Looking for that special 1937 sound

John Ed Kelly · From: Victoria, Australia

My preferences in steel music are pre-war, so I have been searching for a way to get the ideal sound as recorded by Bob Dunn and J C Way.

Andy Volk mentions in his "Lap Steel Guitar'' book where Bob Dunn used a Volu-Tone amp and a Martin guitar with magnetised strings. I guess that's what gave him that raunchy tone? I suppose that the amp was fairly basic with maybe just a volume pot and possibly a tone pot, but I really don't know.

As for J C Way, none of the record covers or books mention him other than as the ''steel player''. I don't even know his full name. JC achieved a wonderful tone as well, very different to Dunn but just as appealing.

So, this is my holy grail.

As for equipment, I'm using a fairly modest Chinese 6 string electric (Lo to Hi: Eb, F, A C, D, F) and the amp is a fairly powerful Australian job made by Jade. It's a solid state, 90W, Keyboard amp - so only volume and three tone pots. I'd sell it and get a valve job if necessary, but perhaps I can buy some add-ons to help me in the quest for the elusive tone.

For starters I thought if I attached tremolo, echo and reverb effects that might get me somewhere? The thing is, it all costs $$ and I might just buy unnecessary stuff.

The music shops all suggest I bring my SG to the premises (good idea) but then I would have to demo stuff with their amp - that may not be a good idea. The Jade amp is fairly bulky, and I'm old, but if it were a case of ''have to'' I guess I'd lump it in to the shop.

Anyway, that's my problem. What I'd really like to know is what you experienced blokes would recommend for me to try, with respect to tone accessories?

Many thanks...

...here are examples the sounds I'm after:
J C WAY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us_7n4ny4OE

BOB DUNN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBq1vhSaULU

Brad Davis · From: Texas, USA

I'm not that experienced, but I've dabbled with vintage steels in trying to get a vintage tone when I want it, although I'm looking more at the 1940s than the 1930s. Still the approach is similar I think. Biggest factor is probably your amp setup. You're really not going to get a large solid state amp to sound quite right trying to trick it out with more solid state pedals and other doo-dads.

You want a small low wattage tube amp with only about 10 or 12 inch speaker. VHT makes an inexpensive hand-wired tube model called the Special 6. The controls are simple, Volume and Tone, but has a Hi and Low watt mode and 2 different tone stacks (boost and normal). Between these combinations you can dial in a pretty vintage tone with this thing. There are more expensive models of this amp, and other much more expensive boutique tube amps, but the very basic VHT model is pretty sweet for this purpose. You can easily swap tubes for some subtle tonal emphasis differences but I wouldn't get carried away.

The other part of course is your steel. Ideally you would have a vintage steel guitar from the era you are trying to capture in good working condition. Barring that, you would have a modern single coil steel, something that uses a vintage pickup design. Inexpensive P90 based steels are pretty common and useful for this purpose. Fender style single coils are okay too. Single coils in general tend to get a more raw and characterful tone than modern humbucker pickups. Lastly, no matter what steel you're using you want to run it dry into your amp setup with little or no reverb, compression, etc.

This is just a broad guideline/generalization, and you'll still have plenty of tweaking and experimenting to do to dial in something that your ear believes is the vintage tone you are looking for.

John Ed Kelly · From: Victoria, Australia

Thanks Brad,

Seems you know quite a bit actually, I'd say.

I'm prepared for the replies which echo your ''low wattage tube amp'' comment. I figured that this would be an issue to confront. I bought the amp in an op shop for $100 because I knew the brand name and it was an absolute bargain - who could walk past that?

Another option is for me to use my six string reso and plug it in to an amp and see what happens.

John Limbach · From: Billings, Montana, USA

Well, I'm not sure about 1937, but for Bob Dunn's earlier stuff you can forget about volume and tone controls. Here's the schematic for one of the first commercial guitar amps, circa 1934. It's the Rickenbacker "Speaker Amp" that the designed and manufactured to go with the A22 Frypan that used the then new and revolutionary electric pickup.

