custom guitar wiring harness
Dan Torres at Guitar Pickup courage and restores
By Mark Grove
Co-writer: Dee Curtis
02/29/04 Back Catalog Article requested by readers
When you hear the name Dan Torres and Transport in the music industry, ears tend to perk up or pickup, it's a joke get it.I know a bad one. And pickup makers like Seymour-Duncan and Di Marzio tend to take note. The introduction of this article, and information about Dan Torres amp and pickup Master from California, is the Canadian Guitar Player Music Consultant Dee Curtis.
The first time I heard Dan Torres was when I was out in Los Angeles in the early 80s with a group of musicians, there was Dan Torres, who was and still is a guitar guru moding, moding their amps and guitars for them.
These guys then came in contact with Dan through an ad in (Guitar Player), when mail order was anger in the music industry. So I sent out some info on how to jump up your guitar and make mods for your amplifier, Through its free brochures, and wound up getting some reprints of his articles that were in (Vintage Guitar).
I had a bit of electronic know-how in the time, which was helpful, but nothing with tube amps. But through some of his articles, I began to fiddle with The capacitors and resistors in amp head, along with changing tubes to convert the sound coming through the cab. I wound up using his midrange tone control switch on each guitar, I had then. I am currently do not use them, and I miss them.Dan is one of the best experts in the amp and guitar modification, and a lot of top musicians use.
Most recently, I contacted Dan on my (SOVTEK Midget Combo Amp) and asked him what he recommended tubes because SOVTEK were sounds a little dark to me. I had some feedback from SOVTEK on this and made some mods, but it was still sounding too dark.
I love the amp, but I wanted more sparkle and clean tones. Dan suggested I try (6L6 GC tubes) which will give me a clearer top end and less mid-range and darker tones. I have them on order now, and I know it will sound beautiful.
Now, anyone have a guitar or bass player, I ask you to get Dan Torres book (Inside Tube Amps), which is literally in the Bible about tube amps, and it is in laymen terms so everyone can understand how – against their amps and guitars.
Mark Grove: We started this article with an intro about how Dee Curtis was first introduced to the amplifier and pickup master himself Dan Torres, but we will end this section where we originally wanted to go and there are Dan Torres found at to restore transport and because he was one of the first techs to start rewinding Transport for musicians in California. Dan also has a series of single coil pickups and Custom Made, together with new calling them (Torres P90's) and custom humbuckers – and SRV midrange and blues pickups.
This man is the master of pickup tone control along with other gurus as Bill Turner (EMG founder and current residence pickup expert for Fender. In this interview with Dan Torres, we will venture into Pickup restoration and how to keep those vintage pickups 'just hummin' along.
<a href="http://www.torresengineering.com"> www.torresengineering.com </ a> This is an "uber cool site for gamers
I know another bad line. Dan is also known for his amplifier and guitar kits, which are popular for the more astute musician. This will be a conversation, you will save in your e-mail or website, so get ready to be amazed by Dan Torres fellow musicians. Canadian Guitar Player speaks with Dan Torres on the intricacies of pickup restoration and when to throw the old heap.
MG: At what point has a regular or vintage pickup for that matter survived the utility sound wise and mechanically?
DT: At the moment, since the beginning of magnetic pickups, almost none of them have actually worn out. Even the earliest pickups unless damaged, are still functional sound wise and mechanically.
MG: What is the most common form of wear collection to be considered when restoring a pickup?
DT: Most ordinary wear is user wear. Pick damages on top of the pickup, get stuck with screwdrivers, stripped screws and the results of mistreatment. Magnets and hardware can rust very slightly from an instrument that is allowed to become damp. Rust can push the magnets out of contact with the pole pieces, causing the pickup to stop to function correctly.
<a href="http://www.torresengineering.com"> www.torresengineering.com </ a>
MG: Is re-excitation a pickup important to regain and retain the original solid pulleys?
DT: This is a very difficult question which target tonal character of our most popular guitars (and pickups) are based on these instruments are getting old at the time they were used / registered. It is – you do – do not visit a 1959 Gibson Les Paul with Patent Applied Hum-bucking pick-ups to play "how high the moon" (a Les Paul hit the 50s), they seek it out to play "Sunshine of Your Love" (Clapton "or" One Way Out "(Allman Bros.)
