
Why accoutrements and substance more than high-price gear.
I played a one-off festival recently where I had to schlep my own gear so I traveled light: just a few pedals, one guitar and a little thirty watt combo that pretty much lives in the trunk of my car. The guitarist for one of the other acts, looking at my rig like he was staring at a fresh turd on the stage, asked me about the rig I use on NBC''s "Nashville Star" show. I gave him the basic run down: an old Shure wireless, an array of stomp boxes, a Peavey Classic 50 and a Peavey XXX in stereo. He said, "I thought those were just endorsement props and you had some boutique rig hidden in back of the stage."
An important side note: this guy, clearly overcompensating for some of his shortcomings, had an amp that was worth way more than my car. Like many of those guys, he was condescending and, like most of those guys, did not sound particularly good. His tone sounded thin and lacked definition. This dupe with more dollars than sense exemplifies the brainwashing of our modern culture; an age fueled by commercialism that makes people think it''s perfectly reasonable to spend $90 on a t-shirt and $300 on jeans so you can look like Kurt Cobain in his ragged, thrift-store glory. Some copywriter on Madison Avenue dictates this guy''s sense of self worth and makes desire feel like need.
"If some musicologist the lots of time on his hands and maybe a government grant to finance his research looked at the history of recording guitars, the historian could probably make a strong argument that more great songs were tracked with mid level gear than the top shelf offerings of the day."
Praying for Tone?
The message is Orwellian: to be unique you must conform, to be free you must enslave yourself to trends, to stand out you must join the crowd. One''s social standing rests on one''s accoutrements, not substance. Eventually, the truth will come to light and people will learn that one cannot buy one''s way into enlightenment, heaven, great tone or better musicianship. We can waste a lot of time, energy and money on these dead ends when we should spend that time playing. Let''s stop allowing the whole over-priced vintage and boutique nonsense to fuel our collective insecurities.
It is time to put aside your pointless fears and Rise against the insanity. Band with me brothers and sisters and play that affordable consumer gear with pride. I like the fact that the rigs I use to make my living could be purchased by any kid with a paper route and some patience. I''m not saying you can''t hear the difference between high dollar and cheap. If you test all amps, Ampeg to Z, the Z will probably sound better when a good player does the Pepsi challenge. But does it warrant a 100% price difference? I doubt it.
Here are a few examples:
- Every Zep gig, Jimmy Page put down his beautiful '59 Les Paul and picked up his dog of a Silvertone and it sounded great in his hands.
- Ten years ago, Keith Urban and The Ranch opened for an act I was playing for at some festival. I got off the bus and heard this amazing tone coming from the stage, I ran to the wing and stood ten feet from his rig, shocked to find that killer tone emanating out of a few cheap stomp boxes and some little solid state Peavey. Since then I''ve been on several festivals where Keith closed the show. He now has literally twenty grand in gear on the stage and it sounds amazing, just like it did ten years ago.
- I played mandolin on a session last year while Ray Flack held down the guitar end. I had a killer Weber Big Sky which is an amazing instrument and it did sound great. Ray had that great old Tele of his (which he let me play a bit and it felt like driving a 63 Ford truck with major alignment issues); it sounded great and had amazing vibe but it was hard to play. Ray plugged, sans pedals, straight into some weird Gibson amp that looked like it actually predated anything cool. In spite of any gear limitations, Ray sounded just like Ray Flack. It was great. He only had a few tones available but that''s all you need when you are a legend.
- A friend of mine, Pat Seavers, plays steel with The Everly Brothers who employ Albert Lee on guitar. Reportedly, Albert plays his Music Man signature straight into whatever sorry-ass backline amp happens to be there. Pat said that Albert''s guitar has a terrible set up -- high action, out of strobe, and a train wreck when Pat tried to play it -- but with Albert, it''s a one man orchestra.
- I caught Eric Johnson doing an in-store at the old Tower Records in Nashville. I stood to his left about five feet away. His rig: two Fender Blues Juniors and about four stompboxes. He sounded just like Eric Johnson. When I later found a Blues Junior at a pawn shop going for $85, I immediately bought it in honor of EJ.
