Jimi's Gear
FinsburyParkCarrots
Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
Here's a nice little page I just found. Thought I'd share:
http://www.geocities.com/abexile/jimisgear.html
"You name it, he used it," states Eric Barrett, Jimi's equipment manager from 1967 to 1970. This fact is what makes a complete accounting of all of Hendrix' guitars, amps, distortion devices, and accessories so formidable a task. Fortunately, however, years after Jimi's death, many of those who played with him, purchased for him, and equipped him-his father, his road managers, his fellow musicians-recalled information that he couldn't tell us himself.
Somewhere between his eleventh and thirteenth birthday, Jimi received his first guitar - an inexpensive acoustic from his father, who bought it after seeing his son holding the neck of a broom and strumming the bristles. This first guitar was replaced by an inexpensive electric when the youngster reached 12 and by an Epiphone when he was about 15.
Jimi and the Fender Stratocaster eventually became the perfect match. He bought the right-handed model because he preferred to have the controls on top, restrung it, and turned the nut to accommodate having the high E closest to his toes. The necks of his Stratocaster during '67 and '68 were usually outfitted with rosewood fingerboards (there were exceptional and tended to be thinner than the all-maple necks on the '69 and '70 models. Jimi made his own adjustments at the bridge and around the pickups. He owned innumerable Stratocasters (he often carried 13 or more at a time) - black, white, sunburst, whatever was in that day. Half a dozen of these instruments were once in the possession of Buddy Miles and Mr. Hendrix.
Jimi also favored Gibson Les Pauls, and he owned at least three Gibson Flying V's throughout his career (only one remains, a black V with gold pickups, now treasured by Eric Barrett).
One other Fender model - the Telecaster - was always on hand, though Jimi rarely used it, and then usually only in the studio. On one occasion he may have played a Stratocaster with a Telecaster neck.
Once Jimi became wealthy enough to buy whatever he needed, his accumulation of instruments began. Henry Goldrich of Manny's recalls selling him everything from a Gibson 330 to a Gibson Firebird to a Mosrite double-cutaway electric dobro (which he dropped and broke the same night he purchased it). Other guitars were: A Guild 12-string acoustic; a Gibson stereo; an Acoustic Black Widow (Mr.Hendrix salvaged it); two Hagstrom 8string basses (Jimi played them on "Spanish Castle Magic" on Axis:Bold As Love); three Rickenbackers - a bass, a 6-, and a 12-string guitar; a Gibson Dove acoustic; a Martin D-45, new when bought; and an old Hofner electric. Eric Barrett adds that Jimi generally had more than one of everything, except the Rickenbackers.
Modifications to his instruments were scarce or minimal. He had purely decorative designs hand-painted on some of his Stratocasters (as with the one he burned at the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967) and on his Black Flying V. Barrett does not recall limi doing this himself, though his road manager of four years, Gerry Stickells (who was also his equipment manager, preceding Barrett) thinks that Jimi did do the painting.
Frets were rarely reworked because Hendrix' guitars didn't last long enough to become worn. In the early days before the Experience carried extra equipment, Stickells says Jimi used to take the small panel off the back of his Stratocasters because that made it easier to change strings. If he broke one during a performance, Stickells would make the change while Jimi kept playing.
Jimi spent hours bending his tremolo bars (by hand), to get them near enough to the body so that he could tap the strings individually as well as raise and lower their pitches. In a sense, he also "modified" his guitars by smashing them, since often the axe he used at the next performance would be an assemblage of the unsplintered parts gathered up in a box and stuck together by Barrett.
There are two other alterations to Jimi's guitars that may or may not have happened. Jess Hansen of the Jimi Hendrix Archives stood onstage at Jimi's last concert in Seattle. He clearly remembers seeing another toggle switch on the back of the black Strat, located approximately where the neck joins the body. Jimi manipulated this switch throughout the evening, though its effect, purpose, or permanency, is not known. Bill Lawrence, one of the world's foremost experts on guitars and their electronics, says he suggested a design to Jimi for rewiring his Stratocasters. Dan Armstrong, another fine craftsman who learned much of what he knows from Lawrence, may have actually done the work. (Lawrence was not certain whether it happened, and Armstrong did not respond to our repeated queries.) Whatever, it may have been a one-time modification, since Goldrich, Barrett, and Stickells - those most immediately responsible for Jimi's equipment - know nothing of such a rewiring of the stock instruments with which they kept Jimi supplied.
