@ibrook52277 - that's all great info! I've also recently been experimenting a bit more and you inspired me this morning to mess around with a newly acquired attenuator. I'll add some recent findings / possibilities:
So as I mentioned before, for me a 60's Casino Hollowbody with P90 single coils really seems to nail the 73/74 Bobby jazzier tone very well and a 60's 335 Semi-Hollowbody with Humbuckers really seems to nail the 72 Bobby brighter tone very well. (of course, this finding is for these particular guitars at hand, but nothing we can do about that)
But that begs the question of why? Especially because Bobby used a 335 in 73/74. Here are some things I've found:
- the 60's Casinos would sometimes use 100K pots for a darker sound while 335's always seemed to use 500K pots which are very bright. I am guessing that Bobby swapped out the pots in his Sunburst 335 (and possibly his SG in 73) for 100K pots to darken his tone a bit to offer more of a contrast to Garcia's bright, snappy tone of Alligator and Wolf. Alembic had mentioned that they did some work on Bobby's guitars (along with Jerry and Phil) in the early 70's. Jerry also mentioned in a Q&A article below that two Gibsons can make things muddy so at that time they were certainly thinking about how their guitars work together on stage. (this article is on Waldo's site)
- as previously mentioned in the thread, Bobby switched from a Twin Reverb in 72 to a Furman pre-amp in 73 which would certainly affect the tone as well. Tough to find anything as bright and crisp as a Twin so imagine the Furman must have added some more roundness to his tone.
- based on photos, Bobby tended to stick with the pickup selector in the middle position. Tough to say what his volume/tone settings were on. My gut says fairly even and balanced with a touch more bridge in 72 and in 73/74 he switched that where the neck was more pronounced.
- Bobby also tended to strum his chords essentially over the neck pickup allowing for a more natural soft and dark yet still clear tone. This worked especially to his advantage in the 73/74 years.
- I connected my attenuator to my Twin while playing the Casino this morning. When the Casino is on the bridge pickup together with the attenuator at "bedroom" volume it comes pretty darn close to the 72 sound with the added brightness of the bridge. Bobby's 72 tone to my ears is defined by brightness and a touch of electric grit which would make sense of an amp approaching natural breakup.
I would basically say that the 335 is 90% of the overall 72 sound, the Casino 90% of the overall 73/74 sound and the Casino on bridge with attenuator gets around 75% to the 72 sound.
Fun experimenting! Look forward to your audio clips @ibrook52277! I'll see if I can get some decent sounding ones up as well.
So as I mentioned before, for me a 60's Casino Hollowbody with P90 single coils really seems to nail the 73/74 Bobby jazzier tone very well and a 60's 335 Semi-Hollowbody with Humbuckers really seems to nail the 72 Bobby brighter tone very well. (of course, this finding is for these particular guitars at hand, but nothing we can do about that)
But that begs the question of why? Especially because Bobby used a 335 in 73/74. Here are some things I've found:
- the 60's Casinos would sometimes use 100K pots for a darker sound while 335's always seemed to use 500K pots which are very bright. I am guessing that Bobby swapped out the pots in his Sunburst 335 (and possibly his SG in 73) for 100K pots to darken his tone a bit to offer more of a contrast to Garcia's bright, snappy tone of Alligator and Wolf. Alembic had mentioned that they did some work on Bobby's guitars (along with Jerry and Phil) in the early 70's. Jerry also mentioned in a Q&A article below that two Gibsons can make things muddy so at that time they were certainly thinking about how their guitars work together on stage. (this article is on Waldo's site)
- as previously mentioned in the thread, Bobby switched from a Twin Reverb in 72 to a Furman pre-amp in 73 which would certainly affect the tone as well. Tough to find anything as bright and crisp as a Twin so imagine the Furman must have added some more roundness to his tone.
- based on photos, Bobby tended to stick with the pickup selector in the middle position. Tough to say what his volume/tone settings were on. My gut says fairly even and balanced with a touch more bridge in 72 and in 73/74 he switched that where the neck was more pronounced.
- Bobby also tended to strum his chords essentially over the neck pickup allowing for a more natural soft and dark yet still clear tone. This worked especially to his advantage in the 73/74 years.
- I connected my attenuator to my Twin while playing the Casino this morning. When the Casino is on the bridge pickup together with the attenuator at "bedroom" volume it comes pretty darn close to the 72 sound with the added brightness of the bridge. Bobby's 72 tone to my ears is defined by brightness and a touch of electric grit which would make sense of an amp approaching natural breakup.
I would basically say that the 335 is 90% of the overall 72 sound, the Casino 90% of the overall 73/74 sound and the Casino on bridge with attenuator gets around 75% to the 72 sound.
Fun experimenting! Look forward to your audio clips @ibrook52277! I'll see if I can get some decent sounding ones up as well.
Last edited by Slewfoot2000 on Sat Dec 24, 2022 1:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
ibrook52277 liked this
