Proving that sparks can fly when regional styles collide, Texas native Jesse Dayton and Kansas City’s own Samantha Fish dole out edgy alt-blues on “Settle For Less,” from their stellar new album “Death Wish Blues.” The disc runs the gamut from traditional blues to pop and heavy rock, all with greasy grooves and hellacious guitar work. They’re playing the guitars heard most on the album – and featured in the layout for our June cover interview. Read Now!
In his November ’04 column “The Different Strummer: Al-u-minium!,” VG contributor Michael Wright offered an in-depth look at the use of aluminum as a structural element in guitars, noting how it was seen as a solution to the inherent instability of wood necks, with the occasional exception when it was used to render different tones.
Once upon a time, of course, stringed instruments were made only of wood and were strung with “gut.” As Wright points out, the adoption of steel strings began after the mandolin was introduced to America in 1880, and as more mando – and guitar – players transitioned to steel strings, the necks, bridges, and bellies of their instruments began to suffer the consequences of the inherently higher tension. The solution was, Wright recalled, “…the trapeze tailpiece, [which relieved] stress [from] the belly and bridge. By the 20th century, guitars were made with pin bridges for gut and trapezes for steel.” The next game-changing use of metal came with the truss rod, which by the ’30s was common.
John Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher were the first builders to use aluminum as a primary element in the construction of an instrument when, in 1931, they devised the all-aluminum A-22 Hawaiian guitar – a lap-steel.
As a means to stabilize the neck of a Spanish-style guitar, credit has traditionally gone to Italian artist Wandré Pioli (whom Wright featured in the November and December ’99 issues of VG), an architectural engineer who loved motorcycles and began designing guitars in the mid 1950s; in ’59, he began using a flat-faced, semi-circular aluminum bar as a neck, with a rosewood fingerboard glued to its face and a back formed with molded PVC.
“Pioli employed three neck designs,” said Wright. “One was a traditional bolt-on, but most intriguing was a neck-through concept with the aluminum extending to a chevron-style [tailpiece].”
Later builders who employed aluminum necks included Jacobacci, in Paris, and Messenger, which was founded in the late ’60s by Bert Casey and Arnold Curtis in San Francisco. John Veleno, a guitar player/teacher and machinist whose day gig was in a machine shop that made aluminum electrical housings used in early rockets, began building guitars in ’66 using necks cast of Almag 35, an aluminum/magnesium alloy. They were the only axes of the bunch to use an aluminum fretboard.
Travis Bean, another motorcycle enthusiast, used aluminum necks to avoid wood-related twisting on his koa-bodied guitars, which were known for the machined “T” cutout on the headstock. Bean necks have a chunk of aluminum at the end which served as a heel block, solidifying the neck-to-body joint.
The most commercially successful use of aluminum necks happened with Kramer guitars, which originally sought to improve on the Bean concept; Gary Kramer and Dennis Berardi used a headstock with a wishbone shape similar to Bean’s T. Kramer necks have two wooden inserts plugged into the sides of the T stem, so the only aluminum the player feels is a narrow strip along the back. By ’81, wood necks had all but supplanted aluminum at Kramer. Beyond that, a few guitar hardcores might remember a brand called Hustler, which used aluminum necks and were promoted briefly in mid ’79.
The emergence of two instruments in 2010/’11 threw guitar history yet another curveball…
“Before the Messenger, before Kramer, before Veleno and Travis Bean, there was the Burke guitar,” said Mick Flynn, a guitar dealer in Kirkland, Washington, who got a call from a man who had found an unusual instrument at a Goodwill store in nearby Eugene, Oregon. Having no idea what it was, the man took it to a big-box music store, where, Flynn said, “A manager identified it as a homemade guitar that was ‘worthless and should be burned!’ And yes, that’s exactly what they told him!”
Rightfully miffed at the ignorance displayed by the big-box guy, the man began researching the brand online, where he found a snippet on the website belonging to Flynn’s store, Guitar Archeology; it turns out that after finding a Messenger guitar, Flynn and his staff did some leg work to find out what it was. Then, “We posted pictures and told everything we knew about the guitar,” Flynn said. “There was a lot of interest.”
Then, Flynn got an e-mail that started with the cryptic passage, “So the myth continues…”
The note came from Colleen Pulley, whose father, area residen0t Glen Burke, had designed an aluminum-necked guitar before Messenger. And she wanted to set the record straight!
“I am surprised more people haven’t realized the Tuning Fork Guitar Company preceded the Messenger guitar by at least eight years,” she told Flynn. “I think it’s time my father is given credit.”
Tuning Fork Guitar Company? Flynn was curious. So he started once again to dig, beginning with a contact offered by Pulley – Daniel LeBlanc, a one-time sales rep for the company.
LeBlanc told Flynn how Tuning Fork Guitar was founded by Burke and based on a “kit guitar” that used sourced parts to “bolt” to an aluminum neck that attached to wooden body segments.
“I met Burke in late April of 1965,” said LeBlanc. “At the time, I was employed as a security guard at the Tongue Point Job Corps in Astoria, Oregon, and Glen was instructing students there on how to construct guitars using his Tuning Fork kits. The students loved building the guitars, and because of the aluminum neck, they sounded great.”
LeBlanc’s relationship with Burke evolved to the point where the former quit his job to work as a distributor for Burke, focused on Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. The two conducted sales presentations and bought parts – fretboards, strings, bridges, pickups, etc. In ’66, Burke moved the company to Grants Pass, Oregon. There, LeBlanc would compile the parts to make kits, and assemble some to sell as completed guitars. And though both were dedicated to the effort, they soon faced significant hurdles.
“I remember going with Glen to purchase parts at a large music outlet in Portland,” LeBlanc said. “Glen was talking to the owner while I looked around. Then, he asked me to wait outside while he talked to the guy. Later, he told me how the shop owner told him word had come down from two large American guitar manufacturers, instructing him not to sell parts to Glen.”
The development all but halted Burke’s operation, and within a few months LeBlanc was forced to move his family and find work in California. To this day, he’s saddened by the story because as he saw it, Burke poured his heart and soul into the effort, and LeBlanc himself saw – and still sees – so much potential in Burke’s concept.
“When the students at Tongue Point built the guitars, you could see the excitement, the pride, and the sense of accomplishment they had when ‘their guitar’ was finished. Glen’s vision was to see the same thing happen everywhere – people all over the world building their guitars and playing their music.”