Jimi experimented with various amplification systems, but, to use Barrett's words, "It was 99% Marshall." In his rhythm and blues days, Jimi had a Fender Twin Reverb (which he very occasionally used in the studio after he became a worldwide phenomenon). Jimi also sniffed out Orange amps at the December '67 Pink Floyd "Christmas On Earth" show in London, and at his very last concert. Apparently, he could not get the sounds he wanted from them.
In 1967, Buck Munger, then a Sunn rep, solidified a five-year contract (it lasted 14 months) between Jimi and Sunn after the Monterey Festival. He recalls Jim "right off the boat, with banged up Marshall and Fender gear." Sunn supplied the entire Experience with anything they needed in exchange for Jimi's researc and development input.
'Jimi started with a cabinet Sun designated as 100-F, with one JBL D 130 in the bottom and an L-E 100-S driver horn in the top. There was no much midrange (Munger describes it as "almost a surfer sound"), and Jimi combined this with a stack of Marshalls to get a blend.
Later, the Sunn setup included up to five Coliseum P.A. tops, altered for guitar at 120 watts RMS each, with 10 speaker cabinets with two JBL D-130 F's. "We then went to four 12" Eminence, at his request," Munger states, adding that Jimi convinced Sunn that the minimum acceptable power at that time was 100 watts RMS (they had been working wit 60 watts).
The arrangement with Sunn, which worked well for bassist Noel Redding, did not satisfy Jimi. Part of the problem, according to Munger, was that the English RMS rating might be double the American one. "Jimi was used to the big numbers," Munger explains, "and when he turned his Sunn amps up, he got a lot of noise he didn't like." Sunn tried to solve the problem by putting on a dial that Jimi could turn up only to 8 (though it would seem, on looking, to be at 10). Soon thereafter, Jimi went back to Marshalls.
This setup was humble in the beginning. Stickells says that Jimi and Noel shared one miked, 100-watt Marshal stack for their first album. This stack grew. Jimi came to use two 200-watt Marshall amps with four cabinets. At other times, he used three 100-watt an even three 200-watt heads, miked through P.A. systems, and as many as six cabinets (with a seventh for monitoring on Redding's side). Eric Barrett recall that the group carried between a dozen and 18 tops and box upon box of speakers, which had to be changed daily, after Jimi tore through them with his guitar The grille cloth, however, was left hanging. Since Jimi performed with his amp settings nearly always on full, his systems wore out fast.
But his amps were given still greate power through the wizardry of a Long Island electronics brain, Tony Frank, who rewired and tuned up those 100-watt amps (which Barrett believes weren't putting out anything near that specification) so that they delivered 137 watts. Furthermore, Henry Goldrich states tha the Marshall factory, after learning who Jimi was, began putting in somewhat heavier tubes and resoldering Jimi's amps so everything wouldn't fall apart. With all this power, it's refreshing to note that Les Paul remembers a phone conversation in which Jimi expressed to him a desire for a tiny amp, in those days preceding mini-amps.
As far as can be determined, Jimi primarily used Fender Rock 'N Roll light-gauge guitar strings (.010, .013,.015,.026, .032, .038), though Mike Bloomfield says Buddy Miles insists that Jimi used very heavy strings on the bottom, a medium gauge on his A and D, a Hawaiian G string, a light (not super-light) B string, and a super-light E. This was supposedly not just for experimentation, but something that Jimi did all the time because he thought it would keep the whole guitar in tune a little better. Bloomfield's information is not entirely secondhand, for he has tried some of Jimi's Stratocasters which Buddy owned. Miles was not available for comment.
