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

[Tone seaker]

There was a bunch of Fender stuff, all that equipment he used until he switched over to Marshalls. You still see the stuff in the videos even after that, same with the Guild stuff.
I'm not sure if I modded the Fenders for him except for different speakers. I wouldn't be surprised though, we were a hot-rod Fender shop.
A friend sent me a link to a sale of one of Jimi's Fender speaker cabs, it had the West Coast oval sticker on the back!
Traces of our DNA still exist.

Jerry did a little more than just get high, sometimes he would get plastered at work--that's what Neal was talking about, it wasn't good for business and it wasn't good for the employees, and it upset Neal.

more BS Hendrix used Marshalls from 66 on when he went to England. Every one knows that. Before he went to england he had no equipent besides a guitar whihc he had a hard time keeping until Linda Keith gave him one of Keith Richards. he was dirt poor and didnt even always have a place to stay. Are you now going to say you did his fenders before he was even known and just a back up player or try to say he had all this equipment and took it to the west coast Take the BS to a whole new level

[daveweyer]

Jimi's first equipment was Guild. Chas got him the Quantum amp in New York along with some other Guild stuff. That amp has been shown on the forum with plenty of details. Jimi used Fender equipment and then Sunn. He didn't switch over to an all Marshall line up until Marshall agreed to sponsor him in 1969, and even then he carried lots of the old stuff around with him--you can see it in lots of videos, and it came in to West Coast for repair with the rest of his equipment.
The Guild Quantum amp stayed with him until he gave it to his band Cat Mother, their logo is painted on the top of the Guild amp, and the Experience on the bottom.
Nothing new here.

[stratcat]

More Bullshit on Jimi. Implying he went from Fender to Sunn to getting a Marshall endorsement is total horseshit. You sir, are a BULLSHIT Artist. Not only that, I've seen the influence of your BS in every Jimi thread with the drones quoting you verbatim. What a shame. You and you alone, have RUINED this part of the Forums.

[Tone seaker]

Jimi's first equipment was Guild. Chas got him the Quantum amp in New York along with some other Guild stuff. That amp has been shown on the forum with plenty of details. Jimi used Fender equipment and then Sunn. He didn't switch over to an all Marshall line up until Marshall agreed to sponsor him in 1969, and even then he carried lots of the old stuff around with him--you can see it in lots of videos, and it came in to West Coast for repair with the rest of his equipment.
The Guild Quantum amp stayed with him until he gave it to his band Cat Mother, their logo is painted on the top of the Guild amp, and the Experience on the bottom.
Nothing new here.

That is not true. 99% of the pictures of Jimi from 67 on had a wall of marshall's behind him. When Jimi went to to England with Chas he stipulated he would only go to England if he could have fender amps (not guild) and Chas said he could get him fenders (this is well documented from multiple sources) but when they got there he tried a Marshall amp that was from one of the big bands there at the time (the Who I think) and loved it. It is well documented Jimi went to Jim Marshall's shop and worked out a deal with him in early 67 or late 66. There are lots of pictures of Jimi in clubs in 66 and early 67 with a wall of Marshalls behind him. Marshall amps dont just blow up like there piles of crap like you claim. Lets see these videos you claim exist. Your now claiming Jimi had a seperate band called Cat mother. Another first. that no one has ever heard of.

Hendrix was not in Cat Mother see bellow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Mothe ... t_Newsboys

[stratcat]

As a lifelong Jimi fan I find the blatant spreading of Misinformation troubling. I can imagine if someone did this on the EVH section of the forums.
Jimi used Marshalls as soon as he arrived in England. Some early '67 USA shows show a Fender backline. SOME shows, not all. At points a Sound City stack is seen with his Marshalls. At points in '68 SUNN amps were used but not exclusively. Some shows show all Sunn, some Marshall and Sunn mixed. Eventually it is all Marshalls.

The Guild cabs were used as MONITORS, same as some British shows show SUNN as monitors. The pictures don't lie.

As a fan and concert collector I find it interesting to hear shows where Jimi used all Fender or all SUNN amps. Different tonality for sure.

What's sad is I find it hard to even browse this forum. I try to read a Fuzz thread and all I see are drones parroting this West Coast guy as if it's the only way to get a certain sound. Terrible

A quick email last year to Roger Mayer, inquiring about how Jimi ran his fuzzes was all I needed to know. Fuzz FULL, which is OBVIOUS if you use your ears. Notched fret? Sure

[Tone seaker]

Jimi's first equipment was Guild. Chas got him the Quantum amp in New York along with some other Guild stuff. That amp has been shown on the forum with plenty of details. Jimi used Fender equipment and then Sunn. He didn't switch over to an all Marshall line up until Marshall agreed to sponsor him in 1969, and even then he carried lots of the old stuff around with him--you can see it in lots of videos, and it came in to West Coast for repair with the rest of his equipment.
The Guild Quantum amp stayed with him until he gave it to his band Cat Mother, their logo is painted on the top of the Guild amp, and the Experience on the bottom.
Nothing new here.