LeBlanc recalls that most of the Burkes assembled were six-string guitars, along with several 12-strings. And because they could be dressed with whatever finish the builder wanted, he saw instruments in everything from standard paint to odd variations like cowhide and tooled-leather coverings. Their common element, of course, was the neck shown in the drawings for the 1960 patent, with, as described in the filing “…a hollow aluminum neck which extends entirely through the guitar to the base and has the body portion attached to the sides thereof.” The illustration shows the topless aluminum box that made up the neck-through element.
“Before we got the e-mail from Colleen Pulley, I had never heard of Burke guitars, and neither had anyone I knew here in the Pacific Northwest,” said Flynn. “But while doing the research so we could put the bit on our website, I found Glen’s patent filing. Within six months of posting everything we knew about Burke guitars, we were contacted by the couple who found the guitar at Goodwill.”
Soon after that contact, Flynn made his way to Eugene, where he expected to simply pay a visit to one very rare bird of a guitar. But…
“When we got there, it had been taken apart,” he recalled. Such a scenario can be a dealer’s worst nightmare, but this time, it was key to a pleasant surprise. “I could read what was written inside – and it was amazing!” There, written in pencil on the wooden back of the instrument, between the aluminum forks, were the words, “Built March 8, 1960, to last until 2060. Builder Glen F. Burke, 4025 E 17 Ave. Eugene, Oregon.” Then, inside the bass bout, it says, “When this is opened, I’ll probably be long gone from the worries of the world, so if you’ve had good luck with this guitar, you can wish me good luck wherever I am. G.F.B”
“We believe this is one of Glen’s first guitars – if not very first, given that it pre-dates, by five months, the patent filing,” Flynn said.
So, what’s it like to hold and play a Burke?
“It has a very unique tone, completely unlike any other guitar,” Flynn noted. “It’s very resonant and bright, but not brittle. Chords sound full and rich. It really is a shame they weren’t given a chance to catch on, commercially.”
Another Burke owner is Mat Rile, in Toluca Lake, California; his weighs just shy of eight pounds.
“It’s very light compared to similar instruments by Messenger, Travis Bean, or Kramer,” Rile said. “Its gold-foil DeArmond pickups are amazing. The output on both read almost 12K, and they can cover many genres of music, from country/rockabilly to rock, with distinct twang. When driven, it can also get real nasty yet maintain full character. Also, because the body is hollow, it possesses a banjo-like acoustic tone, which you’d never expect. The bottom line is, it sounds so good!”
Rile’s guitar has a master Volume and Tone controls and a three-way toggle switch.
“The pickguard assembly is unique,” he points out. “The pickguard has no screw holes. It’s mounted to four pots and the switch, as they’re routed through holes inside the body, then they’re attached to the pickguard, secured with a nut and washer.”
Three “extra” holes under each pickup indicate Burke (or someone else) experimented with pickup placement. The DeArmond pickups on Rile’s guitar have goldfoil-inlaid coves, a DeArmond wiring harness, CTS pots, Switchcraft jack, Valco tailpiece (with custom gold coloring), Gibson control knobs and switch caps, Kluson tuners, a “Custom Made” plaque as seen on certain Gibson models, and a gold-colored Grestch Space Control roller bridge.
Though Burke’s body shape is non-traditional, Rile says the guitar is comfy to play. “It’s designed very well and fits the player’s body,” he noted. “Even better, it fits like a glove when you’re sitting down.”
The guitar’s scale measures 257/8″ and Rile describes its neck profile as a “meaty/mild D shape,” and as one might expect, “The aluminum gives it a totally different feel and truly plays fantastic, with a neck angle that results in a real player instrument, like all the desired brands of yesteryear.
“I’ve owned many rare aluminum-neck guitars in the past – Davoli/Wandre, Messenger, Veleno, Travis Bean and even top-of-the-line Kramers,” he adds. “But nothing plays or sounds similar to this instrument, either in terms of natural acoustic projection or plugged-in tone. If you ask me, Burke was the Picasso of guitars.”
“I’ve often wondered what might have happened if Glen had better luck,” added LeBlanc. “What if he had been able to overcome those who kept him from succeeding? And regardless, the industry should recognize Glen and the Tuning Fork Guitar. It was Glen’s idea, which he patented, worked, and sacrificed for! If I had the resources, I’d bring it back myself.”
This feature was first published in the April ’12 issue
This article originally appeared in VG’s October 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Young Blood is more than just another blues-based rock record packed with guts, grit, and guitars – it’s a sonic diary of a man struggling with the burdens of existence, mental health, and the courage to confront them. It’s intense and muggy, but King took it upon himself to guide VG readers gently through the swamp.
Young Blood is heavy and dreamy, but tight.
It sounds tight because it was tight. Those cats stuck to me. I have a tendency to veer off, but Chris and Nick are bad motherf***ers. As far as the mixing, we didn’t want much reverb; we wanted to hear everyone in the room, so that’s what went into the mix. It’s not so much what we did to the record as what we didn’t do. We didn’t want to muddle it up. We were really happy with the way the band sounded, and wanted people to hear that, not the capabilities of whoever was mixing and mastering it.
The music has a classic power-trio feel. How are you pulling off guitar riffs live with vocals?
A lot of that pressure was taken off when we hired Drew Smithers to join the group. He helps with a lot of the rhythm-guitar parts. He’s even able to handle some of the pedal-steel parts from my older records, which makes it sound a lot bigger. On the record, there were two guitar players – Andrew Gabbard played rhythm because we wanted a panned sound to make the record feel full and live. We didn’t want to overdub too much. He played live with me in the room, and Drew does it onstage now. That makes it easier for me to be frontman, singer, and guitar player.
There are always challenges and upsides to everything, but we have a seven-piece group and our horn players both double on percussion. There’s more percussion on the record than one might think – congas, tambourines, shakers…
Cowbell…
Yeah (laughs), we have cowbell, of course. All the parts are there, and it’s never a bad idea to put Hammond organ on something.
Was the plan to strip down the sound compared to your last album, El Dorado?
Yeah, we wanted the listener to feel like they were in the room. So that’s how it was mixed, and there’s not a lot of after-the-fact production. We worked hard to capture the moment, and I feel confident we did. The old-school power trio feel was a real big idea for us – it’s one of the biggest inspirations behind wanting to do Young Blood like a real power-trio arena-rock record.
