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My Guitars
Click on each photo to enlarge. Then click 'Back' on your browser to return to this page. NB: There are some sound samples at the foot of this page.
I did a little counting up the other day and I reckon I've owned over twenty guitars over the last forty plus years. Some were 'planks', like the early ones, some were acoustic and the majority electric. I made some mistakes along the way like selling a beautiful white, maple necked Strat that I only owned for a few days. I'd fallen in love with a Les Paul Custom (that I still have) and my wife didn't see the logic in having both. I wonder, do golf widows find it puzzling that their husbands have a bag full of clubs when patently only one would suffice?
I own eleven guitars at the moment and I have no single favourite as they all sound different and serve different purposes at different times. I have periods when I only play my Eric Clapton Signature Strat, 'Blackie', and then for a long while I only play my Les Paul Gold Top. That's the joy of guitars: they all have individual 'personalities' and all feel different caressed in your hands or strapped around you.. (thank you, that's enough. Ed).
For those of you new to the heritage of Gibson and Fender, the tone differences between them are defined by their distinctly different pickups. Fender Stratocasters began with (and still have on most models) single coil pickups, where a single strand of wire is wound many times around each of the six pole pieces. They have a characteristic clean sound but can be susceptible to interference and humming if brought into close proximity with other electronic sources. Typical Strat tones can be heard on Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing" where Mark Knopfler coaxes a variety of different tones from his Strat, and of course The Shadows' Hank Marvin used a Strat on almost almost all of their hits apart from a very short spell when they used Burns guitars.
Gibson guitars in the late 50s developed the 'hum-bucking' pickup whereby two strands of continuous wire were wound around the pickup poles but in opposite directions so that any induced electronic interference became self-cancelling. These pickups have a distinctive 'fruity brown' tone and when matched with Marshall valve amplification driven to slight distortion the resulting sound is the one that defined a generation of rock music. The best, and definitive, example for me is Eric Clapton's work on the 1966 'Beano' album by John Mayalls' Bluesbreakers, where Eric used a Les Paul Standard and a new concept Marshall combo amp turned up very loud (relative to recording studio standards of the time) to the levels he used at live gigs. His solos on this album are simply astounding. Jimmy Page also made the Les Paul sing in spectacular fashion, and Peter Green made it convey some of the best blues tones ever squeezed from a guitar.
The Strat can be made to rock as well of course, Jimi Hendrix proved that. He coupled the Strat to stacks of Marshall amplification to achieve his innovative sounds, and Jeff Beck is still making his inimitable weird and wonderful noises from a Strat having switched over from a Les Paul in the late 70s. Eric Clapton also switched to using Strats at the same time, heavily influenced by seeing what Jimi Hendrix was doing with them, although my personal view is that Eric has never produced such energetic, angry, risky guitar solos since he swapped.
Here are thee short MP3s which give you an idea of the difference in sounds between Strats and Les Pauls. Not played by me I should add! The Eric Clapton Strat sample shows how it can go from sweet and clean to loud and dirty using the built in 'Active Mid Boost' facility. The first Les Paul sample is the definitive rock 'widdle' and the second shows how mellow and full the Les Paul can sound when played at lower amplifier levels. I didn't play these samples but borrowed them from the Fender and Gibson web sites for educational purposes only. Enjoy!
Here's another short MP3, this time of me playing my Lemon Drop, pictured in the gallery above. I recorded it for someone on a guitar forum who was curious about the tones it can make for an 'economy' guitar. If you're curious, the first part of the track was played on the Lemon Drop's bridge pickup and the second part on the middle position, i.e. both pickups selected which is designed to give the classic Peter Green/Snowy White out of phase 'honk' sound.
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