Yeah, he’s used an Olympic White Strat with a rosewood fingerboard since Wired in the 70’s, complemented by the pink Jackson super strat “Tina” (Turner, who carved her name into it with an icepick) to the orange one from Flash, or the various Seafoam green sig models he got (the first-gen Beck models were known for having huge necks - yay!). I would assume the reverse headstock one was equipped with the second (and only other) set of Suhr pickups that John wound for him, but not sure.
Yeah, Beck plays slide - most famously on the lead interlude in Beck’s Bolero, right before Keith Moon goes nuts. He does it on the Live at Ronnie Scott’s DVD.
I found a picture of the square guitar I saw Beck playing slide on the other night. Looks like it was one of these, an oil can guitar as CookingWithGas said. The picture is from this article about Beck/Buddy playing a show just a couple of weeks ago in the Chicago area. There are some other (truly crappy) pictures attached, including one of Beck playing the reverse headstock strat.
And he uses it for slide? Didn’t know but wouldn’t surprise me. Those gas-can guitars are a variant of cigar-box guitars. Always fascinates me how guitars like those, which can have a limited tone as a picked/strummed guitar can excel for slide. My son and I built a cigar-box guitar - fun in a limited way to strum in Open G, but credible for slide.
So, if you’re wireless and you use some pedals, do you put the receiver on the pedal board right before your first pedal and run a cable from the last pedal to the amplifier input?
I use one every week at church since I need to be able to walk around between songs.
The transmitter is on my strap, and the receiver is a regular pedal that sits next to my amp. If I used other pedals they would be between the receiver and the amp.
Saw a cool vintage guitar in Darius Rucker’s video for Wagon Wheel.
At 1 min 50 sec they show a Vivi-Tone headstock. It may appear elsewhere being played but I can’t spot it.
Had to google it. Vivi-Tone was started by a former Gibson guitar designer. They made experimental guitars in the 30s and 40s. Google Image shows a bunch of photos.
First of all, I could listen to Darius sing the phone book and be a happy man. Damn.
Second of all, the main guitar in the video, without doing research, appears to be a '30’s Gibson L-10. A fine, fine guitar.
The Vivi-Tone headstock - Dude, that’s Lloyd Loar you’re talking about. Lloyd fuckin’ Loar. The man who really put Gibson on the map, left in '24 and started Vivi-Tone. Over-Innovated and never caught hold. It was the guitar equivalent of Steve Jobs starting NeXT computers. Too far ahead and not fully commercial.
But Lloyd Loar, my god. He’s more important to Gibson, frankly, than Orville himself. In the 20’s he innovated the Mastertone Banjo (definitive to this day; you can’t afford them); the F-5 Mandolin (definitive to this day; you really, really can’t afford them; I have posted about how Bill Monroe invented Bluegrass on an F-5), and the L-5 guitar (defini… you get the idea) which was the FIRST archtop guitar (the L-10 is a less-expensive version). He saved Gibson as music tastes pivoted.
I haven’t played a Vivi-Tone but they are on my list.
I didn’t realize Darius was playing a *vintage *Gibson. But that fits the nostalgic style of this video. Thank you for the information on Vivi-Tone. I hadn’t heard of them until this video.
Its great seeing Darius’ solo success since Hootie and the Blowfish. He’s had several number one country hits and won country awards. Even got an invite to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry. His version of Wagon Wheel is among the best imho.
No one’s heard of Vivi-Tone. Totally a geek thing. Very few made, and the innovations didn’t catch on. I don’t believe they have a premium value, like say a '24 L-5 which is a, hmm, maybe $25,000 guitar? Look for my posts about Julian Lage, the best guitarist alive today (Jeff Beck is a different category) and plays a '28 (?) L-5.
Sure looks that way - the shape and “mustache bridge” and less bling are all pointing at a J-100 vs. a J-200. What’s interesting is the fingerboard inlays are wrong for a standard J, and I think the Gibson logo on the headstock is an old-style script “The Gibson,” and the pickguard is the wrong shape. Those data points suggest it was a limited run model of some sort.
And Steve Earle is a complete, total guitar geek - buys them hand over fist. Guitar Town, indeed! When he lived in Greenwich Village, he hung out at Matt Umanov’s and that’s where the Martin Steve Earle M-21 model was conceived: http://umanovguitars.com/category/just-in/2009-martin-m-21-steve-earle/
The body is this. It takes an Ibanez AANJ neck so I get a double octave, fast neck. I’ve always like the body style, my first real guitar was one of these. That guitar got ripped off which was a bad thing*. The only thing about that guitar was that the bridge was kinda odd, the fine tuners on the bridge popped up a bit. I got used to playing with my pick hand a bit higher and it took me quite a while to get used to my next guitar, a Les Paul.
The body will be Alder. For the bridge I am going to put in a Gotoh Tune O Matic bridge. Not sure on the tuners, haven’t figured that out yet. Nor the pups, though I want something on the hotter end. For the neck, it’ll probably be an Ibanez replacement, I am thinking a Nitro Wizard 3pc Maple/Bubinga neck.
The finish will probably be something like this, but with a bit lighter green and lighter on the black. or maybe red. Not sure on that.
Cool!! My homebrew Tele’s are my only electrics now. I am sure you recall those threads from a while ago.
How will you get it finished? Order it that way? Do it yourself? In my case I know a guy who does great work so I farmed that part out to him
So you want metal-sounding pickups? You know me, my most aggressive tone is EVH or AC/DC - I wanted a low output pickup which I would drive through an amp with a dirtbox.
I like high gain, though I am something of purist. My effects chain is a compressor. That is it. I have a wah I rarely use but I am not much for pedals. The amp I have, a B-52 AT-212, puts out lots of gain witthout having to futz around a lot. When I record I bypass the compressor, double or triple track everything and add compression, eq and reverb in the mix. That way the original tracks are clean. Anyway, I need to think about the pups, do some reading and listening. Live, which I haven’t done in quite a while, I do a compressor and maybe a delay plus verb.
For finishing, I may try it myself. I was thinking of getting some diamond plate and having an engineering buddy of mine cut it for me. Go full metal on it. The only concern is the weight…