No volume, no tone, no on-off switch. Just plug in the amp and play. The volume was controlled by the volume pot on the Frypan which, by the way, had no tone control for the first few years. So, the tone was whatever it was basically determined by the value of the two 0.1 mfd coupling capacitors.

I have both the 1934 Frypan and the Speaker Amp and it was exciting to hear what it actually sounded like in 1934. It's plenty loud enough, clean and sounds as if the frequency response is pretty flat. Like a later model amp with the bass and treble set to 12 o'clock maybe.

On my list of things to do when I have time is run it on the spectrum analyzer to see what the response actually is, and then play with the value of the coupling caps to tweak the tone. Changing out the .01 caps for .047 would roll off some of the extreme highs and perhaps sweeten the tone a bit. Be fun to play with anyway.

Jeff Mead · From: London, England

If you had a time machine, I have no doubt that if you sat Bob Dunn down at your rig he would sound exactly like him.

The right gear can get you in the right ball park but having the same equipment as your heroes doesn't mean you will sound anything like them.

It was more about note choice and phrasing than tone for me. When did you last hear someone say "check this guy out - he can't play any cool licks and is usually out of tune but he has this amazing tone"

Get the sound you want in your head and tweak what you have till you've got something you like.

Bill Creller · From: Saginaw, Michigan, USA (deceased)

I kinda agree with Jeff.. Jerry Byrd always sounded like himself, no matter what instrument he played ! Very Happy

Interesting circuit for the old Rick amp too ! I built a bunch, but not on of those ! I like the 30s tubes used in those days !

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

I agree that the hands are THE most important part of the equation but Dunn's ballpark sound is still something that you can dial in if you have the sound in your head and are willing to experiment. Also very important is Dunn's early training on trombone and the way that influenced how he phrased.

To my ears, the Dunn tone is from a large body acoustic guitar with a mounted magnetic pickup played through a small tube amp [flat, sans any effects] that's on the edge of distortion. I would add an EQ pedal and perhaps a compressor to help dial-in what you're hearing in your head.

Gypsy jazz guitarist Stochelo Rosenberg gets an eerily similar sound to Django's early 50s electric sound that was originally created using a Stimer pickup played through a slightly distorting tube amp. I think Stochelo uses a DeArmond pickup. Here again, the player's technique is a key part of the equation.
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Stefan Robertson · From: Hertfordshire, UK

Tried this on a single coil loved it but couldn't justify the expense at the time.
http://www.ehx.com/products/tube-eq

Really has a great sound on single coils that is VERY nostalgic.

Maybe in the future. But your hands really do count for a huge part of the sound as well as the tuning.
_________________
Stefan
Bill Hatcher custom 12 string Lap Steel Guitar
E13#9/F secrets: https://thelapsteelguitarist.wordpress.com

"Give it up for The Lap Steel Guitarist"

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

Finally found the clip ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAbOJIXoIVo&feature=player_embedded

This sound, at least to my ears, is in the Bob Dunn side of the spectrum.

I was wrong about the DeArmond. This is the pickup he's using:

http://www.djangobooks.com/Item/peche-a-la-mouche-pickup
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Steel Guitar Books! Website: www.volkmediabooks.com

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

It begs the question of what those players were aiming for. Distortion was not an ideal in the pre-Satisfaction (I can't get no) days. I remember my brother's early Rock and Roll band trying anything to avoid distortion.
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Don't go in the water after lunch. You'll get a cramp and drown. - Mother.

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

Players of yesterday may have used cheap equipment out of financial necessity or struggled against the technological limitations of their era's gear. Ironically, some musicians today revere and chase those low-fi tones and spend lots of $ on high-end gear to re-create it. Those Django-inspired pickups are about $350 bucks! That's an expensive experiment.

Elmore James' sound is another example that comes to mind of a sound folks have chased over the years. Here's a case of trying to do it cheaply: http://www.myrareguitars.com/getting-elmore-james-sound-cheap
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Steel Guitar Books! Website: www.volkmediabooks.com

Jacques Gabelout · From: France

"Get the sound you want in your head and change what you have until you have something you like."
Jeff Mead is right and Bill Creller also about Jerry Byrd:
Nickie has found her happiness from our duets with her Multiharp Gibson and my Super Chet from Gretsch and our two tube amps.
To each his sensitivity ...
Jacques Gabelout

John Ed Kelly · From: Victoria, Australia

''..If you had a time machine, I have no doubt that if you sat Bob Dunn down at your rig he would sound exactly like him...''

