Speaker Size

[coyote1]

Originally Posted by Joe Louvar

+1. If there were any real big sound advantages - all guitar makers would be making guitars that way.

"Sound advantages" are entirely in the ear of the beholder. For decades, amp manufacturers strove for the cleanest possible sound. It was only after users told them again and again that they desired a controllable distortion that the makers got onboard.

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by coyote1

For decades, amp manufacturers strove for the cleanest possible sound. It was only after users told them again and again that they desired a controllable distortion that the makers got onboard.

It was a racial issue. Really. Cranking an amp to the max, poking holes in cones with pencils etc. was what the early black bluesmen did, trying to emulate the tone of a wailing saxophone. Early black rockers like Chuck Berry did the same. Like the recordings made by those black bluesmen that were ignored by most of the buying public those tones and the ways to make them were ignored by the mainstream musical instrument industry, until popularized by Brits like Clapton, who learned their chops listening to those black bluesmen's records.

[Joe Louvar]

I remember years ago when some guitarist were poking holes in their speakers with screwdrivers and whatnot - thinking it gave them better distortion.

[walterw]

don't forget the early white guys like link wray with his sliced speakers and johnny burnett with one power tube pulled halfway out of the amp!

[Joe Louvar]

Years ago, I met an older guitarist that sounded very similar to sax when soloing - he was awesome. It was a really long time ago and if I remember correctly he used a telecaster into crybaby into a super reverb and there may have been a fuzz face also in line (can’t remember for sure) an amazing sax vibe. It was a combination of equipment and technique - but it was mostly the way he played (phrasing, etc) that made it sound like a sax the most with the petal adding the final convincing vibe.

Anyway, yeah some guitarist (and bassist, drummers, etc) do some wacky stuff - but, whatever floats their boat is ok with me - after all that’s why I bought/buy their music.

[boodakon]

I'm thinking of getting that tiny little markbass combo amp with the one 6inch speaker. I want people to laugh at me when I walk into shows, then I'll watch their jaws drop when the show starts. I love encouraging prejudice! lol

[chadds]

Originally Posted by Joe Louvar

Years ago, I met an older guitarist that sounded very similar to sax when soloing - he was awesome. It was a really long time ago and if I remember correctly he used a telecaster into crybaby into a super reverb and there may have been a fuzz face also in line (can't remember for sure) an amazing sax vibe. It was a combination of equipment and technique - but it was mostly the way he played (phrasing, etc) that made it sound like a sax the most with the petal adding the final convincing vibe.

Anyway, yeah some guitarist (and bassist, drummers, etc) do some wacky stuff - but, whatever floats their boat is ok with me - after all that's why I bought/buy their music.

The fuzz originally came about to simulate that sax sound. After that.....well here we are, after that.

[will33]

Slicing up your speakers will certainly bring the distortion.

Bill's point about it being a bit of a racial thing back then is interesting...and true. Whatever was going on back then, be it music related or not, those guys always got treated worse, studio time/good equipment, etc., and their ideas included. I guess they had to get pretty inventive and work around the hand they were dealt. It resulted in some pretty amazing stuff...that we (collectively) later took...and took off with. The birth of rock-n-roll, man. Thank God it happened, and thank God folks finally came to their senses....last I checked, we all bleed red.

[Bard2dbone]

This talk about trying to emulate the timbre of a saxophone with the guitar reminded me of the pretty-much-coolest-ever studio accident from about twelve years ago.

I did a jingle gig for a cowboy/western clothing store. You know, boots, hats, jeans, hell saddles maybe. I don't know why it worked out this way, but they always wanted fretless bass on their commercials, And since I was a mainly fretless guy then, and my old guitar player was the recording engineer for the commercial, I got the call.

Now here's where it gets cool: After we'd done the basic tracks that were what the client had actually asked for, John, my old guitarist, had an idea. He wanted to add a second background counterpoint that we had actually used in one of our old songs because he'd been humming it in his head while I did the jingle line. So to keep from muddying up the tracks we'd already done, he tried a different setting for my channel and then pulled out his Tele and cranked the gain up and volume down on his channel,

It was just supposed to sound like 'not the previous guitar and bass tracks'. And it definitely did. But the client thought it was a sax and a trombone. And he liked it. Coincidentally, John and I had played in the high school band together. He'd played alto sax. And I'd played assorted low brass. So when he asked who were the sax and trombone players on the jingle that didn't actually have a sax or trombone on it, we weren't really lying that much when we said we were.

What? It's true. We'd played the parts he was asking about. And we really were capable of doing it on the instruments he thought we did it on.

So I got double scale for that gig because he put me down as bass and trombone.

Now. I have tried and tried and tried and tried to replicate that trombone tone ever since. Nothing, I haven't even really gotten close. Same bass. Same settings on the same model amp into the same board. Not even similar. I don't know why.


