The ToneQuest Report

INSIDE
Meet one of the most
innovative, creative and
interesting guitarists of
our time…
Jim on guitars, amps,
recording, tone,
influences, evolving,
and living and playing
in New York
plus…
Recording
Dream Dictionary
8
Twenty-six…
Riverhorse
on New York, subways,
the call of nature
and catching Campilongo
in Brooklyn
9
1974 – Rollin’
&
Tumblin’
Remembering
the Bluebird,
714s,
a dead Nova,
a new Caddie,
three weeks in Negril
and the demise of
Dick Nixon
Mountainview Publishing, LLC
the
The Player’s Guide to Ultimate Tone
$15.00 US, April 2014/Vol.15 NO.6
Report
TM
Campilongo
“New York has a trip-hammer vitality which drives you insane
with restlessness if you have no inner stabilizer.” – Henry Miller
Writing is not for the weak of heart, whether the writing is done in words or music. Some days the
flow is surreal, pouring forth from some unfathomable place in the mind where creative ideas lay
in waiting to be grasped and given up to the world. On other, darker days the mind seems locked,
stubbornly refusing to start like an old, worn out car. No matter how many times you turn the key,
all you get is a discouraging grunt of obstinate refusal. You are getting nothing today, Jack. Today,
you have jack shit for brains… Worse still, writing about musical performances seems like such a
futile loser’s game. It’s one thing to describe the sound of an instrument, but how can you honor
the work of a musical genius by talking about it? You can’t. And we’re not gonna try… Music is
created to be heard and experienced, not fawned over with flowery prose.
11
1974
Silverface
Princeton Reverb…
The best of them all
14
We optimize a truly
mezmerizing amplifier
with Sozos, a Celestion
G10 Greenback and a
matched pair of
classic RCA 6V6s
16
Dave Baldwin
on vintage tubes –
the ones you want and
how to buy them
16
One of the best guitars
we have ever found –
the new Road Worn
Tele…
18
Sliders
19
The sound of toploading
bridges revealed
The featured artist in this edition of the Quest is an old friend. This isn’t his first appearance in
these pages, but his most recent recording titled Dream Dictionary demands that he be called back
for an encore. And since it is highly likely that you are an avid fan of music made with a guitar,
it is incumbent upon you now to sweep the trivial distractions from your mind long enough to
do what it takes to acquire a copy of Dream Dictionary for your own enjoyment. You can get it
at Amazon in minutes. Do it. Do it, and savor the afterglow that Jim Campilongo’s music casts,
lingering long after the last note has faded. No one is walking in Campilongo’s footsteps, nor is he
treading in the long shadows of the past. You don’t listen to Jim Campilongo thinking, “Oh, I know
www.tonequest.com
cover story
where he got that…” Campilongo is creating his own space in
the historical context of contemporary music, played against
the backdrop of New York. You can hear the energy of the city
in his music, and it is like no other on earth. We begin with
a concise introduction that will provide you with essential
and instructive details on Campilongo’s path as a musician,
followed by our interview held in February of this year, and
a journey of discovery in the Quest for tone that has been
completely inspired by Jim. Enjoy…
“It is the provenance of a precious few who can so beautifully
mine the harmonic depth of a Telecaster with the grace and
fluid fantasy of Jim Campilongo, an artist who paints masterpieces with the guitar…” –TQR
Campilongo On Guitars…
I saw Roy Buchanan about
45 times… That was a
big part of my education.
But access to different
instruments evolved very
haphazardly. I played an
acoustic for several years,
and we would amplify it by
sticking a microphone in
it. After that, someone lent
me a Teisco that I played
until I found my cherished
(and sold) Gibson 330.
From there I got a sunburst
Les Paul, then I found a home with a ’54 goldtop that I played
for about seven years. I really thought it sounded like a Tele,
and I had tried to get that tone out of every guitar I owned.
That goldtop sounded great, even though it had a replaced
neck on it. Joe Louis Walker bought it in the late ‘80s when I
needed rent money. Honestly, it had never played in tune, but
most everyone would hear that goldtop and think it was a Tele.
Then I found my ‘59 … The ’59 Telecaster was given to me
by a student and friend named John Jensen, who took lessons
from me. Prior to the ‘59, I never felt that much of a bond with
all the guitars I had played before – they all presented a bit of
a struggle. For some intangible reason the ’59 was the first one
that I really bonded with in a meaningful way. To be honest,
I’m not obsessed with guitars – I’m obsessed with music. I
don’t mean to alienate anyone reading this, but I will see a
band, come home, and someone will ask me what model of
instruments they played and I won’t even have noticed.
Amps…
Fender, Fender, Fender, Fender, Fender, Fender (laughing),
and they have gotten progressively smaller. I have always
played through Fender amps. My first was a silverface master
volume Twin.
I used that for
years and I
thought it was a
great sounding
amp. Although
people have run
away screaming from them,
I think the
silverface Fender amps are really great. Speaking of underrated
amps – the ‘red knob’ series actually sounded pretty good too
– a good clean sound, and if you played a hollowbody through
them the sound was dynamic and thick. Right before I moved
to New York, I bought a blackface Princeton Reverb from
steel guitar hall of famer Bobby Black that was my main amp.
I was wary at first because of it’s wattage, but I soon learned
to appreciate and love it! Not soon after this – after de-tuning
mayhem one inspired night, I blew a speaker. At the time, I
only had one amp so I had to borrow one, but no one else’s
amp seemed to meet my standards. I obsessively have my amps
serviced about every four months. I prefer new old stock power
tubes and it seems that something is always breaking – caps
need replacing, reverb breaks, speakers blow… Bill Finnigan
(Klon) suggested that I should get a few more amps instead of
relying on just one, so that’s when the madness began, starting
with a silverface Princeton with a Celestion speaker that just
sounds incredible. I used it on the Martha Wainwright record,
among other things. I’ll also take a blackface Vibro-Champ on
sessions, and I’ve used it on my records.
Recording…
I mic the back, the front, and
then try to find a sweet spot
somewhere, and we’ll spend
hours on it. OK, I hear a sound
in the room that’s really good…
now, how can we get that sound
on tape? I think mic’ing the
front and the back of an open
back amp is a great tip, even
live – especially with a Tele.
Another thing I like about the
top-loader bridge is that it’s a
little more rubbery sounding. I didn’t even notice the ‘59 was
a top loader at first, and I didn’t know they were only made
that way for one year.
Tone…
I do all kinds of moves that I don’t even think about. Generally, everything is dimed, but sometimes I’ll be playing
and realize that I’m in the middle position. I’m constantly
changing everything… Sometimes I’ll switch to both pickups
right before I hit a big chord. Depending on what the room
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
cover story
is giving me, I may not use the
neck pickup at all because it
is sounding too muddy. Every
room is different. I don’t really
think about it, but I respond to
what I’m hearing. I remember
ten years ago thinking that the
middle position was jive, but
now I’m in the middle position
a lot. I change so much within a
tune – volume, tone… I used to
always love to hear that ‘click’
when Roy would go to the bridge. I think the Tele rhythm
pickup is a very under-rated jazz pickup, and that’s why the
Telecaster is the greatest solidbody electric guitar, because it
gets that sound. It does produce a very pleasing jazz sound, yet
it has a little bit of Louie Armstrong in it. The wall of sound
thing is cool, but I want to hear the pick rake across each
string like a single coil tends to do. I often wish I could get the
sounds I hear in my apartment when I’m out performing.
I work hard at playing
melodies. Somebody
told me once that a
musician is only as
good as the number of
songs he knows. Now,
I wouldn’t say that
to The Edge, for example… He is a sonic
artist, and he makes
people happy, which is
what you want to do,
but I do think that people should work more on making music,
chord inversions, and playing songs. It really wore me out
at the last guitar show I attended because no one played any
songs! It was all blues licks in A. It’s not like I’m Wes Montgomery and I can play anything without even knowing what
key I’m in… Could I sit down right now and play “I Want
to Hold Your Hand” note for note without having to work it
out? Probably not, even though I know that song so well. But
sometimes I wonder why more guitarists don’t check out a
new instrument and experiment with being a little less predictable and less aggressive in their playing. I’m not oblivious to
tone, or done with it, and I
am still curious about how,
for example, Keith Richards
got those tones on Sticky
Fingers. It’s not that I don’t
want to talk about tone,
as if it bores me and all I
want to talk about are chord
inversions and George Van
Eps… I mean, how did Keith
get that tone on “Can You Hear Me Knockin”? When I was
growing up I went to the record store and bought records like
Derek and the Dominoes Live, but we’re not sitting on a bed
staring at LP jackets as we listen to vinyl anymore. There is
such a glut of free music available today, not to mention all of
the instructional videos available to guitarists… I buy some
of them, but my friends also give me copies they make.
