the stage after the volume control could clip, or at least have more harmonic content before clipping occurs.
I would think that most good amplifiers from the early days and since were designed for as clean a sound as possible so that there would be no preamp clipping before full power is reached, so your conclusion about output compression and clipping occuring first does make sense. The EF86 was surely thought to produce a clean sound with typical vintage lower output pickups but I suppose no designer at the time thought anyone would be thrashing their guitars or boosting the signal with pedals etc. which now bring me to wonder whether the echo units were often used to boost gain as well. I am sure I remember some players saying that was one of the things they liked about echo units.
There is another factor with the earliest Vox amps that have the ECC83 as the first stage. The anode resistor was 220K and was changed to 100K on later amps. The 220K resistor would cause more harmonic distortion even without clipping so that is another design factor that might have been overlooked by many that copy or reissue these amps.
Another factor would be the first filter stage capacitor. It was a lower value on the earlier amps, I think 16uF. This would cause more hum with unbalanced output valves but the most important part is that a hum signal is generated with every note played and that is a big part of vintage amp sound. Beefing up the filter caps cleans up the sound and handles bass frequencies better but vintage tone is lost.

Hi Dick,
There is a difference between cascode and cascade. Cascading is putting one gain stage after another, as with high gain amps. Cascode is a circuit design of one stage using both halves of the valve, and having higher gain than a single stage using half of a valve, as is more usually done.

Regards,
Charlie

[twang46]

Hi Charlie

Just re-read your previous post about cascode gain using a ecc832 etc.. of course your right in your description as "cascode" when in the same envelope.

My mind was (as usual) elsewhere thinking about 2 cascaded ecc803's as a pre-amp but, as you pointed out there's not a lot of point if it does not sound like the ef86 that is so universally liked

Must remember to engage brain & read posts properly before typing in future

Cheers

Dick

[Deleted]

HI Dick & ALL ,, don't worry mate my brain has been out of gear for years ,I think Iv'e lost the gear stick ,Iv'e been thinking maybe I could fit a 2 speed one to speed thing's up ''there'' a bit as these 2 ''guru's are well above my speed .HA HAAAR. what ratio would you recomend , or better maybe a 5speed???

This topic is very good even if I don't fully understand all of the ''term's used...
cheer's Dick..............barry..

[twang46]

Hi all

Just came across this interesting site

www.penumbra.co.nz/allthegear.html#top

Loads of info to look through

Dick

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Dick,
I took a look at the penumbra site (although I have seen it before) and it seems well up to date, featuring the latest Vox amps. I'm not so sure that the early Meazzi echo units are accurately described though. Also the innards of the Echomatic 1 pictured do not seem to show the correct head spacings according to the spacings I know were in the one Hank had.
The fact that two amplifying elements are in the same envelope doesn't make the difference for describing cascade or cascode. It is always best to think of them as two separate amplifiers which can be configured independently, so they could be cascade or cascode. Cascode is very little used in guitar amps, the only time I have seen it was in one of the available modules for the Seymour Duncan Convertible amps. Each module contained a single valve with associated circuitry according to the type of module.
Regards,
Charlie

[fenderplucker]

Hi Charlie,

Regarding the "All The Gear..." web site, I believe that the drum echo units shown in black and white are all Echomatic 2 (as per the discussion in the Shadows Echoes thread on this site). I would like to try to contact the owner of the web site to see if a correction is possible but there are no contact details provided. Does anybody know who in NZ runs the site and how they can be contacted?

Paul.