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Post by steverino on Feb 10, 2009 0:09:02 GMT
Very nice, Lewis, both in your convincing performance and very good sound. Only thing I might suggest is to try swapping in some good quality vacuum tube mic pres if you have the opportunity.
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Post by steverino on Jan 28, 2009 1:09:44 GMT
I really appreciate the high regard that analog tape recording has been shown in this thread, and Michael's mention of ribbon mics and a good valve preamp are icing on the cake. These are technologies that I've always found superior in the ways that matter to me. And no, it's not because they add some pleasant coloration, it is because they are more transparent to the source and sound more real.
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Post by steverino on Jan 24, 2009 18:57:50 GMT
The ivoroid buttons will melt, but at a higher temperature than the plastic ones. I recently installed ivoroid buttons on an old Kay mandolin. To melt the ivoroid I had to place the tuning machines in a bench vise and apply a butane torch to each shaft for about twenty seconds. About the time that smoke would begin pouring off the gears the shaft would be hot enough to melt the button. I had nothing to lose; it was a matter of either fitting the ivoroid (plastic mando buttons being unavailable) or replacing the tuners. With the new buttons and a little fresh oil on the gears they worked fine.
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Post by steverino on Jan 20, 2009 6:51:25 GMT
Clarke111, I'm sorry to hear of your hearing problems. Although I'm in agreement that gov't legislation is not the answer, I feel that much more could/should be done to educate young people of the dangers of excessive sound levels. It is a matter of personal responsibility, though young folks generally do not understand the peril and damage occurs before they find out.
Damn, these f-wits running the mixing boards at live events make me mad. In thirty plus years as a piano technician I have witnessed countless examples of these goofballs running the level up until the house system begins to distort badly, then holding it on the ragged edge all night. I don't do many pop gigs anymore, but am shocked at the SPLs when I do. It is a societal sickness. I just witnessed insane levels in the lobby of the NAMM trade show here in California this past weekend. Years ago I made the mistake of attending a NAMM-sponsored event called the "Acoustic Cafe" in a nearby hotel ballroom. Monster speaker stacks rendered every tap on a guitar top as an atomic blast; I doubt that Hendrix attained the levels that were inflicted on the audience at this "acoustic" event. Argghhhhh!!
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Post by steverino on Jan 20, 2009 6:07:59 GMT
I do not believe it is correct to say to say that there is no connection between National Reso-phonic Guitars, Inc. and the original National String Instrument Corporation. Messrs. Young and Gaines, founders of NRP, had both worked at OMI when there were still many members of the Dopyera family around, including (occasionally) John and Rudy. Much philosophical and practical knowledge was passed on to them during this period. NRP in my opinion was founded to revive the brand and the instruments, both to honor the Dopyeras and to provide top quality instruments that do justice to the originals. They have succeeded admirably... I struggle to think of another such example in industry.
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Post by steverino on Jan 4, 2009 19:17:12 GMT
Barry, you've opened a bit of a can of worms here. In the hi fi world the debate has raged for decades as to the merits of tube... er... valve amplification versus solid state. No clear cut winners here, everyone chooses their preference. I'm basically a valve guy for hi fi as, despite steady state measurements which favor SS, to me valves provide the more lifelike and rewarding listening experience.
It has been said that the simple triode valve is the most intrinsically linear amplifying device known to man. Although transistors have higher inherent distortion, their high gain potential lends itself to circuit schemes (negative feedback loops, mostly) that can result in incredibly low distortion measurements. Valve guys counter that many of the artifacts created by these circuits are more easily heard than they are captured by measurements. Myself, I have yet to hear a more communicative amplifying circuit than one built from simple directly heated triodes, battery biasing and transformer coupling.
Interestingly, valves retain their undiminished popularity for music making decades after they were largely abandoned for music reproduction. Anyway, though many folks are of the opinion that valves remain useful due to their euphonic distortions, I think it is their inherent linearity that allow for simple circuits to pass music with the least damage, whether for production or reproduction. Of course a valve amp also sounds nicer as a creative tool than SS when it is overdriven, another reason for valve domination in guitar amps.
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Post by steverino on Dec 11, 2008 8:32:38 GMT
Ianparker, I have a single cone biscuit guitar setup for finger picking with a low action and Martin Silk and Steel .0115" - .047" strings. It sounds very sweet and plays about as easily as most nylon string classical guitars, yet retains the loudness and distinctive sound of the resonator guitar... great fun. Your daughter would no doubt do well on a guitar set up this way. I have found that biscuit single cone resos tolerate light gauge strings much better than spider bridge Dobro type instruments, which really demand heavier strings to drive the mechanism effectively.
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Post by steverino on Nov 20, 2008 17:06:40 GMT
Sprokky, I have one of the inexpensive Rogue Triolian wooden body biscuit resonators set up with a low, easy action. The tension rod is set for minimal neck relief, the nut slots are set for about .013" gap under the first fret and the bridge height is adjusted for about 2mm clearance at the 12th fret (sorry about mixing measurement systems!). It is strung with Martin Silk and Steel .0115" - .047". The combination of the loud resonator response and Strat-like playability makes it a joy to play. I've hardly picked up any other guitars for weeks now.