You worked with producer Dan Auerbach again. Whose idea was that?
I kind of drummed it up. Originally, I was going to tour as a trio. During the pandemic, we’d gone out and done some trio shows, and field-tested some of the songs I was writing. I ended up changing my mind as far as personnel goes, but realized I was able to do a lot more with more guys. Me and Dan talked about it; he really liked the idea and we really loved the idea of working together again. This time around, it felt a lot more comfortable and natural.
You have a deep emotional connection to these songs.
Before each [recording] session, we had a [writing] session that was really like therapy; I would talk about what was going on with me on that particular day, and luckily, we were working with writers who were really listening to every word carefully.
I was having a really difficult time dealing with a lot of heartbreak s**t and personal stuff. I was not doing great, but it limited itself to a really creative space for me. That’s really the only way I’ve ever known how to write, anyway. For me, the real challenge is writing a happy song.
One of the writers was Desmond Child. What was it like to collaborate with him?
Desmond is one of my favorite people. He’s unapologetically Desmond all the time. I like that trait – people who aren’t afraid to be themselves all the time. I really admire that in people. Desmond has a very big personality, and he’s a legend for a reason. He’s so good at what he does, and we had a great time writing together. I fidget a lot, and he got frustrated that I kept clicking my pen. So, he took my pen away. Otherwise, we got along famously.
It’s one thing to write a song by yourself, but to be vulnerable in front of other people while doing so is a whole other thing.
I think I was in a stage in my life where I just didn’t want to be alone, so I’d always have people over at the house. Or, I’d always be out doing something. In that way, it lent itself to the project. I didn’t want to write these songs alone. It would have just driven me further to the edge. I’m really happy with the way we approached it, not to mention that the writers we brought in were such prolific cats that it really helped me say what I needed to say.
“Rescue Me” has so much stuff pouring out of it.
It really is an outcry. When you listen, I want you to draw your own conclusions or apply them to yourself however you can. Everybody has a moment in their life where they feel like, “Somebody f***in’ help me. I’m spiraling out.” When you’re in a tailspin, you don’t really care who’s going to help you, just hoping for whatever is going to make you feel better than you do right there. That’s what I was feeling when I wrote it.
You seem comfortable singing about your struggles.
Mental health is one of those ingredients that’s always volatile. You mix it with anything and chances are the whole thing is going to catch fire. Likewise, mental health struggles without combining them with a healthy lifestyle, steady meditation, therapy, and positive things will always set the room on fire. But sometimes you learn the hard way.
It sounds like you and Dan have great chemistry in the studio.
We get on really well, and I think that’s why we work so well together. He just sends me out there and tells me to do what I feel, and he hits the “Record” button. With each record, it seems more and more seamless. We wrote everything within a month and recorded the album in six days.
Was there a lot of physical separation in the studio?
We were all in the same room, with the exception of drums so they wouldn’t bleed too badly. Dan and I shared the same vision – we wanted this record to be as up-close and personal as we could get. The chemistry of the musicians was there immediately, so we just needed to just put a mic in the room and go. We tracked the vocals while I played guitar. It was challenging, especially with riffs, but it happened really naturally. There were only a couple of overdubs.
The fuzz solo on “Aim High” is simply killin’.
Thanks, I appreciate that. I used a Tone Bender on that. It was either that or a Tru-Fi Colordriver. My main gear was Dan’s ’59 Les Paul Standard, which is a wonderful guitar – really special. And, I used a secret weapon, which is one of my studio amps. It’s an old Gibson with tremolo, not very big; somebody rebuilt it in the ’60s, and it’s been through the wringer. It’s an Army green plywood box – ugly (laughs) – but it’s my favorite studio amp. It sat in my dad’s side room for years. He asked if I had any use for it and I said, “Uh, yeah. I got a lot of ideas (laughs).” I used it on every song as the control variable. We’d put it in the chain with an AC30 or an old Supro from the ’60s and some spring reverb tanks. We cranked them up, always going stereo. I had a direct feed going into the Gibson the whole time.
Did you use guitars other than the ’59?
I used my signature Gibson ES-345, and Gabbard and I both used a Banker Excalibur for that chunky rhythm sound. I also played a 12-string and a ’69 Black Beauty I named Gizmo.
For the guitar solo on “Pain,” which pedal did you step on?
It would have been the Tone Bender or Colordriver. I’m not much of an effects guy – I have some on the road, but don’t really use them. I love a Univibe, and sometimes I’ll use my MXR Reverb for spacey effects to add flavor to the fusiony sections of the set. I use the Colordriver for fuzz, and they make a great tremolo called the Ultra Tremolo that I use on the road.
What’s in your live rig?
I have my Orange signature head – the Marcus King MK Ultra. It’s a 50-watt with Tone, Volume, and Bass. It’s got 6L6s and the circuitry is really similar to a British-made Super Reverb, with more oomph. Orange did a fantastic job with that head. I wanted a slant 8×10 cabinet, and they were happy to oblige, so both Drew I play through one of those, and next to that I have a 2×15. In the States, I have a 2×15 Bassman cab with a Dual Showman on top. I replaced its output transformer with one from a brownface Twin, so it has a lot more power.
I’m also using a Clean Boost from MXR, and a Tube Screamer. When I get really nuts, I’ll use the Colordriver. Other than that, I’m using an MXR Univibe and a couple other bells and whistles that don’t get clicked on as much.
How about guitars?
I have a really great Firebird that Gibson made a few years ago. It’s the Custom Shop Eric Clapton 1964 Firebird. Gibson was kind enough to let me hold on to one. I always have a Les Paul with me, whether it’s Gizmo or another one I’ve been playing lately. I also have my red Tele, which is a reissue. When I do fly dates, I always bring reissue stuff. Right now, I have my red Tele and my 345. My signature ES-345 is the first prototype of the one that Jim Willard made. It was the only one made in the Memphis factory, so it’s really special to me.
There’s some bitchin’ slide on “Rescue Me.” Do you have guitars set up for that?
No, I always play standard. However, in order to make it as swampy as we could, I added a little wah on it, which gave it a pretty cool vibe.
That track has a lot of humidity.
That’s a fine way of putting it. We certainly wanted to make it as humid as possible.
