racingsnail84 wrote:

As I learn more about creating “the” Surf sound the more I realize there is more to it than just spring reverb and that a lot of the early stuff wasn’t as clean as I initially thought it was.

I am learning that it is common to have some slight distortion/light overdrive before (or after?)the reverb… is this correct?

I’m assuming the 1st wave bands had this occur naturally from cranking their amps super loud they would naturally break up and become overdriven…?

In lieu of naturally overdriven amps , what OD pedals do you guys like?
Tube Screamer, Blues Driver, Blossom Point?

Thanks!

I don't use any overdrive or distortion. Any distortion in the sound of my lead guitar is the natural distortion of the amp I am playing on. Therefore I'm not really useful to you as I don't think that overdrive or distortion is overly important in the surf sub-genre. If anything I view it personally as a gimmick rather than a necessity.

Cheers from Dublin

Albums:
_Introducing; Impala '59; An Evening with; Herr Magnatech Bittet Zum Tanz; Europa

Changing label.

https://magnatech.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/magnatechmusic
https://www.magnatech-music.com

You have a MUCH deeper understanding of gear than I do, Synchro, that was a very, very informative read !

I come from death metal / grindcore and other heavy music, I'm relatively new to using a clean guitar sound. I'm a lot more used to using pedals to get a specific color to a sound - which is almost the opposite of what's happening with surf guitar in my experience.

I feel like the surf guitar sound is more about letting the basic technology of electric guitars naturally do their thing, and have your gear help with that, as opposed to my usual metal experience where I have to control everything in the chain. It's very counter intuitive but makes a lot more sense at the same time.

Fear The Bat People !

JayPoison wrote:

You have a MUCH deeper understanding of gear than I do, Synchro, that was a very, very informative read !

I come from death metal / grindcore and other heavy music, I'm relatively new to using a clean guitar sound. I'm a lot more used to using pedals to get a specific color to a sound - which is almost the opposite of what's happening with surf guitar in my experience.

I feel like the surf guitar sound is more about letting the basic technology of electric guitars naturally do their thing, and have your gear help with that, as opposed to my usual metal experience where I have to control everything in the chain. It's very counter intuitive but makes a lot more sense at the same time.

I would agree. If you think of how electric guitar developed in the post WW II years, it started with very simple, very small amps, many of which had low headroom. Throughout most of the ‘50s, reverb was not something you could own, as an individual, but required a studio echo chamber. Less than 100 miles from where I live, Duane Eddy and Lee Hazelwood shopped for a water tank, to use as a reverb chamber and brought reverb to the masses with Duane Eddy’s “twangy guitar” recordings. Ampeg brought reverb to amps, and Leo Fender licensed Hammond organ spring reverb for the 6G15 Tank. (Spring reverb actually came from the telephone system.) By the early ‘60s, all the piece were in place for a very natural guitar sound, with powerful, clean amps, readily available reverb, and tremolo.

The harmonic tremolo of the Bandmaster and Showman was a high point. Many early tremolos were bias-modulating trem’s which sound wonderful, but are not suitable for higher power amps. An amp with 6V6 power tubes will work with bias-modulating tremolo, but if you try it with 6L6 power tubes you will probably have short power tube life, especially if you crank up the depth control (*). But the harmonic trem’ used on larger Brownface amps didn’t have this limitation and brought tremolo into the era of large, clean amps.

The pieces were in place for bright, clean guitar sounds, and that was the sound of the early ‘60s. It wasn’t just Surf; it was most Rock n’ Roll of the era, Freddie King on Hideaway, Country, The Ventures, The Shadows. Surf came into being at the exact moment when amp technology made bright clean sounds accessible to the masses, spring reverb brought reverb out of the studio realm and into live performances and many of those same amps had luscious harmonic tremolo. Add in Dick Dale playing his music for the Surf community and you have a collision of events to make Surf music happen, and to be music that uses a clean, natural electric guitar sound. Actually, it’s a simple sound to obtain, if you use a clean amp voiced to allow bright sounds.

I was a child, just learning to pay attention to music about the time this happened. For me, the clean sound was the natural sound of the guitar, whether the mic’d acoustic of Grady Martin on El Paso, the Standel amps of Country, or the hopped up Magnatone amp Duane Eddy used. About the time that fuzz showed up, everywhere in Pop/Rock, I lost interest, and didn’t really pay much attention until the Eagles came along, and they had my full attention and loyalty by the third chord of Take It Easy.

