Oh Snap, Revisited...

Epiphone Casino, a real bad break.  I just lacquered over the thick, plastic polyurethane paint.

This Gibson SG came to me in THREE PIECES!

 

This one turned out so well I couldn't let it go, at least not yet!

Antech Custom Pedals

Oh Snap!

I receive a lot of guitars with broken necks and sad owners...but not for long! I generally get them up and running without a hitch. Very few ever come back again broken, in fact, none that I can think of. There's always hope! Here's a few recent jobs...


Gibson SG's are about 75% of these jobs (Les Pauls too). They often walk in, in two pieces.
Vintage SG '69/'70:

A Neck Tenon Break, came around pretty well

Another SG, this one was real nice otherwise.

Clean break, clean fix.

Danelectro really snapped up/fingerboard et all. A rare lefty! Now a player...

Ovation blues, this was a real bad break, I was a little concerned (it was fixed 25 yrs prior).

So far holding up well.

Don't fall for the fakes...

A while back I set out to retool a vintage Strat with original pickups. Browsing EBAY is one way to find those rare parts, and though pricey, the availability seems to be there. Just keep in mind there are a lot of jokers out there, claiming this and that, and often not even knowing the originality of the item. Your best bet is to stick to reputable vintage parts dealers, like Tradeitinmusic or thepartsdrawer.

I paid big bucks for this pickup, purported 1962 Fender. It came "packed" in a baggie, rolling around in a box for miles and miles. packing peanuts? bubble pack? foam? no, this was "cushioned" with a wad of paper!

of course, the pickup arrived all jacked up, wires broken, indented, etc.

and to top it off, it was a fake/look how clean it is!!! it's the wrong color wire, the lead wires are new. the black bobbin looks straight outta the factory. and the pole pieces were relic'd and blackened via sharpie!

this is the true color of vintage Fender formvar wire, a rich gold. natural wear.

in comparison, 6 other pre-63 pickups. you be the judge. Of course, I had to file with Paypal blah blah. To add insult, the seller accused me of willfully breaking the pickup so I could send it back for a refund, and to this day won't admit it's a fake. Buyer Beware!

Vol Tone Tone (knobs knobs knobs)

There's a lot of hoopla about knobs, some vintage knobs sell for as much as $100 each (ounce for ounce more than gold). If your looking for knobs study these pics, look at the shades, spokes, ridges, tooling, "tits", font, point and nuances. You'll be better for it.

Sometimes I'll take a minute during or after a repair to document what comes through the shop, click on pics to further investigate:

Recital Week at D-Rocks

Just finished our first night of recitals, and oh they went very well! We're now in our third year of doing them, doing guitar, bass, drums and piano. The D-Rocks "Band" performed tonight as well, doing some really classic songs! The schedule is:

Recitals at D-Rocks Dec. 17-19/Recitals at The Rocks Dec. 22-23.
Come out if you can!








see all the pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/davidjhynek

update: the recitals at The Rock were simply fab!

attendance was full capacity (at least the seating), the vibe was great! as a player, my rig sounded fantastic in that room and I truely felt inspired...

Recording Studio

Most musicians have some form of a recording studio. I've been working in studios since 1991. Here's a list of most of my RECORDING and MASTERING SESSIONS:

From More Stuff

Year Artist/ Album/Project/ Task /Label /Studio
2009 Shawn Cox Classical Guitar Engineer Mobile
2008 No Blood Orphan Your First is Your Last Engineer/Master ANT
2007 Perry H. Matthews 7 inch EP Master Self ANT
2007 Bullets for Baby Album Master Self ANT
2007 Lifeafter Laserdisque Post War Housing Engineer/Master Self ANT
2007 No Blood Orphan Robertson Park Engineer/Master TempClone101012 ANT
2006 Stalemate Album Master Self ANT
2006 Members of the Press Modern Day Rome Master SumWatt ANT
2006 Landing On The Moon LOTM Master Beehive ANT
2006 No Blood Orphan Your Ship Sailed 7 Seas Engineer/Master Ant068 ANT
2006 Lifeafter Laserdisque Laser of Justice Engineer/Master CDSB002 ANT
2005 No Blood Orphan Joyful Melancholy Engineer/Master Ant067 ANT
2005 No Blood Orphan Lottery! Engineer/Master Ant066 ANT
2005 Fromanhole S/T Engineer/Master NP02 ANT
2004 No Blood Orphan S/T Engineer/Master Ant064 ANT
2003 John Klemmensen End All/Be All Master BH/TBA ANT
2003 Aria Remorse Anthology Re-Master Ant061 ANT
2002 Fromanhole Out of the Flats Master NP02 ANT
2002 Ravine Via Della Strada Engineer/Master Ant060 ANT
2002 Ravine in the Flat Field Bauhaus Tribute Engineer/Master Ant056 ANT
2001 Compilation-Decline of Midwestern Civilization 19 Band-Master/ReMaster Ant060 ANT
1999 Reset My Still Life Engineer/Master BHR008 Eclipse
1999 Soundtrack to Motion Picture Killing Diva Engineer/Master Ant046 Eclipse
1999 Killing Diva Film Music Supervisor Editing/ReMastering RNA Productions RNA
1999 Strangeblues Inverted Engineer/Master Ant 053 ANT
1999 Ravine Transmute Engineer/Master Ant050 Eclipse/ ANT
1997 Ravine S/T Engineer/Master Ant045 Eclipse
1996 Rasputin 4 Song Demo Engineer/Master Eclipse
1996 Ravine 7 Song Cassette Engineer/Master Ant044 Eclipse
1996 Ritual Device Rabe 7” Master CR/Ism13 Eclipse
1995 Revilo 6 Song/10” Engineer/Master BH2196A Eclipse
1995 Blenny 4 Song 10” Engineer/Master BH2196B Eclipse
1995 Eamon 9 Song Demo Engineer/Master Eclipse
1995 Dan Benz Coming Home Engineer/Master ANT
1994 Ritual Device Trademark of Quality Co-Produce (Mixed w/Gary Lind) TMOQ043 Eclipse
1994 Ritual Device Split 10” Engineer/Master MR007 Eclipse
1994 Fischer 6 Song/7” Engineer/Master IBB001 Eclipse
1994 Secret Skin Capital Lite Mix Vocal Tracking ER1005 Eclipse
1994 Strangeblues State of Nothing Engineer/Master ANT035 ANT
1994 Compilation-Live at the Capitol Dark Mix 18 Songs- Produce/Mix/Master ER1006 Eclipse
1994 Ritual Device Live 7” Co-Prod/Master MMR002 Eclipse
1993 Strangeblues S/T Engineer/Master ANT032 ANT
1993 Aria Remorse Without End Engineer/Master (Mixed w/Mike Brannan) ANT031 Eclipse/MB
1993 Ritual Device Mousetrap Split 7” Master OH007 Eclipse
1992 Fromunda 7 Song Demo Engineer/Master ANT
1990 Mike Saklar Solo Guitar Album #1 Engineer/Master Ant 052 ANT
1990 Aria Remorse The Wind and the Rain Engineer/Master ANT026 ANT
1992 Ritual Device Henge Co-Produce w/David Wm. Sims Red009/DUTCH EAST Steve Albini’s
1991 Ritual Device 6 Song Demo Co-Produce w/David Wm. Sims Steve Albini’s
1991 Ritual Device 7” Co-Prod. w/John Wolf, Tom Ware AR01 Jr.’s Motel

From More Stuff

Early 1963 Fender Bassman

Bassman

This is a blonde tolex 50 watter, white knobs brown face et all. But it wasn't all so elegant from the beginning. This is a strange story.

My drummer works house to house local service job. One day he called me explaining how he'd met a gentleman with an amp for sale. It was an old "Fender Bassman" I was told, so I acted immediately.

When I arrived I negotiated what I thought was a fair price for such and took the amp home on the spot. The next day I had it at the shop and a customer and friend Bill came in and saw it. When he said that was "his old amp" I thought he meant he owned one back in the day. But after reiterating intimate details of the inner and outer changes I realized that was "HIS AMP"! It was something that was sort of "lost" over the years, not exactly stolen but maybe sold without permission after an extended period. Having lost my '59 Strat to theft the year prior I did not hesitate to return him his amp for what I had paid. Seemed fair enough & good karma.