Were there any challenges traveling through Europe in the spring and early summer?
Not necessarily. I feel at home on the road. It can sometimes be challenging, but I’m used to it.
What’s the live show like?
We keep it different and fresh every night. Folks don’t want to hear us play the same thing every night, and we would certainly get bored with that. So we keep it fresh, and we’re always adding new ideas to the tunes – add horns to something and see if it works. We’re not afraid to try something.
Your back-catalog is so strong it must be hard to narrow down songs.
We write a guide each night, but whether we stick to it or go off course depends on audience participation and how much we’re feeling it from the room. Sometimes we find ourselves in interesting territory. I don’t like being locked into one thing or another. We have a group that can change speeds at the drop of a hat. We work well together in that way; we’re able to go into something completely different. We have a setlist for if we aren’t feeling any reciprocation, which isn’t very often, thank God. There are certain things that work well for the show.
What are your plans for the near future?
I’ll be working on the next album. That’s pretty much it. Writing about everything and keeping busy on the road. We’re on a really big U.S. run. I love being able to share the stage with my friends and mentors. It’s always a treat. I know what music has done for me, so if I can, in any way, contribute to music that can help people or contribute to people’s mental health growth, I’m honored to take part in that. No matter how lonely you feel, there’s always someone who will be there for you. Often, it’s a record. There’s always a guest amplifier in my trailer.
This article originally appeared in VG’s October 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Had you been a music-loving resident of Bogalusa, Louisiana, at the height of the jazz age, you would’ve caught wind of a young virtuoso who made the violin sound like angels singing and dropped jaws with his fluid guitar playing.Eddie “Snoozer” Quinn, born in 1907, was a musical genius in the days before guitar amplification, so his name is known by only the most devout fans of jazz guitar.
After finishing high school, Quinn joined dance-hall bands that toured the South and Southwest, playing clubs in small towns and cities including Shreveport, Houston, San Antonio, Galveston, and even Nueva Laredo, Mexico. The bands included Mart Britt’s Sylvan Beach Orchestra, the Louisiana Ramblers, and Peck Kelley’s Bad Boys; bandleader Kelley gave Quinn the nickname “Snoozer” after joking about how he was so good he could play in his sleep.
By October of 1928, Quinn had moved back to Louisiana, and happened to be visiting a friend in New Orleans one night when The Paul Whiteman Orchestra was playing the St. Charles Theatre. His host attended, and afterward was boasting about Quinn with members of Whiteman’s band. Suddenly, Quinn found himself playing an impromptu audition for Whiteman, who at the time was one of the best-known bandleaders in the country.
“We know about that night thanks to the oral histories of early jazz musicians captured by the Tulane University Hogan Jazz Archive, and by memoirs of Johnny Wiggs, who played cornet in a band with Snoozer at the time,” said Katy Hobgood Ray, Quinn’s great-great niece and co-author of the new biography Snoozer Quinn: Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Pioneer (see our review in this month’s “Hit List”). Johnny explained that Snoozer could shake someone’s hand while playing guitar with his left hand only. He played ‘Tiger Rag’ while shaking Whiteman’s hand and was immediately asked, ‘When can you come to work with me?’
“Snoozer’s early experience, especially on vaudeville and minstrel stages in traveling shows around the South, helped him develop skills like using hammer-ons and pull-offs with his left hand. And, he could entertain as a soloist, which would have been especially important.”
As with his other band stints, Quinn was with White man briefly, leaving before the end of 1929 (a June, 1930, feature on Whiteman and his 29-piece band includes Eddie Lange as sole guitarist and Bing Crosby, listed as a “Rhythm Boy”).
“There wasn’t really a place for Snoozer in that band,” said Ray. “Whiteman only wanted him for after-parties, to show off his tricks. But, one positive thing that came from the gig was that Snoozer got to know New York musicians who became fans of his incredible virtuosity. Higher-profile jazz guitarists such as Eddie Lang, Dick McDonough, and Carl Kress would hang out with Snoozer, listening to him play.
“He was incredibly innovative. While most jazz guitarists of the day were using a plectrum, he pioneered a fingerstyle approach. And while his contemporaries had a linear style of soloing that came from the Italian mandolin tradition, Snoozer’s style was more akin to ragtime piano – he could play a melody line, harmony, and a rhythmic bass part at the same time.”
But of course, like other guitarists in the big-band era, Quinn and his instrument struggled to be heard above horn sections.
“Fortunately, record companies recognized he had something special,” Ray noted. “In 1928, Victor Records recorded him playing solo. Unfortunately, they didn’t believe the music would be commercially viable, so the sides were never released.”
In his prime and for most of his life, Quinn played a Gibson L-5. Though family lore doesn’t include how it was attained, Ray believes he bought it in Houston, New Orleans, or Shreveport, as he lived in all three during those years, teaching guitar lessons and hanging out in music stores.
“He had that guitar until 1941, and there are photos and even silent-film footage of him playing it,” Ray said. “I assume it’s what he played on the Victor recordings and a 1928 Columbia session with Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer. But, like that music, the L-5 is missing.”
There are professional recordings of Snoozer’s guitar work, but only as accompaniment in orchestras or with vocalists such as Bee Palmer or Jimmie Davis.
Quinn spent the last two decades of his life in Louisiana, playing in orchestras and dance bands, doing solo spots for radio shows, and playing as a hotel-lounge “stroller,” going from table to table. Throughout his life and career, he forged friendships with top other bandleaders and musicians of the day including Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, Pee Wee Russell, and the Dorsey brothers.
“Even the great Les Paul gave credit to Snoozer for influencing his playing technique,” Ray noted. “Les said that Snoozer was the one who taught him to pull and hammer strings.”
By the mid ’30s, Quinn’s health began to decline, thanks in part to alcoholism and later, tuberculosis. While a patient in the TB ward at New Orleans’ Charity Hospital in 1948, Quinn was visited by former bandmate Wiggs, who was by then a music educator, having long been retired from gigging. Recognizing the importance of Quinn’s guitar work, Wiggs recorded him in a nurse’s lounge, using an acetate cutting machine.
“Snoozer was gravely ill at the time, but those recordings offer insight on his musicality and unusual technique,” said Ray.