Jimi's principal distortion devices included the Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face, the Univox Univibe, and Vox wah-wah pedals. Stickells says that the Experience made it through the first tour with only two or three Fuzz Faces, contrasting with the two-dozen units that were later carried. Similarly, at least a dozen Univibes (which simulated a rotating speaker) were always on hand, and two-dozen wah-wah pedals. Barrett explains that this was necessary because "Jimi never would put his foot on a fuzz or wah-wah; he'd put his whole weight on it; they didn't last long."
The wah appeared on the market towards the end of Jimi's first tour, and he quickly incorporated the pedal into his stock setup.
Other boxes and pedals included some made by Roger Mayer. He built, in Barrett's words, "quite a few little toys for Jimi; they didn't have names, just little labels to identify them." Most often used was a device called the Octavia, especially built for Jimi, which is a frequency doubler with additional frequency shaping circuitry. Most of the other devices were not used onstage, though Jimi on occasion used them in the studio, as he did nearly every device he brought home from anywhere. Numerous other individuals also presented him regularly with homemade equipment.
Miscellaneous units included The Bag (a talkbox-like unit held like Scottish bagpipes); a Maestro Fuzz-Tone, which Mike Bloomfield saw Jimi use while he was with John Hammond, Jr.; and in 1967, 1968, and possibly 1969, Hendrix may have used a couple of Leslie rotating speakers before the Univibe was developed. We could not be substantiate that Jimi used an
Echoplex, or any of the equipment made by Electro-Harmonix, as has been suggested by various sources.
For picks, Jimi chose whatever medium gauge his hand came up with when he stuck it into the drawer at Manny's. Eric Barrett reports that on tour the Experience simply carried thousands of picks. They also packed hundreds of guitar straps, also from Manny's, to match Jimi's shirts. The after-hours jams that Mike Bloomfield mentions in his reminiscence were recorded, probably on two TEAC 4-track machines bought at Colony Music in New York.
The range of interest that Jimi manifested with regard to guitar equipment extended into other musical realms, for he not only collected everything imaginable for his own specialty, but also bought pianos, trumpets, saxophones, and other instruments, all of which he wanted to learn to play so that he could do an entirely solo album. "That," says Henry Goldrich, "is what the studio was all for."
Clues as to why Jimi preferred one brand or device over another are scarce. "He didn't express to anybody what he wanted," Eric Barrett explains, adding that, "his ears knew, and only his ears." The only scrap available comes from Mike Bloomfield, who stated that he recalled Jimi giving him "a big lecture that Fuzz Face and Cry Baby were the only ones that really worked." Bloomfield was told by Hendrix that the Cry Baby gave the greatest range from treble to bass, the hugest wah effect, the fastest action, and had the most authentically vocal sound. Fuzz Face, Jimi felt, was the most distorted-sounding of such units. The two plugged together gave permanent sustain and endless distortion.
It is impossible to determine for certain all the equipment and effects Jimi used in the studio and on records. We are left only with morsels: Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love were both recorded (and mixed on a custom board) on 4-track at 15 inches per second at the Olympic Studios in London. Jimi's guitar is a Stratocaster on the first album, except on the "Red House" cut, for which he used his old Hofner, which was in such disrepair that the pickups were stuck on with Scotch tape (he only used it a couple of times in performance before it was stolen). A Les Paul is probably used for "House Burning Down," on Electric Ladyland, while the black Strat was featured on Band Of Gypsys.
Eddie Kramer, Jimi's engineer from 1967 to 1970, feels that it is useless to approach Jimi's music in so analytical a manner. This is partly because Kramer's own approach was often too improvisational to capture, and partly because he does not wish to divulge studio techniques which he considers the finer points of his work. "I think the mystique should remain," Kramer states. "Analyzing it to the point that you want in your magazine is not a good idea. Part of the mystique is what I created with him in the studio, and I'd like to leave it at that. "
http://www.geocities.com/abexile/jimisgear.html
"You name it, he used it," states Eric Barrett, Jimi's equipment manager from 1967 to 1970. This fact is what makes a complete accounting of all of Hendrix' guitars, amps, distortion devices, and accessories so formidable a task. Fortunately, however, years after Jimi's death, many of those who played with him, purchased for him, and equipped him-his father, his road managers, his fellow musicians-recalled information that he couldn't tell us himself.
