Lagniappe Slab Electro Slab Electro

guitars
with Alnico 3, and
the later ones are
made with Alnico 5.
If someone doesn’t
want that typical
shrill sound of a Tele
pickup with Alnico
5, I would suggest
one made with Alnico 3. I might suggest the Experience ‘50
if a player wants a more compressed, darker tone rather than a
brighter Tele sound. A lot of guys don’t want to read about all
the options they can consider, but if we talk we can figure it out.
I don’t think it was really known until recently that Alnico 3
was in a lot of the early Tele bridge pickups. Alnico 5 has a little
more zing and clarity, so you just have to talk about what they
want. P90s varied wildly because there is a lot of space for wire
in a P90 bobbin. Sometimes guys might have an idea that they
want a specific DC resistance like 9.5K , but that’s just one factor. I like to use proven formulas and guidelines because until
we listen to it, it’s all theory. I like to have a good reason to do
something that’s based on prior experience.
TQR:
What’s the turnaround on your pickups when
ordered?
RS Guitarworks
Slab Electro
Long-time readers know that
we are big fans
of Danelectro
guitars. Our first
review article
appeared in July
2000 featuring
an interview with
James Pennebaker, who had acquired and optimized a 56-U2,
DC-59 and a “couple of baritones.” The Korean reproduction Danelectros have typically provided good value, decent
playability and tone, and we have favorably reviewed several
6-string models and an excellent 12-string and baritone in the
past. Vintage? We bought a ‘59 copper U-1 at one time with
the intention of featuring it here, but the pickup was so weak
that we found it unusable. In those days we were unaware of
anyone capable of fixing it, and the guitar was in such great
shape that we didn’t want to touch or modify the original
electronics, so we returned it to the seller.
If it’s one of the stock Experience sets I may have it on the
shelf. If it’s a custom order with engraving it could be several
weeks depending on what’s in the works.TQ
We have also published two articles
on Jerry Jones’ unique and excellent replicas, including a detailed
interview with Jerry in June, 2004
with reviews, and most recently, a
January 2010 review of a Copperburst Jerry Jones singlecut. Jerry
Jones closed his shop in Nashville
and retired in April 2011.
www.arcaneinc.com.
Lagniappe
OK, so by now you know that we luv La Carne for its unique
style, superb feel and playability, and the excellent character
and tone of the P90 and Firebird pickups. We view it as the
quintessential rocker, but maybe you don’t want a rough and
ready beater… That’s fine. We don’t write these reviews with
the idea that this is an exclusive all or nothing proposition.
We’re simply trying to give you some ideas, for now or down
the road. In the interest of broadening your horizons, we suggest you check out some of the other models on the Echopark
site as well. There is a lot to see, the images are outstanding,
and the benefit of working with builders like Gabriel Currie
and others is that you can often dream up your very own
dream guitar, while supporting independent craftsmen and actually participating in the design process. Within specific solid
and semi-hollow body styles you can choose different types of
wood for bodies and necks, finishes, aging, neck profiles, fret
size, and other optional apppointments. That’s what we mean
when we say, Quest forth…
Delta Moon guitarist Mark Johnson
first brought the RS Slab Electro to
our attention through the Rebel Guitars web site. Intrigued,
we contacted Roy Bowen at RS Guitarworks, who arranged
for us to receive a copperburst Slab Electro for review
– the last remaining guitar among the first batch of prototypes built in 2012. We asked Roy to describe his inspiration
for the Slab Electro, and our review follows…
TQR:
It seems as if your concept for the Slab Electro was
to capture all the good things about the original
Danelectro while leaving some of the not-so-good
things behind. It plays like a real guitar.
Yeah, that was pretty much the idea. We wanted the sound,
but in a more playable guitar. There is one change being made
from the original prototypes. Initially Curtis Novak put a steel
plate on the bridge pickup like a Tele, and we noticed that
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.14 N.6 April 2013
9
guitars
the neck
pickup had
the clarity
we wanted,
but it was
lacking
a little
bit in the
bridge, so
with this second run he is using a fiberboard base in the bridge
instead of steel. As far as construction goes, some people believe that the original Danos were all made with Masonite and
poplar, but I have restored some that were made with fir and
even pine. I think they used whatever soft wood was available,
and since we already build some guitars with pine, we decided
to use that.
TQR:
And just to be clear, we’re talking about the frame
for the body, with the top, back and sides made
from masonite and fabric strip on the sides.
Right. I always
thought the original
Danos looked cool,
but lately it seems
that we’ve become
known for building
hybrids between
other model designs
and Teles, like
hybrids between
a Gretsch and Tele, Flying V or Firebird. Plus, the Tele has
always been one of our favorite guitars and we’ve become
known for our Tele style guitars.
