Rosewood Neck Strat

[jimmyc]

Hi Everyone

Would I be correct in assuming that the majority of The Shads early hits were recorded with Hank using a 60's style rosewood neck Strat [ possibly lent by Vox ? ] as he seems to be always playing one when filmed at the time. If so, would this have affected the tone on the recordings and why doesn't any one of his signature guitars have a rosewood neck ? As Hank now only seems to play maple neck Strats I can only suppose he prefers the sound/tone from them.

[Charlie Hall]

Hi jimmyc,
I think Wonderful Land was recorded with the original maple neck Strat. I'm not sure when recordings with the rosewood models started, maybe around the time of Kon-Tiki or Foot Tapper at the latest. The first album seems to have been recorded with different echo units and therefore probably over some weeks or months, so maybe some of those tracks have rosewood Strat sounds too.
Hank did go back to playing the original Strat for a short time after the Burns guitars were stolen and mentioned that he enjoyed playing it, so maybe that has a lot to do with his choice to the present time.
Regards,
Charlie

[26rednef]

Hi.

This is always questions coming up, what instrument did Hank use in the studio late 50's and early 60's and in fact no one knows lots of different guitars has been used.
Starocasters with rosewood and Maple finger boards, Jazzmasters, Gretsch CG bought 59. The Rose wood finger board started at May 1959 so it can have been used on the LP The Shadows, Burns of different types and prototypes was also used so it is just guesses all of it.

Take a look at the videos on this link, the studio guy behind all Shadows records Malcolm Addey is supporting this and is one of the sources to the book written by this guy.

www.italianshadowscommunity.com/Roberto_ENG.html

Kind Regards,
26rednef

[jimmyc]

Hi Charlie and 26rednef

Thanks for your thoughts and information - it's such an interesting subject. I suppose we will never really know unless Hank can actually remember himself.

I know it's a long time ago, but I think I would remember what guitar I played on my major hits if I was Hank ! I think it's time he wrote his book !

Kind regards

Jim

[26rednef]

Hi.

Maybe you and I can remember what instrument we used, but I am not sure that I can tel exact what guitar I used on a gig back at 60/70 and I have only used about 20 different guitars. Hank has made thousands of gigs and thousands of recordings and used hundreds of instruments that he did not own, so it is not likely he remember exact what instrument he used on a recording gig, but he will maybe do a better guess on it.

Listen to this and you will at least know what he used on these tunes.

www.4shared.com/account/audio/7UU70Sah/Radio_Hank.html?sId=ArViR3ii9OPxfiPt

Kind regards,
26rednef

[jimmyc]

Hi 26rednef

Thanks so much for that clip - it certainly seems to clear up some questions. It's great to hear the man himself with his recollections.

Kind regards
Jim

[26rednef]

Hi.

It is interesting and gives some hints. Listen to the LP "The Shadows" and check for equal sound on different tracks you will find that much of that LP can have been made with that instrument, on My Resistance Is Low" there is a 22 fret used, the Strat had 21, other things like bridge/neck PU combinations used, not available on the Strat either.
Hank used many different instrument on the records even that early and Malcolm Addy said in a interview that the Fiesta red Strat was very seldom seen in the studio. But on stage and pictures, it was always the Fiesta red Strat, a contract thing maybe.

Kind Regards,
26rednef

[26rednef]

Hi Ian.

I know it has been discussed and that it is not a very much liked among Strat owners.

I also know that it is muted note on 22 fret and I have always played in the air above the 21 fret until I purchased 22 frets guitars. Think for your self, if you have two guitars one with 21 fret and one with 22 frets and you know you will have to use a note on 22'nd fret on a recording, what guitar would you make use of ? I would use the one with 22 frets no bought and I think Hank would do the same.
Fender started to produce Rosewood's in Maj 1959, Hank is seen on pictures in 61 with it, but that is no guarantee he did not have it long before that, who knows. The LP The Shadows is recorded from and of January to end of June 1961 so it can have been used.

The sound on different records is so similar between different instruments so it is very hard to hear what is used. No one could think on any thing else then a Strat on "A Girl Like You", but it is a CG, so it will be guesses all of it.

For my own sake I don't care at all, the records has Hanks trademark sound regardless what instrument he make use of, he use the same fingers all the time.

Kind Regards,
26rednef

[Charlie Hall]

I believe Hank had said the Stars Fell On Stockton was one of four numbers played with the Gretsch on recordings.
Regards,
Charlie

[peterbower]

Hi all

Just a bit more about the Rose wood Strat. I was in Brussels a few years ago now and came upon a guitar shop down a side street. Sitting in the window along with other guitars was a Fiesta red Strat with a rose wood finger board and Hank's signature on the head stock. I had to go in and have a look.
It was marked up at 500 Euros and made in Japan.
The shop owner said they had commisioned Fender to make a certain number for the Belgian/Dutch markets because in their opinion Hank used the rose wood Strat the longest and it was more representative. I have to agree with that.