Somewhere between his eleventh and thirteenth birthday, Jimi received his first guitar - an inexpensive acoustic from his father, who bought it after seeing his son holding the neck of a broom and strumming the bristles. This first guitar was replaced by an inexpensive electric when the youngster reached 12 and by an Epiphone when he was about 15.
Jimi and the Fender Stratocaster eventually became the perfect match. He bought the right-handed model because he preferred to have the controls on top, restrung it, and turned the nut to accommodate having the high E closest to his toes. The necks of his Stratocaster during '67 and '68 were usually outfitted with rosewood fingerboards (there were exceptional and tended to be thinner than the all-maple necks on the '69 and '70 models. Jimi made his own adjustments at the bridge and around the pickups. He owned innumerable Stratocasters (he often carried 13 or more at a time) - black, white, sunburst, whatever was in that day. Half a dozen of these instruments were once in the possession of Buddy Miles and Mr. Hendrix.
Jimi also favored Gibson Les Pauls, and he owned at least three Gibson Flying V's throughout his career (only one remains, a black V with gold pickups, now treasured by Eric Barrett).
One other Fender model - the Telecaster - was always on hand, though Jimi rarely used it, and then usually only in the studio. On one occasion he may have played a Stratocaster with a Telecaster neck.
Once Jimi became wealthy enough to buy whatever he needed, his accumulation of instruments began. Henry Goldrich of Manny's recalls selling him everything from a Gibson 330 to a Gibson Firebird to a Mosrite double-cutaway electric dobro (which he dropped and broke the same night he purchased it). Other guitars were: A Guild 12-string acoustic; a Gibson stereo; an Acoustic Black Widow (Mr.Hendrix salvaged it); two Hagstrom 8string basses (Jimi played them on "Spanish Castle Magic" on Axis:Bold As Love); three Rickenbackers - a bass, a 6-, and a 12-string guitar; a Gibson Dove acoustic; a Martin D-45, new when bought; and an old Hofner electric. Eric Barrett adds that Jimi generally had more than one of everything, except the Rickenbackers.
Modifications to his instruments were scarce or minimal. He had purely decorative designs hand-painted on some of his Stratocasters (as with the one he burned at the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967) and on his Black Flying V. Barrett does not recall limi doing this himself, though his road manager of four years, Gerry Stickells (who was also his equipment manager, preceding Barrett) thinks that Jimi did do the painting.
Frets were rarely reworked because Hendrix' guitars didn't last long enough to become worn. In the early days before the Experience carried extra equipment, Stickells says Jimi used to take the small panel off the back of his Stratocasters because that made it easier to change strings. If he broke one during a performance, Stickells would make the change while Jimi kept playing.
Jimi spent hours bending his tremolo bars (by hand), to get them near enough to the body so that he could tap the strings individually as well as raise and lower their pitches. In a sense, he also "modified" his guitars by smashing them, since often the axe he used at the next performance would be an assemblage of the unsplintered parts gathered up in a box and stuck together by Barrett.
There are two other alterations to Jimi's guitars that may or may not have happened. Jess Hansen of the Jimi Hendrix Archives stood onstage at Jimi's last concert in Seattle. He clearly remembers seeing another toggle switch on the back of the black Strat, located approximately where the neck joins the body. Jimi manipulated this switch throughout the evening, though its effect, purpose, or permanency, is not known. Bill Lawrence, one of the world's foremost experts on guitars and their electronics, says he suggested a design to Jimi for rewiring his Stratocasters. Dan Armstrong, another fine craftsman who learned much of what he knows from Lawrence, may have actually done the work. (Lawrence was not certain whether it happened, and Armstrong did not respond to our repeated queries.) Whatever, it may have been a one-time modification, since Goldrich, Barrett, and Stickells - those most immediately responsible for Jimi's equipment - know nothing of such a rewiring of the stock instruments with which they kept Jimi supplied.