Total BS


Why would Chas buy a guild amp in the US and ship it to England when Jimi was using fenders and told Chas that is what he wanted as part of the deal to go to England It is a known fact Chas borrowed a Marshall from "The Who" from the very begging and Jimi loved it. Jimi tried some of these other amps while on his first US tour as they wanted to sponsor him (free amps) for a few shows and could not stand them bringing back his Marshalls which he was glad to pay for. Jimi even brought his own Marshall for Montery all the way from England. Dave please stop misleading people. We can and will continue to discredit you. This is way to important to let some one try and change history with misinformation. I just dont get you Dave how can you try and change history when it is well documented, Dave how can you even make statements about Jimi's early carrier when his amps didnt even go to West Coast till 69. You could not have any experience in his early carrier. Just makes it seem like you never even met him, I guess next your gona claim you met Chas Chadler and he told you this stuff about the guild amps even though its well doucmented in many places Hendrix used Marshall from the git go in England. I guess you think were idiots here. Oh thats right you said we were many times Your statements discredit yourself

Marshals 66
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyiyI__ryJU

Marshalls 67
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CghcU5Lm40

[daveweyer]

And Xplorer, Jimi preferred the sound of the Celestion type speakers, whenever the cabs, be they Fender or Sunn, had JBL speakers, they would not perform the way he wanted. This cost Sunn Jimi's exclusive use of their equipment because they stubbornly believed the JBL speakers superior. They probably were for PA use, but their QTS was too low for guitar. Fender also used the JBL in their larger cabs, and those suffered from the same problems.
Thiel and Small came up with a method to predict a speaker's behavior, and one of the most important quanta for musical instrument use was Total System Q, or QTS. In high power use a larger voice coil is needed to get rid of heat, and this fact made the Q in JBL speakers very low, which meant they were very damped i.e. they controlled their own tendency to resonate, and very tightly. This made them sound dead for guitar use. A low Q speaker like the JBL might only have a QTS of .2, whereas an old Jensen might have a Q of 1.2. The high Q speakers "sing" at their own resonances, uncontrolled by themselves or the amp, especially if it's a tube type.
A large portion of the overall tone in Fenders and Marshalls is the high Q speakers. Jimi didn't know the terms or the science but he immediately knew the difference when he played through them.
Even though Guild used 15" speakers in their larger cabs, they were small voice coil, high resonance, high Q types. Jimi liked them and he kept them, eventually giving them to his pet band Cat Mother. One of the amps featured here in pictures was an original purchased for Jimi in 1966, the date is right inside and Cat Mother was later stenciled right on top after Jimi gave it to them.

[frenchie]

The Guild cabs were used as MONITORS, same as some British shows show SUNN as monitors. The pictures don't lie.

Kewl ! so you agree guild cabs were "monitors" ...What exactly drove them ? a powerfull P.A ?
Now , just tell , how much in percentage would you say this HUGE monitoring setup colored jimi's sound in various venues , considering , to monitor anything to jimi considering the marshall stacks he had to hear over , the guild cabs must had been pretty Fucking LOUD ? 50% ...40% .... 60% ...30% ?
Kay it's not reamp per say ( i've always agreed with that ) ...but still , yeah that a pretty hugely loud monitoring setup right ?

[Xplorer]

And Xplorer, Jimi preferred the sound of the Celestion type speakers, whenever the cabs, be they Fender or Sunn, had JBL speakers, they would not perform the way he wanted. This cost Sunn Jimi's exclusive use of their equipment because they stubbornly believed the JBL speakers superior. They probably were for PA use, but their QTS was too low for guitar. Fender also used the JBL in their larger cabs, and those suffered from the same problems.
Thiel and Small came up with a method to predict a speaker's behavior, and one of the most important quanta for musical instrument use was Total System Q, or QTS. In high power use a larger voice coil is needed to get rid of heat, and this fact made the Q in JBL speakers very low, which meant they were very damped i.e. they controlled their own tendency to resonate, and very tightly. This made them sound dead for guitar use. A low Q speaker like the JBL might only have a QTS of .2, whereas an old Jensen might have a Q of 1.2. The high Q speakers "sing" at their own resonances, uncontrolled by themselves or the amp, especially if it's a tube type.
A large portion of the overall tone in Fenders and Marshalls is the high Q speakers. Jimi didn't know the terms or the science but he immediately knew the difference when he played through them.
Even though Guild used 15" speakers in their larger cabs, they were small voice coil, high resonance, high Q types. Jimi liked them and he kept them, eventually giving them to his pet band Cat Mother. One of the amps featured here in pictures was an original purchased for Jimi in 1966, the date is right inside and Cat Mother was later stenciled right on top after Jimi gave it to them.