Quinn was just 42 when he died in 1949. The Gibson L-0 he used on Wiggs’ acetates spent a decade in the basement of a house belonging to Snoozer’s brother, Alton Quinn. Dusty and missing half of its strings, it was a mystery when rediscovered by Snoozer’s 12-year-old nephew, Terry. After Ray began researching Snoozer’s story, Terry asked her to become caretaker of it and his violin, and today they’re both displayed in her home.
“I play the L-0 sometimes at my own gigs, but I mostly play a Gibson B-25, which has a much smaller neck that suits my small hands much better,” said Ray.
Do you have a classic/collectible/vintage guitar with an interesting personal story that might be a good fit for “Classics?” If so, send an e-mail to ward@vintageguitar.com for details on how it could be featured.
This article originally appeared in VG’s October 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
By the mid ’90s, the Los Angeles-based amp guru enjoyed a long-standing reputation as one the world’s premier guitar-amp makers, arguably rivaled only by Ken Fischer of Trainwreck circuits. Robben Ford, Eric Johnson, Lowell George, Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Lindley, Bonnie Raitt, and a host of major stars were devotees, and others were knocking on his door to get a taste of that hallowed tone. But even with such demands on his time – or maybe because of it – Dumble concocted a means of broadening access to the sound, and guitarist Joey Brasler was on hand to help.
Back in the day, Brasler was an L.A. session ace, solo artist, and sideman who toured with Bob Welch, Boz Scaggs, Steve Lukather, the Beach Boys, and others. Even so, he had no idea who Dumble was when they first bumped into each other.
“I met Alexander when he worked out of the Alley, a rehearsal studio in North Hollywood,” says Brasler, now vice president of product management for Fender. “I was rehearsing there at the time. I was outside having a smoke when a huge garage door opened, and there stood Dumble. He was very friendly, we chatted about music and gear, and he told me he built amplifiers. I didn’t hear one that day and wouldn’t for a few years.
“Then, in the early ’80s I was rehearsing with Bob Welch at Leeds Musical, and I asked Andy Leeds if he had a Dumble in his rental arsenal. He sent one to the room we were in. I plugged in and played it a bit – and didn’t understand it at all. Having played through many Dumble amplifiers since, I can tell you that each was distinctive, and most didn’t work for me. I came to learn that those amps were built for players with a much more sensitive touch than I have and that, through a Dumble, my hands would cause what I called ‘crushing the circuitry.’”
Through the ’80s, Brasler and Dumble encountered each other more often, and eventually became good friends. They’d hang out at the Pagoda on the grounds of Jackson Browne’s L.A. home, or at Brasler’s apartment. In the ’90s, Dumble would catch Brasler’s band, the Hose, at a Reseda bar where they often played, bringing amps-in-progress for the guitarist to test.
“He once had Eric Johnson’s Steel String Singer in for repair and asked me to test it for him at the gig,” Brasler recalls. “That was the loudest amp I’d ever played through, and I had to cut the test short because I was overwhelming the band – and we played loud.”
At the time, Brasler also managed Make’n Music, a high-end guitar store in North Hollywood. Its owner, Greg Bayles, was a big fan of Dumble amps and picked them up on the used market whenever he could. Though pricey by standards of the time, they were considerably more affordable than they are today. Given the shop might have a handful of the man’s amps on the floor at any given time, Dumble himself was prone to occasionally hanging out at Make’n Music, and while doing so he concocted a plan.
“At one point, Alexander said to me, ‘Joey, I want to offer four different amp mods to customers through the store. Here’s how it would work: Customers would bring the amps to be modified to you, you would bring them to me, I’d do the designated mod, then you’d pick the amps up, and deliver to the customers. I don’t want to speak to customers, and I don’t want them calling me. That part’s all you.’”
Brasler agreed to the plan and advertised the service in the SoCal edition of BAM magazine. One mod, dubbed the Garage Band Ripper, could be installed in any Mesa/Boogie, while another, the Hotel Hog, was for reissue Bassmans. But, while Dumble’s reputation preceded him in certain circles, it wasn’t enough at the time to bring in a wider clientele. There were relatively few takers – likely, Brasler says, because of the extensive work required, and the price – about $2,500.
Which brings us to this amp, with a cabinet and chassis from an Orange head then outfitted with Dumble’s distinctive graphics and preferred knobs on the front panel… plus a lot more inside.
“Around 1994, Alexander asked me, ‘What can I do for you?’” Brasler tells us. “I said, ‘I have an old Orange head I bought out of the Recycler and it doesn’t sound good. Can you mod it for me?’ I added, ‘I don’t want it to sound like an Overdrive Special, my hands can’t figure those out. I want it to be big, fat, loose, and fun – not a super-tight and focused sound.’
“Dumble had seen me play many times, and he knew what I sounded like.”
Expecting a quick mod – maybe an added high-gain stage and a Master Volume control – Brasler found Dumble wanted far more control over the final results; he removed all components from the chassis, cut new holes to reposition the tubes (“He said the original locations would create a field and cause interference and noise…”) and created entirely new circuit boards. A new power transformer and choke were procured from Mojotone, Steve Fryette donated an output transformer, and a small Radio Shack transformer powered the requisite switching relay to allow clean and overdrive channels.
Dumble fabricated a new front control panel, laid out its graphics, and peopled it with Telecaster Deluxe knobs, all of which say “Tone.” He also created a jagged “medallion” from a piece of the original chassis that he’d cut to make room for the new power transformer. One side bears an inscription from the maker, the other the amp’s serial number. Brasler supplied an old Heathkit-style two-button footswitch for channel switching and boost engagement, to which Dumble added status LEDs and the correct five-pin DIN wiring.
And what did Dumble charge his pal for the work? Nothing.
“He never let me pay him for it,” said Brasler. “I tried. We’d become close friends and I did him a number favors – I believe he thought of the Ripper as his return gift.”
One contingency the maker applied to all his amp builds, often written into the contract upon paying a deposit, was that the client refrain from opening the chassis, and that the amp be returned to Dumble for any maintenance. Though it was less-overtly stated in Brasler’s case, he honored the principle. As such, the first time he gazed at the circuit inside was 25 years after taking ownership, a short while after Dumble’s death in January of this year. What he discovered – as seen in the photos here – was much like what is revealed by other owners who eventually opened their Dumbles; the larger circuit board carrying the power-filtering and rectification circuits was fully exposed, but the two smaller boards with the real magic of the Dumble design – the overdrive and clean-channel circuits – were covered in the maker’s signature blue goop.
