Strats: Difference between revisions
From Allan Holdsworth Information Center
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==[[Any Key In The U.K. (Unknown publication 1978)]]== | ==[[Any Key In The U.K. (Unknown publication 1978)]]== | ||
What guitar are you using with U.K.? | What guitar are you using with U.K.? | ||
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‘Dick Knight was the first guy to modify a '''Stratocaster''' type guitar for me, but what I love about the Charvels is the neck dimensions which make it an incredibly comfortable guitar for me to play. I play the Yamaha 335 type guitar over in the corner, I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s a pretty good guitar. | ‘Dick Knight was the first guy to modify a '''Stratocaster''' type guitar for me, but what I love about the Charvels is the neck dimensions which make it an incredibly comfortable guitar for me to play. I play the Yamaha 335 type guitar over in the corner, I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s a pretty good guitar. | ||
==[[Reaching For The Uncommon Chord]]== | |||
'''FENDER STRATOCASTER | |||
''' | |||
The first good guitar I had was a Fender Stratocaster. I only had it for a short period of time, but I really loved it. The Fender was a new guitar with a great sound, although I only had that first Strat for about six months. Then one day I went down to Leeds. ... | |||
'''GIBSON SG | |||
''' | |||
I used to ride the bus down there, sometimes just to look in the window of a Kitchens - a big music store. And one day I saw a Gibson SG - it was the first time I'd ever seen one in my life. I went in, and they let me take it downstairs and play it. I loved it. So I managed to exchange the Strat for the SG. I played that guitar from then through the time I joined with Tony Williams. Wonderful machines. In those days there weren't that many different guitars around. There were basically two, Fender and Gibson; both had completely different sounds. With the Gibson I had found a guitar with a voice more akin to what I was looking for. Now those two sounds have merged more with a lot of people experimenting, putting Humbuckers on Strats, etc. — which I did. I was so knocked out with this little Gibson. I then read about Orville Gibson and that man's story, and I became a big fan of his. I used to read a lot of books about violin makers and instrument makers in general. I admire innovative people like Leo Fender and Orville Gibson and those who helped develop their instruments, like Bach did with the organ. | |||
'''MODIFIED STRAT | |||
''' | |||
When I was with Tony Williams, I bought a Fender Stratocaster. It wasn't a very old one - about 1973. I took it back to England and had Dick Knight make me a neck. He did all my guitar work along with his son-in-law Gordon. It was a maple neck with an ebony fingerboard. They do absolutely marvelous work. I'd always come out of there with a grin from ear to ear. The neck was quite big - an inch and three quarters at the nut to two and a quarter at the body, and it was quite chunky; it transformed the sound of the guitar. Those were my chisel days. I started hacking guitars up like crazy – I put a couple of humbuckers on a Strat, and I really liked the way it sounded. I always thought it would sound good. I had to sell that guitar too, which was painful. I actually sold it just before we came out to the States to a guy who put the original pickups back on it. I was dumbfounded — he missed the point, but one man's meat is another man's poison ... I played that guitar from Gong through UK. | |||
'''CHARVEL STRAT | |||
''' | |||
I met Grover Jackson in England. He was given my phone number by Steve Blucher, a friend of mine at DiMarzio. Grover and I met at a pub, and we started talking to each other about guitars, and I told him about how I felt about light wood and how I had found that really light wood worked great for me. I also told him my thoughts on neck dimensions - 11/16" to 214" (I think all Charvel necks are like that now). He told me that when I came over to the States, he was going to make me a guitar. When we came to California, I didn’t have a guitar (I had a guitar, but it was just a cricket bat). Then Grover made me two really fantastic ones - the one I preferred was made from basswood. But basswood varies in weight. Up to a point, the lighter the wood, the better the guitar sounded; but if they were too light, the sound regressed. He used the new neck dimensions - the top is actually a Fender measurement, and the bottom is a Gibson measurement. We used Gibson string spacing and Seymour Duncan pickups. Seymour Duncan worked with me on numerous custom wound pickups. I played the Charvel for about two years. | |||
==[[Allan Holdsworth (Guitarist 1985)]]== | ==[[Allan Holdsworth (Guitarist 1985)]]== | ||