Back to the OP's original topic: I personally currently use an SWR Redhead into a SWR Triad. So that's 3x10, 1x15, and two tweeters. But they're pretty well matched so I have no noticeable phasing issues. I love my rig and would recommend it. But it's not for someone who's just getting started. It's moderately large and fairly heavy and seriously expensive, like so much bass gear.

My other favorite choice is a 1x12 on a 1x15, say a pair of Avatar cabs with a good plug and play amp like a Little Mark II. That could be had for the cost of my Redhead amp alone and would cover you for years.

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by will33

Thank God it happened, and thank God folks finally came to their senses...

But not soon enough, we did have to suffer through Pat Boone (and his white bread covers of black artists) first.

[bassman64]

Originally Posted by billfitzmaurice

It was a racial issue. Really. Cranking an amp to the max, poking holes in cones with pencils etc. was what the early black bluesmen did, trying to emulate the tone of a wailing saxophone. Early black rockers like Chuck Berry did the same. Like the recordings made by those black bluesmen that were ignored by most of the buying public those tones and the ways to make them were ignored by the mainstream musical instrument industry, until popularized by Brits like Clapton, who learned their chops listening to those black bluesmen's records.

Elvis was infamous for "stealing" the Sound from Black blues guitarists also


Lets not forget the most famous song tone attributed to broken speaker cones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTV48ZUrfnI

[will33]

Originally Posted by billfitzmaurice

But not soon enough, we did have to suffer through Pat Boone (and his white bread covers of black artists) first.

[walterw]

That was after we'd "lost focus" on Elvis and little Richard and all that; it took the Beatles with "twist and shout" and all the other blues and R&B songs being fed back to us by the Stones and other British bands to finally wake the white kids up to how cool the "black" music was (and more importantly, how much it freaked their parents out).

[will33]

There's an old guitar player friend of mine here that grew up in D.C. that will occasionally reminise about sneaking up to the "black part of town" to go to clubs and hear all the good music they like. Apparently, according to him anyway, you had to sorta "sneak around" back then just to hear some stuff you liked.....wierd.

[chadds]

Originally Posted by will33

There's an old guitar player friend of mine here that grew up in D.C. that will occasionally reminise about sneaking up to the "black part of town" to go to clubs and hear all the good music they like. Apparently, according to him anyway, you had to sorta "sneak around" back then just to hear some stuff you liked.....wierd.

Opening moments of "Great Balls of Fire" you see two little "white" kids sneaking in the dark across the tracks, literally, to stand outside a juke joint.The kids are a young Jimmy Swaggart and a young Jerry Lee Lewis. Jerry is seen watching the pianists left hand through the screened window, mesmorized by the bass. He went on to copy it and make it a significant part of his sound.
In DC before Integration well dressed whites would attend the black establishments to hear the greats. Ellington etc.

[popgadget]

Originally Posted by walterw

That was after we'd "lost focus" on Elvis and little Richard and all that; it took the Beatles with "twist and shout" and all the other blues and R&B songs being fed back to us by the Stones and other British bands to finally wake the white kids up to how cool the "black" music was (and more importantly, how much it freaked their parents out).

I don't recall who said it, but a Chicago blues man said "back then, all those English boys wanted to play the blues really badly, and they did...."

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by bassman64

Elvis was infamous for "stealing" the Sound from Black blues guitarists also

Elvis didn't play much, so he didn't steal anything from the bluesmen. He did love Gospel; that's where most of his signing style came from. His guitar players, notably Scotty Moore and James Burton, were mainly rockabilly players, which itself was a fusion of country and western and jazz.

[jnewmark]

Originally Posted by walterw

That was after we'd "lost focus" on Elvis and little Richard and all that; it took the Beatles with "twist and shout" and all the other blues and R&B songs being fed back to us by the Stones and other British bands to finally wake the white kids up to how cool the "black" music was (and more importantly, how much it freaked their parents out).

They certainly had something to do with it, but also remember at that same period, Soul music ( Stax, Atlantic ) was getting very popular along with the rise of Motown, introducing a whole new generation of white America to Black artists, including the two guys in my avatar, Lazy Lester and Sir Mack Rice.

[will33]

My parents were young folks back then, but I like just about anything that says Stax on it...at least from before the whole Isaac Hayes thing...and some from after that... but if it has Dunn and Cropper on it, Booker T as well....it's good stuff. Can't remember the drummers they used but all was just great music.

[jnewmark]

Originally Posted by will33

My parents were young folks back then, but I like just about anything that says Stax on it...at least from before the whole Isaac Hayes thing...and some from after that... but if it has Dunn and Cropper on it, Booker T as well....it's good stuff. Can't remember the drummers they used but all was just great music.

Al Jackson played on alot of that early Stax stuff. One of my favorite drummers of all time.