• Notably the 6G16 Vibroverb of 1963 used bias modulating tremolo, with 6L6 power tubes and, as wonderful as it sounded, it was known to have poor power tube life. Starting in 1964, Fender used the optical “bug” for tremolo, eliminating the complexity of five-triode harmonic trem’ and the power limitations of bias modulating trem’. This changed the character of tremolo to a slightly choppier sound, but it’s still an excellent approach.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Last edited: Dec 29, 2023 07:34:21

synchro wrote:

JayPoison wrote:

You have a MUCH deeper understanding of gear than I do, Synchro, that was a very, very informative read !

I come from death metal / grindcore and other heavy music, I'm relatively new to using a clean guitar sound. I'm a lot more used to using pedals to get a specific color to a sound - which is almost the opposite of what's happening with surf guitar in my experience.

I feel like the surf guitar sound is more about letting the basic technology of electric guitars naturally do their thing, and have your gear help with that, as opposed to my usual metal experience where I have to control everything in the chain. It's very counter intuitive but makes a lot more sense at the same time.

I would agree. If you think of how electric guitar developed in the post WW II years, it started with very simple, very small amps, many of which had low headroom. Throughout most of the ‘50s, reverb was not something you could own, as an individual, but required a studio echo chamber. Less than 100 miles from where I live, Duane Eddy and Lee Hazelwood shopped for a water tank, to use as a reverb chamber and brought reverb to the masses with Duane Eddy’s “twangy guitar” recordings. Ampeg brought reverb to amps, and Leo Fender licensed Hammond organ spring reverb for the 6G15 Tank. (Spring reverb actually came from the telephone system.) By the early ‘60s, all the piece were in place for a very natural guitar sound, with powerful, clean amps, readily available reverb, and tremolo.

The harmonic tremolo of the Bandmaster and Showman was a high point. Many early tremolos were bias-modulating trem’s which sound wonderful, but are not suitable for higher power amps. An amp with 6V6 power tubes will work with bias-modulating tremolo, but if you try it with 6L6 power tubes you will probably have short power tube life, especially if you crank up the depth control (*). But the harmonic trem’ used on larger Brownface amps didn’t have this limitation and brought tremolo into the era of large, clean amps.

The pieces were in place for bright, clean guitar sounds, and that was the sound of the early ‘60s. It wasn’t just Surf; it was most Rock n’ Roll of the era, Freddie King on Hideaway, Country, The Ventures, The Shadows. Surf came into being at the exact moment when amp technology made bright clean sounds accessible to the masses, spring reverb brought reverb out of the studio realm and into live performances and many of those same amps had luscious harmonic tremolo. Add in Dick Dale playing his music for the Surf community and you have a collision of events to make Surf music happen, and to be music that uses a clean, natural electric guitar sound. Actually, it’s a simple sound to obtain, if you use a clean amp voiced to allow bright sounds.

I was a child, just learning to pay attention to music about the time this happened. For me, the clean sound was the natural sound of the guitar, whether the mic’d acoustic of Grady Martin on El Paso, the Standel amps of Country, or the hopped up Magnatone amp Duane Eddy used. About the time that fuzz showed up, everywhere in Pop/Rock, I lost interest, and didn’t really pay much attention u til the Eagles came along, and they had my full attention and loyalty by the third chord of Take It Easy.

• Notably the 6G16 Vibroverb of 1963 used bias modulating tremolo, with 6L6 power tubes and, as wonderful as it sounded, it was known to have poor power tube life. Starting in 1964, Fender used the optical “bug” for tremolo, eliminating the complexity of five-triode harmonic trem’ and the power limitations of bias modulating trem’. This changed the character of tremolo to a slightly choppier sound, but it’s still an excellent approach.

Thanks a lot for taking the time for this write-up, you're essentially validating the conclusions I came to after years of listening to 60's rock.

I've been thinking for years that The Ventures, the Shadows and the later surf rock were the "purest", in the sense of "the least distorted" forms of playing rock music using electrified instruments. Before all the distortion and effects brought by the late 60s and 70's instrumentations, the absolute basics had to be pushed by someone. And here are the answers.
Hmmm. Thinking out loud here but I've been teaching rock music history to teens who are just discovering older stuff, I think I should emphasize this a lot more.

Fear The Bat People !

I’ve never heard the fire story, regarding the Vibroverbs, but nothing would surprise me. I know that bias-trem’ and big bottle tubes are a very poor combination.

I didn’t mean to imply that the Shadows played Fenders. To the best of my knowledge, they were Vox, all the way. Likewise, they didn’t use reverb, At least in the early days, but used various delays, which were wodely available in Europe and the UK.

In the US, The Shadows were not particularly well known, back in the ‘60s. People with a deep interest in music might have been aware of them, but the average citizen of the US probably wouldn’t have recognized the name of the band.