Bill had informed me that in his yearly quest to regain his amp he had taken watch on a few others, and had a lead on a '63 black tolex. I was moderately interested, as I was much more enamoured by the blonde/brown version, but the price was right so I acted accordingly.

When I got the thing I realized it was actually a brownface unprofessionally recovered in black tolex, with a weird potatoe-sack grille cloth. What the hell, I need a project "of my own" once in a while (like a hole in my head lol). Alas, it was on. Let's get into the electronics.

Year: 1963 RA 0763 FEB14
Model: 6G6-A
Power Transformer-125P5B 006215
Output Transformer-125A5A 606-146
Choke-125C1A 606113
Serial Number BP01677

Tubes: 6L6 duet, 50 watts at 4 ohms. 2x12 speaker cabinet with Jensen speakers. Solid State rectifier.

The original circuitry gets extremely swampy and compressed on the bass channel. Almost effect like at levels above 4. I've read it's been labeled a "flaw", clearly "corrected" with the blackface circuit. I changed a few key components to adjust this accordingly and to maximize the extra tube stage within the bass channel.

I wanted to keep the circuit and appearance as stock Fendery as possible. Since the rectifier tube-socket-hole is prepunched and covered it only makes sense to add the tube. As some occasions desire a solid state punch I put both rectifiers on a dpdt switch (replacing the polarity switch, replaced by a three prong polarized AC cable), best of both worlds. Dual bias trimpots are crucial as well.

Filter Caps are always leaky, dried and oozing on these old amps, gotta replace them for full B+ potential/minimum 60 cycle hummmm. It's a pain but sometimes I'll carefully pull the paper covers off of the original filters and restuff them with brand new Spragues. It's a super nice vintage touch, looks the look and sounds like new. Btw, I didn't invent this idea, but I certainly can execute to perfection.

restuffed Looks stock to me! Electronics sounding great.

On to the outer aesthetic. Should look like my other brown amp:

pull the chassis

From 1962 Bassman

pulled the black tolex and tan grill, voila, some original covering remained, preserved 46 years.

pile 'o black tolex and original parts.

I was peeling and peeling and couldn't believe my eyes more original cloth (oxblood) 1961 I did have to retolex say 35% of the amp, turned out great. and to top it off 1960's Jensen Speakers, sound fab and can handle what 'cha throw at them.

The end product just like it's supposed to be.. From 1962 Bassman

.

1961/62 rare Gibson Les Paul SG

This was a fun project. I had a customer restoring an extremely rare 1961 Gibson Les Paul (SG). The owner is a vintage guitar fanatic, knowing the specs and details to the finest degree.
Exact pictures of others from this year were provided to follow.
As well as set up and playability, one concern was getting the electronics to a vintage spec and look. Black decal PAF pickups were matched and added & metal covers waxed in, as were original coded pots etc.

Even the rare pickguard and plastics were produced.

One thing we had to peg was the color of the wiring and the manner it is layed out. Sometimes you have to "find" period correct stuff.


The classic vibrato had to be dealt with.
Even the case was meticulously sought out and added.
In the end, plays like butter, is super lightweight, and sounds like a million bucks. What a fine vintage guitar!!!

Traynor Plexi

I recently was asked to "plexize" an early '70s Traynor YBA-1 Bass Master, 6CA7 50 watt head for local guitar riffmaster Corey Weber.
This amp is optimized for bass, which isn't a bad thing considering the original tweed Bassman was as well. I always start with a detailed comparison and contrast of schematics, both fairly typical for 50 watt tube amps.
I like to thicken up my plexi circuits, go for an earlier mid-60's direction (vs. late '60s-'70's, too bright and gainy).
Larger coupling caps help achieve this, as do .1's in the latter stage. Some cathode tweaks here and there, change the pots, phase inverter adjustments, cater to plate voltages and you're about there.
I like to add a rotary "Era Switch" mod, adjusting on the fly from 27k-47k-100k etc. negative feedback loops.
While at it a good cermet bias control pot is a must, got this amp juiced up REAL hot. Very resonant and harmonic, certain notes on the fingerboard hop right up an octave for instant feedback.

From drocks092208