Nice SSL-1 Comment from John Frusciante

[Ayrton]

Re: Nice SSL-1 Comment from John Frusciante

Really! I thought SRV was a 13-56 player and he went down to 12's occasionally.

That interesting considering I'm on a 10-52 set in Eb and considering bringing the top strings up to 11's on my strat.

A million years ago there was this long thread on the FDP about SRV and one of the posters was a guy who supposedly handled artist at GHS. Apperantly Stevie was experimenting with various sizes and was combing sets and so on, but used the 11-48 Nickel Rockers the most. Who knows what is legend or not, but if you read any interviews with Rene Martinez you know Stevie was always mixing amps, and trying things.

I read one interview with Rene where he talked about Stevie's guitar being a setup mess when he joined in '85. SRV had kept raising the action trying to change the sound and going through refrets once a year. Rene is the one who talked Stevie into using jumbo frets and 11s, but we know he was still using a 13-60 set at times.

Funny thing about SRV's tone is that you remember it was the "tone of the gods" at one point, but his number one had rewound pickups, several refrets (and different necks), bridge and saddle swaps, but he always sounded like Stevie.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Nice SSL-1 Comment from John Frusciante

So who WOULD stand out? Eric Johnson?

I'm trying to build a 'tone ladder' in my mind here.

Eric Johnson, yeah. I'd go for 1971 Blackmore. Early Yngwie. My favorite is actually early 80s Robbie Blunt with Robert Plant.

 

[gregory]

Re: Nice SSL-1 Comment from John Frusciante

Glad to see the DiMarzio HS series getting some love.

Eric Johnson, yeah. I'd go for 1971 Blackmore. Early Yngwie. My favorite is actually early 80s Robbie Blunt with Robert Plant.

Eric Johnson used a DiMarzio HS-2 in split mode quite a bit.

Early Yngwie: DiMarzio HS-3 and custom HS-3 with a vintage stagger (became the HS-4) in hum-cancelling mode.

+1 on Robbie Blunt! I have no idea what he used.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Nice SSL-1 Comment from John Frusciante

A million years ago there was this long thread on the FDP about SRV and one of the posters was a guy who supposedly handled artist at GHS. Apperantly Stevie was experimenting with various sizes and was combing sets and so on, but used the 11-48 Nickel Rockers the most. Who knows what is legend or not, but if you read any interviews with Rene Martinez you know Stevie was always mixing amps, and trying things.

I read one interview with Rene where he talked about Stevie's guitar being a setup mess when he joined in '85. SRV had kept raising the action trying to change the sound and going through refrets once a year. Rene is the one who talked Stevie into using jumbo frets and 11s, but we know he was still using a 13-60 set at times.

Funny thing about SRV's tone is that you remember it was the "tone of the gods" at one point, but his number one had rewound pickups, several refrets (and different necks), bridge and saddle swaps, but he always sounded like Stevie.

from what ive heard and read srv would start with 11/15/19/28/38/54 or something like that and once he used up all the 11's he would move up to 12's, then 13's if he ran out of 12's. he played a ton and had obviously very strong hands. tuning down a 1/2 makes a big difference too. i play with 11-50 in std tuning which is like 12-54 1/2 step down tensionwise. i didnt know no1 had rewound pups. i thought it always had the '59 pups that were in the guitar when he bought it. do you know when that happened? i knew he used the neck off a different '62 once the original '62 neck was too shot to take another refret and he went through bridges a lot since he would break the bar off

 

[Ayrton]

Re: Nice SSL-1 Comment from John Frusciante

I thought it was some guy in Austin named Van Zandt that had rewound them at some point?

I remember reading somewhere that the lefty bridge was added because the current them had a broken off bar in it, and a lefty was all the local dealer had in stock. The gold was added later.

I also remember seeing a picture of Stevie playing live with a Warmoth Pro neck on number one (you could see the side adjust).

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Nice SSL-1 Comment from John Frusciante

from what ive heard and read srv would start with 11/15/19/28/38/54 or something like that and once he used up all the 11's he would move up to 12's, then 13's if he ran out of 12's. he played a ton and had obviously very strong hands. tuning down a 1/2 makes a big difference too. i play with 11-50 in std tuning which is like 12-54 1/2 step down tensionwise. i didnt know no1 had rewound pups. i thought it always had the '59 pups that were in the guitar when he bought it. do you know when that happened? i knew he used the neck off a different '62 once the original '62 neck was too shot to take another refret and he went through bridges a lot since he would break the bar off

This is close to my understanding as well. 11’s with a bigger low E for the “boom” and a bigger high e to last longer. Tuned down a half step, it’s not that unmanageable for someone with strong hands playing 2-3 hour sets nightly.

Regarding the pickups, I like having a CS69 loaded Strat and a SSL-1 loaded Strat. Different tones from each.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Nice SSL-1 Comment from John Frusciante

I thought it was some guy in Austin named Van Zandt that had rewound them at some point?

I remember reading somewhere that the lefty bridge was added because the current them had a broken off bar in it, and a lefty was all the local dealer had in stock. The gold was added later.

I also remember seeing a picture of Stevie playing live with a Warmoth Pro neck on number one (you could see the side adjust).

wow. that might have been after there was a rigging accident and a falling truss snapped the headstock off the swapped neck.