As for the sound, Brasler’s assessment tells us it once again nailed the master’s uncanny ability to fine-tune his designs to the style of each guitarist.
“Tonally, the Ripper’s clean sound is classic Overdrive Special – big headroom, lots of bottom, lovely midrange and a sparkling high-end. Clean can be pushed into Dumbly clean overdrive. The ‘Ripper (overdrive)’ sound is huge, with lots of gain, as you would expect; not all Marshall-esque and not all Dumble, but some middle ground where the ODS note focus is rounded out sweetly and chords are warm and very punchy. And it’s very loud for a 50-watt amp.
“Dumble’s mystical gift was in ultra-precise nuance; he created musical tools so unique as to be designed for only one person on Earth. He heard distinctive, defining elements in a musician’s sound and watched the musician play to determine arm and finger movement, pick angle, how a chord was struck – every tiny detail – and then designed an electronic device that so matched the musical nature of that musician with pinpoint accuracy that the device became an inseparable part of the player’s musical soul. It was a gift beyond comprehension.”
Along with the amp and fond memories of their friendship, Brasler has retained several faxes Dumble sent to him over the years. Some discuss ideas related to amp design or gear modification, others are thank-yous for dinners or other hangs, and most carry touching hand-written notes.
One – following a long typed message that includes the request, “I’d love to get together with you this week at some point. Along with ‘Rocky II’, perhaps you could show me some more guitar playing” – bears the inscription “PS – Joey, Have you ever considered making a ‘Guitar Album’ – ? No vocals! No words!… Just beautiful guitar…! Your bud, Alexander.”
Another, after discussing his desire to return a pickup to Brasler (but needing to drop it in his mailbox in the middle of the night due to his own night-owl schedule), is followed with: “PS – Van Halen is playing in LA in July. Have you heard of this? Hope you have A Great Day! …Your bud, Alexander.”
“It’s a gross understate ment to say that Dumble was a thoughtful communicator,” Brasler recalls. “In the mid ’90s, the fax machine was his texting muse because he was either building amps or thinking about building amps 24 hours a day, so he kept phone conversations short and sent lots of faxes. They afforded him the opportunity to express what was on his mind in an artful way – he would type up the note in Word, then hand-write ideas and his signature.”
In all, from amp to faxes to fond memories, the history of Brasler’s Garage Band Ripper and his friendship with the guitar world’s most legendary amp maker shines a poignant light on an elusive and oft-misunderstood tone guru, while contributing mightily to the Dumble legacy.
One example is the Special 16 profiled by Dave Hunter in the April ’22 issue. Though its origins were a mystery when the piece was published, as is often the case, answers surfaced thanks to readers who wrote to VG in the months following. Turns out, the amp had been built for Jerry Miller in the waning days of Moby Grape.
Miller first met Dumble when the two were part of a tight Santa Cruz music scene in the late 1960s.
“I went to his shop for something – I don’t exactly remember what; maybe it was because he’d invited me over after seeing one of our gigs,” Miller recalled. “But, me and our road manager, Don Miller, used to hang out there a lot. Howard would play a bass, I’d play guitar, and we’d make up songs.”
In Moby Grape, Miller staged a rig using four Bassman amps that he could masterfully manipulate with his longtime favorite guitar, a ’62 Gibson L-5 he called Beulah. Dumble, too, was a big fan of the Bassman.
“I would brag to Howie about how mine could howl anytime I wanted, to hold a note. It was really nice,” Miller said. “On a whim one night, I asked him to re-cover my amps – two in black and two white, so I could stack them onstage to look like a checkerboard.”
Dumble agreed to the work, but later upped the ante.
“He had the idea to put all four amps into one head, to give me better control of my sound,” Miller added.
Dumble went to work and a few months later had the Special 16. But, there was a problem. Moby Grape having dissolved, Miller was no longer playing venues where he could fully employ the new amp’s big sound.
“In the clubs I was playing by then with The Rhythm Dukes, it was hard to break loose, and Howie’s amp sounded harsh with Beulah. I remember playing it in a club in Walnut Creek, and I had to keep it as far from me as I could.”
Out of unfortunate necessity, the Special 16 was benched, and Miller took it back to Dumble.
“He’d charged me $3,500 for it and let me make payments, but I was bringing in just a little money at the time, so I had to tell him, ‘You need to take this back. I can’t afford it.’”
Before seeing the profile in VG, Miller has no idea what had happened to the amp, but the two men remained friends and talked regularly until Dumble moved to Los Angeles.
“I didn’t see him after he got really popular,” he said. “Whenever I talked to anyone who knew him, I’d ask how Howie was doing. The last time I saw him was at least 30 years ago.” – Ward Meeker
This article originally appeared in VG’s October 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
The Magnatone story starts at the small Dickerson Brothers factory near the heart of the Los Angeles music scene. In 1937, they began building Lumarith-covered (a.k.a. pearloid) Dickerson slap steels and small amplifiers for people who joined the American Hawaiian Teachers Association (AHT), which paid “enrollers” to persuade parents to put their kids in lessons, the cost of which included an instrument.
In 1947, Dickerson Brothers became Magna Electronics, which branded its amps and steels “Magnatone” and relocated to Inglewood. By the mid ’50s, they were making one-, two-, and three-neck steel guitars and increasingly popular amps.
In ’56, the company introduced its first Spanish-style guitar – the Mark III, “designed exclusively for Magnatone by one of the top designers in the field.” That designer was the legendary Paul Bigsby, who also created the upscale double-cut Mark IV and Mark V, introduced in ’57 with neck-through construction and sound cavities. Intended to compete with Les Pauls, they got some uptake with a few lounge-jazz guitarists, but otherwise didn’t gain much traction and lasted only into the following year.
In January of ’57, members of Magnatone’s management team sold their shares to F. Roy Chilton, former general manager of Thomas Organs, where he had been responsible for the Thomas electric organ; in August of ’58, Chilton commissioned a new factory in Torrance.
We can’t be sure, but Magnatone’s next guitar line, the Artist Mark VII, VIII, IX, and X Artist Deluxe Stereo (covered in faux-rosewood vinyl!) may have come from the new plant in ’59. They exhibited a boatload of Rickenbacker influence, which could have been coincidence given that Magnatone and Rickenbacker were practically neighbors. But it also could have been the influence of Paul Barth.