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Post by steverino on Nov 5, 2008 20:55:10 GMT
Thank you for the suggestion, Michael. I hope to speak to Don Young at the upcoming NAMM show about these old bodies. They have some stories to tell. Two were evidently used to test the sandblasting stencils for a special guitar made for boxing promoter Don King, and one has test patches of two colors of frosted Duco paint on the back that look pretty good! I've seen no evidence that OMI sold any guitars with this finish though. Thanks, 1928. Confirmation of your point about the top/sides forming of the 12 fretters can be found on this page: www.vintagenationals.com/national_guitar_about/national_guitar_autopsy.phpIt seems that the change to the 14 fret design occurred at about the same time (end of 1934) that National and Dobro merged and moved into a single factory. One wonders if these events may have been related in some way.
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Post by steverino on Nov 5, 2008 10:18:34 GMT
Smoochimoto, your resonator instrument experience parallels mine to a degree. After a decade of building loudspeakers, studying loudspeaker history and contributing same to a web site, I discovered that the Dopyera brothers were located next door to James B. Lansing's speaker factory in Los Angeles in the mid 1930s. Then I went to the NAMM trade show this past January, played a few resonators and found a new obsession!. I have played guitar since 1965 but had never picked up a resonator. Just to think of all the Nationals that could have been bought cheaply decades ago... dohhh!
I started by buying cheap Chinese spider resos on ebay, disassembling them and correcting their obvious construction and assembly mistakes. Funny, but a $69 reso can sound like a $2,000 one if a couple of parts are swapped and it is set up right. As with so many things in life, a bit of knowledge will carry one farther than a pile of cash.
Next I bought several freight damaged biscuit resos on the cheap including a Hohner HRM 400. Equipped with an NRP Hotrod cone it is currently my favorite for open G tuning, sounding appropriately loud and rude. Only problem is that it is built like a tank, the brass body being uncomfortably heavy to hold.
My instincts as a loudspeaker designer lead me to believe that there is still much unexplored potential in resonator instruments. The lighter mass per area and greater mobility of the diaphragm affords the resonator instrument greater dynamic range and expressiveness of subtleties than the conventional guitar, though the designs produced to date have unique frequency response curves and resulting tonal signatures that limit their appeal to certain types of music. I see no reason why resonator instruments cannot be built in the future with a sound more like a conventional guitar while preserving the wider dynamic range of the traditional resonator designs.I suspect that we have only scratched the surface of what is possible here.
I use a medium weight brass slide most of the time. I have experimented with a thick cross section steel pipe. The steel is really heavy and fatigues the finger muscles quickly, but the sustain is unreal!
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Post by steverino on Nov 5, 2008 8:58:29 GMT
Although not certain of my knowledge here, I believe that the current NRP metal bodies are three piece, i.e. separate back sides and top, with solder seams along both top and bottom edges. All but the earliest vintage Nationals were of two piece construction, with back and sides pressed from a single sheet of metal and a single solder seam attaching the top. Adolph Rickenbacher stamped these parts and likely developed the remarkable forming process.
I have recently acquired a pile of circa 1970s or 1980s reject brass bodies from the old OMI company in southern California. These 14 fret bodies look as though they could have been made with the same prewar tooling as old Duolians, Os, Collegians, etc. They are beat up and corroded, but the pressing of back and sides from a single sheet is really a miraculous thing to examine. How they accomplished this without wrinkling or tearing is difficult to understand. I would think that a part made this way would have a material thickness, hardness and level of internal stress that might vary dramatically from one area to another. Just think of how a flat sheet of metal would protest being forced into such a shape! My theory of the moment is that such a structure might respond and vibrate quite differently than one built with more solder seams and material of more constant thickness and perhaps fewer internal stresses. So often in musical instruments, the finest tone is produced when the structure is burdened with great and delicately balanced stresses.
I haven't built any of these OMI bodies into a guitar yet, but when held by the neck hole and struck they produce some really interesting, complex gong-like sounds. There is always a touch of that old Duolian trash can lid timbre and they all sound a bit different.
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Post by steverino on Oct 18, 2008 18:47:19 GMT
Barry, I found your video on YouTube right away by searching for "Beltona." The guitar sounds great and I like your playing.
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Post by steverino on Oct 10, 2008 22:54:18 GMT
They're coming to take me away, ha ha... Actually I'm across the pond, so no NHS here.
To add insult to injury, when I click on the banner ad the browser times out and goes nowhere. I can't find anything for "smartguyreviews.com" on the web except for a couple of dead links, so perhaps they've gone under and yet ProBoards continues to serve up the ad here.
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Post by steverino on Oct 10, 2008 20:39:27 GMT
Sorry for the confusion; the forum must be set up to target ads to specific readers by location or something. All I know is that for months now, each and every time I open a thread anywhere on the Michael Messer Forums, the same picture of the same guy appears in a banner ad for smartguyreviews.com at the top of the page. He's there now!
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Post by steverino on Oct 10, 2008 6:43:54 GMT
We've all seen that picture of the guy with the fuzzy chin and the quizzical look about a thousand times now. Would there be any chance at all of replacing him with a beautiful British blonde gal, the nose of a Jag XKE, or even some other smart guy? I realize that this may be beyond the moderators' control. Just asking... of course people in hell want ice water too!
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