IMHO, Vox amps sound great for Instrumental Rock, including Surf. It’s not down the centerline of the Fender sound, but it’s bright, clear and clean. Not 10 minutes ago, I was playing through the Typhoon, which is basically a derivative of the Vox circuit, EF-86 and all.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Last edited: Dec 28, 2023 22:12:07

synchro wrote:

I’ve never heard the fire story, regarding the Vibroverbs, but nothing would surprise me. I know that biasxtrem’ and big bottle tubes are a very poor combination.

Yes, I just read that somewhere in some magazine or on some webpage, which name I can't remember. It said sth like that Fender only produced the Vibraverb from 1961 thru 1963 because the first generation of the amp had in one or more occasion had gotten so much overheated and had caught fire or began to smoke. It also said that the second and third year models also had a tendency to overheat, but it didn't mention fire or smoke for these models. Apparently the risk for Fender as a whole was too big and they quit the model. If this is actually a true story, it's quite the thing to be overseen by the Fender engineers and could've led to reputation damage for Fender.

I didn’t mean to imply that the Shadows played Fenders. To the best of my knowledge, they were Vox, all the way. Likewise, they didn’t use reverb, At least in the early days, but used various delays, which were wodely available in Europe and the UK.

The delay they used mostly was the Dynacord Echocord, which is a tape echo plus reverb as well, which use you can clearly hear in the sound of European (and Canadian!) bands of the time. Les Jaguars from Montreal or Quebec somewhere owed the sound of their most famous tune "Guitare Jet" to this very tape echo. It was produced in a small town in Southern Germany and widely sold throughout Europe, Canada and Australia. They were also sold in the US, but in very small quantities, hence the reason it's not that well known in the US. Dynacord produced tape echoes as well as amps and other guitar equipment (they may even have produced guitars although I have never been able to find an example of that). The amps they produced were the Eminent and Echolette. Dynacord's products were rather popular among European musicians in the early 60's and their tape echoes can frequently be found on bought and sold sites. As a fun fact: I myself recently bought an original 1962 Dynacord Echocord combination with the original 1962 Eminent amp in an original 1960 flight case/rack. Whilst Dynacord Echocords are on itself not such rare finds, the combination I bough is really super rare; the combi of their tape echo with their amp, both in an original flight case is more rare than finding a Fender Reverb Unit from the first generation of 1961. Apart from being super proud of it, this also enables me to fulfill a long term aim/dream: to sound exactly like them early European instrumental bands But I will not be able to use it until the end of this year because whilst it's working, it needs to be thoroughly checked by a qualified electrician, because, you know, it's also 61 years old. Please see the picture below - that's the one I have now.

In the US, The Shadows were not particularly well known, back in the ‘60s. People with a deep interest in music might have been aware of them, but the average citizen of the US probably wouldn’t have recognized the name of the band.

True - the same goes for the Ventures' popularity in Europe at the time. They were hardly known here, if at all. But in general terms the Ventures and the Shadows are usually used to make the comparison between American instrumental bands and European.

IMHO, Vox amps sound great for Instrumental Rock, including Surf. It’s not down the centerline of the Fender sound, but it’s bright, clear and clean. Not 10 minutes ago, I was playing through the Typhoon, which is basically a derivative of the Vox circuit, EF-86 and all.

Agreed - the AC30 is a gem. The only downside of the early models was that they didn't have reverb nor any other effect: just the standard things. But that was corrected in later models.

Cheers.

Albums:
_Introducing; Impala '59; An Evening with; Herr Magnatech Bittet Zum Tanz; Europa

Changing label.

https://magnatech.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/magnatechmusic
https://www.magnatech-music.com

Last edited: May 07, 2023 06:04:00

synchro wrote:

My understanding is that they were a 1963 model, only. They were somewhat transitional, being a Brownface amp, but built with brown Tolex instead of blonde, and sort of a reach forward to the Blackface amps that would follow a year later.

I’m a bit skeptical about the article’s claim that they were prone to catch fire. The EL 84 6G9-A Tremolux of the era, was one of the most problematic amps Fender ever made, and if they were sent in for warranty service, Fender would essentially rebuild them, including changing the power tubes from 6BQ5 (EL 84) to 6L6 GTs, basically making it a 6G9-B. As I understand it, the 6G9-A amps had power tubes that were run over their rated max voltage, and would overheat. I wonder if the article was confusing the two.

You may be right there that the article mixed up the Tremolux with the Vibroverb or I am just remembering it wrong. Tremolux was indeed a disaster of an amp. Yet I've seen posts and things like that of ppl saying they would like the amp to be re-introduced. I suppose they changed the tubes for stronger ones somehow. Or they have suicidal tendencies

The specs of the power section of the Vibroverb 6G16 weren’t all that different from the power section of the AB 763, but the vibrato became the optical style, which was far better for the health of the 6L6 tubes in the power section.