The guitars are the most precious was their "Second Life", as used instruments picked up by the young musicians in the mid 60s' from pawn shops, etc. as very cheap, used, good-sounding guitars. Therefore, the original magnetic strength – it is the magnet strength, when this particular guitar was manufactured in 1959, is not desired "effect". The desired sound is the "Old Guitar" heard in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and today.
A lot of effort has been put in demagnetizing magnets or find old ones. Currently my collection of patent applied for original Gibson magnets sell for $ 150 + per magnet, if I want to relax any of them. (only about six left.)
MG: Is the magnetic field becomes weaker with time still produce mellow tones and fatter?
DT: This is Easily, yes. But the magnetic field has a fairly long life. Even the oldest pickups, we normally see, such as "Charlie Christian" pickup found at 1939 Gibson with cobalt magnets still have more than enough flux to this day. Jazz Great Barney Kessel used to bring in his all too famous Gibson with Charlie Christian pickup.
These huge, very old Magnets was still very strong and the best pickup (he had several) were very high impedance 10,000 ohms. This pickup sounded absolutely wonderful, a magical musical instrument. Many experiments was published in the 80's of many pickup manufacturers, with stronger or exotic magnets.
But the point of declining returns were achieved with the same. Stronger magnets can produce a powerful pickup with more output, but the excess string drag caused damping, pull wires out of the track, Shuttle had to be placed rather ways below light gauge strings, loops, most of the improvement. The exotic magnets did not sound as nice as the wider flux range alnico or ceramic magnets.
MG: Do hum-bucking or single coil's wear faster and why?
DT: A hard one. Single coils, such as Start Pickups die more frequently, but usually because of injuries. It is not difficult at all to wear through the top of a start pickup cover and damage the coil. P-90 type single coils use hum-bucking magnets (2) and has a plastic coil form so we have a cross in the pickup structure between hum-Buck and P-90.
The cylindrical magnets of the Start and Telecaster pickup has a large amount of flux and will last several life if they are not damaged. The earliest guitars still sounds spectacular. Jerry Garcia replaced his DiMarzio hum-bucking pickups often say that they were worn out, but these pickups have been moving around here in San Francisco Bay Area, and do not seem to have lost something strange. But the musical perception is far, far more sensitive as any instrument.
Not hear them brand new makes it impossible to hear what Jerry heard. By their nature, simple Broadband can wear out faster because magnets are more subject to the real killer magnetic, shock of being hit by pickup, strings, etc.
MG: With your handling some of today's top players pickups, they think twice about throwing their singles or hums, or even go to another company for restoration?
DT: I foster care professionals and amateurs to consider to keep the vintage pickups in place if they provide the kind of tone they want. I think if the guitar feels right, but it does not sound right, hand wound, or new pickups from ourselves, or all the other manufacturers can be selected with appropriate potentiometers, tone control, etc.
To tune guitar to do exactly what you want without killing a fine vintage guitars are many advantages to choose new guitars, or fine quality imports (Ibanez, Aria, Cort, etc.) so they can make as many changes as they want and more identical guitars in hand without the super high vintage instruments. Restorations are made, the pickups have been seriously damaged, dead or partially dead, or in some cases – when they just look ratty, ugly.
Rust can be removed and / or new pole piece screws and knobs fit hum-buck, delicate work with steel wool to clean up stranded – Telecommunications magnets. Most restorations are dead vintage (valuable Transport) to get them back to life without losing their intrinsic musical character.
Broken broadband is the biggest problem by far. With a very good eye, steady hand and know exactly what to look for, the broken coil wire be located and reattached without losing more than one or two ohms of a 5000 ohm pickup.
The hardest part of this process can not find the broken wire. It is the treatment of the following to find it. Usually you only have one chance. The pipe is coated with insulation to be removed before you can re-solder it. Since the wire is thinner than a hair, and in some cases one works with just 1 / 16 to 1 / 8 in of the wire. This is delicate work.
MG: What is the most common type of pickup that replaced?
DT: It is currently running around 55% stranding – Teletype and 45% hum-buck, but it changes all the time are largely keyed to the current popular guitars in use on television, concerts and other media.
MG: Is restoring pickups for the most part something to be left to Luthiers or guitar parts restoration specialists?
