Hey Greg
Its all a matter of taste and thats the beauty of it all...its never been better for guitar players with all these botique amp makers out there providing so many great tones to choose from. As far as what guitar player uses what amp, guitar, ect, I could care less.Theres so much hype these days about 'who uses what' to sell things it makes me sick. I've been playing professionally for a long time and know what I like and how to get the sound I need.
As far as the 'misinformation' you speak of, I personally cant address that as I was not there. All I'm going by is from what I've read from being a major Hendrix fan for years. I posted an article from Guitar Player magazine I found below. As far as his best tones from his early years, again a subjective point. I feel his 'Band of Gypsys' period is his best playing , and I like the tone the best. I have a very extensive bootleg collection and have 8CDs from the Band of Gypsys' shows including rehersals. In addition to Marshalls and the Sunn period, according to sources I've read and from pics I've seen, Hendrix would also used Fender Dual Showmans live, and used a Blackface twin to record in addition to Marshalls. Based on everything I've read and heard, and from my experience of playing a Marshall amp equipped with 6550 tubes, I'd be willing to bet the 'Band of Gypsys' tone from the live concert recording is a Marshall amp with 6550 tubes and not KT66 or EL34. I'd agree the early tones on the first album are most likely EL34 Marshalls and a blackface twin (Wind Cries Mary), but I doubt he was using a KT66 model as they had already went to the EL34 by that time. Again I wasnt there, so if you know something besides the knowledge out there feel free to share. I'll bet Conrad could shed a bit of light on the matter as he was apparently working with Hendrix on developing the Sunn amps.
So I'm curious, where did you get this info that he was using KT66 equipped Marshalls? I have to say with the exception of 'Wind Cries Mary', Axis Bold as Love' and a couple of others, I just dont hear the 6L6/KT66 sound there...
http://www.musicplayer.com/lounge/setups/hendrix.htmKeys to the Mystical Kingdom:
The Gear of Jimi Hendrix
Hendrix’s transformation from a quirky, Nashville-based R&B player nicknamed “Marbles” to an acid-tripping, gypsy, mega-star changed not only the face of pop music, but the rules of the game, as well. Hendrix’s songs and sounds were incredibly intertwined, and it’s safe to say his tools were part of his magic.
The Guitar Story
Somewhere between his 11th and 13th birthdays, Hendrix 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. His first electric guitar was a white, single-pickup Supro Ozark that his father purchased from Myers Music in Seattle in 1959. Next came a red, single-pickup Silvertone Danelectro that Hendrix was slinging with Seattle’s Tomcats in early ’61. He parked this guitar with a girlfriend when he joined the army that year, and switched to a cheap Eko or Kay for a while. Eventually, he asked his father to send him the Danelectro, which he had nicknamed “Betty Jean.”
While gigging around Tennessee with the King Casuals in ’62, he traded in the Dano for a new Epiphone Wilshire—a dual-pickup guitar with a solid-mahogany body and a glued-in mahogany neck. He also bought an Ibanez electric from Collins Music in Clarksville, Tennessee. Unable to pay the $10-per-week installments, he voluntarily returned the guitar.
During his nine-month stint with the Isley Brothers in 1964, Hendrix got his first Fender—a blond ’59 or ’60 Duo-Sonic. With Little Richard’s Upsetters in ’65, he slung a Fender Jazzmaster. He switched back to a sunburst Duo-Sonic with Curtis Knight & the Squires, but later returned to a Jazzmaster. With funds supplied by his then girlfriend—and the trade-in of his Duo-Sonic— Hendrix bought his first Strat from Manny’s Music in New York, in the summer of ’66. He used a number of different CBS-era Strats— mainly rosewood-fretboard models—while gigging around New York’s Greenwich Village in ’66 and ’67 as Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, and, later, with the Experience. Hendrix would narrow his choices to the black or white Strats with maple fretboards that were his primary axes for the rest of his career. (Although he owned innumerable Stratocasters—and often carried more than 13 at a time when touring— only six can be accounted for today.)
Hendrix bought right-handed Strats because he preferred to have the controls on top. He’d reverse the nut, and wind his low-E string the opposite direction around the farthest tuner in order to keep it from jumping out of the nut slot. He originally tuned to standard pitch, but he eventually tuned down a half-step to ease the strain on his voice.