Influences…
Many of my influences have
remained constant… Roy
Buchanan, Eric Clapton
with the Bluesbreakers,
Cream and Derek & the
Dominoes… I was also
really lucky to be exposed
to Django Reinhardt by a
ceramics teacher when I
was in high school. John
McLaughlin, of course, Jimmy Rivers, Jimmy Bryant, Chet
Atkins… Coltrane’s Live in Japan was a big influence, and
another was a record by John Fahey called On Christian
Soldiers. I was really into a track on East/West with Michael
Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. I was also into Middle Eastern stuff and on Roy’s first record, he goes Middle Eastern…
I saw Mike Bloomfield and it changed my life… Me and my
buddy saw him at this pizza joint in Mill Valley, and we were
just dying to hear music from Super Session… He was there
with an acoustic guitar and
a film projector. He showed
film of Hound Dog Taylor and
talked about players like Son
House and Blind Lemon Jefferson. We went home kind of
disappointed, but the next day
I went out looking for the records he mentioned and I found
the Hound Dog Taylor record,
and it was the sleaziest, dirtiest
stuff I had ever heard! I also
really got into Muddy Waters, and that really changed my
blues sensibility. I was no longer so enthralled by the more
straight, commercial blues – I liked the weird combination of
swing and straight rhythmic changes that Muddy played, and
I internalized that without really understanding what it was.
Evolving…
I had a regular gig in San Francisco at Gordon’s Restaurant,
and I could only use three guys – guitar, bass and drums, and
we had to play at a really low volume – everything was done
with an upright bass and brushes, and I played there for about
two years. During that time, I began to conceptualize American Hips, and what I realized is that I don’t have to be busy
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
3
cover story
Bill Frisell
filling space all the time. I could
hear the upright bass growl, I
could anticipate the next chord
and let it ring prematurely… I
was less busy. Some people said
I sounded like Bill Frissell, and
I guess I can see why. So the
entire thing came together at
this restaurant, and what I heard
within the setting of a trio just
seemed so limitless.
and Honeyfingers (Jonny Lam, Luca Benedetti, David Speranza, Roy Edwin Williams) who are breathing fire and new
life into my early Ten Gallon Cats original compositions, and
of course I recorded Dream Dictionary with great reviews
and a limited budget. I feel proud of all these efforts and
currently I feel musically challenged to the point of anxiety!
(laughing) Sure, it’s a bit annoying to compete with constant
Youtube uploads of less then stellar gigs, and there seems to
be a glut of this stuff since everyone has a video camera on
their iPhones
TQR:
Moving to New York…
I feel like my playing improves
and suffers at the same time
here, because there is so much
work and struggle. I mean, you
can’t get a whole lot of simple
errands done in a single day
in New York… Everything is
harder in a way, but there is also
a lot of inspiration, and a lot of
serious people that are here to
play. One thing that stands out
to me about New York is the upbeat attitude most everyone has about the gig, no matter how
small or uneventful. There are no macho attitudes about “this
shitty gig” or “misery contests.” Most of the guys I play music
with here understand that playing music is a gift and a privilege. If one can realize that any musical situation can be done
well, the chances of playing quality music are much greater.
Before coming to New York, I encountered certain situations
where I felt it was inappropriate or naive to feel enthusiasm
and musical hope, but that’s not the case here at all.
Jim & NY guitarist Scott Metzger
Campilongo Interview, Brooklyn –
February 2014
TQR: It’s great catching up with
you again, Jim. How are things in
New York?
I’ve been good, I feel like I
accomplished a lot last year
although in some ways I think
things continue to feel more difficult since the market crash in
2008. First off, I met Josh Dion
and Chris Morrissey, a great
rhythm section and great musical
allies, formed Jim Campilongo
Compared to a live performance, audio on the web
is crap unfortunately.
Yesterday I was listening
to Together by John Williams and Julian Bream,
and it’s a great, great
record. I have the LP and
I converted it to MP3
so I could share it. My
computer has a wireless
stream into my stereo,
which is a McIntosh
preamp, a Dynakit power amp and two Klipsch speakers – the
bomb, you know, and I walked from one room into the other
and I have pretty good computer speakers… and it was a
completely different experience. It blew me away that I had
acclimated to what I thought was the true experience in my
computer room, and then I walked into the living room and
thought, “Wait a minute…” People are not getting that.
TQR:
I don’t think most people know the difference
anymore or care. The good news is, I bought the
Dream Dictionary CD on Amazon and it sounds
phenomenally good. Fascinating songs as always,
superb musicianship and gonzo fidelity. There is
hope for us yet.
Well, thank you so much. I’ll tell you the truth, one of my
goals was to make Dream Dictionary as inexpensively as possible because recording Orange was just too expensive. I was
freaking out because I was trying to make a less expensive
recording yet still with quality, and there were aspects of it
that were really difficult.
TQR:
You used Pro Tools or Radar then?
Oh, no… It’s an analog record – recorded on tape, not Pro
Tools. The only recording I have ever done that wasn’t analog
was Heaven is Creepy. It’s a really good record, but I didn’t
fully appreciate how important analog recording was to the
final sound.
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
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TQR:
That explains a lot, because you can really hear the
natural phase shifting in your
amplified guitar – it moves.
You can also hear the bass roll
and move. There is a spatial
quality where you can almost
visualize where everything is
in the mix. The recording has
depth and space, and although
the musical styles are varied
from track to track, the overall
sound is just so vivid and real.
Every once in a while I also
detected a Beatle-ly turn on “The Past is Looking
Brighter and Brighter”.
You’re close. I was listening a lot to the Bee Gees at that
time and some stuff off Saturday Night Fever and I was just
thinking how great those songs were – the sounds of the ‘70s
chord changes. There is also a change in there that is a little
reminiscent of Roy Buchanan’s “The Messiah Will Come.”
TQR:
I Am”) Norah kind of
threw us all off by nailing
it on the first take, which
I should have anticipated.
I recorded my solo at
the same time she cut
the vocal, but I was still
finding my way, and I
played kind of a Kenny
Burrell Midnight Blue
thing – kind of jazzy, and
when I heard it played back I thought, “Well, it’s an apple, but
I really wish it was a strawberry…” I wanted to overdub the
solo, but we discovered that the original guitar solo had bled
through the mic on the ride cymbal. I was really bummed.
Josh, who had played drums on the session was in Russia, so
we got Dan Reiser to come in and overdub the ride cymbal.
That’s why we have an additional credit for drums. The funny
thing is that both Josh and Dan live in the same apartment
building here in New York. Dan and I also played together
in the Little Willies. Anyway, we got to fix it and keep the
overdubbed guitar solo.
What did you use for the tremolo effect?
TQR:
That’s the guitar through a Leslie
cabinet. Some people think it’s
an organ, which is cool, too.
That’s a live solo. Andy Tommasi
the producer wanted me to play
through a Leslie, and I had tried
that before and it never sounded
the way I wanted. “Badge” right?
So I was being a little stubborn,
like, “Yeah, we’ll do that tomorrow…” Finally he got me to try
it and I’m glad we did because
you can really hear the changes. I think I used my signature
Telecaster instead of the ‘59 on that track, too.
TQR:
Were you using some kind of delay on “Here I Am”
with Norah Jones?
The only thing that’s on there is a lot of different reverbs – a
plate reverb and a digital reverb, and then I re-amped, which
I always do on all my records. It’s funny because people will
say, “Oh, yeah, I bought a Princeton reissue and it doesn’t
sound quite like your records…” Well, you know, that’s why I
spend the big bucks (laughing). The only amp I used was my
Silverface Princeton Reverb with the Celestion G10 speaker,
plate reverb, and then we re-amped through a Super Reverb
that had belonged to Buddy Guy. I usually don’t like Supers
but this one sounded amazing, so we re-amped through the
Super and then we would blend the original Princeton track
with the track we created with the Super. On that track (“Here
That song reminds me of something that could
have been on the soundtrack for the David Lynch
movie Wild at Heart. It’s just a little twisted.
Well, I initially had
it as kind of a swing
tune, because it was
originally recorded
by Ray Charles.
Norah came in
and she said, “You
know, you should
make it more Jim.”
So I started playing
the lick that’s on the record and she says, “Yeah, that’s it,”
and of course she nailed the vocal on the first take.
TQR:
In so many ways it takes much more talent, creativity and risk to leave space in music the way you
do. It isn’t always so obvious where you are going,
which in turn creates suspense and mystery, and
I find that much more interesting and appealing
than listening to how well someone can play a very
predictable style of music I have already heard for
decades. That, and bad guitar playing sometimes
seems to be a communicable disease… Just walk
the floor of a NAMM show or visit a big music
store on a Saturday – you hear the same guitar hero
rapid-fire lead drivel shit that guys were playing in
the ‘60s in an attempt to get some kind of instant
credibility as a bad-ass. The guitar-slinger rut. You
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
5
cover story
could indulge in that too if you wanted and leave
people completely slack-jawed, but you don’t even
drive by the neighborhood.