interesting !
i suppose that you managed a combination of celestions to make it a 4 ohms load, since Fender amps mostly are 4 ohms if i'm not too wrong.

[Tone seaker]

[stratcat]

The Guild cabs were used as MONITORS, same as some British shows show SUNN as monitors. The pictures don't lie.

Kewl ! so you agree guild cabs were "monitors" ...What exactly drove them ? a powerfull P.A ?
Now , just tell , how much in percentage would you say this HUGE monitoring setup colored jimi's sound in various venues , considering , to monitor anything to jimi considering the marshall stacks he had to hear over , the guild cabs must had been pretty Fucking LOUD ? 50% ...40% .... 60% ...30% ?
Kay it's not reamp per say ( i've always agreed with that ) ...but still , yeah that a pretty hugely loud monitoring setup right ?

No, I don't "agree". I KNEW this for decades. Some cabs to hear Noel's bass on Jimi's side and visa-versa. Not rocket science. What's the difference how loud they were, they were for onstage monitoring, not mic'd thru the PA

[daveweyer]

Xplorer,
Fender often used 4-16 ohm speakers to get 4 ohms, but in the big cabs with 2-15s they just used 2-8 ohm speakers.
This made it easy to install cheaper high Q speakers that Jimi preferred. If he had his way he preferred 4-12 cabinets, but Fender couldn't offer him much in that line. I talked to Fender about offering a 4-12 cab back in 68 or so, but they were getting ready to sell and didn't want to bring out new stuff then. Big mistake. Jim Marshall was smart enough to stick with what the rockers wanted, a souped up Fender Bassman with 4-12s for more volume. Fender could have had a big hunk of the business, and so could have Sunn if they hadn't misunderstood the trend.
Vox too for that matter. Everybody here thought that solid state was the wave of the future, it was, but not for guitars.
HUGE miscalculation.

[Tone seaker]

Jimi pioneered owing and touring with his own PA and amps.

[Xplorer]

Xplorer,
Fender often used 4-16 ohm speakers to get 4 ohms, but in the big cabs with 2-15s they just used 2-8 ohm speakers.
This made it easy to install cheaper high Q speakers that Jimi preferred. If he had his way he preferred 4-12 cabinets, but Fender couldn't offer him much in that line. I talked to Fender about offering a 4-12 cab back in 68 or so, but they were getting ready to sell and didn't want to bring out new stuff then. Big mistake. Jim Marshall was smart enough to stick with what the rockers wanted, a souped up Fender Bassman with 4-12s for more volume. Fender could have had a big hunk of the business, and so could have Sunn if they hadn't misunderstood the trend.
Vox too for that matter. Everybody here thought that solid state was the wave of the future, it was, but not for guitars.
HUGE miscalculation.

i have a super reverb to restore, from what i understand it'll sound cool with the only speakers i have : Celestions

[frenchie]

No, I don't "agree". I KNEW this for decades. Some cabs to hear Noel's bass on Jimi's side and visa-versa. Not rocket science. What's the difference how loud they were, they were for onstage monitoring, not mic'd thru the PA

hmmm "onstage" ... though i showed a pic of fillmore east where there's a guild cab that is not "onstage" a while back , but turned to the public ... taking advantage of some unused "monitors" to spread the sound a little more and take advantage of the reverberation , doesn't seem so much of a whack idea for me !

why the fuck is such a simple idea , that much a strech ?
is it rocket science ?

As well as controlling his feedback at the touch of a volume button by feeding it through the traynor yorkville ysm1 monitor on the seat , conveniently beeing able to wail' it without having to constantly go back and forth to the stacks ?

For fuck sake , if i was all about playing with feedback , and had powerful stacks blocking me from doing that with subtelty ( god knows a stack on the verge of blowing up is a finicky thing to turn to strapped with a guitar , provided you don't wanna blow up ear drums , and find controlling it with the guitar volume just sucks, cuz you have to play only with that effect at a time and can't do anything else ) , i'd do that in a heartbeat !