Jimi experimented with various amplification systems, but, to use Barrett's words, "It was 99% Marshall." In his rhythm and blues days, Jimi had a Fender Twin Reverb (which he very occasionally used in the studio after he became a worldwide phenomenon). Jimi also sniffed out Orange amps at the December '67 Pink Floyd "Christmas On Earth" show in London, and at his very last concert. Apparently, he could not get the sounds he wanted from them.
In 1967, Buck Munger, then a Sunn rep, solidified a five-year contract (it lasted 14 months) between Jimi and Sunn after the Monterey Festival. He recalls Jim "right off the boat, with banged up Marshall and Fender gear." Sunn supplied the entire Experience with anything they needed in exchange for Jimi's researc and development input.
'Jimi started with a cabinet Sun designated as 100-F, with one JBL D 130 in the bottom and an L-E 100-S driver horn in the top. There was no much midrange (Munger describes it as "almost a surfer sound"), and Jimi combined this with a stack of Marshalls to get a blend.
Later, the Sunn setup included up to five Coliseum P.A. tops, altered for guitar at 120 watts RMS each, with 10 speaker cabinets with two JBL D-130 F's. "We then went to four 12" Eminence, at his request," Munger states, adding that Jimi convinced Sunn that the minimum acceptable power at that time was 100 watts RMS (they had been working wit 60 watts).
The arrangement with Sunn, which worked well for bassist Noel Redding, did not satisfy Jimi. Part of the problem, according to Munger, was that the English RMS rating might be double the American one. "Jimi was used to the big numbers," Munger explains, "and when he turned his Sunn amps up, he got a lot of noise he didn't like." Sunn tried to solve the problem by putting on a dial that Jimi could turn up only to 8 (though it would seem, on looking, to be at 10). Soon thereafter, Jimi went back to Marshalls.
This setup was humble in the beginning. Stickells says that Jimi and Noel shared one miked, 100-watt Marshal stack for their first album. This stack grew. Jimi came to use two 200-watt Marshall amps with four cabinets. At other times, he used three 100-watt an even three 200-watt heads, miked through P.A. systems, and as many as six cabinets (with a seventh for monitoring on Redding's side). Eric Barrett recall that the group carried between a dozen and 18 tops and box upon box of speakers, which had to be changed daily, after Jimi tore through them with his guitar The grille cloth, however, was left hanging. Since Jimi performed with his amp settings nearly always on full, his systems wore out fast.
But his amps were given still greate power through the wizardry of a Long Island electronics brain, Tony Frank, who rewired and tuned up those 100-watt amps (which Barrett believes weren't putting out anything near that specification) so that they delivered 137 watts. Furthermore, Henry Goldrich states tha the Marshall factory, after learning who Jimi was, began putting in somewhat heavier tubes and resoldering Jimi's amps so everything wouldn't fall apart. With all this power, it's refreshing to note that Les Paul remembers a phone conversation in which Jimi expressed to him a desire for a tiny amp, in those days preceding mini-amps.
As far as can be determined, Jimi primarily used Fender Rock 'N Roll light-gauge guitar strings (.010, .013,.015,.026, .032, .038), though Mike Bloomfield says Buddy Miles insists that Jimi used very heavy strings on the bottom, a medium gauge on his A and D, a Hawaiian G string, a light (not super-light) B string, and a super-light E. This was supposedly not just for experimentation, but something that Jimi did all the time because he thought it would keep the whole guitar in tune a little better. Bloomfield's information is not entirely secondhand, for he has tried some of Jimi's Stratocasters which Buddy owned. Miles was not available for comment.