I don’t know what it is about playing in space and why people
don’t do it. When I’m in a situation with one or two other guitar players and it’s kind of a ‘duel’ situation, I absolutely feel
mute because I can’t hear anything in my head. I’m forced not
to be able to say anything because there is so much being said.
It’s like if everyone in the room is shouting, I would just sit
down and wait until the shouting was over.
TQR:
What are you using for guitars today?
Mainly the ‘59. I
went through maybe
six months when
I was playing the
signature Tele, and
then I’d play the
old one and I got
back into that like
a security blanket, perhaps. There were some things about the
signature that I really like – it’s easier to play, easier to keep in
tune (laughing) and there is a certain volume that the signature
has, but mainly I use the ‘59. I don’t know… it’s as if I can
will things easier with it. Sometimes I’ll de-tune the 6th string,
hit a harmonic and then shake the neck and lower the pitch
by bending the neck and hit an Em chord and I feel like I just
know how to make it work. The shit I do to that guitar… there
is even a tiny crack
up in the headstock, but I feel
like I know how
to make it work. It
does what I want
it to, and so does
the signature, but
it’s like a 2-year
old guitar, and the
‘59 feels like a
50-year old guitar.
So if I’m going to
record live in the studio I’ll use the ‘59. I’m getting the ‘59
re-fretted soon, though… I have to.
TQR:
It’s all Telecaster, but it doesn’t sound shrill and too
metallic. Lots of character there.
None of my guitars have that glassy shrapnel sound that sometimes I love in the right hands, and I think it’s because of the
top-loading bridge.
TQR:
How did the pickups turn out with your signature Tele?
It worked out really
well. I had a pickup
that I really liked
made by Curtis Novak. I told Mike Eldred at Fender, and
he was open to it,
but felt that Fender
Custom Shop
should face the
“Pepsi challenge” and we should try to beat it. So we started
with the Novak, and after many prototypes from Fender we
came up with something I found even more suitable to my
personal tastes, which is very focused on bass response.
TQR:
What happened to the original pickups in your ‘59?
Technically I have the original pickups. Before I had ever
recorded anything both of the original pickups died. They
were like one of those old married couples when one dies and
the other one dies within a week (laughing). I had them both
re-wound by Seymour Duncan twenty years ago or more.
TQR: How
do you find a
Campilongo
Tele? I don’t
imaging you
can buy the
pickups separately either…
I wish they
were selling
them. I wish
they had a cheap little Jim Campilongo Christmas guitar with
a cheap little amp, a strap and a set of strings (laughing).
TQR:
The Jim Campilongo guitar kit, with a couple of
lessons thrown in…
Yeah, me and Esteban
(laughing) on QVC.
Since they only made
50 of my signature
guitars, it’s kind of like
diamonds coming out
of Africa. They all sold
out, but there was one
in Japan in a store that
I saw. A guy in Norway bought it, I think,
but yeah, they are hard to find. Somebody sold a Campilongo
pickup on eBay for something like $100 and it sold really
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
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quick. I can’t imagine that someone would take the pickup out
of a $3,000 guitar, but who knows?
TQR:
What did you use for the two acoustic tracks on
Dream Dictionary?
I played a 1958 00-18 Martin
and that was on the duet with
Steve. The other one was a
Gibson that belonged to Andy
and I don’t remember what it
was. I don’t ever notice and
I don’t care. I went in one
day just to see how the studio
sounded and jammed with
the great jazz drummer Mark
Guiliana and my incredible
bassist Chris Morrissey. We
jammed all day and Andy suggested I track something because
we still had some time, and I had this acoustic tune I played
twice. Andy’s guitar was a big sunburst Gibson acoustic and
my arm barely got over the top. It sounded great and we kept
that first take.
TQR:
Did you just mic the acoustic guitars?
Yeah, we did and you can almost hear chairs squeaking.
TQR:
On “Heaven is Creepy” there is almost this pitchshifting wobble effect happening with your guitar.
Is that just your technique?
Yeah, it is. I don’t know what happened during that tune but
it was the last day, and it was the best we ever played it. We
were kind of amazed… When I listened to it there was this
weird spirit thing going on and at one point some of my notes
seemed really unbalanced.
TQR:
TQR:
Yeah, a diminished scale that is whole/half/whole/half/whole/
half… It almost sounds… it flirts with sounding like a whole
tone scale, but it’s a diminished scale as opposed to what we
mainly we do as diminished arpeggios, which are more obvious. I do that way too much. I love the diminished scale and I
probably do it too much.
TQR:
And the only amp you used was your silverface
Princeton Reverb. Why that one?
Because it just
sounded the best,
whatever the best is.
I have maybe three
recording amps – the
silverface, and a
blackface Princeton
that this steel guitarist Bobby Black
sold to me and it has
a Jensen C10N in
it. It’s not Mighty
Mouse – you could probably blow that speaker up but he
used it for steel guitar. I recorded all of American Hips with
that amp, and it sounds brighter than the silverface with the
Celestion in it. I also brought my Vibro Champ – I always try
to play through that thing because it’s a great sounding small
amp. I started out with the blackface Princeton and Andy said
he kinda thought the silverface was working and so did I, so
that’s what we used. That and the Buddy Guy Super re-amp.
Bobby Black
TQR:
It was like a pitch-shifting wobble.
Yeah, like it was me shaking the neck or something.
We were laughing as we
were playing because it
was so good. All of us…
Chris and Josh are young,
like in their 30s but really
experienced guys – not
babies, and we all agreed
that track was the most
unabashed performance in
any of our careers. What’s
funny is you are the first
guy to even mention it.
Perhaps you’ve been talking to journalists who
don’t play… You are also working out of a really
cool scale…
Speaking of pedal steel… you were playing the
coolest pedal steel licks on “Nang, Nang,” and not
the usual bends you hear on guitar, but more like
stair step chord voicings fingerpicked.
Yeah, you have really been listening! Really, there is a wealth
of things you can do in that vein, and they are voicings. I figured out this Buddy Emmons tune, “Four Wheel Drive” a few
years back and I got a couple of 6th voicings and I applied
them to “Nang, Nang,” and a couple things I made up. You
know, I’ve done some interviews recently with some very
smart people and no one has mentioned or picked up on that.
No one connected those dots.
TQR:
It’s hard to miss, and totally you.
It’s also a hybrid picking thing that makes it sound more
steely, but mainly it’s the voicing.
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
7
New York
TQR:
What’s the complete name of the studio you used
and what’s been happening in terms of shows in
New York?
The studio is Bedford
Studios, Williamsburg,
Brooklyn. As far as gigs go,
the Living Room closed.
The rent went way up and
the owners are looking for
a new space. Meanwhile we
have moved to a club called
Rockwood Music Hall in
the Lower Eastside and it
has really worked out well.
It’s bigger than Barbes, but
people get the feeling that
they are really lucky to be there, if you know what I mean. It’s
a cool space. As far as bigger tours go, I have been working like crazy to get something going in Europe. There is a
guy who booked us into the Czech Republic and he has been
trying to put a tour together for us in Europe. I know there is
an audience for us in Europe and also in Japan, but you need
someone to put it together. The money thing is tough everywhere now. Where guys at my level used to play now you see
bigger acts like the Yellowjackets, Stanley Clarke or Chick
Corea. The people getting the gigs seem to be the big names,
but I think we will put together a West Coast swing soon.
TQR: Brooklyn became
very fashionable about the
time you moved there.
Oh, man, this neighborhood
has changed, and Manhattan
has become like Venice, Italy.
It’s not a place for normal
people to live anymore (laughing). But the Williamsburg
thing is cool here in Brooklyn.
There are a lot of clubs and
restaurants, and lots of young
people that like to go out, so
it’s cool.
TQR:
And you are still selling your lessons from the web
site?
Oh, yeah and that’s going really well. We constantly add new
lessons. “Suppose” from the new record is out, and we have
added “Gotta Get Drunk” from the Little Willies, and I’m
adding “Nang, Nang.” People really like them, and they are
good lessons.TQ
www.jimcampilongo.com/
Twenty-Six
“I went to New York to be born again…..when the train
plunged into a tunnel under New York City, with its lining
of pipes and wires, I was out of the womb and into the birth
canal.” – Vonnegut
I’ll admit it. New
York City is
something else.
For a Viking Indian
from Texas, it isn’t
surprising that I’m
wide-eyed and
beyond amused
every time I land
there. Which is not often, for I prefer the thigh-moist winds of
the south. It seems like things never cease in New York – the
endless whir and hum of white collar posture and plunder.
