TalismanRich

And the waiting begins.....

Welcome Les. It's good to have some more members from the UK. Sweet looking H150. Its funny how certain guitars just really feel and sound so "right". It's almost like you don't want to even change the strings lest it loses that magic feel.

There's a cool little blue pedal that you can plug into and get a really nice "woman tone". Pete Farmer loaned me his pedal for PSP.

At this age, being "on drugs" means BP meds, cholestrol meds, heart meds, NSAID meds, and a little blue pill to help you "rise to the occasion". 👴

Thinking about the pickups, if the guitars were late 60s or early 70s, they probably had Gibson T-Tops. Guys like Seymour Duncan and Larry Dimarzio didn't really start making after market pups until around 72 or 73. As to how they were made, according to this article, they would be Alnico 5 with polyurethane coated wire ~7.5 ohms. That's pretty much the SD-59 recipe, isn't it. https://musicalilluminism.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/vintage-gibson-humbucker-specs-and-general-pickup-tech/

Something else to remember is that Pat will quite often fingerpick his electrics. That's going to give a different sound that using a pick. Here's a shot of Tom Johnston playing an ES-150 on Midnight Special.

Usually Pat Simmons is playing an acoustic and Tom Johnstons's primary guitars have been PRS for many years. Back in the mid 70s, Pat would often play a sunburst ES345 but the Varitone was disconnected. He also had a natural finish ES345 with gold hardware in 74. He had a red ES335 that he sometimes tuned to DADDAD. As to what he played on any particular record, it's hard to say. Tom Johnston had a couple of Les Pauls, a black Custom w/ a Bigsby and a gold top w/P90s. I've seen some videos with him playing an SG. He also played a 335 on occasion in the early days of the Doobies. For South City Midnight Lady, Pat was probably playing his Ovation acoustic. Skunk Baxter was playing steel guitar. Don't know what Tom was playing, but I read that Pat did solos on his 335. From the concert photos I've seen, they mostly had Fender amps.

Mine should arrive around Tuesday. I have a Drs appt to check on my cataract surgery (which went fine - it's SO nice to be able to see) on Tuesday at 12:45. I might have them hold it for pickup. The FedEx office isn't far from me.

These are the Lollars, not the 225s. I have Lollars in my H-525 and they do great in there.

And here he is wringing out a Custom Core 150

Back in 2017 at PSP, Zach Avery played several tunes in the shipping area. Zach was working at Heritage at the time. He was a damn fine player. I happened to run across this video of his band at Chicago Music Exchange. He's STILL a damn fine player...

Definitely NON artisan aged. I like my guitars shiny. 😁

While at PSP, I was checking out a few guitars, but since I had to get over to the VFW, and had little room in the car there was no time to sit down with Mike and discuss things. So yesterday, I gave him a call and now there will be a new addition to the family.....

Sam Ash is owned by a Mexican group. They had bought Manny's in 1999 and closed it about 10 yrs later. Eventually all the stores on 48th St closed up, Rudy's Manny's, Sam Ash were all there. The building were demolished around 2018 and now have high rises with a Hampton Inn and Hard Rock on those sites. If you go to Google maps, you can look at street view from the days when they were all there. Manny's Music is now owned by Vista/Bandlab. They bought the name, trademarks etc from Sam Ash in 2024. They are mail order only, and sell Harmony, Heritage Ascent and Ascent+, Mono cases and Teisco pedals.

It definitely stood out from all the other guitars in Ren's pickin' room.

Y'know, the amp has a little bit to do with the tone of a guitar, too!

I wish I could stick around, but I'll be heading back to attend a memorial service for a good friend's wife.

This is a fairly small club. There are mics on the amps, but that's only for the video feed that they use for Facebook. It also appears that the Katana is the house amp along with the bass amp and drum kit. Some acts bring their own amps, but I was looking over a few videos of other groups and they all have the same bass and guitar amps.

A friend's band was playing a local club a few months back and I noticed that the harmonica amp was crapping out during the last half of the show. Last night, I saw he had replaced the old Fender with a new tweed Blues Jr. The guitar player also changed amps, going from an old Fender Deluxe to a Boss amp.

These days I play a lot quieter than I did 50 years ago. When our band from back then got together last month after 50 years, one of the things I mentioned was that our parents were saints for putting up with us. 4 or 5 guys in a basement with amps turned up almost all the way, playing for 2 or 3 hours. One day our drummer's mother pointed out that the clock on the wall had rotated sideways from the bass player's sound. I remember at one PSP, I had my 525, and if I turned towards my Patriot amp, it would start to howl on a lot of notes. It's a LOT more susceptible to feedback than my 535 or Millennium LE.

They have had ear protection available for years. I remember Jim Deurloo cutting a backplate during a tour and he had in a pair of earplugs. They also have safety glass available. Everyone who goes on the tours is required to have a pair. I took my own since I had to use them at work.

I got the impression that the "factory special" was a Sweetwater spec'd guitar. The Lollar PAF and jumbo frets vs the CC spec 225 and Medium Jumbos frets. Plain top vs figured top. I would guess they move enough that they could specify a factory run, a bit like Wildwood does with their "Wildwood Spec" guitars.

For those interested, this is how the H-535s are put together. You can see the center block, how they add the kerfing, and how the top is made and curved. This is from almost 10 years back, but the process is the same now. It's not a process that would be done by CNC.

I've only changed out one set of tuners on all of my guitars. A few of the original Grovers on the 535 were getting tight, so I swapped to a set of Grover locking tuners. I didn't notice any change in tone or sustain. The improvement was merely in tuning and easier string changes. I can change picks and hear all kinds of differences. I've changed strings and heard differences. For sure there is vibration going on there... clip on tuners work even with fretted notes. I wonder though, how much of that vibration gets all the way back down the string and into the pickups from the headstock. Or maybe I just don't worry about minor changes. I'm more likely to twist a knob and do gross changes.

Agreed, probably a customized SAE. Heritage, especially very early on, would do a lot of customization, and was exploring lots of different ideas. This is from the 1989 catalog.