Jimi's principal distortion devices included the Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face, the Univox Univibe, and Vox wah-wah pedals. Stickells says that the Experience made it through the first tour with only two or three Fuzz Faces, contrasting with the two-dozen units that were later carried. Similarly, at least a dozen Univibes (which simulated a rotating speaker) were always on hand, and two-dozen wah-wah pedals. Barrett explains that this was necessary because "Jimi never would put his foot on a fuzz or wah-wah; he'd put his whole weight on it; they didn't last long."
The wah appeared on the market towards the end of Jimi's first tour, and he quickly incorporated the pedal into his stock setup.
Other boxes and pedals included some made by Roger Mayer. He built, in Barrett's words, "quite a few little toys for Jimi; they didn't have names, just little labels to identify them." Most often used was a device called the Octavia, especially built for Jimi, which is a frequency doubler with additional frequency shaping circuitry. Most of the other devices were not used onstage, though Jimi on occasion used them in the studio, as he did nearly every device he brought home from anywhere. Numerous other individuals also presented him regularly with homemade equipment.
Miscellaneous units included The Bag (a talkbox-like unit held like Scottish bagpipes); a Maestro Fuzz-Tone, which Mike Bloomfield saw Jimi use while he was with John Hammond, Jr.; and in 1967, 1968, and possibly 1969, Hendrix may have used a couple of Leslie rotating speakers before the Univibe was developed. We could not be substantiate that Jimi used an
Echoplex, or any of the equipment made by Electro-Harmonix, as has been suggested by various sources.
For picks, Jimi chose whatever medium gauge his hand came up with when he stuck it into the drawer at Manny's. Eric Barrett reports that on tour the Experience simply carried thousands of picks. They also packed hundreds of guitar straps, also from Manny's, to match Jimi's shirts. The after-hours jams that Mike Bloomfield mentions in his reminiscence were recorded, probably on two TEAC 4-track machines bought at Colony Music in New York.
The range of interest that Jimi manifested with regard to guitar equipment extended into other musical realms, for he not only collected everything imaginable for his own specialty, but also bought pianos, trumpets, saxophones, and other instruments, all of which he wanted to learn to play so that he could do an entirely solo album. "That," says Henry Goldrich, "is what the studio was all for."
Clues as to why Jimi preferred one brand or device over another are scarce. "He didn't express to anybody what he wanted," Eric Barrett explains, adding that, "his ears knew, and only his ears." The only scrap available comes from Mike Bloomfield, who stated that he recalled Jimi giving him "a big lecture that Fuzz Face and Cry Baby were the only ones that really worked." Bloomfield was told by Hendrix that the Cry Baby gave the greatest range from treble to bass, the hugest wah effect, the fastest action, and had the most authentically vocal sound. Fuzz Face, Jimi felt, was the most distorted-sounding of such units. The two plugged together gave permanent sustain and endless distortion.
It is impossible to determine for certain all the equipment and effects Jimi used in the studio and on records. We are left only with morsels: Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love were both recorded (and mixed on a custom board) on 4-track at 15 inches per second at the Olympic Studios in London. Jimi's guitar is a Stratocaster on the first album, except on the "Red House" cut, for which he used his old Hofner, which was in such disrepair that the pickups were stuck on with Scotch tape (he only used it a couple of times in performance before it was stolen). A Les Paul is probably used for "House Burning Down," on Electric Ladyland, while the black Strat was featured on Band Of Gypsys.
Eddie Kramer, Jimi's engineer from 1967 to 1970, feels that it is useless to approach Jimi's music in so analytical a manner. This is partly because Kramer's own approach was often too improvisational to capture, and partly because he does not wish to divulge studio techniques which he considers the finer points of his work. "I think the mystique should remain," Kramer states. "Analyzing it to the point that you want in your magazine is not a good idea. Part of the mystique is what I created with him in the studio, and I'd like to leave it at that. "
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Comments
good lord.
oops. this was supposed to be a new thread. nevermind.
wow, o ver kill
cool to make, damn near impossible to sell in mass quantity.
Looks cool though. Bet it sounds amazing. It's also a stage tech nightmare, imagine what could go wrong on tour.
That thing: will it wash shirts too?