Peter

[jimmyc]

Hi Peter

I think that would be a logical train of thought, too. I'm sure Fender are missing out on a sales opportunity here - particularly with us lot !

Kind regards

Jim

[Pete]

Hi - this is about my first post so apologies if I haven't got the etiquette correct yet!

I play in a 50s/60s party band that is heavily influenced by Hank and the Shads but we stop short of trying to emulate "that sound!" I have used a range of guitars over the years but my guitar of choice for the last couple of years is a red strat with a rosewood board - it is a "signature" guitar but it happens to be Mark Knopfler's not Hank. I selected this particular model not because of any deep desire to recreate Dire Straits music but because it's specification exactly mirrored my objectives. 7.25" fingerboard radius on a 60's "C" neck, lightweight ash body, nitrocellulose lacquer and Texas Special pickups. Oh and I liked the Hot Rod Red too.

So not authentic "Hank" but seems to work well enough at gigs. The real magic for me is the EFTP loaded into my Zoom G2.

Anyway if anyone is interested in hearing what this rosewood strat sounds like we have some tracks uploaded on MySpace that you can find via [a href="www.thetelstarz.co.uk"]www.thetelstarz.co.uk[/a].

Hope this hasn't sidetracked this thread . Looking forward to getting more involved in the forum from now on.

Cheers

[rosemary]

Hi Pete
I'm just listening to your 'Wonderful Land' file and it sounds excellent!

I noticed the link to your website has a couple of extra characters in it so is broken if anyone clicks on it directly but this should work

www.myspace.com/thetelstarz

Both my Strats have rosewood fretboards - an American Standard and Mexican Strat. I love them both

Best wishes
Rosemary

[les]

I think that Hank recorded Man of mystery with the Gretsch C G, .......... And The Fiesta red with ROSEWOOD fingerboard in my opinion is THE STRAT. best wishes, Les.

[26rednef]

Hi.

I am at my county place and do not have full access to the net always.

I think the Rosewood fretboard Strat's was much more used by Hank then the Maple fretboard back in the 60's.

The Maple fretboard was used from late middle 59 to spring 61, then it was Rosewood until Burns came in end 63 early 64, but beside that the Gretsch CG was used, from mid 59 to end 68. So what kind of guitar should be mentioned together with Hanks early sound is not that obvious wit that knowledge.

It is not easy to hear what instrument is used on a tune, mostly it will be a guessing. But looking at the time factor, how long a instrument was in use, it will point in a certain direction on what instrument was most important for the recording sounds and probably much used.
If we take that in to account the Maple fretboard Strat together with Guatone Antoria can be the least used instruments in the early sound.


Kind Regards,
26rednef

[franz]

Hi, guys,
Rather late in the day,as usual, I have looked at the post from 26rednef which leads on to the videos by Roberto, which unfortunately I cannot open. However, I see from the accompanying text that a bass cut filter was used at Abbey Rd. On the early Shadows recordings. I was under the impression that Hank always used atreble booster with the AC15 and AC30/4. If I am correct, does anyone know if the bass cut was used as well?
The reason I ask is because I have one of Roger Allcock's AC15 add ons to my AC30/6 and the only way to produce the early tone of the records is with a treble boost which obviously also gives some bass cut. However, when recording, I find that it is also necessary to use the EQ on the recording deck to further cut the bass.There is still however a slight difference to the amount of body in the sound given the limited parameters of the EQ. The other spin off from the treble boost is that the treble strings sound a bit on the "sharp" side as opposed to the creamy treble tones on the recordings.
Anybody any ideas??

Cheers,
Franz

[26rednef]

Hi Franz.

I don't know why you can't open the link, sometimes it works if retry to select.

The other question is more complex to answer and a analyze of Abby Road Studio 2
and the long list of gear there plus the use of a acoustic reverb chamber, so it is a complex setup.

But it well known that a acoustic reverb chamber don't like lower frequencies pumped in to it and Hanks guitar track and even the backing track was processed into that and there it is used Band-pass (Hi-Pass and Lo-Pass) filter and the cutoff frequencies is 600 Hz to 10 kHz the Lo-Pass filter prevent things like unpleasant sibilance from "dirtying up" the chamber's sound.

The record console at studio 2 at hat time was a Redd 17 with 8 inputs each with 2 band peaking EQ's (Pultec type as per Capitol Records consoles) at 5 Kc/s and 100 c/s, Echo send for all inputs. Recorder was a EMI BTR2 tape recorder all in mono.