Former production manager at Rickenbacker, Barth started a company of his own and gave Semie Moseley his first guitar-making job. He was “producing” guitars under his own name as well as a line branded Barth Natural Music Guild, all of which were identical to the new Magnatone Artist line. So, either Magnatone made Barth’s guitars, or Barth made Magnatones.
In April of ’59, Magnatone merged with the organ maker Estey Corporation, with Chilton becoming President. Magnatone’s Artist guitars, meanwhile, proved no more successful than the Marks, and disappeared in 1960. The following year, Magnatone rolled out its third generation – the Golden-Voiced Magna-Touch guitars – definitely attributable to Paul Barth. A cross between a Tele and a Dano, they had hollow bodies. It’s not known how long they were produced.
In ’65, Magnatone gave it one last try, debuting the Starstream line – its first true solidbodies. Hyped as “Slimline electric guitars and basses with the new sleek silhouette in the latest Showman colors,” they were the three-pickup X-20 Typhoon, two-pickup X-15 Tornado, and the X-5 Zephyr (the bass was the X-10 Hurricane). All were made of Appalachian poplar with Canadian-maple necks, rosewood fretboards, and tilt-neck adjustment. Guitars had the company’s Lever-Lock vibratos, an innovative locking nut (from a time well before locking nuts), super-sensitive single-coil pickups (which are exceptional), and necks that promotional material claimed were “the slimmest ever.” Finish options were red, white, black, and sunburst, all but the last being metalflake. A molded hardshell case was an option. The Typhoon and Tornado were promoted as “professional guitars” with 251/2″ scales and slightly larger bodies. Their controls included on/off sliders with an extra “Lead/Rhythm” switch tied to a capacitor.
The Zephyr featured here was billed as a short-scale “3/4-size” guitar, though the scale measured 24″ – not really three-quarters, or all that short. The body is a little smaller, but doesn’t feel small by modern standards, and it lacks the Lead/Rhythm circuit. The Magna pickups are quiet, reasonably loud, and especially responsive to midrange tones.
Like Magnatone’s previous lines, Starstreams made it barely a year. In ’66, the headstock was changed to a more-hip (though slightly bizarre) offset three-and-three shape, and a thinline hollowbody appeared, perhaps imported from Italy. They also issued a guitar instruction book with a record of the great Jimmy Bryant playing a Magnatone guitar/amp set. Unfortunately, none of it helped.
In ’66, Estey closed the California plant and relocated to Harmony, Pennsylvania, where they made the giant solid-state amplifiers so popular at the time. It’s highly probable that all of Magnatone’s guitars were built in California, though some could have been assembled from parts in Pennsylvania. A few Italian guitars were imported carrying the Estey brand, and that was it.
In August of ’71, the trade press announced that the once-mighty Magnatone/Estey had been sold to Miner Industries, Inc., which intended to manufacture toys.
It’s unknown if Magnatone guitars are rare birds, but with runs of barely a year for each series, chances are that relatively few have survived. But they are of sufficient quality and interest to no longer be a secret.
Michael Wright profiled the Magna-Touch Model 100 in the January ’19 issue.
This article originally appeared in VG’s October 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
However, unlike the Tele and Strat, which required only minimal wiring changes to reach their optimal design, the Precision had an evolutionary history more like Gibson’s Les Paul model, not reaching its preferred configuration until it received an upgraded pickup (among other changes) in 1957 and a new finish color in ’58.
When it debuted in November, 1951, the Precision did have a lot in common with the Telecaster and Esquire, which Fender had introduced a little over a year earlier. The solid ash body had squared-off edges and a blond finish. Strings anchored through the body. Two adjustable saddles (made of a pressed fiber material rather than the brass saddles of the Tele) each accommodated a pair of strings. The pickguard was black Bakelite. Hidden under a handrest, the pickup was a single black bobbin without a cover, similar to the Telecaster’s bridge-position pickup. The neck was Fender’s one-piece maple design, with integral fingerboard. The peghead was relatively narrow, with all tuners on the bass side. A round washer functioned as a string tree to give the two highest strings a sharper break-angle over the nut.
The only fundamental design difference between the Precision and the Telecaster was the body shape. The Telecaster’s upper bass bout hinted at a cutaway, angling into the neck on a line that emerged on the treble side about three frets higher up the neck. The Precision had an extended bass horn. Aesthetically, it was of monumental importance, because it transformed the square-ish Tele body into a sleeker, much more modernistic design, and it introduced the basic shape that, after a heavy contouring treatment, would become the legendary Stratocaster body three years later.
Functionally, however, the extended bass horn provided only the illusion of an improvement. While the bass side of the Precision’s body was scooped for a double-cutaway look, it still joined the neck three frets lower on the neck than the treble side, just as on the Tele. And the strap button on the longer horn made the Precision even more unbalanced and body-heavy than was the Tele.
The Precision obviously differed from the Tele in the elements that made it a bass guitar; the 34″ scale required a longer neck, but some of that extra scale length was moved to the body by placing the bridge closer to its end. The body was enlarged only slightly – about half an inch.
The scale length was rather arbitrary in the context of upright basses. A standard 3/4-size Kay bass had a 42″ scale. The smaller “1/2-size” (a.k.a. 1/4-size or junior) was 351/4″. Fender probably settled on 34″ because it was five frets longer than the Telecaster’s 251/2″ scale.
The idea of an electric bass or a guitar-like bass did not originate with Leo Fender. Gibson put frets on a bass mandolin, which could be played upright or in angled guitar position, in 1912. Seattle-based instrument maker Paul Tutmarc offered a fretted, solidbody electric bass guitar under his Audiovox brand in 1935. Still, most of the pre-Fender efforts at electrifying the bass were upright concepts, such as the minimalist bodies of Rickenbacker and Vega in the ’30s, or the Ampeg endpin-mounted pickup developed in 1946.
Fender’s development of an electric solidbody bass guitar in ’51 seems today to be a questionable business decision. Guitarists had been slow in the ’30s to accept the electric guitar because it did not sound like an amplified acoustic guitar. Bassists were no different, and to make matters worse, few upright bassists could be expected to “downgrade” to a guitar in order to gain more volume.