On the flip side, there’s always some sort of hell raising to be
found. And I have.
Subway trains are
strange. I can see
how you could
enjoy the mindless
no-hands adventure
of them, but once
on board, just like
a lot of things in
life, we’re all held
captive trying to get somewhere else. Regardless, for this
ride, I was fired up since we were heading to Brooklyn to see
Campilongo do his thing. And so was D.W., who sat across
from me riding shotgun next to a throng of pasty would be
gangster rappers, cascading silk turbans, Macy’s bags, homeless souls, sport coats, and two hundred dollar jeans.
The fridge cooled 6-pack of Steelhead Ale we’d thrown down
on the third floor of Hotel 17 was starting to bring the call of
nature, but I guess they forgot to add restrooms to the subway
cars. Probably a good idea. D.W. was not impressed when I
mentioned I needed to make a pit
stop. “What?! If you make us head
back up to the street you’re buying
a round at the nearest bar before we
get back on!” “Fine,” I said, “Seems
fair enough to me.” So we pulled the
rip cord.
By the time I hit the restroom and
we’d cranked a pair of gin and tonics
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
1974
in the first bar we found, another half hour had passed and
we kept rolling to the gig. “That piss just cost me 26 bucks.”
“Get used to it, that’s the price you pay for mis-managing the
call of nature in Manhattan,” howled D.W. I tried not to think
of all the brisket, roadside tortillas, and Shiner Bock bottles
I could have bought back home instead of that round. Yet for
some reason, it was worth it.
Minutes later, and a short walk of a few hundred blocks with
some absurdly rich and heady people watching, we pushed
our way into a swank little standing room only lounge with a
low-light, rouge curtain vibe. We could already see the shimmer and shake of Campilongo’s smoky white telecaster having
his way with the packed house. J.C. proceeded to mesmerize,
astound, and transport all of us to another time and place, and
it all appeared effortless. Because for him, it was. The man is
one of the few. You know it’s good when no words are necessary, just grins as wide as barns. It was long past midnight
before the lights came back on.
A couple weeks later,
still trying to digest
what I’d seen and heard
that night, I hopped
onto Campilongo’s
website and ordered
up an old school jazz
lesson. “Mr. Sandman.”
It arrived in the mail
by the weekend with a
hand-written note from
Jim saying he enjoyed the hang, encouraging me to get to it,
and to give him a shout if I had any questions. Around here
in Lone Star terra firma, is it admittedly a land of honky-tonk
and blues, so for me to take a shot at decoding that piece, well,
suffice it to say it was ever humbling. The woodshed was ugly.
I often stepped away with a headache, still knowing I had tons
more chords to comp out. And yes, that melody was schooling
me. It certainly wasn’t about speed, for any damn fool knows
that SLOW upends fast, always. More so, it had to do with
FLOW, which is one of the keys to both playing music and
finding grace in our lives, in all that we set our hearts to.
Jim with RIverhorse
It wasn’t pretty, but eventually,
I got there. And when I finally
did, I realized that if you can
play that song, you can probably play most anything. Sometimes you just have to seek out
things that endlessly raise the
bar for you, be it a song, a well
thought out home-cooked meal,
or if you are beyond lucky – a
kiss that comes from nowhere
and calls you back for more leaving you starry-eyed and
wanton. “Sandman” is one of those. That bell like chime from
the neck pickup of the burst and the Deluxe Reverb, floating
upwards into the ether and on to who knows where. It always
makes me feel like I’ve hopped an open rail car out of here…
I’m gone. – Riverhorse TQ
1974
Rollin’ and Tumblin’
“Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean
the circus has left town.” – George Carlin
In 1974 Steve Miller’s “Joker” hit #1 on the charts, Robert
K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private buzzed the White
House with a stolen helicopter, gold hit a record $188 an
ounce in Paris, the last Japanese soldier surrendered in the
Philippines 29 years after the end of World War II, the most
lethal tornado outbreak in recorded history scraped across
the Midwest leaving 315 dead and 5,500 injured, the World
Trade Center opened in New York, Paul McCartney released
“Band on the Run”, Steely Dan released “Rikki Don’t Lose
that Number”, Blind Faith played its first concert, John Lennon was ordered to leave the United States in 60 days, the
Ramones debuted at CBGBs, Barbara Streisand’s “Memories” was the #1 hit song of the year, and a Princeton Reverb
amp – one among thousands built in 1974 was shipped from
Fullerton, California to parts unknown. Forty years later it
now sits in our music room in Decatur, Georgia by way of the
West Village in New York, purely by chance. Maybe.
Other things happened
in 1974 that don’t appear in the historical
records found on the
Web… In the summer
of 1974 three young
and willin’ thrillseekers
drove 50 miles south
from Indianapolis,
Indiana to Kirkwood
Street in Bloomington to hear John Cougar at the Bluebird.
Half way through the night three Rorer 714 Methaqualone
tabs were produced, eagerly swallowed by the slightly buzzed
trio of young immortals, and that’s when the wheels began to
come off the Bluebird trip. Mary, always a level headed girl,
reminded us that she had to be back in Indianapolis to open
the restaurant she managed by 7 a.m. Leaving the Bluebird
at 2 left plenty of time for the return trip and a snooze, but
making our way back to the car was tricky… Ludes and
alcohol had left two of us leaning hard against one another,
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
9
1974
every step a cautious bet between forward locomotion and
a sloppy, laughing stumble, while the driver gently goaded
and guided the other two forward to the waiting Chevy Nova
sitting curbside on Kirkwood. Who has the keys? Oh, I do…
Easing into the Chevy’s ample bench makeout seats, the driver
instructed all to fasten their seat
belts. Leaving Bloomington
it was agreed that a 6-pack of
Stroh’s fire-brewed beer seemed
like a great idea, and a 6-pack
was provided by a convenience
store clerk even though alcohol
sales were prohibited at that
late hour. Stumble on, my
brother! Thirty minutes up the
2-lane highway still south of
Indianapolis the right rear tire
blew, sending the Nova into a sickening, swerving tail slide.
As the rear wheel caught a deep drainage ditch on the side
of the road, the Nova flipped, first sideways, then end over
end before landing upside down 200 feet down the road near
a livestock fence. Spitting pulverized safety glass out of his
mouth, the driver asked, “Is everybody OK?” And we were –
perfectly unscathed, still suspended by the seat belts, hanging
upside down in the trashed Nova like blinking and very alert
fruit bats showered in broken bits of glass. An adrenaline rush
shouted… Get rid of the beer. Where’s the beer? Still intact
in a brown paper bag in the back, not one bottle broken (or
consumed.) Steve, get out and hide that in the bushes now.
Within minutes an Indiana State Trooper arrived, the sound
of the crash and the Nova’s tumbling headlight beams having
been seen at a Dairy Queen just up the road. Is anybody hurt?
No. Slowly nodding and shaking his head, I thought for sure
I was going to find bodies in that car or out here in the grass.
Who was driving? Me. What happened? Rear tire blew, I was
going about 65 and lost it in the ditch. The State Trooper had
chocolate milk shakes brought to us from the Dairy Queen, retraced the tire tracks and torn up earth and grass on the side of
the road with his flashlight, and returned to ask who he could
have the dispatcher call to come pick us up. No mention of a
sobriety test was ever made. Times were different in 1974.
We took Mary’s
insurance money
to a Cadillac dealership
owned by the
mother of a
high school
friend and
bought a 1970
lemon meringue Coupe de Ville convertible with 500 pounds
of gleaming chrome bolted to both ends. Mary said she had
always wanted a Cadillac… With the top down, long blonde
hair blowin’ in the wind, Wayfarers perched on her sunburned
nose and the Detroit 8-track blasting, the sight of Mary behind the wheel defined the essence of living young, beautiful,
free and female in America. Steve bought us all t-shirts to
commemorate the demolition of the dead Nova – the shirts
were green like the Chevy with white lettering, a big 714
quaalude pill on the front with a marijuana leaf in the center
and nick names on the back. The driver drew ‘Parnelli Jones.’
A month later we left
Indianapolis for Negril, Jamaica. Rickie,
a bartender we knew
had told us that
Negril was heaven
on earth for all the
obvious reasons, and
a few that were less
obvious but no less
intense. We drove
the Cadillac to Miami and caught an Air Jamaica flight to
Montego Bay, with a brief stopover in south Georgia for a
speeding ticket in the middle of the night. The local cop had
us follow him to a podunk jail in a small town off Interstate
75 to pay the $80 ticket, where a drooling mentally handicapped jailer with a Georgia State Patrol patch sewn on the
front of his overalls leered at blonde little Mary like a pork
chop swimmin’ in gravy. We spent three weeks browning
in Negril, renting a thatched hut on the empty 7-mile beach
for $10 day. The
Jamaicans drank
Red Stripe beer and
played dominoes
every night under a
bare 100 watt bulb
while the radio
constantly spewed
Eric Clapton’s “I
Shot the Sheriff,” which seemed really funny to us. As reggae goes it was pretty bad reggae, but the Jamaicans dug it.