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Allan: I never liked Les Pauls. After I had the semi-hollow guitar, my dad bought me a '''Strat''', and I played that for about 6 months. Then I made the mistake of going into this music store in Leeds, and I saw a SG custom in the window, a white one with 3 pick-ups. I played that thing, and that was it. So a friend of mine took over the payments on the '''Strat''', and I started a new payment plan on the SG. And I basically used that SG pretty much right the way through until Tony Williams. I love those guitars. That one was lost mysteriously. The tour manager of Tony’s band was owed some money and he had my guitar, and what he did is, he took my guitar down to the pawn shop and sold it. So when I came back to carry on working with Tony, my guitar was in the window of Sam Ash’s or something. And I couldn’t get it back, because I couldn’t prove that it was mine. It was there for sale, but they wanted so much money for it that I had to go buy another SG somewhere else. This was right around that time of the first albu m, Believe It. And then I got this other SG Custom, a really nice one, but it was black, and that was a beautiful guitar. Then the band got stranded in San Francisco and I had to sell that one to get home. | Allan: I never liked Les Pauls. After I had the semi-hollow guitar, my dad bought me a '''Strat''', and I played that for about 6 months. Then I made the mistake of going into this music store in Leeds, and I saw a SG custom in the window, a white one with 3 pick-ups. I played that thing, and that was it. So a friend of mine took over the payments on the '''Strat''', and I started a new payment plan on the SG. And I basically used that SG pretty much right the way through until Tony Williams. I love those guitars. That one was lost mysteriously. The tour manager of Tony’s band was owed some money and he had my guitar, and what he did is, he took my guitar down to the pawn shop and sold it. So when I came back to carry on working with Tony, my guitar was in the window of Sam Ash’s or something. And I couldn’t get it back, because I couldn’t prove that it was mine. It was there for sale, but they wanted so much money for it that I had to go buy another SG somewhere else. This was right around that time of the first albu m, Believe It. And then I got this other SG Custom, a really nice one, but it was black, and that was a beautiful guitar. Then the band got stranded in San Francisco and I had to sell that one to get home. | ||
==[[Interview with Allan Holdsworth (Jazz Italia 2005)]]== | |||
ALEX: Could you describe the qualities of your guitars starting with the legendary Charvel, right up to the current Carvin? | |||
ALLAN: Actually, before using the first Charvel, I bought a Fender Stratocaster during the time I was working with Tony Williams. I used a white Gibson SG Custom. It really was a great guitar! I lost it ... but I bought a Stratocaster that I used for a while with a single coil but I did not like it very much, so I redid the wiring so that the tone knob worked on the treble pickup. I connected the tone knob to the rear pickup so that it sounded a bit thicker ... then I played ... hell, I did not like it at all so I took some humbucking pickups and put them in. Since I had PAFs from SG - I owned 3 or 4 SGs - from which I always eliminated the middle pickup, I used 2 on this guitar and it sounded very good. It was a light body, as if it were alder... ... [Machine back translated.] | |||
ALEX: Do you prefer alder or ash? | |||
ALLAN: I do not like ash. It's too hard. In my opinion, alder sounds much better. Then I realized that I did not really like the neck because it had Fender spacing. I needed the Gibson spacing and I wanted the neck to be wider ... On the Fender with the double strings [“Sulle Fender con le corde più doppie”] and the narrower neck I had the neck really bent and the strings tended to come out from both sides. So, I went to a luthier and I had a neck built, a maple neck with an inch and 11 / 16th up to 2 and ¼ ... it was practically the size of a Gibson neck ... then I got built a vibrato with Gibson spacing, and it was excellent. It sounded really good. A fantastic guitar. I used it on everything I did in England. With that guitar I made the album IOU. We had to mix the album and we did not have a penny. We had a deadline so I mixed side 1 in a day from midnight to 7 am and the next day still from midnight to 7 I mixed side 2! But I had to sell the guitar to pay for the recording so ... I did not have a guitar! When I moved to America, I contacted Grover Jackson who was the Charvel guy. He is a fantastic person. He built me 5 or 6 guitars, we talked about the type of wood to use and he took the size of the neck from inch and 11 / 16th to 2 and ¼ making it standard so that after making those guitars for me, the Charvel people liked it so much that they started doing all the Charvels with that dimension. They no longer made a guitar with the regular size neck! Jackson also introduced me to the American basswood which may be lighter than the alder. I had two or three made of this wood, a red one ... it was beautiful. I never wanted to sell it! [Machine back translated.] | |||
[[Category:Guitars]] | |||