DT: If the pickup has a high value yes, get someone with experience. A good eye, practice, and know what to look for, saving $ 200.00 a patent applied for that may be totally destroyed by a inexperienced (or unsafe) hand trying to fix a broken coil wire. attention to detail will bring the pickup back to life as it should be.
MG: When restoring a pickup is the single coils hum or bucket easier to restore?
DT: Single coils are usually easier – they are simpler, everything is in the open and easy to see that there are no layers of old tape to peel, (a real problem with the old hum-bucking pickups.) But – "funky" type single coils. Harmony, Silvertone, Danelectro, Kay, etc. is really hard to reproduce because they are often made on a budget.
Fibreboard coil forms, glue and masking tape are all used in collection rather difficult to dig through. Some of those old cheap guitars do not even coil forms. Just a coil of wire and magnet. It is often hard to tell what it was be the first!
MG: Are there any special ways to repotting, re-excitation or rewind a pickup to actually improve the tone and sustain in connection with the string pulling?
DT: I will not say "special way" as much as the use of very good technique in all these technologies. Potting and repotting in wax (or paint) is to be at the right temperature so the wax soaks the whole reel, but not so hot it melts a coil to tricky Re-pot. But when you have the right thing is easy repeated.
This will prevent microphonics, so pickup to perform at a much higher volume without shouting. Re-excitation can improve or restore the tone of a damaged magnet. Shock can demagnetize the magnet enough so it does not give a signal. In this case re-excitation will bring it back to life.
Often more powerful magnets such as Alnico 5 demagnetized or redone for a lower "old" level to reduce string pull and get the power, we hear from vintage guitars.
A fairly efficient process that could well increase to maintain a given pickup. But with our stock of new Alnico 2 magnets, it is often easier to just install a lower flux Alnico 2 magnets instead of Alnico 5 for the lower magnetic attraction sweeter tone. Pickup winding is another story. Most of the "classic" guitars made in the 50s had hand-wound Transportation to a certain extent.
In an interview with Doc Kauffman, Leo Fender's original partner, he told me it was quite a long time before he and Leo thought "maybe we should measure these pickups? "
I twisted a pickup to get a good vintage tone "scatter wound" technique works best.The cord is not set perfectly, but somewhat randomly, filling the coil with the naked eye as it spins. This pickup gives a more harmonious tonality – not so perfect, is often more musically. Hum-bucking pickups, which has two coils, which is essentially an imbalance in the original Gibson design. Each coil has a second iron load, therefore a second impedance. If the coils themselves are not entirely equal, there is an effect of, again, less perfection and more harmonious quality because of the slightly different tonalities of each coil.
In addition, the distance between the two coils to pick up the guitar string signal at different locations (called phase cancellation) provides hum-bucking pickup its unique characteristics. These factors can be manipulated to vary the pickup's tonality very extreme degree.
DiMarzio is very able to develop more and more new sounds from techniques such as this (and many others.) Observation of dozens of real applied for a patent for the Gibson humbuckers, shows coils that are "pretty close" but not exactly when read with Digital Vom Meters, which were not available, when they were made.
MG: When wiring a pickup are techniques used to give your guitar a tone based on the type of music you play?
DT: This is one of our specialties. Besides all the variations of the pickups we have discussed, we introduced the concept of varying potentiometers to increase or decrease the load on the pickup, much change frequency, gain and tone.
We must also make a range of passive midrange control, which can be used on any guitar to give the musician yet longer range of tones from the "same old" pickups. One can start with new or adapted Transport and optimize them further for their use, or work with existing Transport by varying the volume control, tone control and mains.
MG: Do higher prices for vintage pickups make it more attractive to restore the originals?
DT: Absolutely, and my clients, friends, is always looking for guitars that are "not working". Restoration is often not cost much, and we have around 90% success died pickups. The balance sheet is rewound. Very few are discarded, maybe 2 years out of a hundred. Finding a dead pickup and have it restored or even rewound is certainly the cheapest way to get "sound".
Dan Torres
Mark Grove-CGP
To contact Dan Torres for amp or guitar pickups match:
<a href="http://www.torresengineering.com"> www.torresengineering.com
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About the Author
Mark Grove,music industry writer from Canada.I write how to material
for musicians on guitar and gear tips,music business and artist
profiles.
We also offer an article writing service for musicians called:
The Musicians Instant Press Kit.
http://canadianguitarplayer.blogspot.com
Our site is called:Canadian Guitar Player
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