The ganja was rich, stupidly potent, ridiculously cheap and
redolent with the pungent, earthy aroma of Jamaica’s unique
and universal sex scent – a mix of
burning sugar cane and hardwood
charcoal, volcanic earth, the turquoise sea, and flattened land crabs
baking on the asphalt of the 2-lane
road they crossed each night from
inland bush to beach and back.
For the land crabs, the big bauxite
trucks that ran the island at night
were their Qualuude gamble. After
a couple of days in country you
learned to limit yourself to just a
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
amps
couple of tokes off the giant spliffs the Jamaicans rolled unless you wanted to be reduced to a mumbling zombie all day.
… All fruits ripe, mon. Irie. OK, Trevor, if you say so. Where
the fuck am I and how do you smoke this shit all day? By the
way, we need to buy you a new pair of pants with a working
zipper. Ah, you see I a grindsman! Nice up! What you need,
mon, is jah mushroom tea from Miss Patty’s down da beach!
What I need is an icy cold blender drink with those shorty bananas and a half pint of Meyer’s rum to calm this lamb’s bread
buzz you put on me. Cu yu! Doncha be a craven choke puppy,
young David… When we returned to Miami we went straight
to a Burger King, having eaten nothing but jerk chicken,
escoveche fish and rice for three weeks, and that’s when we
saw the newspaper stand and the Miami Herald headline that
screamed, “Nixon Resigns!”
All fruits ripe. TQ
The ‘74 Princeton Reverb
In case you’re wondering why the Rorer 714 John Cougar
Chevy demolition, a Jamaican holiday and Dick Nixon’s
demise are relevant to a review of our ‘74 Princeton Reverb, it
seems to us that it is only natural to recall what was happening in your world at the time an old amp or guitar was made
that has now come into your life. Doing so provides meaningful context, a heightened appreciation for the passage of
time, and for the precious human beings who have randomly
passed through your life. Sometimes, nothing seems random,
but either way these things are important, and while we
aren’t particularly proud of tempting fate, we were young. It
happened. There is no fiction being told here. Time… Time…
Time has come today… Where were you when your first heard
the Chambers Brothers’ classic groove blasting through the
dashboard?
By 1974
Leo Fender’s former
company had
changed
dramatically under
the ownership of CBS. The sprawling manufacturing facility that CBS
built in Fullerton was producing clunky boat anchors encased
in plastic finishes that were guaranteed to age badly, and
Fender amplifiers had undergone significant changes since the
pre-1968 blackface era. Depending on what you read about
the Silverface era today, you might be led to believe that all
the Silverface amps were deeply flawed, compromised by
questionable circuit ‘upgrades’, inferior component choices,
shoddy cabinets made with dead particle board, and thin, lifeless tone. The truth isn’t so easy to grasp, depending on the
actual year the amp was built, the specific Fender model, and
how the amp may have been affected by component drift or
modifications. Most of the
people that bash silverface
Fenders the hardest are the
ones that own blackfaces…
Don’t listen to them. In the
case of the ‘74 Princeton
Reverb model AB1270
we acquired, only a very
minor change was made to
a resistor value in the reverb
circuit from blackface specs.
Of course the familiar blue
molded Sprague capacitors
present in the blackface
amps were substituted with
dark blue Paktrons and white Mallory caps, and the wire used
was also changed from cloth-covered to plastic coated. Most
significant, however, was the change from a 5AR4 rectifier tube to a 5U4, and this is where some confusion exists
surrounding the existence of an AA764 Princeton Reverb
schematic and the subsequent AA1164 circuit.
While a AA764 schematic can be found on the web, it clearly
does not appear to have been produced by Fender, yet most
blackface Princeton Reverb tube charts and some from early
silverface Princetons show the AA764 circuit that specifies a
5AR4 rectifier. The AA1164 schematic reflects the change to
a 5U4
rectifier
with a
340 V
power
transformer,
while
the ‘unofficial’
AA764
schematic specifies a 5AR4 with a 330V power tranny. Jeff Bakos
confirmed the existence of the 330V transformers in blackface
Princeton Reverbs as well. Whether Fender ever produced a
AA764 schematic isn’t as important as understanding whether
your amp was intended to use a 5AR4 or 5U4. You can follow
the schematic as indicated on the tube chart, but be sure to
check the bias on you’re output tubes. Prospective Princeton
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
11
amps
control, and it
gradually slipped
into a greasy
overdriven tone
with the typi cal
squishiness of a
5U4 all the way to
10. We were more
than pleased,
thrilled, really, but
Reverb buyers will pay a premium for a blackface ‘transitional’
amp like the ‘68 model with drip edge grille. While we were
trolling eBay a drip edge Princeton Reverb was listed as a late
‘67 model, complete with the desirable “AA764” blackface
circuit indicated on the tube chart. Forty five bids were placed
and the amp sold for $1,549.00. As far as schematics go, what
you need to know is that the first blackface circuit can be
identified as the mysterious AA764 (July, 1964), followed by
the AA1164 and AB1270 circuits.
We found our ‘74
Princeton on eBay
listed by a seller
in New York for
$975.00 – a price
that reflects the
average paid for a
silverface Princeton
in good condition
with a pre-pull boost
AB1270 circuit. The circuit board components in our amp
were completely original with the exception of one replaced
resistor. The electrolytic can cap had been replaced with a
new cap from CE Distribution, and the power transformer had
been replaced with a correct, high quality blackface era tranny
labeled Mojotone built by Heyboer. The replaced speaker was
an equally fine Eminence Legend 10. The output transformer
and choke were original, as well as the heavy duty AC cord.
The ‘74
cabinet
is made
from pine
boards
painted
black,
although
2-3 pieces appear to have been glued together to achieve the
width of one board from the blackface era. The baffle is particle board, and the cabinets were no longer built with finger
joints, but rabbet joints where the side, top and bottom boards
are glued together using locking grooves in each board. In a
lightweight and portable amp like the Princeton Reverb we
do not consider this construction to be detrimental to sound
or durability in the least, and we owned and reviewed a big
silverface Super Reverb amp (‘73) years ago that sounded
fantastic.
We were floored by how gloriously, Fendery good the ‘74
sounded right off the UPS truck. Equipped with JJ 6V6s, an
old GE 5U4 and assorted American preamp tubes, the Princeton sounded full, lush and bright with brilliantly deep reverb,
and unusually strong and vibacious tremolo. The amp was
dead quiet, classic Fender clean up to about 5 on the Volume
of course, we were hardly done…
We called Jeff Bakos and he gave us a list of blue molded
Sozo caps we would use to replace the Paktrons in the tone
circuit. We would leave the reverb and tremolo circuits alone,
but we wanted to see how the
Sozos might change the character of the amp. Meanwhile,
we bought two pair of matched
vintage NOS RCA 6V6s from
a very conscientious and helpful guy named Dave Baldwin
in Seattle for $85.00. A week
later we brought the Princeton
to Jeff’s shop in Little 5 Points
and got to work. Curious, we
first checked the values of
the components on the board
against the specs in the schematic. They were all rated at +/- 10% and they all remained
spot on after 40 years. Installing the Sozos took about 20
minutes. Jeff tightened a few tube sockets and jacks, and he
also installed a bias pot, biased the RCAs at just under 30 mA
and we were done. Before we proceed to speakers, here’s Jim
Campilongo’s interesting take on Silverface Princeton Reverb
amps…
I think the Silverface amps are not as bright, and even when
I’ve done the blackface mod for $40, for $600 less I’ve gotten
essentially the same sound. I love the Silverfaces because they
are just way cheaper and you’ve still got something that you
love. They just seem like there is a little less high-end, and
throatier. I’ve
put the Jensen
C10 speakers
in them and
they still sound
mellower to
me. They are
both (black
and silverface)
great amps,
and I couldn’t
imagine play-continued-
12
TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
amps
ing through a silverface and being bummed out about it, and if
you are… perhaps you should reassess your priorities (laughing). It’s kind of like staring at the moon… you’re standing
there taking in the moon with someone and you’re thinking,
“Well, I’ve seen better…” At that point you’re not enjoying
something for the miracle it is (still laughing).
TQR: You’ve also said that you always use great NOS
tubes in your amps…
Oh yeah…
definitely,
and I bias
them really
hot… in the
30s (mA).
Enter at
your own
risk, and
some people don’t like it, but they are friggin’ loud, and in a
way, that’s the secret. I mean, some people can’t imagine playing in a band with a Princeton, but if you bias that thing in the
30s and play the amp on ‘10’ with a Telecaster, it’s gonna cut
like a knife. And if you play Woodstock, just mic it.