These little stories prove the maxim: a poor craftsman blames his tools. Regrettably, I''ve left evidence of my own questionable craftsmanship at some gigs and on recordings. However, those occasional ugly notes were all me, not my gear. Because I became a father at a very young age, the realities of supporting a family on a musician''s sporadic income conditioned me to avoid spending more money than need be.
The good news is that you do not have to spend a lot to sound great. In today''s instrument market there is a gigantic disparity in prices. There are some amazing bargains out there, some of the bigger companies have great affordable gear.
"The thrifty can also find some amazing hand-made boutique amps and pedals that a true craftsman/genius created that are actually affordable and have an esoteric cache, (Homebrew Electronics, Valvetrain Amps are a few examples). Or you can literally spend $10,000 on something that may sound a little better."
Black Kettle?
If you looked at my gear room you would quickly brand me as a hypocrite. Guilty as charged. I have some amazing gear -- some wildly expensive, some moderately expensive, some affordable, and some cheapo crappo. I love it all and use every bit of it all the time. However, I got by with a bare minimum for a very long time; this probably made me a better player. I'm certain it made me more discerning about what''s truly great and what''s hype.
The moral: stop worrying about what people say you need and use your ears instead of your wallet. Make the most of what you have -- don''t covet what you can''t afford. If you sound terrible on a Squire plugged into a few pawnshop pedals and a Peavey Bandit, you will not be great with a Paul Read Smith plugged into a BadCat. Conversely, if you can tweak a good tone out of a beginner rig, you will be set for life in any situation.
[Updated 9/15/21]
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Andyās axe!
The Police guitaristās go-to guitar is the source of a few mysteries, so letās crack the code.
Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. In this column, weāll take a closer look at the wiring of Andy Summersā famous Telecaster, as well as some of the many mysteries of this guitar that remain unsolved today.
Best known as the guitarist from the Police, Summers was born and raised in England. He picked up the guitar at a young age, and moved to London when he was 19, aspiring to become a professional musician. Eventually, he played with some legendary bandleaders, including Eric Burdon and Jimi Hendrix. Summers studied classical guitar and composition in Los Angeles at California State University, Northridge, graduating in 1972. After moving back to London, he played with Joan Armatrading, Jon Lord, Mike Oldfield, and many more before meeting Gordon Sumner (aka Sting) and Stewart Copeland and joining the Police in 1977. The rest, as they say, is history.
The guitar Summers is most associated withāand which you can hear on a lot of the bandās hit recordsāis a well-worn and heavily modified sunburst Fender Telecaster. Letās dive into what makes it so unique.
The story goes that before returning to the U.K. from Los Angeles, Summers bought this Telecaster from one of his guitar students for $200 (approximately $1,420 today). It was already highly modified, and Summers instantly fell in love with it. Modifications included a brass nut and brass bridge plate with six individual brass saddles. The bridge pickup was installed directly into the body and there is a humbucker in the neck position, plus it had a phase switch on the bridge pickup and an additional third pot and switch controlling its active boost circuitry. The only mod Summers did on the guitar after receiving it was installing replacement Schaller tuners.
Summers has stated that the guitar is from 1961, although, because of the double binding on the body, itās quite possibly a sunburst Telecaster Custom from 1963. The serial number on the neck heel indicates 1961, suggesting Fender may have used pre-produced necks from an earlier batch for the first run of Telecaster Customs in 1963. Or maybe it was a custom order from someone who wanted double binding in 1961? Dennis Galuszka from the Fender Custom Shop was the lucky guy who had the pleasure of taking the original instrument apart to closely study it while collecting info for the Tribute series. In September 2024, he told Guitar World: āIf I had to guess, it looks like the neck came off a ā50s Tele because it actually had a little white blonde paintālike they used on ā50s Telesāleft on the butt. But the neck pocket had no date written or stamped on it, which was weird. And the body has been routed out so much under the pickguard that all traces of a date are long gone.ā There are no records at the Fender factory that can shed any more light on this, so it will remain a mysteryābut not the only one.
