Jimi Hendrix' Gear and Mods at West Coast Organ and Amp

[Tazin]

Yes, I do keep an eye on this thread regularly. I'll private message you regarding this amp.

[FloPoeKo]

That cap was a .003 ceramic disk. Tek did a fantastic emulation of what adding that cap to the circuit actually accomplished. Welcome to the forum. It's been a while, I've been out of town.

Dave, thanks for the reply. It´s priceless to have such a veteran in the forum who can clarify on topics we usually only speculate about. Another thing I wanted to ask: You frequently mentioned the color-coding of the transistors. Can you recall what these colors stand for? Are they marking different types or selection markings for beta/Hfe? It would be fantastic if you could you shed some light on which codings existed and what the selection-process behind them was (e.g. which values correspond to which color).

[sonicgene]

First, thank YOU !!!!!!!!!!
and a Special Thanx to David for sharing his knowledge with us

pleaze excuse some faulty Grammar, i´m from Germany, and not a native English Speaker

Hi Everybody from the Metropolis Forum,
and again thank you very much Mr. Dave Weyer,

after reading the whole post, i restarted to build a Fuzz, had some Fuzzes in the Past, but sold them all.
Muddy no way to clean up with Guitar Volume, no Wha before....... you all named it........

Although i´m not a Hendrix Player, i have all the good old tunes, and especially the Sounds in Head, and no way to get that Great Clean on Steroids with long Sustain...... or even a classy Fuzz.......

So i buildet after the mentioned Mods in this Forum, having some Nos OC Germanium on Hand, i thought OC75 first, OC44 second, buildet the thing with 50kohm input Poti -> 1,9mf Input C1 with Film Caps, no Problem these Days, so why not.

33kohm first Q Collector > the 100k Base 1 to Emitter Q2 but with Standart 1kohm Pot for Fuzz with Standart 22mf Eletrolyt.
Then Between the 33k and the Power Negativ ( Germanium ) + a 220ohm, and the Q2 Collector a 10kohm Poti like mentioned before, and the Output through 0,022mf ( had the fantastic Black Bee Repro on Hand )

Not even measured hfe, OC44 should have more HFE so put in second Position, also could handle 10v base emitter.

Switched it on, bit of noise, but wham what a volume …….
so backed off to 10 O´Clock, no Noise Clean, and a bit with High Gain.
( i Power filtered my Tube Pre extensly to the Max, and have some low Value Cathode bypass Caps, mostly Film, Coupled back to Normal…… Better don´t whaiste energy with creating Bass in the Audio Path while later kill with Coupling ) + ( using it with IR Logidy EPSI )
imagine that, all the Face Style where full on, mostly not capabal of Boosting.

There it is, Great Clean on Steroids with Sustain like High Gain, Whow !!!!
And the Sound is georges, aaah Genesis Lamb on Broadwhay did it also, and the Master himself, and so much more Tunes come in Mind…..
It´s so Power full, cutting like Butter through every mix, and so Musical, allmost epic, play´s allmost Clean on the edge, a hair off Fuzz, with the easiness of full Gain Tone Sculpting including Overtones !!!!!!!!!

Presence on 7 or Full with the 45/100 was Jimi´s Amp Setting, if i remember correct, on the Treble Side…….
so it is on my Pre, bypassed 1meg with 220pf in one Stage of the Clean Crunch Side, plus having Bright Cap 220pf Clean and 470p on Crunch Volume 1meg Half on, allmost Marshall,
2,7uf Bypassed Cathode Follower ( Look Kitty Hawk Quattro Pre )

After Tweaking also The Hot and Mad Channels, it´s a allways ON Unit, Capable also of Compressing, Boosting and Fuzzing with the Little Turn on the Guitar Vol.
No need to Change a Value on the Pedal.
Input not Used Full Off, Biased 9 O´Clock, Fuzz Quarter or Half On, Volume 10 O´Clock
For Fuzzier Whooly Tones just Turn Bias 3 O´Clock

EPIC




Thank You Folks for that Great Info
Thank You

[Xplorer]

that's great !
please share pictures and clips !

[Roe]

A westcoast fuzz kit would be great

[Tek465b]

I can make a small batch(5-10) of the WC fuzz. pcb only or kit or fully assembled.(if Dave agree)
Winter is coming so ill get bored anyway loll.

[Xplorer]

I hope that we'll focus again on the wc fuzz with Dave, and that Shakti and i will experiment with the WC fuzz and pcb attempt i sent to Dave back then !! i can't wait now ! it looked promising.
and yes a fuzz kit would be interesting, so we could try to do some clips, varying from one of us to another, with different amps etc ...
Meanwhile, the other simple WC mod applied to a Dunlop blue Hendrix fuzz .... this is fantastic !!! from boost to Crunch to wildness .... i use it all the time and almost exclusively. This isn't a fuzz anymore, this is a coolness machine. I never use my strat in bypass mode now, it's always featuring this volume fuzz, with zero fuzz gain or just a little.
I hadn't played my JTM 45/100 in about a year ! i tried the fuzz with it and it's fantastic with it. it got me to remember how the bog sound couldn't be the JTM .... because the highs, the dynamics, the kind of saturation .... it's the modded WC SL, which gets not so far from the JTM, but well, it's a unique amp.

[Roe]

I can make a small batch(5-10) of the WC fuzz. pcb only or kit or fully assembled.(if Dave agree)
Winter is coming so ill get bored anyway loll.