The combined effect of the RCAs and Sozos produced a slightly rounder, fuller tone with the mids filled in nicely, yet the
Princeton retained the brilliant clarity, sparkle and deep fidelity
we had noted the first time we played through it. Fender at its
utterly classic best. The low end held together better with the
volume cranked, and the overdriven tone of the Princeton was
every bit as lush and pure as its clean tones. We liked the sound
and feel of the amp with both rectifier tubes – it just depends
on what you want – the looser jangle and squish of the 5U4
that saturates a little faster at high volume levels, or the slightly
tougher sound and feel of the 5AR4. Now we were ready to try
a few different tens…
Speak to Me
This is the second silverface Princeton Reverb we have
bought and reviewed, along with two blackface reverb
models, a brown and a non-reverb blackface, and every one
of them sounded different. The ‘74 may be the best yet. No…
honestly, it
is the best,
beyond a
doubt. You
can ponder
why some
amps sound
better than
others, but
given all
the variables in play, it’s best to simply enjoy them and resist
the urge to struggle with ‘why’? Aside from installing the
best tubes you can find and perhaps tweaking tone a little bit
with some good new caps in the right places (or not), speaker
swaps remain the simplest and most effective potential improvement you can make to an amp. When changing speakers
it is common to find loose speaker mounting screws in old
Fender amps that turn in the baffle board when you try to
tighten the nut down on the speaker frame. That had happened with the ‘74 and someone decided to just remove one
of the fours screws that was loose. Since we have pulled a lot
of screws out of Fender baffles with 8 screws to fit a Celestion speaker that can only accommodate 4, we had plenty of
spares, so we replaced the missing screw and permanently
seated it in the hole in the baffle with a couple of drops of Super glue. Twenty minutes later we were good to go and ready
to begin testing speakers.
Eminence Legend 1058
Eminence Legend speakers
remain among the best and
most overlooked replacement speakers, including
the ceramic 1058, Alnico
1028, Legend GB128,
1258, and the Legend 15.
The Legend 1058 that was
mounted in the ‘74 is an
excellent speaker rated
at 75 watts with a 16 oz. magnet and 1.5 inch voice coil. The
tone is big and warm, fuller than the Alnico 1028 and very
well balanced across the full frequency range of the guitar. For
some it might seem a little too vanilla, perhaps too balanced,
culminating in a final impression that is, for lack of a better
term, unremarkable in a 1x10 application. But we thought the
Legend sounded really good in the Princeton – very transparent and pure, basically delivering what the amp was giving.
We have used 1058s with great success in Super Reverb amps
with a pair of brighter Alnico 1028s, and it sounded very good
in the Silverface Princeton – particularly with the brighter,
original Paktron caps we replaced. As always, the key is to
find the best match between the amp and speaker.
Eminence Ragin’ Cajun
In the Princeton Reverb
the 75 watt Ragin’ Cajun
produced bold low end and
midrange tones with subdued
brightness and rolled off
treble presence compared
to the other speakers we
tried. For single coil Fender
players this could be a great
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TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
13
tubes
speaker that effectively fattens up a trebly Strat or Telecaster
if that’s what you need, but in the ‘74 we missed the sparkle
and clarity on the top. With its 1.5 inch voice coil and 30 oz.
magnet, the Ragin’ Cajun might also sound better in a more
powerful amp that can really move the motor in comparison to
the 12 watt Princeton Reverb.
Eminence Copperhead
The 75 watt Copperhead with
1.5 inch voice coil and 20
oz. magnet immediately impressed us with great clarity,
rich, solid bass, and midrange
response that was neither
overbearing or too scooped.
The treble tones were beautifully musical, pure and pleasing – not in the least bit sharp or brittle, but vividly clear, and
rich in harmonic overtones. The Cooperhead was absolutely
one of our favorites among the speakers reviewed here, and
we loved the dynamic touch-sensitivity we experienced with
the Princeton. We suspect the lighter 20 oz. magnet might
have something to do with that. The Copperhead is definitely
worth considering as a 1x10 or in other combo configurations.
Celestion G10 Greenback
Our Made in England 30 watt
Greenback was spectacular
in the Princeton – responsive,
dynamic and lively. With a
big 1.75 inch copper voice
coil and 14 oz. magnet, the
Greenback was the most
dynamically pleasing speaker
we tried, with outstanding bass response, vivid upper mids, smooth and rich treble
tones and lush harmonic textures throughout. This speaker
just seemed best suited for the 12 watt Princeton Reverb,
an impression that was confirmed in Celestion’s own online
description that references “adding class” to small combos.
If you should be inspired to follow our lead in acquiring a
silverface Princeton Reverb, we can recommend the Greenback without reservation. Again, it seems that the smaller
magnet and lower power handling characteristics matched up
particularly well with the Princeton.
RCAs
Let’s face it, we are fortunate that reliable tubes for guitar
amps are still being made, so we won’t disparage contemporary brands like JJ, Groove Tubes, Electro-Harmonix, Svetlana, Tung Sol, Mullard, Sovtek and Tube Amp Doctor. May
they all remain profitable and thrive. However, we also aren’t
going to pretend that the sound
of modern tubes can compare
to a strong set of GE, Mullard,
Tung Sol, Sylvania or RCA
tubes. The difference in the
quality of sound between modern output and preamp tubes
and their classic equivalents in
direct A/B tests is usually depressing. No contest. For touring pros, burning up rare old tubes really isn’t an option, but
for those of us craving tone with a lighter workload, we can
still selectively find stellar vintage tubes at less than onerous
prices. After we acquired the ‘74 Princeton, we trolled eBay
for 6V6s to replace the JJs, and in minutes we had located
two pairs of vintage RCA 6V6GTs – 3 NOS and 1 slightly
used but testing new (ANOS) and all four were matched with
a Maxi Matcher drawing 20.6Ma, 20.6Ma,
21.5Ma, 21.8Ma under
load. That’s good. And
we paid a very fair
$84.65 for the quad,
while also getting to
know the seller, Dave
Baldwin in Seattle – a
very helpful and knowledgeable tube hound. No
doubt some of the magic
we have described in the Princeton can be attributed to the
RCA 6V6GTs and the RCA and Sylvania preamp tubes that
remain in our stash. These old tubes simply push the sound
of your guitar and amp into full audio Technicolor, and we
urge you to consider acquiring your own selection of classic
tubes while you can. To help you in that endeavor, we asked
Dave to provide some information and tips on buying classic
vacuum tubes… TQ
Tubes According to Dave
I grew up listening to classic rock in the 1970s, and early
hand-wired amps running vintage glass have an undeniable
magic. I play guitar and listening to good guitar tone is a great
experience that has helped me upgrade many guitar amps for
Seattle area musicians and studios.
Seven years ago I realized my amps sounded better with
vintage tubes. I got lucky and bought nine full tube caddies
along with a Jackson 648S emissions tester. I like the Jackson
because it has a life test that indicates how much a tube has
-continued-
14
TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
tubes
been used.
The life test
strains the
cathode and
by seeing
how fast and
how far the
needle drops
you can
judge the
remaining life. The Jackson is lightweight and matched what
my Hickok 534 mutual conductance tester was reading.
Large military contracts enabled early manufacturers to R&D
to the best of their ability. They used high grade metals, coatings, and critical parts. Who knows if the current EPA would
even allow the types of chemicals they used? All the vintage
producers took pride in their work and competition was fierce.
In my experience vintage
tubes offer
better clarity, warmth,
smoothness,
and bandwidth
than new
production
and tend to
be robust with a longer lifespan. Vintage preamp tubes offer
the biggest improvement in tone and I would suggest starting
there first. Current production 12AX7s have been described
as glassy, bright, and sterile. I agree. With the exception of the
JJECC803 most new 12AX7 plates are very short which can
give a feeling of stiffness and compression. Most new production 12AX7s have less than half the metal of a vintage long
plate. Mass is good in electronics.
Current production JJEL84, JJKT77, and
Sovtek 5881/6L6WGC among others are good
sounding output tubes for the working musician when paired with vintage preamp tubes.
In fact, surprisingly, I liked the JJEL84 over
several vintage brands. Vintage tubes all sound
slightly different and knowing the variables can
help dial in a amp for recording, live use, and
specific styles of music. Humbuckers or single
coils? Early breakup or high headroom? 3D and
open or compressed?
The earliest 6V6G types produced from 1937 sound slightly
more open, clear, and 3D than later GT types. These traits are
also true for vintage 12AX7 long plates. Neil Young uses the
6V6G type in his outboard reverb and in his Deluxe he rebi-
ased the amp to run 6L6s. If your amp has the space to run
these larger 6V6G types they are certainly worth the cost.