Putting a neck humbucker on a Telecaster was nothing too special at this time; same goes for the phase switch. But while brass hardware had become a popular mod to many guitars by the mid-to-late ā70s, it wasnāt something that was common on Telecasters (or on Fenders in general), making the brass nut and bridge plate unusual.
Another mystery is the active booster circuitry inside this guitar. When the Fender Custom Shop released the Masterbuilt Andy Summers Tribute Telecaster in the mid 2000s, it was equipped with the mid-boost circuit from the Eric Clapton Strat. This circuit first debuted in 1983 in the Fender Elite Stratocaster, 10 years after Summers received this Telecaster. So the circuit used in Summersā Telecaster must have been a different one. Keeping the timeline in mind, itās likely that it was one of the many treble-boost circuits from this eraāmaybe something like the Dallas Rangemaster, EHX LPB-1, or something similar with a single-pot boost control. Or maybe it came from a cannibalized stompbox or was a home-brewed device ... again, this will remain a mystery. My personal guess is that the original circuit in the guitar stopped working after 1983, and one of the guitar techs had to replace it. Maybe Summers was not interested in those details, and as long as there was a boost available, he didnāt care what was going on under the hood.
Belt-buckle rash? A bit.
Photo courtesy of Ten-Guitars (https://ten-guitars.de)
Another mystery is the identity of the student who he purchased the guitar from. Summers has never shared their name, and we donāt know who modded it. Interestingly, in all those years, no one ever spoke up to earn the credits for this modding work. This alone fuels speculation as to who really did all these mods.
Now, letās take a look what features this guitar has:
⢠2-piece alder body, white double binding, 3-tone sunburst finish
⢠Quarter-sawn maple neck, C profile, 21 vintage frets, 7 1/4" fretboard radius, brass nut
⢠Scale length 25 1/2", width at nut 1.650"
⢠Brass bridge plate with six individual brass saddles
⢠Schaller M6 tuning machines
⢠Two butterfly string trees
⢠Rectangular jack plate held by only two of four screws
⢠3-ply mint green pickguard with ā59 PAF humbucker in the neck position and ā60s Telecaster single-coil pickup directly mounted into the body
⢠Standard Telecaster 3-way pickup selector switch with modern wiring: bridge/bridge + neck in parallel/neck
⢠250k master audio volume, 250k master audio tone controls
⢠Mini-toggle phase switch for the bridge pickup on the control plate
⢠Extensive routing on the back housing the active boost circuitry, 9V battery, and the additional third pot for controlling the amount of boost, all covered with a homemade backplate out of 3-ply black pickguard material
In the next installment of this column, we will break it down piece by piece, talk about the wiring, and how you can build your own Andy Summers tribute Telecaster, so stay tuned.
Until then ... keep on modding!
Xvive wants to make sure you take some time for yourself and your tone with their new More You HUB. It's the starting point to bulid out your studio or rehearsal space with an expandable audio interface and personal monitoring system for up to eight people and 24 inputs. The More You Hub (1st slide) is the heart of the system, with two combo inputs for microphones and instruments, and outs to your DAW, headphones/IEMs, and studio monitors. True gain mic preamps with 60dB of gain in 1dB steps for precise setting and recall; 48V phantom power, phase and hi-pass filter available on all inputs; each user controls Level and Reverb for themselves on their two inputs. Talkback mics on each unit allow musicians to communicate without removing headphones and all settings automatically recall after shutdown and restart. The second slide shows the additional, expandable MORE YOU 2X Expansion Unit that works with the HUB.
Tsakalis AudioWorks Phonkify X and Mothership Tube Overdrive + Preamp Demos | NAMM 2025
The latest iteration of Tsakalis' expansive envelope filter is a pure funk machine. All the classic '70s-era sounds are packed in there, but with three separate filters, you can get so much more out of it. Both the octave and filter are switchable, and with effect order switching you can really push the limits of out-of-this-world wah sounds. It will be available in March for $229.