While there were apparent drawbacks to the Precision, it also had some unique attractions. The guitar-based design may have turned off traditional upright bassists, but it opened up an even bigger market for the Precision. Now, guitarists could make an easy transition to bass, and a band in need of a bassist – particularly a rock and roll band – no longer needed to find a trained upright bassist. Any guitarist could cover simple bass parts with virtually no extra training.
The second unique attraction of the Fender Precision was not part of the bass, per se; it was the amp that Fender introduced along with the bass. In the pre-WWII era, amps were barely powerful enough to handle a single-note electric guitar line. Manufacturers beefed up their amps in the post-war years, but until the Precision, there was no demand for a dedicated bass amp. Fender all but sealed the success of the Precision – and the electric solidbody bass in general – with the Bassman amp.
In 1954, Fender introduced a new and improved guitar called the Stratocaster, while leaving the Telecaster design intact. The Precision got some of the Strat’s features – beveled body edges, two-tone sunburst finish and white pickguard – but presumably because it already had the Strat’s general body shape, Fender did not think it necessary to make it a new model.
The Precision received another round of upgrades in ’57 (as seen on the ’58 model shown here), the most important of which was a new, split-coil pickup. A new bridge design featured string anchors as part of the bridgeplate, eliminating the holes through the body. The peghead was widened to more closely resemble that of the Strat. And the pickguard changed shape, no longer covering the upper bass horn (but encompassing the control knobs), and it also changed material to a gold-anodized aluminum.
At that point, the evolution of the Precision was complete. There were more changes, including the three-tone sunburst finish sported by this month’s featured example from 1958. A rosewood fingerboard became standard in late ’59, though the maple neck would return as an option in the late ’60s. At about the same time, the pickguard changed to laminated tortoiseshell celluloid (or white with custom finishes). Through the end of the ’50s, the Precision filled players’ needs to the extent that Fender offered no other bass model.
Finally, in 1960, Fender introduced its second bass. Called the Jazz Bass, it offered two pickups with blending capability, and a neck that tapered to a narrower 11/2″ width at the nut (compared to the Precision’s 13/4″ nut width). The Jazz Bass eventually found its own market with players who preferred its sharp attack, and numerous models today feature the “P-J” configuration, with one pickup from each model. However, for the full, fat sound that established the electric bass as a vital instrument in popular music, the late-’50s Precision remains the standard bearer.
This article originally appeared in VG‘s November 2009 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Visually, the acoustic/electric 724ce is a dazzler. Our tester had deep grain patterns, alternating gold with brown veins on bookmatched top and back, and sides. Add to the picture a stained-maple pickguard, matte-black headstock face with the Taylor logo and fountain inlay, rosewood-and-maple body binding, and an abalone rosette, and you have a knockout. An ebony bridge, black Tusq/micarta nut (1.75″), 25.5″ scale, and Grand Auditorium body with Venetian cutaway complete the package.
The V-bracing exudes a warmer, more-traditional sound compared to the trebly “Taylor sound” of the ’90s and 2000s. The 724ce delivers a balanced presentation with bright treble and midrange, and reasonable bass output – not boomy like a dreadnought, but sitting nicely in the EQ spectrum. Strumming or fingerpicking, low-end is nuanced with the upper strings for a sophisticated tone, especially for a cutaway (which typically offer upper-fret convenience at the expense of bass muscle).
Plugged in, its ES-2 electronics system becomes one of the stars of the show. With pickup sensors behind the bridge (instead of underneath), the unit delivers a surprisingly natural tone through an acoustic amp or PA. There’s little, if any, of the dreaded piezo quack. After decades of plastic-y sound from piezo pickups, the ES-2 is a revelation and, hopefully, a harbinger of more-organic acoustic/electric flavors. For playability, the 724ce has a comfortable, D-shaped mahogany neck with 20 frets on a West African ebony fretboard. In fine Taylor tradition, the guitar had a fast setup with low action, ready for quick licks up the neck.
The 724ce is a pricey, premium acoustic, but you get a sweet-sounding (and looking) instrument with a hardshell case. Perched on a stand, the guitar looks gorgeous and, on your lap, the tone and playability are top-notch. Beast of all, plug it in at a gig and dig that old-school miked sound with the convenience of acoustic/electric. In all, the 724ce has a “deep bench” of features that combine tone, looks, and stellar craftsmanship.
This article originally appeared in VG’s October 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
What makes the Spark a competitive choice? First, it sounds killer. Just click the footswitch and your weak, flabby signal finds vibrance and girth – the de facto “spark.” For muscle, the Level knob offers a whopping 26dB of clean boost, plenty for cutting through the band and taking a hot solo. Also, the Spark’s controls couldn’t be simpler. You’ll find an active EQ of Treble and Bass knobs to adjust frequencies to boost or cut with pinpoint accuracy. A mini switch chooses tone profiles of Mid/Clean/Fat – another useful sonic dimension. Also look for true-bypass circuitry, metal housing, and a choice of 9-volt battery or DC power.
The cherry on top is Gain, which delivers textures from fully clean to seriously beefy overdrive. The combination of the massive volume boost, overdrive, and tonal shaping also comes in under $70, making the Spark hard to resist. It might not be the only booster/overdrive pedal on your board, but you may wonder how you ever lived without it. The buzzwords “tone sculpting” are overused, but fit the Spark perfectly.
This article originally appeared in VG’s October 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
With external controls for Bias, Wah-Q, Treble, and Bass, users get a range of sounds that can be swapped on the fly. Wah-Q affects the width of the filtered sounds, while Treble and Bass can add or cut 15dBs, customizable for any rig. Inside the pedal are more tone-shaping options that can alter gain to +6dB using internal DIP switches. The treadle has a self-lubricating nylon bushing pivot for smooth, quiet operation, and rocker tension is adjustable. The red LED indicator and 9-volt negative-center adapter are a nice touch. Twenty percent smaller than standard wahs, the XW-1 takes up less space and is wired true-bypass.
Paired with a Strat and Les Paul running through a Marshall DSL40 and Fender Deluxe Reverb, the pedal offered clean, transparent, and boost-free wah colors for funk, easily morphing into grittier territory with thicker bass response and a range of gainy, boosted tones for hard rock. Best of all, though, is how the XW-1 displays a love connection with a variety of overdrives, distortion, and fuzz pedals.
This article originally appeared in VG’s October 2022 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.