This sounds perfectly reasonable to me. In addition to, and with the aid of my time machine, I'd get a few lessons from him.

''...Finally found the clip ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAbOJIXoIVo&feature=player_embedded This sound, at least to my ears, is in the Bob Dunn side of the spectrum. ...''

Rosenberg is a great player and this side of his playing is a beaut contrast to his acoustic stuff. I get the Bob Dunn connection too.
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Of course I guess, the limitations of Bluebird's (and others) recording equipment and the makeshift studios, would have had an influence on the players' sound. Because of this, we'll never know what they really sounded like.

There's also the limitations of the 78 RPM recording - depending on the band arrangement which was generally structured around the vocalist's ability and, dare I say in some instances, ego - there was no opportunity for soloists to ''stretch out''. How long did did a solo go for in live performance? Probably longer than 32 bars, certainly longer than the 8 and 16 bars we are accustomed to hearing.

Anyway gents, thanks for the feedback and advice. I'm not sure which way to go right now, but keeping it simple seems to be the message I'm getting.

Chrs...

David Matzenik · From: Cairns, on the Coral Sea

I think a lot of us are tone junkies. Of course the amp has a lot to do with it. I was using a 1970s Fender Champ which sounded great for Hawai'ian music on my Oahu Tonemaster, Ric B6 and my 8 string Aiello powered "Pagan." But the Champ became unreliable, and it didn't have reverb.
I have been using a Roland Cube and a cheap Fender Frontman. The Cube sounded best, but I just got a Behringer TM300 Tube Amp modeler. $50AU free delivery. The thing is amazing. The combination goes a long way towards what I like to hear on old records. Only trouble: the case and pedal are plastic, but I don't use it as a stomp box anyway.
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Don't go in the water after lunch. You'll get a cramp and drown. - Mother.

Miles Lang · From: Venturaloha

There's a pedal I've been after called the Nocturne "Jr. Barnyard." It's supposed to give an octal tube preamp flavor to whatever amp you're using. Old amps from the 30's through the early 50's used octal preamp tubes, not the 12ax7 9-pin tubes that have been common since then.

Personally, I have not tried the Jr. Barnyard with my steel, but I've played with guitarists using that pedal, and it sounds awesome - vintage 40's archtop kind of fat. I have used other Nocturne pedals with my Stringmaster, and they are wonderful.

https://www.thenocturnebrain.com/products/the-jr-barnyard

Miles Lang · From: Venturaloha

Tim Whitlock · From: Colorado, USA

Paul Honeycutt · From: Colorado, USA

While I don't know how to get the sound you're looking for, I play a '47 National New Yorker that I sometimes plug into a '52 Valco/Silvertone "Champ" with only a volume knob and it gets the most delicious tone. It's not always usable or the best sound for the gig, but when it's in context, I can't think of anything better.

Doug Beaumier · From: Northampton, MA

Stefan Robertson · From: Hertfordshire, UK

Get an amp with a tube in it. I use a Vox VTX40 and it can mimic old tones plus it has amp modelling and all the new found Solid state electronics.

Then record by running through a cheap 8 track or less portable machine.

And push that gain.

Also single coil pickups can't be beat for character. George L makes an awesome clean pickup for steel guitar that captures the whole spectrum.

Finally each song composition is a puzzle and the settings that fit into a specific arrangement don't necessarily mean they suit another one. So adjust your amp to fit into the sound you want.
_________________
Stefan
Bill Hatcher custom 12 string Lap Steel Guitar
E13#9/F secrets: https://thelapsteelguitarist.wordpress.com

"Give it up for The Lap Steel Guitarist"

Bill Creller · From: Saginaw, Michigan, USA (deceased)

Couldn't agree more, about octal pre-amp tubes ! The last amps I built were copies of my old '50 National circuit, with very few mods, like using a 6Sl7 in place of a 6SC7,which is hard to find, that isn't noisy from NOS handling etc..
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