TQR:
Most significantly, you chose to build a classic
maple neck with a substantial profile and a slab
rosewood fingerboard. That’s not the kind of neck
you would find on an original Dano or even a Jerry
Jones replica.
We actually experimented with a
poplar neck and in
terms of stability I
didn’t think it was
worth the trade
off. There wasn’t
anything about the
poplar neck that seemed better than maple. We also kept the 16”
radius for that original feel. There is something about the tone of
the Danos that encourages slide playing, plus, they were often
such bad playing guitars that slide was all you could really do
with them.
TQR:
Did you use a standard Tele bridge plate?
Yes. We didn’t need to modify it at all, but the bridge lipstick
pickup had to be built with the Tele-style mounts for the
bridge plate.
TQR:
Does painting masonite present any unique challenges?
It’s a real pain. A good friend of mine recently gave me a
‘59 copper Dano and it had a large arm wear spot and you
could see that there was a clear sealer on the masonite that
we determined was shellac. When you spray masonite with
lacquer it gets real furry – it’s basically card board, so what
we did was shoot the masonite with one coat of polyester, and
we may try shellac in the next run. For the first run we kept
traditional Dano colors – solid copper, copper burst, red burst
with sparkle, and black with sparkle.
TQR:
What did you ask Curtis Novak to do with the
pickups, specifically?
He had restored so many original pickups that I just told him
we wanted a faithful recreation of the originals. On the second
run he is doing now the neck pickup will be underwound by
5% to better match the bridge, and as I mentioned we changed
the base plate for the bridge from steel to fiber board.
TQR:
What type of metal is used for the nut?
Aluminum, like the original. We
tried using Tusq and bone on one
of the prototypes and the sound
just wasn’t there. One of the
people that bought one of the first
Slab Electros was convinced that
the aluminum nut wasn’t going to
sound good and before even trying
it he sent the guitar out to have a
bone nut installed. Then he called
to tell me the guitar sounded dull,
and he hadn’t even played it with
the aluminum nut. It works. The
saddles are also aluminum. Our
first idea was to use brass, and that
made it too lively. We tried steel and that made it sound too
harsh. The original sound of the Dano was influenced by that
rosewood bridge, and while I’m not usually a fan of aluminum saddles, they just seemed to work on this guitar. We
used 250K pots although most of the Danos had 100K pots,
and we used Luxe paper-in-oil .05 tone caps. Tuners are Tone
Pros Klusons, and we used 6125 fret wire – a little wider than
6105 and not quite as tall. It’s close to the original wire and a
little taller.
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.14 N.6 April 2013
guitars
TQR:
With the first run sold now, when do you anticipate
that the second batch will be available?
Some time in April, and there will be six built, but anyone can contact us directly or contact a dealer and place an order for one at any time.
We also spoke with pickup builder Curtis Novak about the
lipstick pickups he makes for the Slab Electro, and we plan to
feature an expanded interview with additional reviews later
this year…
Curtis Novak
TQR:
You mention on your web site that building the
original Danelectro lipstick pickup is a complex
process…
Yes. I was very
active in reverse
engineering and
having to re-work
processes when
I worked for the
government at Los
Alamos, so I’m
always fascinated
by repairing and
re-working pickups to see how things are done. Most of the
modern lipsticks are made with a Firebird or mini-humbucker
bobbin because they just happen to fit in the tube really well.
The real original lipstick pickup magnet is much thicker than
a Firebird or a mini-humbucker magnet, and the magnet wire
was originally wrapped directly around that, so the coil is taller
and longer, and with it riding right on the magnet the sound is
is a little livelier. It’s also really hard to mass produce, which
is why modern builders use a pre-made plastic bobbin. Since
it’s such a smaller bobbin and magnet, they use a thinner gauge
wire and overwind it, so the resistance is very high and that
changes the tone a lot from an original lipstick pickup.
TQR:
And you are using a historically correct Alnico
magnet.
Yes, I have repaired quite
a few vintage lipstick
pickups and the magnets
are as tall as the actual
tube. They are taller and
a lot thicker, and that’s
where much of the beefy
tone comes from. Along
with the magnet’s drastic difference in size, the vintage lipsticks also used an Alnico 6 magnet, which most builders miss.
It also has a little bit to do with my winding process. For
years I have been trying to convince people not to think of a
pickup as an output device and that you shouldn’t measure it
by its output. It’s really an input device and a sensor, just like
a microphone. It’s passive, and as in recording, the higher
you turn the input volume up and the needle moves into the
red, it starts losing fidelity and saturates. It sounds louder, but
you lose all your fidelity, and that’s the way pickups work.