Of course, Hendrix bought and played other guitars—lots of other guitars—and he gave many away. Henry Goldrich of Manny’s recalls selling him everything from a Gibson ES-330, to a Gibson Firebird, to a Mosrite electric resonator guitar. His other guitars included a Guild 12-string acoustic, an Acoustic Black Widow Spider, a double-neck Mosrite, a Hagstrom 8-string bass (played on “Spanish Castle Magic” from Axis: Bold as Love), various Rickenbackers (a bass, a 6-string, and a 12-string), a ’67 Gretsch Corvette, a left-handed Guild Starfire Deluxe fitted with a Bigsby tremolo, a ’67 Gibson Flying V, a ’55 Gibson Les Paul, a ’68 Gibson SG Custom, a black, left-handed Flying V, a Gibson Dove acoustic, a Martin acoustic, and a Hofner electric. Modifications to his instruments were minimal, and his frets were rarely reworked because the guitars didn’t last long enough to become worn.
The String Thing
Hendrix’s strings of choice were light-gauge Fender Rock ’N’ Roll sets (gauged .010, .013, .015, .026, .032, .038). However, guitarist/producer Bob Kulick—an acquaintance of Hendrix’s during the Greenwich Village days—remembers him breaking a string in a dressing room, and saying, “Uh oh, I don’t have any extras.” Kulick asked him what he needed, and Hendrix said he used an E string for a B. “That was the first time I’d ever heard of anyone moving their string gauges over like that,” Kulick says.
But, then again, Band of Gypsies drummer Buddy Miles insisted that Hendrix used a very heavy E string, a medium gauge on his A and D, a Hawaiian G string, a light B, and a super-light E. This was supposedly not just for experimentation, but something Hendrix did because he thought the mixed gauges would keep the guitar in tune better. (Michael Bloomfield apparently tried some of the Hendrix Strats that Miles owned, and he was also a proponent of the mixed gauge theory.)
For picks, Hendrix chose whatever medium gauge his hand came up with when he stuck it into the drawer at Manny’s. Barrett simply reports that the Experience carried thousands of picks, as well as hundreds of guitar straps—all selected to match Hendrix’s shirts.
The Amp Armada
Hendrix experimented with various amplification systems, but, to use Barrett’s words: “It was 99 percent Marshall.” The guitarist’s route to the Marshall stacks that eventually became his familiar backline was a process of elimination. He reportedly owned a Silvertone amp and a matching 2x12 cab during his days in Tennessee in ’61 and ’62, but he mainly borrowed amps for gigs. From ’65 through ’66, Hendrix’s mainstay was a Fender Twin Reverb. He reportedly sniffed out Orange amps at Pink Floyd’s December 1967 “Christmas on Earth” show in London, and again at his very last concert. Apparently, he couldn’t get the sounds he wanted from them.
Also in 1967, Buck Munger solidified a five-year contract (which actually lasted 14 months) between Hendrix and Sunn amplifiers after the Monterey Pop Festival. Sunn agreed to supply the entire Experience with anything they needed, in exchange for Hendrix’s research and development input.
Hendrix started out with a 100-F cabinet, loaded with one JBL D-130 in the bottom and an L-E 100-S driver horn in the top. There was not much midrange—Munger described the tone as “almost a surfer sound”—and Hendrix combined the cab with a stack of Marshall 4x12s 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 ten speaker cabinets loaded with two JBL D-130s each.
“We then went to four 12" Eminence speakers at Jimi’s request, and we also took his advice that the minimum acceptable power at that time was 100 watts,” recalls Munger.
For the Experience tour that began in February ’68, Hendrix used Fender Dual Showmans and Marshalls, and then added 100-watt Sunn Coliseum P.A. tube amps, plus an array of Sunn 2x15 or horn-loaded cabs. Stage photos from this period show quite an assortment of Sunn, Fender, and Marshall gear, but Hendrix soon severed his relationship with Sunn and began using Marshalls almost exclusively.
“Jimi was used to the big numbers,” explains Munger, “and when he turned his Sunn amps up, he got a lot of noise he didn’t like.”