I think Fender made the mistake to think that the 6L6 tubes which had sufficed in the mid- to late 50's, when musicians didn't play half as loud as they started to do in the 1960's would suffice as well and you got a good point there when other -power hungry- things were added, it was just asking for things to go wrong.

I have a Stanley Blue Nebula pedal, which has Hank’s various Shadows delays as patches. It’s DSP based, and emulates all sorts of delay devices, such as the Binson Echorec, and the Meazzi Echomatic. If you are a delay freak, the Blue Nebula will keep you busy for quite a while.

Thanks for the tip - I will check out the Nebula. Not really looking for yet another delay effect, but I am always interested in checking things I don't know yet. As for the Shadows' delay patches, you can fairly certainly assume they were Dynocord-based. Not sure how many manufacturers of delay and related effects in Europe, but I know that Dynocord was either the biggest or the most used. There prolly will be more, but Dynacord basically was the name they all more or less tried to emulate. So, whilst I am not 100% sure, I think that the Shadows also used Dynacord.

It’s a shame. I know that Apache was played on the radio, when I was a wee tyke, but I suspect that it was The Ventures version, which is a credible version of the song, but different from Hank and the boys. When I play it, I do the first verse in The Ventures style, and the second verse more like The Shadows. I have a good friend who is 1/2 Apache, so I’ve played my version in front of a very knowledgeable audience.

Apache is a bit of a strange duck in the pond. Written by an outsider, given to Hank B Marvin who then goes on to record it with his band (lucky choice as they initially wanted to record another tune - because it was originally written for ukelele), gets covered by a Danish guitarist, Jörg Ingmann and whilst everyone knows the original, the cover gets the big hit in the US and most Americans know Apache as a Jörg Ingmann tune, whilst the original hardly gets any attention. But that has happened many times before and since. Funnily enough, in Europe, Ingmann's version hardly did anything, whilst the Shadows had their biggest hit with it here. It's a weird world at times

I read somewhere that The Shadows started out on AC-15s, and that Vox developed the AC-30 because they needed more volume. (Now them amps were a fire waiting to happen.) I really like the early AC-15 circuit with the EF-86 in the front end. I have a Winfield Cyclone which is a derivative of that circuit with EL-84s in the power section and a Winfield Cyclone with a single ended, Class A power section with one EL-84. The characteristics of that EF-86 front end are amazing.

When the Shadows started out and were still called "The Drifters", Vox only had the AC15 and since they were British and not in possession of a lot of money, they bought the cheapest available. Later on with the event of the AC30, they switched because of indeed some volume issues during shows. There is a bit of a fun story surrounding this: as you most likely know the Shadows, or Drifters were more or less invented as backing band for Cliff Richard. They had been playing before, but now they would become more professional. This required better equipment as they were playing on cheap equipment, of which Cliff Richard's manager didn't really approve. But the guys didn't have enough money, so they got some "help" from Columbia and Cliff's management to buy the more expensive AC30's. During a Cliff concert somewhere, Hank's cheap guitar nearly broke or sth else was wrong with it. A new guitar was needed, but after paying their share in the amps, they didn't have any money left. So Cliff, who apparently had loads of money, stepped in and ordered Hank a stratocaster in the US and paid for it. As there is no story anywhere that Hank ever paid Cliff back, Hank B. Marvin's famous red stratocaster is technically Cliff Richard's property, although I really doubt if anybody would make a fuss about it

Albums:
_Introducing; Impala '59; An Evening with; Herr Magnatech Bittet Zum Tanz; Europa

Changing label.

https://magnatech.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/magnatechmusic
https://www.magnatech-music.com

Last edited: May 07, 2023 08:50:48

Jojobaplant wrote:

Apache is a bit of a strange duck in the pond. Written by an outsider, given to Hank B Marvin who then goes on to record it with his band (lucky choice as they initially wanted to record another tune - because it was originally written for ukelele), gets covered by a Danish guitarist, Jörg Ingmann and whilst everyone knows the original, the cover gets the big hit in the US and most Americans know Apache as a Jörg Ingmann tune, whilst the original hardly gets any attention. But that has happened many times before and since. Funnily enough, in Europe, Ingmann's version hardly did anything, whilst the Shadows had their biggest hit with it here. It's a weird world at times

Wait a tick - Apache was originally written for ukulele??? I must hear this version!

Last edited: May 12, 2023 11:47:41

Wow. Thanks.

Last edited: May 12, 2023 18:07:19