If you give the average person three pickups to listen to they
will pick the hottest one because of the added punch. But
they will get frustrated when they go into a recording studio
or they need to get a different sound and all they have is that
one ‘Stevie Ray
Vaughan’ hot
sound. He used a
pedal to get that,
and he could get
out of it whenever he wanted
Thinking of the
recording process,
you want to get the clearest, cleanest, high-fidelity sound you
can get and then post-process it. That’s also what you want
with a pickup. With most vintage pickups, it’s not that there
is a vintage tone necessarily, but they tended to wind them
for fidelity and a certain sweet spot. There are certain pickups
like the DeArmond gold foil that don’t come alive until they
are wound really hot, but the lipstick is known for being a
3.5K-4K pickup, and it’s got that massive magnet that creates
a big orb field around the coil. When the wire is laying on the
magnet, it rattles it a lot more than the modern versions with a
smaller, tighter wind. They also wax pot the modern lipsticks,
and using that plastic bobbin with a tiny magnet, it’s so much
not what it was.
TQR:
So clearly you don’t pot the lipstick pickups you
make.
No, I don’t. Fender was the only company that potted pickups
among the big companies like Gibson and Gretsch. Leo was
an electrical enigineer and that’s what you do with transformers. There is a lot of this on my FAQ, but if you think of a
pickup as a Jew’s harp, it’s fine when it’s on your lips and
you’re playing it, but once it touches your tooth it rattles
really loud. The microphonics and squealing in a pickup are
caused when two rigid parts come in contact with the coil
and it creates a feedback loop. You could dip a Jew’s harp in
Plasti-coat and it could be on your teeth and it wouldn’t rattle,
but it doesn’t sound like a Jew’s harp anymore – all the brass
is lost. The idea is that you isolate the musical part – the coil,
from all the rigid, rattling parts. You either isolate or fuse
them so when they resonate they resonate as one. Mosrite
pickups are known for being really squealy, and people will
say that they solved the whole thing by dipping the pickup
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.14 N.6 April 2013
11
guitars
completely in wax. You can save that pickup by pulling the
screws out and dripping some hot wax down on each screw
and fusing all those parts. They used Bondo and epoxy when
they built the Mosrite pickups, and sometime they will break
loose and be rigid and they will rattle. But you can stop all the
rattle without touching the coil.
TQR:
Roy also mentioned that you had used a copper
plated steel base plate on the first batch of Slab
Electros, and then switched to a bridge lipstick with
a fiberboard base.
That’s true. The last
batch I wound for him
had the fiberboard
base. The copper plated
steel base used for the
Telecaster pickup acts
as a reflector. The thing
I think a lot of people
don’t get about pickups is that the coil does all the work. You
can have a pickup with just a coil and no magnet or steel. It
will be kind of weak, but you don’t need any magnets or steel.
All they do is create a large magnetic field around the coil,
and ferrous metals will do the same thing, so that big plate under the magnet just changes the field and enlarges it a little bit.
TQR:
Have you gotten any of the old Danelectro pickups
in for repair that were just too weak to be used?
Not really. Usually it’s something else. In all my years of
repair I have never really seen a magnet gracefully degrade.
When they degrade it is usually because the polarity is not
consistent across the magnet. There is a lot of theory about
vintage magnets becoming weak over time and that some of
the vintage tone comes from that, but I haven’t found that
to be true. I used to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory with some world renowned metallurgists and scientists,
and they didn’t see it either. Heat can do it – there are things
that can change the properties of a magnet, but any kind of
extreme heat like that would destroy the plastic in the pickup.
I rewound a Firebird
two or three times and
it wasn’t sounding quite
right but I wasn’t catching what was going on.
I finally took a polarity
tester and went over
the entire magnet, and
when I got to the very
last 1/8 of an inch the
polarity flipped. When I do a custom pickup I may grind 1/8
of an inch off a bar magnet, and if you aren’t careful to stop
and let it cool as you are grinding it, the same side of a magnet can read both north and south and the pickup will sound
out of phase. So the properties of a magnet can change, but I
don’t think it’s from ‘aging.’
TQR:
How popular are the lipstick pickups you wind
compared to the other types you make?
They are becoming more and more popular. The Jerry Jones
were a pretty good replica, and with him making them there
wasn’t a need for anyone else to be doing anything different. Where I get most of my business is in trying to cram a
Chevy engine into a Ford (laughing). I do lipsticks for Teles,
Jaguars… I can fit two lipsticks in a Firebird or a Gibson
humbucker cover. I can do side-by-side in the same tube, and
with that you can get a good lipstick sound in a Gibson guitar
and with four wires you can choose single coil or dual-coil
humbucking operation.
Slab Electro
Danelectro founder
Nat Daniel was
a clever and resourceful designer
and businessman. In an effort
to manufacture
affordable – some
might even say
‘green’ products, he used Homasote in place of wood to build
his amplifier cabinets – the first recycled, post-consumer
product developed in 1906 made from a slurry of recycled
paper. Today the Homasote company continues to recycle 100
tons of cellulose fiber, conserving nearly 750,000 trees and
eliminating 30 million pounds of solid waste that otherwise
would go into landfills.