Hendrix’s Marshall of choice was the 100-watt Super Lead driving two 4x12 cabs, and his standard backline would quickly grow to three Super Leads and six 4x12s. He plugged his guitar into one amp, and linked it to the others by running a cable from an adjacent input (the Super Leads had four inputs) to the second amp’s input jack, and so on.
This was a long way from the band’s humble beginnings, when Hendrix and Noel Redding shared one miked 100-watt Marshall during the sessions for their first album. Because Hendrix performed with his amp settings nearly always on full, his systems wore out fast.
In 1969, the Experience began using the services of West Coast Organ & Amp Repair in Hollywood, California, to prepare and maintain their equipment. “We received eight new Super Lead heads and about ten 4x12 cabinets before the start of Jimi’s ’69 tour,” says David Weyer, who was then West Coast’s amp technician. “Hendrix wanted us to install heavier-duty speakers, so we took out all of the 25-watt Rola Celestions and replaced them with 75-watt Rolas that we bought from [Vox distributor] Thomas Organ. They used those speakers in the solid-state Super Beatles that were being made here. Jimi told me that he preferred the sound of 6550 tubes in his Marshalls, so we replaced the stock Mullard EL34s with General Electric, Tung-Sol, and RCA 6550s that I got from Yale Radio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. I rebiased all the amps and changed their suppressor-grid voltages to keep the 6550s from over-dissipating.
By the end of a tour, Jimi would always have two or more tops that he liked best, and I’d measure their voltages and spec everything out in an attempt to understand why they sounded particularly sweet. His favorites always seemed to be the ones with extra-high plate voltage.
“We kept most of his Fender Showmans stock. I modded some with 6550 tubes, but that required building heavier-duty power supplies. We usually just tuned the Fender stuff to sound as good as possible. Jimi had some 2x15 bottoms that would come in all torn up with the speaker grilles kicked in. We’d recover them, replace the broken speakers, and send them back out. Amp bashing was a big thing back then.”
Effectric Ladyland
Effects were pretty new when Hendrix began forging his classic sound, and he once said that the first time he heard wah-wah was on Cream’s “Tales Of Brave Ulysses.” Soon after, a Vox wah became an indispensable part of his sound. Though Hendrix began using a fuzzbox (probably a Maestro) while playing with Curtis Knight, it was after meeting a young effects builder named Roger Mayer in London in 1967, that he was introduced to the neutron bomb of fuzz technology—a prototype design that Mayer called the Octavia. A fuzzbox with frequency-doubling circuitry that synthesized a second note an octave above the fingered note, the Octavia was first used by Hendrix on “Purple Haze” and “Fire.” Mayer signed on as a guitar tech for the Experience’s 1968 U.S. tour, and he continued to work with Hendrix for some time thereafter. Though Hendrix’s main fuzzbox was the Arbiter Fuzz Face, Mayer says he built 16 or 17 fuzzes for Jimi, along with an unknown number of Octavias.
Another essential ingredient in Hendrix’s tone chain was the Univox Uni-Vibe—a chorus/rotating-speaker simulator that was introduced in 1969. Hendrix immediately added the device to his setup, and he continued using it throughout his career. (The Uni-Drive was another Univox product that Hendrix may have used around 1970.) A rotary-speaker fan, Hendrix played through a Leslie on Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland, and he occasionally used Leslie speakers live. His standard effects order was wah, Octavia, Fuzz Face, and Uni-Vibe.
Clues as to why Hendrix preferred one device over another are scarce. “He didn’t express to anybody what he wanted,” says Barrett. “His ears—and only his ears—knew his tastes.”
The only scrap comes from Michael Bloomfield, who once stated that Hendrix gave him a big lecture about the Fuzz Face and the CryBaby being the only ones that really worked. “He said the CryBaby gave the biggest range from treble to bass, and it had the hugest wah effect, the fastest action, and the most authentic vocal sound,” remembered Bloomfield. “The Fuzz Face was the most distorted sounding of such units, and the two plugged together created permanent sustain and endless distortion.
Excerpted from Art Thompson’s “Burning the Midnight Amp” in the September ’95 GP, and an uncredited gear piece in GP’s September ’75 Hendrix Special.
