MIX & MATCH?

[faceless]

I have not, nor will I ever own a Tricone, I love single cones to much. But I am still curious and would dearly like to experiment with a Tricone for a short time. As this will never happen I thought I would ask you cone-headed bunch if you have ever tried or thought about trying the following.

Mix and match cones? There has been a lot of talk about cones which are better who make the best what material to use. These conversation have all started again due to NRP staring to make new cones. But what if you mixed a NRP cone, a Quaterman cone and a Punched cone all together in the same guitar. This way you may be able to create you very own unique sound. Im sure I'm not the first person to think about this. So has any one tried this and what results did you get?

[rickS]

Good question, faceless - it's something I've been curious about for some while, but I'll let someone with more money (&cones) than me do the experimenting! my intuition tells me that it should be possible to 'custom-tone' a tri using assorted cones, & I'd be very interested if anyone can shed any light..

[Deleted]

I've heard that different brand cones can vary in height by quite a bit, I know this is true for single cone guitars so I guess it would be the case for tri-cones. I should think any height discrepancy between cones on a tri-cone would be pretty difficult to overcome. I could be wrong though.

[Michael Messer]

I have never tried different makes of cones together in a Tricone, but I have mixed and matched original National cones to get a good set, and to alter the tone. I do believe that in the old days at National (20s & 30s), they mixed and matched cones to get a perfect set in special Tricones. I do remember discusssing this once with Bob Brozman and he also thought they knew exactly what they were doing and were able to choose the right cones to make a perfect matched set. Most of the knowledge & experience gained by the staff at National dissappeared in 1941 with the demise of the company. By the time our generation became interested, there were very few people left who knew or even cared about original National guitars. It was down to a handful of people to research, learn and put the pieces together.

Shine On,
Michael.