Daniel similarly chose masonite for
the tops and backs of his guitars,
invented in 1924 by William H.
Mason in Laurel, Mississippi. Production of masonite began in 1929,
and it was used for doors, roofing,
walls and household siding among
other products. No doubt Daniel’s
resourceful approach was driven
by a desire to sell his products at
price points that would appeal to a
larger market, but whether by accident or design, his guitars also have a very cool and unique
tone all their own. Unfortunately, the output of the lipstick
tube Alnico bar magnet pickups was inconsistent, and being
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.14 N.6 April 2013
interview
budget instruments, tuning stability and overall playability
were mediocre at best by today’s standards. The Slab Electro
takes the basic foundation of the Danelectro to an entirely new
level with custom-wound pickups that are true to the ‘original’
Dano tone, and a neck and fretboard that allow this guitar to
transcend the narrow role of a somewhat clumsy slide guitar
to an every day player.
Weight freaks will swoon over
the 5.6 pound featherweight
feel of the Slab. The medium
C-shaped maple neck profile
and medium jumbo 6125
frets create a comfortable and
effortless playing experience,
and yeah, if you want to tune
to open G, break out the slide
and capo up, the 16” fretboard
radius makes sliding a breeze.
If you aren’t familiar with
the sound of these pickups,
perhaps it’s time… At 4.94K bridge and 5.37K neck you can
expect less volume and output than a typical Telecaster, for
example. Unlike most replica lipstick Dano pickups, Curtis
Novak uses full-size Alnico bar magnets, and he also makes
hum-canceling lipsticks and lipsticks for Stratocasters. Again,
compared to Fender single coils we found the Novak lipsticks
to have more depth,
detail, and chime,
sounding slightly
warmer overall
rather than sharp
and thin. The neck
pickup has the clarity and character
of a great Strat
neck – liquid, full, vocal and moody. The bridge pickup is less
sharp and biting than the typical tone of a Fender-style bridge
pickup, with lots of complex chime and harmonics. Overall,
expect a more finessed sound that is less penetrating, linear
and direct, with the percussive character of a semi-hollow
body guitar, yet the aluminum
saddles seem to encourage excellent sustain and a very ‘stringy’
tone. The aluminum nut doesn’t
influence the sound of the guitar
nearly as much, because, of course,
you only ‘hear’ it on open strings.
Played through an overdriven amp
or overdrive effects, the Slab Electro retains a more acoustic character rather than being confined to a
tight, compressed, driving sound.
In terms of feel, touch and aesthetics, the build quality and
finish work are flawless, the Slab stays in tune with precise
tuning from the TonePros Klusons, and we found the fretboard
familiar and comfortable. The biggest adjustment for the uninitiated is the tone and dynamic character of the guitar. This
isn’t a thrasher, so if you play with a heavy hand and thrive on
the sound of an exploding guitar loaded with humbuckers or
other high output pickups, the Danelectro vibe may be new to
you. That’s OK… Guitarists paint with tone, but there are no
rules that say you have to use every color and hue. The Slab
Electro is one of those guitars that should be pulled out when
you want to make a memorable statement that can’t and won’t
be confused with anything else. TQ
www.rsguitarworks.net, 1-859-737-5300
www.curtisnovak.com, 760-820-4434
Fender Amplifiers
Endure and Evolve
The landscape of guitar amplification has changed dramatically during the past ten years, with more amps being built
at every price point than ever before, and many manufacturers utilizing factories in Asia to remain competitive. Even
relatively small custom builders like Steve Carr are now
competing in a global ‘boutique’ market, and while we still
seem to receive more inquiries about obscure custom builders,
we also like to stay abreast of what’s happening at Fender. We
have reviewed many of the reissue Fender blackface amps,
the Vibro-King, Cyber-Twin, ‘64 Vibroverb developed with
Cesar Diaz, Blues Deville,
Pro Junior and Woody, the
hand-wired ‘57 Twin, and
most recently, the handwired reissues of the tweed
Deluxe and tweed Champ.
We contacted Shane Nicholas, product manager for
amplifiers with a request
to receive three amplifiers
for review that represent
Fender’s diverse range of
products – from the $299.00
retro Excelsior 1x15 combo,
Shane Nicholas
$999.99 Super-Sonic 22, to
the $2,999.00 Eric Clapton Twinolux. We also asked Shane to
describe the inspiration for each. Enjoy…
TQR:
Shane, before we jump into the amplifiers we’ve
selected for review, could you summarize your
background and give us an idea of what your job
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.14 N.6 April 2013
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