If you have an amp that doesn’t draw super
high voltage and requires a 6L6GC, the early
6L6G, GA, GB can be amazing choices.
These are rated at 360 volts but due to the
construction are okay running a little higher
if biased correctly. RCA, GE, Sylvania, and
Tung-Sol are among the top US vintage
output tubes. If you get lucky and find rare
National Union 6L6GAs buy them. They are
very warm and Mullard like and sound amazing in guitar amps.
Generally RCA blackplate gray glass 6V6GT and TungSol black glass 6V6GTs will have a nice warm creamy and
smooth sound similar to European tubes. While recording and
at low to moderate levels these are a good choice. In the right
amp loud they are great too. Sylvania, Ken-Rad, CBS-Hytron
are excellent choices especially when playing loud. Where
RCA might start to compress too much and lose definition
these later three brands shine the harder they are pushed.
Sylvania and Ken-Rad have excellent clarity and chime.
Raytheon 6V6GT have the highest headroom of all due to the
large robust plates.
What are the pitfalls of buying vintage tubes? Know your
seller. Used ANOS vintage tubes are okay if screened properly. They must be tested for emissions or mutual conductance,
shorts, and life. When testing a tube the faster the needle goes
up the better. If you don’t have a tester, here are some things
to look for:
Does it have a dark burn in spot on the glass?
Does it have heavy coffee colored staining on the bottom
glass?
How much of the silver flashing is remaining on top?
Do the pins or base have clamp marks?
How much dust is between the glass and base?
I would avoid sellers who do not have a
return policy. Just because a seller has a box
does not make a tube NOS. Old techs back
in the day were notorious for putting used
tubes back in the box. NOS are generally
pristine with clean shiny glass, full silver
flashing, no burn marks, perfect bases, and
have most of the original print intact.
Strong tubes that test in the NOS range are
important for guitarists. A strong tube will
react faster to your input which is what you
need. A tired tube reacts slower and will not have the snap
-continued-
TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
15
guitars
you might expect. Tired tubes also tend to gradually lose the
high end.
Output tube matching is critical. Properly
matched tubes put less
strain on the amplifier,
run cooler, last longer,
and have less crossover
distortion. A seller that
has matched output
tubes in a Maxi-Matcher
at 400 volts or a real tube amp is who you want to buy from.
They should be able to state the mA draw and the closer the
better. Under 5mA apart is good but under 2mA is even better
and you need to test a lot of tubes to get matching that close. I
have tested 6V6s on regular tube testers with similar readings
that were off by as much as 35mA. Most output tubes sold
as matched with a Hickock or similar testers will not bias up
properly and nobody wants their tech asking “where did you
buy these?”
Next up, all about vintage 12AX7 dating back to 1947.
Cheers, Dave TQ
Northwest Vintage Vacuum Tubes
[email protected]
425-681-1782
Delivering the Goods
We have
been playing
through the
‘74 Princeton now for
nearly two
weeks, and
yes, even
after acquiring amps for
review for 14 years and decades more simply playing them,
this amplifier has inspired music, tones and a refreshing new
perceptive mindset that we wouldn’t have experienced without
it. The sound it produces is just so deep, 3-dimensional, touchsensitive and clear that the slightest change in the way you
touch the strings with your fingertips can be heard altering
the layers of harmonics present in single notes and chords.
The notes are vibrant and alive with rich, clear sustain, and
the vivid reverb and tremolo effects add mystery, weight and
a dramatic edge to everything we play. The Princeton urges
you to slow down and milk it for all its worth, and its worth
is incalculable. While we may have been inspired again by
Jim Campilongo to find this amp, the point is really not about
sounding like Jim, but about encouraging discovery. We can’t
promise that if you hunt down another ‘74 Princeton Reverb,
the one you choose will sound like ours, but with some good
tubes and a good speaker, we’ll bet you can get close. Closer
than any reissue Princeton, definitely, and the silverface amps
have a unique tone that is different from the earlier blackface
amps. If there is a trick to successfully finding your own
Princeton, it is attitude. Avoid approaching your search in fear
expecting the worst – as if the odds are against you, that you’ll
buy a dog, or wind up spending a fortune fixing something
you should never have bought in the first place. If you shop
online, read descriptions very carefully, ask questions, and
verify that the seller is knowledgeable, conscientious, and has
the feedback to back it up. Many dealers won’t divulge important details unless you ask. For a $900-$1,000 sale they can
send you clear jpeg images of the circuit board and transformers, and plan on replacing all the tubes and the speaker. On
the other hand, if you really connect with amps with multiple overdrive and distortion circuits, don’t buy a Princeton
Reverb. It isn’t you. But if the kind of lush and vivid purity
of tone we have described here sounds appealing, you can do
this. Simply Quest forth with confidence, and Enjoy… TQ
Fender Roadworn Telecaster
Fender’s Roadworn
Series built in
Ensenada, Mexico
was introduced
in January 2009,
and while the idea
of an inexpensive
beater Stratocaster
or Tele finished in
nitro was definitely
appealing, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to embrace (or
ignore) the cheesy ‘aging’ found on the Roadworn guitars with
maple fingerboards. It appeared as if the factory in Ensenada
used a universal template and made no attempt to disguise
the fact that the ‘aging’ had been done with a sander using a
‘wear’ pattern that was wholly unbelievable and contrived,
so for years, we passed on the Roadworn guitars. With Jim
Campilongo featured in this issue, we knew a Telecaster
would be essential, but the prospect of finding a Campilongo
Signature Tele was nil, and even if we were capable of bor-continued-
16
TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
guitars
rowing a real ‘59, what good would that do you? We’ll leave
the job of drooling over rare, mega-buck vintage guitars to
someone else… The Quest for tone isn’t much of a quest if
you can’t find or afford the stuff we review.
As we pondered
our best move, we
decided to take a
look at the Roadworn Tele Series
again online. We
saw more of the
same bad ‘aging’ in
online pictures, and
we also noticed that Sweetwater, who always posts high-res
images of all the guitars they have in stock, had no Roadworn
Teles in stock at all.
We jumped over to Dave’s Guitar Shop and found a single
blonde, and to our surprise, this guitar didn’t appear to have
been aged in quite the same way as all the other Roadworns
we had seen. We asked Dave to send it, and like the ‘74 Princeton, it is one of the best moves we have ever made.
Now, please try to suppress the
typical knee-jerk tendency to view
gushing reviews with a jaundiced
eye, because that’s what you are
about to get. Trust us – you have
no idea…Unzipping the gig bag
holding the Roadworn Telecaster
fresh from Lacrosse, we lifted it
out and froze in stunned disbelief.
Somebody made a mistake… We
sat down in our centry-old oak
swivel chair, put the Tele in our
lap and just stared at it laughing.
Finished in classic see-through
butterscotch blonde, the finish is
so thin that we can feel the ash
grain beneath our fingertips, and the relic job on the body is
fully reminiscent of the three Custom Shop Nocasters we have
owned. The Roadworn Tele body had been artfully aged with
just a few minor nicks on the top and edges and a moderate
patch of belt buckle rash on the back. And the color of the
nitro finish is dead nuts perfect – not too yellow or bright, but
a creamy butterscotch with the unmistakable look and feel of
nitrocellulose lacquer that is less glossy, more transparent and
so very un-plastic compared to polyurethane. Damn!
The vintage 7.5” radius maple fingerboard has been lightly
wet sanded or hit with steel wool just enough to slightly dull
the lacquer, but the typical heavy Roadworn sanding seems
to have been abandoned. The urethane finish on the back of
the neck
also
hasn’t
been
sanded
down
to bare
wood,
but just
lightly
dulled to
a smooth matte finish. In terms of execution and appearance,
the artful subtlety of the aging on the neck and body is fully
comparable to the work of the Fender Custom Shop or any
other builder.
Cudos to Fender as well for keeping the vintage 7.5” fingerboard radius. Combined with 6105 frets, we prefer it over the
flatter 9.5” radius, and the Roadworn Tele feels and plays like
a true vintage Telecaster. The neck shape is an ample and full,
rounded C with smooth fingerboard edges and round shoulders,
yet not as clubby as a typical Nocaster neck. The slightly aged
vintage style Ping tuners work just fine, the control plate and
knurled dome knobs also appear to have been perfectly tumbled
and aged, and the wear on the black pickguard is far more convincing than the oval spot applied to a Nocaster pickguard.
There is one aspect of our
Roadworn Telecaster that would
perhaps fail to meet some guitarists’ criterion for the ‘perfect’
Tele – weight. Our guitar weighs
7.75 lbs. – a number that would
qualify as a desirable featherweight for a Les Paul, but the
definition of ‘light’ changes with
the model, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it seems as if a lot of
players still operate under the
misconception that a 6.5 lb. or
7 lb. Fender is automatically going to sound better by default.
