Strange/Ventures request

Brinkman
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Strange/Ventures request

Postby Brinkman » Mon Feb 27, 2012 11:03 am

Apparently there's a B&W photo of Nokie Edwards holding his guitar and the fuzz device Red Rhodes built for him is plugged into it. I've read references to the photo in other forum threads but the photo links are dead.

If anyone could upload it here I would really appreciate it.

Also, amongst all the discussion in the wake of Billy Strange's recent passing, I'm reading that he too had a fuzz unit built by Rhodes. Though I'm not sure if this is reference to Strange's session work on Ventures tracks or the Ann Margret fuzz track which predates the Ventures fuzzwork.

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Re: Strange/Ventures request

Postby Strat-o-rama » Mon Feb 27, 2012 11:29 am

Not long ago I found a link to an interview with Billy Strange regarding his fuzz tones. He said that in the early days he pulled a couple of tubes out of the amp! I'm not an amp technician by any means, but how does that work? It may have been the Ann Margaret tracks, as best I recall, but I can't seem to locate that interview again. Most interviews are about his relationship with Elvis, the Sinatras, and his career. There is very little about his gear, techniques and approach to music and guitar playing.

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Re: Strange/Ventures request

Postby Brinkman » Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:12 pm

Strat-o-rama wrote:Not long ago I found a link to an interview with Billy Strange regarding his fuzz tones. He said that in the early days he pulled a couple of tubes out of the amp! I'm not an amp technician by any means, but how does that work?


I had read that as well, I think on the Billy Strange forum linked to his website. Then again, just today I read an article on the guitar player magazine site that says on the Ann Margret track he played a device made made by Red Rhodes. I'm assuming the writer confused Strange's session work with the Ventures with his earlier work for Chet Atkins productions. Later on with the Ventures, he very likely played through the device Rhodes made for Nokie ("2000 Pound Bee").

Not sure exactly how the removing of a tube would create the fuzz heard on Ann Margret's "I Just Don't Understand." My suspicion is that if you removed a preamp tube between a phase splitter and power tube it would present an unbalanced load on the phase splitter. Guessing even further, that might cause asymmetry in the waveform and possibly some clipping. In this way, an output transformer that was being fed a push-pull signal would now operate single-ended. I'll see if I can find out what amp Strange used on his Chet sessions.

Correction: In part 1 of a documentary I just watched, Strange says he pulled two 6L6 power tubes out of his amp to create a fuzz effect.

Link: Billy Strange documentary part 1
part 2

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Re: Strange/Ventures request

Postby Strat-o-rama » Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:30 pm

Yea, for some reason I thought he stated the Guitar Player article was in error, and that the A. M. tracks were the pulled tubes, The Red Rhodes came later. Again, I wouldn't stake anything on my memory here, because I came across this a little while ago, before Billy passed.
The only reference I could find to any amps he used was something about his Twin Reverb used on the "Bang Bang" session. (along with an ES-335 given to him by Nancy Sinatra)

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Re: Strange/Ventures request

Postby Brinkman » Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:02 pm

Looking at the schematic to a Fender Twin, the last preamp tube before the power tubes is a 12AT7 and it is used as a phase splitter for each pair of 6L6GC power tubes. Meaning the two pairs are out of phase, providing the output transformer with a push-pull signal, each tube in a pair being run in parallel with the other tube.
If my guess in the above post is correct, removing one or both 6L6s from a pair would cause some imbalance (distortion) as well as attenuate the total output power.

At any rate, the Spector-produced track from '62, "'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," sounds like it could have been made this way, but my ears tell me this may not have been the case with Atkins in '61. Perhaps it depends on how many tubes you remove. :lol:

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Re: Strange/Ventures request

Postby Brinkman » Tue Feb 28, 2012 4:31 pm

Hey, I think I found it. Look at the device plugged into the output jack on Nokie's Mosrite.

Image

It's either the Red Rhodes fuzz device or possibly a DI transformer.

Does anyone recall ever seeing a DI transformer that looks like this?

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Re: Strange/Ventures request

Postby Hydra19 » Wed Dec 04, 2013 4:20 am

late to reply, but here's what I think I know.
I heard that some fuse or valve blew or gave up during the recording which resulted in the fuzz tone for ann margaret's song, afterwards when listening back the bassist didn't like it but the rest did.

Red Rhodes built a few pedals but there's no schematic out there of it, nor a clone. It was said that Mosrite amps in built fuzz circuit was a copy but I also read Nokie saying it wasn't. As far as I understand Red Rhodes built a fuzz and a compressor for Nokie so in that pic it could very well be a compressor. As you may know Jordan makes a fuzz that a similar looking plug in but most probably nothing alike.

So, the search continues!

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Re: Strange/Ventures request

Postby Bob Shade » Wed Dec 04, 2013 5:50 am

I heard the Rhodes fuzz was the Jordan Bosstone. Rhodes apparently had something to do with that deal. The Mosrite amps were Sanners fuzz design.

Bob

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Re: Strange/Ventures request

Postby Hydra19 » Wed Dec 04, 2013 6:07 am

ahh, that's right.
But I believe the Mosrite fuzz used Silicone right? Apparantely the first 200 Fuzzrites were germanium and then switched to silicon, sounds like the Red Rhodes should have been germanium. I'll see if I can find a germanium bosstone clone, thanks for the info


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