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Yeah, those guys on the Shadow MSN group do know every detail. The musician
members seem to be in contest to try and record the closest possible duplication
of various Shadows records.
-Marty
----- Original Message -----
From: ipongrac
To:
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 8:47 PM
Subject: [SurfGuitar101] Re: flatwounds
Marty, I'm sure it is, but I couldn't point you to it. It's just
something I've learned after many years of reading about Hank, and
more importantly, checking out the Shadow Music MSN group (kinda
like SG101 for Shadows fans). There's been a LOT of discussion
there about the strings used by Hank in the day, lot of it by old
geezers that were around back then and remember all this stuff! (I
gotta say that there's a lot more enthusiasm and dedication among
middle-aged guys that grew up playing the Shadows than the ones that
grew up playing surf music.) The general (and overwhelming)
consensus is that Hank used roundwounds on his Strats, again, even
as early as '60. There are a couple of detractors, but in general
everybody is on board with the roundwound theory. In fact, just
recently I read a post where somebody was quoting Bruce Welch saying
that the Shads were using roundwound Sonomatics in '64 (the topic
was some of their sounds from that period).
In addition, I have the book (!!) called "That Sound: The Story Of
the Magic Sound Of the Shadows" where an Italian guy went through
INSANE lengths to look at all the different components and the role
they play in getting Hank's sound (he's a reputable amp and guitar
tech). here's what he said about strings:
"We looked meticulously at a certain photograph taken on March 5th,
1961 at the Wembley Pollwinners' concert by Harry Hammond. In the
original photograph we could detect that the Stratocaster was strung
with heavy gauge round wound E, A, D and G strings with that
unmistakable whitish colour."
Incidentally, here's what else he said about strings:
"We extended our research down to the various brands of strings
available in the early sixties and we had the good fortune to
discover a few sets of NOS 1960s guitar strings. Then we compared
these 'old' strings against various sets of 'new' ones and, to our
great surprise, the 'old' strings sounded a lot better! We did the
test on a guitar with three A strings of different brands mounted at
the same time, in order to get rid of every possible inaccuracy. We
noticed that the 'old' strings had a longer sustain and, more
importantly, they delivered a timbre reminiscent of the sound of the
early recordings. The 'new' strings weren't bad, but they sounded
unconvincing and unsuitable for the purpose of reproducing the
original 'Sound.'"
Take from that what you will...
Ivan
--- In , "Marty Tippens"
<mctippens@e...> wrote:
> Now that's interesting, Ivan. Is that published info?
> -Marty
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: ipongrac
> To:
> Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 6:40 PM
> Subject: [SurfGuitar101] Re: flatwounds
>
>
> Hank Marvin DEFINITELY was using roundwounds through the entire
> Shadows career, including their first hit "Apache" from June
1960.
> He used Gibson Sonomatics.
>
> Ivan
>
> --- In , "Brian Neal" <bgneal@g...>
> wrote:
> > --- In , Dan Bartley
> <bigtwangguy@y...>
> > wrote:
> > > What are some of the original surf songs that were played
with
> > flatwound strings?
> > > Dan
> >
> > This is an interesting question because I've always assumed
that it
> > would be most surf songs from the 60's were recorded with
> flatwounds.
> > I've always been told that round wounds were not widely
available
> in
> > the 60's. The most common strings were heavy flats. Again,
this is
> > what I have gathered from being a surf-guitar nut for the last
8
> or 9
> > years. I've asked this question on a variety of lists and
forums.
> But
> > I'd love to be recalibrated. Maybe some of you older guys
remember
> > what strings you used? ;-)
> >
> > Players used to have to mix and match sets and even use banjo
> strings
> > if they wanted a lighter set or an unwound (plain) G string.
> >
> > I do vaguely remember Paul Johnson confirming this, but I
could be
> > wrong. It doesn't sound to me like Dick Dale was using flats,
nor
> Hank
> > Marvin. But what do I know? I'd love to know what The
Astronauts
> used.
> >
> > BN
>
>
>
>
> .
> Visit for archived
messages, bookmarks, files, polls, etc.
>
>
>
>
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