We disagree. The truth is that super light solidbody guitars
have been considered to be so desirable simply because they
are comparatively scarce and harder to find. Like so many
things in the dick-measuring hierarchy of the guitar world, if
the lightest solidbody guitars are perceived as being better,
and you own one, then your guitar surely must be better than
all the heavier ones… Put in these terms the “lighter guitars
always sound better” theory sounds pretty stupid doesn’t it?
The extra 8 ounces or so that our Roadworn Tele measures
over what might be considered an average or light weight
seems to be adding something (intense sustain) to the tone
of the guitar rather than detracting from it. So, sorry, but we
are reveling in those extra 8 ounces. If a featherweight guitar
-continued-
TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
17
guitars
makes you feel better, fine, but let’s not pretend that it’s a
guarantee of superior tone. We love the sound of our 6.4 lb.
Thinline Cabronita, but it is also a completely different design
with a hardtail bridge and Fidelitron pickups that are quite
different from a standard Telecaster. Our heavier alder Squier
Cabronita sounded completely different, with more midrange
and low end. In this respect weight and the density of wood
act much like a fixed tone filter. Is this a surprise?
Tone
The stock Tex-Mex Fender pickups
in the Roadworn Telecaster aren’t
bad – especially the 7.68K bridge.
It’s bright, but not shrill or thin
sounding by any means. Perfectly
usable. The 6.02K neck pickup is
pretty unremarkable, but a lot of
Telecaster neck pickups are pretty
unremarkable. We chose to install a
set of Slider’s ‘52 Nocaster pickups
from Melbourne, Australia measuring 7.14K/neck and 7.73K/bridge.
Slider (Rod McQueen) winds the Nocaster ’52 set and a post
’55 staggered bridge pole set. The ‘52 Nocaster pickups are
dazzling in the Roadworn Tele. We can’t imagine anything
better. Listen to Slider’s brief description of his philosophy on
winding pickups…
It is the irregularities in tension and overlaps that a good
handwound pickup has within its coil that I believe produce
the warmth of tone and individuality that is most sought after.
I enhance this scatterwinding characteristic by recreating the
inconsistency of the 1950s
wire by varying the tension throughout the many
thousands of windings.
This gentle pulling and
releasing gives back some
of the diameter variations
through stretching and
relaxing the super-fine
copper wire. Combine this
with my ‘twine ball’ winding pattern, similar to the effect you
had when a kite string is wound up on a keeper, and you get
that great interplay of electrical eddy currents within the coil.
It’s this internal complexity that gives warmth, power and
removes any sterile or ice-pick sounds sometimes associated
with single coils, and especially Strats and Teles.
Understanding the magnetic effects generating the flux pool
in which the strings move and ensuring consistency with magnetic power and polarity are also key to an authentic, powerful and well-voiced pickup. If a pickup is built with randomly
charged magnets or worse
– with Ferris pole slugs
that only act as magnets
when a cheap ceramic bar
magnet is slapped on their
base, you can get a pickup
that has unbalanced or over
and under-voiced strings.
It’s like building a car with
parts from different suppliers but stipulating that all
the panels are light blue. Put it together and see how well the
blues match. I fully build my pickups with dead or uncharged
Alnico – it’s only when everything is in place that I individually hand charge the poles with rare earth neo-dymium boride
polarizing magnets. This pulls the uncharged AlNiCo into
its magnetic orientation as a permanent magnet. Because
they are done as a set, I get great power matching across the
strings as well as between pickups within a set. This gives
great individual string voicing and clarity as well as ensuring
neck, middle and bridge pickups are well balanced.
Telecasters built with an ash body and maple neck and fingerboard can be tricky to dial in with the right set of pickups. The
very nature of the Telecaster bridge plate and bridge pickup
design creates a very bright, microphonic tone, and this is
good. What other guitar sounds like a Telecaster? But the variable nature of wood can definitely present mysterious inconsistencies in the sound of otherwise ‘identical’ guitars. Andy
Elliott told us that he once built a Tele with the best materials
money could buy and when it was finished he ultimately
burned it because it just didn’t work as a musical instrument.
Every guitar is a little different, and that’s what makes them
so fascinating, but an ash and maple Tele can be a little unforgiving…. We had a hunch that Slider’s ‘52 Nocaster set would
work well with the Roadworn Tele because of the number of
turns on the coils, the output as indicated by the resistance
readings, and the deeper tone of the pickups. The bridge isn’t
what we would call ‘warm’, but it does possess a very sweet
treble character combined with excellent mids and robust low
end on the E and A strings. The harmonic overtones produced
in Slider’s pickups are also very clear and vibrant. The bridge
sounds balanced, yet very much a classic Telecaster bridge
pickup. The neck pickup produces the almost-hollowbody
woody tone we love so much in a Telecaster. It’s not a sound
-continued-
18
TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
guitars
that works
very well
with heavy
distortion – the
bridge pickup
excels for that,
but the combined tone of
both pickups
is great for rhythms and the neck alone is mesmerizing in its
clarity and depth. It really can sound like a big hollowbody
through the right amp. For now we will leave the original
plastic coated wire in the pickup harness intact, as well as the
ceramic disc cap, simply because we don’t feel an urgent need
to change them. Perhaps one rainy day… TQ
davesguitar.com
Top Loader
You’ll recall that Jim
Campilongo mentioned
that part of his sound can
be attributed to the top
loading bridge on his ‘59
Telecaster. You don’t see
many original top loaders,
and Fender doesn’t use
them often in contemporary Telecasters, but we
felt compelled to acquire
and compare a top loader to the standard string-through-body
bridge plate. The top loading bridge plates we have found allow
you to go either way, and we found them on eBay for as little as
$9, along with the $99 Glendale and a Callaham for $140 that
includes a set of vintage
brass saddles. We didn’t
bother with the cheap $9
version, but we did acquire
a Glendale and Callaham
since both are considered
to be state of the art, made
from cold-rolled steel. We
have experimented with
Callaham Strat and Tele
bridge plates and saddles extensively over the years, and they
do impart a difference. The strings just seem to produce a more
vibrant and complex tone – that’s the best way we can describe
it, and we believe that the hardness of the steel plays a big
role in affecting the sound and enhancing string vibration. We
will remind you again that when Delta Moon’s Mark Johnson
was plagued with squealing feedback from the bridge pickup
of his Custom Shop Thinline Tele, the cure turned out to be a
Callaham bridge plate.
After A/B tests of both top loading bridge plates we easily preferred the Callaham. We installed the Glendale first, and immediately noticed that the unwound G, B and E strings seemed
to lack focus, sustain and volume compared to the string-thru
mounting. We continued to play the Tele with the Glendale
bridge plate for a few days before switching to the Callaham.
The Callaham bridge plate is clearly thicker and heavier, with
a matte nickel finish on the plate and buffed sides, while the
Glendale is chrome. Frankly, the Glendale appears flimsy by
comparison, and when we installed the Callaham top loader
we immediately heard the difference. All the strings seemed to
acquire richer and more audible harmonic overtones. Compared to the string thru mounting and the Glendale top loader,
the Tele now sounded more complex, airy and spatial. Sustain
was enhanced. Single notes on the plain strings also sounded
more silky and vocal – less direct and in-your-face, yet still
bright and trebly like a great Telecaster. These changes are
subtle yet very clear, and over the past few days the tone of the
top loader has become addictive. It’s staying. Who knew?
When it comes
to ‘brass’
bridge saddles,
‘brass’ recipes
can vary when
used to make
saddles. Brass
is an alloy
made primarily of copper
and zinc, and
basic modern brass is 67% copper and 33% zinc, with lead and
arsenic often added. You could spend a lot of time picking
through different sets of brass saddles, and they do sound different. If you like a sharper, stinging tone, steel is worth trying,
too. The Roadworn Tele is shipped from the factory with steel
saddles. If you like them, by all means keep them. They create
a slightly more penetrating and intense attack over the softer
tone of brass saddles, and it’s a cool sound if it’s your sound…
We chose to go with the set of Callaham vintage brass saddles
because we are very familiar with them and they do allow accurate intonation on all 6 strings. If you are strapped for cash,
we recommend the brass Tele saddles from Stew-Mac.
Our acquisition of the ‘74 Princeton Reverb and Roadworn
Tele ranks as one of the very best gambles we have ever made
in the Quest for tone during the past 14 years. Need we say
more? Quest forth…TQ
Sliderspickups.com
Callahamguitars.com
TONEQUEST REPORT V.15 N.6 April 2014
19
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The ToneQuest Report™ (ISSN 1525-3392) is published monthly by Mountainview Publishing LLC, P.O. Box 717 Decatur, GA. 30031-0717, 1-877-MAX-TONE,
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