A kit would be perfect, although a pcb or fully assembled are also of interest. No hurry though (I'm going on a 10 month sabbatical and am unable to take with me more than a few guitars)

[shakti]

I can make a small batch(5-10) of the WC fuzz. pcb only or kit or fully assembled.(if Dave agree)
Winter is coming so ill get bored anyway loll.

Count me in! Would probably prefer fully assembled for ease of mind...have enough repair projects already.

I haven't seen much talk about the Dunlop BOG fuzz around here. I recently bought one and apart from the price and the cool looks it is actually a superb fuzz with a lot of tweakability. I haven't been able to try it on my full rig and at volume, just into a Fryette Valvulator GP/DI and with headphones, but it has bloom and sustain and cleans up quite nicely thugh not as bright as a fuzzface. I do hear a lot of the Band of Gypsys tonal qualities in there. It will be interesting to hear it through a WC mod amp and through a Uni-Vibe preamp. The Dunlop Octavio, which is a not-so-distant cousin, is coloured very noticeable and in a cool way when ran through a Uni-Vibe - adds a certain brittleness in the mids that makes it sound much closer to the recorded Octavio tones.

[Xplorer]

Actualy, we've heard about the real bog fuzz here ... Imo, Dave's simple fuzz mod, perhaps with an always on + higher level switch function, just a guess. And it sounds bog thanks to the amp. I performed this mod on a dunlop blue hendrix fuzz, i love it and i always use it.
I didn't hear about a dunlop bog fuzz, it could be interesting ..

[Tek465b]

the BOG fuzz is a modded RM axis fuzz.
They added a transistor and some tone shaping before the output.
Wondering what transistor they used?

[sonicgene]

#Xplorer

thanx for your reply, and yes there is a foto from the prototype for your convinience



your posts where the ones that get me on the path with the build details, and your enlightning video demo. that nails it, as you said, allways on.

there should somebody build some of them, maybe joe gagan ( his wah pots are allmost looking like the one in my new WC CryBaby ), if i remeber correct, he is selling wahs and parts, but missing the 120kohm wah pot, wich led me to the wonderful crybaby from thomas organ sepulveda…………..
got one via ebay from the us






wich has not the tdk inductor but stack of dimes, and guess what, spot on 530mh as 120k wah pot.
restauratet the pot with opening the back and deoxid it, works again, and way better curve than 100k.
i did some mods to it:

51k Peak 82k parralel to induktor ( has 110k ) and the change of 1.5k to 2.1k.
but get back to standard, way more usable with clean and funky styles

truebypass switch and 4,7uf ( old tantalum was 3.6uf ) , so as dc in, stayed
the 3 nano cap was to much in this wah...

also got that throaty deep voice ( after tantalum exchange !! ) anywhay, maybe for the 120k wah pot also ?
and love it,
again

had the budwah and some others………
no good

love it with highgain violin style leads……..
but works also clean wonderful, wich was the culprit, one way or the other……

now one for all
in front of the WC Style Fuzz its even more artikulatet, allmost the boost, buildet in some Wahs
perfekt symbiose

thank youuuuuuuuuuuuu
dave and xplorer for the most of it

and next....
rebuild guyatone GA-1100D Twin Copy

[daveweyer]

Wow, nice to see all the discussion about Wahs and such. Welcome the new members too. For now what I can do is have Xplorer post the exact schematic of the three transistor fuzz I made for Jimi and that sold at auction to the Vintage Keys museum. The 3 transistor BOG fuzz is actually smarter than the one I made, but it doesn't get any gain out of the extra transistor.
The modded two transistor units have most everything covered, but for 3 transistor lovers it could prove interesting. I still have a couple of PCs from Xplorer which need some parts--maybe this winter when things cool down.

Now here is some news for Jimi amp freaks: I was contacted by the museum to look at Jimi's '69 SL serial 10047, the one supposedly used at Woodstock (the furthest to the right in the pics from stage front), and which the seller wanted $500,000 for. It didn't look right to me because it didn't have the West Coast sticker (among other things), so I got ahold of Tazin to see if he could help me decipher the amp pics. After much email and exchange of photos, Tazin discovered that the amp was actually a different amp, SLA10481, which had very cleverly been attached to the a panel with the 10047 serial number on it. It was a fake! They forgot to put the /A after the SL, even though they got the lettering to look authentic. Some poor guy either bought this fake, or he tried to make a clever fake himself. He is not a happy camper right now, this much I can tell you.

So three cheers for Tazin, who just saved the museum a half million bucks. There is a vid on youtube of the amp at Marshall, with the techs proclaiming they made the amp, but not going so quite so far as to say it was Jimi's: https://youtu.be/8K4Lx5lS73k.
So where is SL/A 10047, the real one?

[Tazin]

And to add a little to Dave's story...I did contact Marshall PLC to let them know that the amplifier was "faked" to look like one of Jimi's '69 Super Leads by sending them pictures of the amp as both SL/A10481 and SL/10047. As Dave mentioned, in the video Phil Wells assessment is based on Marshall originality rather than establishing whether or not the amp was a Hendrix owned piece of gear...A smart move on their behalf. Either way I thought that the folks at Marshall should be made aware of the this forgery so they (Marshall PLC) don't get a bad rap for promoting "faked" celebrity owned gear.

[Xplorer]

Sonicgene, no problem, do you have clips ?

Wow, Dave and Tazin, what a story ! lol, half a million ..........

Dave : yes, this winter sounds cool, for some three transistor fuzz work on the pc's sent, and doing demos from there

We should perhaps do a thread where we only post clips involving Dave's gears, wether it's a modded SL, a Wah, a fuzz, or most of them together. without necessarily commenting there, to keep it focused on clips.