Kind Regards,
26rednef

[franz]

Hi, 26rednef,
Thanks for the detailed reply.I guess that what Roberto was trying to do was to emulate what the studio did by means of a pedal and that's why he mentioned it.
I in fact managed to open the attachment but it was downloaded into my temporary folder which regrettably, I cannot find. a computer course might help!

Cheers,
Franz

[abstamaria]

There is by the way a good discussion on amps, EF86 tubes, bass cuts, and such in the "That Sound" thread, also in this section.

The rosewood-fretboard Strats I understood came when the UK distributor finally began importing Stratocasters and gave the Shadows a matching set. The attraction of the all-maple neck is that it was the first Stratocaster in England and the iconic Apache was played on it.

Let me show off our matching maple-neck guitars. They ultimately might not make such a difference in sound, the after-recording reverb and compression, echo machines, and amp settings perhaps being more crucial, but maple necks are just lovely. Perhaps that is the only reason Hank now continues to use them. My apologies for showing our guitars off!

Andy

Attachments:

[26rednef]

OK Franz.

If you ask me "That Sound" is a studio product, it was already there before The Drifters/Shadow, was formed. Listen to Cliffs first record "Move It" no one from the Shadows is playing on it, but "That Sound" is there. Hank was using many different instruments and amps and every one knows how hard it is to hear what gear is used on a track. Just on this forum lots of G-bytes is used to argue on it.

One of the things that color the sound is the setup with the acoustic reverb chamber. The sound has to run through amps and speakers to microphones in the chamber and it will color the sound very much. I think you could use any good instrument and amp and it would sound the same, with just very small variations.

ABBA was also using a acoustic reverb chamber and that was a very important part together with the multiple voice doubling in there sound.

You can hear "That Sound" on many other artists records, one is Beatles first LP made in the same studio by same man behind the levers. Beatles changed later to a more direct and dry sound, but "That Sound" came back on some tracks even later in there production.

Kind Regards,
26rednef

[franz]

thanks again 26rednef for the further information.
I suppose we have got away a little from the rosewood strat topic. On that point, I ought to say that I can get very close to the identical tone, mostly middle and neck p/ups, on the Shadows 2nd album but find the 1st album a little more of a challenge. Since the rosewood was used on the2nd album (from photos I have got) and for the most part the maple neck on the first and since I have a 62 rosewood strat, I wonder if the slightly more brittle sound on the first is at least partly by virtue ofthe maple neck-or maybe it's the 59 p/ups.
Your mention of the acoustic reverb chamber is very interesting. I have no such thing of course and record with the mike pressed against the speaker cloth on the right hand side of one of the AC30/6 (modified) speakers with reverb and echo added electronically, which I suppose all of us have to do. So the difference between mine and the original recordings, at least in part, would seem to be be the reverb chamber.

regards,

Franz

[26rednef]

Hi.

The second LP was made during the spring 1962 and Hank probably used a Burns for the main part of it, a Bison or a Marvin prototype.

If you ask me what instrument Hank used on the first LP, most/all of it was made with the Gretsch CG. Compare Hanks guitar tone on "Nivram" made with Gretsch CG with the rest of the tracks and you will find same tone on all, Strat's don't have that tone. But we can't forget the studio setup responsible for most of "That Sound", so it might be any instrument.

They did not set up the microphone that tight as you, always of center at a distance from 15 to ~60 cm depending on wanted sound. Abby Road 2 is a large studio ( 60' x 38' x 24') and will influence the sound.

I have a 1962 Rosewood Strat, my first Strat purchased in 1964, it have Hanks early live tone, but not the recorded, and no Strat I have owned have had the early recorded tone. All players I have talked to have the same experience, Ronnie Gustafsson of 1961 visited Roberto P. and played his Gretsch CG and he said it was the closest he ever got to the original tone, he use one now.

I have started a project to build a guitar in the same ballpark as Gretsch CG will fit it with TV-Jones mini HB's, ready next spring, very exiting and I hope fore a nice tone.

Kind Regards,
26rednef

[abstamaria]

Them are controversial words, 26rednef.

[26rednef]

Hi.

What's so controversial ?

All bands used lots of different instruments and amps and so did Shadows, but the big different with them was, on stage, photographs and record covers it always was Strats and later Burns. Record covers was much used by instrument and amp brands for marketing and The Shadows was no excteption from that.

Shadows live sound, both the early and late, have never been any problem to reproduce. A well known problem is the early recorded sound , very different from the live sound, and never been able to reproduce with there live instruments, and of course it is a reason for that. The most likely is, records was made with different instruments, and that is not special controversial.

Kind Regards,
26rednef