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

[daveweyer]

Tone,
I don't know if anything will win you over if you've made up your mind.
But if you want proof, why not call Bob Hovland, who was the engineer at Vox, he lives in Santa Monica CA.
Why not call Brad Plunkett, the engineer at Vox who invented the wah wah, he lives in Oxnard CA, and is also still good friends with Jerry Sanders, who owned West Coast Organ and Amp.
Why not call Neil Moser, who did Jimi's guitars at West Coast, and who still makes custom neck through guitars in Prescott Arizona.
Why not call Gary Rowles, Jimi's backing guitar player in the Love group, he was there for a lot of it and still lives in Corvallis Oregon.
They're still all here, and know some or all of the story.

You know, if you really wanted, you could find "proof" without very much effort, and it might make you feel better about staying around here listening to all these stories.

By the way, the roadie for Cat Mother can verify the Guild Quantum amp, he used to haul it around.

[shakti]

Gotta agree squarely with the majority of the posters here. The more I've read of Dave's comments, the more it all seems plausible*. I don't understand the suspiciousness - being skeptical is one thing, and certainly it's everyone's right to ask questions and be doubtful about this or that mod. But the big picture isn't hard to believe, and there is nothing about it that doesn't stack up. These major rock stars had to have stuff serviced *somewhere*, so why not West Coast? And L.A./Hollywood was *the* place on the West Coast, all the industry was based there (at least a major part of it). What's so hard to believe? Some guy had to be the actual hands-on person, why is it so hard to believe it was Dave Weyer?

BTW, the visual evidence for 6550s in the Woodstock amps is pretty convincing if you ask me. And the West Coast stickers on the amps is absolutely unquestionable to me.

*) excpept the notched fret, that one I just can't believe...not anytime soon unless some firm evidence shows up.

[Xplorer]

exactly. and anyway, the subject isn't about proofs, it's about Dave's storys.

i notice that each time someone start with the "proof subject" the thread gets stuck and goes nowhere for a while.
the least these guys could would be to keep in mind that no much truths can be found, in a way or in another. they order proofs but you can't proove anything in a way or in another, even , apparently, if a guild amp features the JH EXP stencils on it, with mods + comments from the one who made the mods.

from what i remember, when some peoples like Roger mayer or eddie kramer claim something, they don't even have as much infos as what Dave provided , by far, they don't even show pictures and documents the best they can with what they have, clips, highly plausible context, but you buy it anyway. as proofs.

so if you plan to be satisfied only once you'll find proofs of anything or everything about Hendrix, be sure once and for all, that it'll never happen. now if peoples like that insist anyway, playing the fools like if they didn't understand all this, it becomes a bit disrespectful regarding this generosity. too much paranoia. there's no point on fooling a whole forum like that + the experiments with the 6550, fuzz and all are going in some very interesting directions anyway.
this said, let's not get stuck once more with the "proof subject", please.

i think that we can't offer a satisfying answer to the these proof claims ( or orders, just like in a police station ).
the only real proof you could get would be Jimi Hendrix himself explaining the mods, his gears etc , but even there you'd probably say he's lying for whatever reason, just like eddie Van Halen sometimes.

proof is made, i think , that this way is going nowhere.

[Tone seaker]

Tone,
I don't know if anything will win you over if you've made up your mind.
But if you want proof, why not call Bob Hovland, who was the engineer at Vox, he lives in Santa Monica CA.
Why not call Brad Plunkett, the engineer at Vox who invented the wah wah, he lives in Oxnard CA, and is also still good friends with Jerry Sanders, who owned West Coast Organ and Amp.
Why not call Neil Moser, who did Jimi's guitars at West Coast, and who still makes custom neck through guitars in Prescott Arizona.
Why not call Gary Rowles, Jimi's backing guitar player in the Love group, he was there for a lot of it and still lives in Corvallis Oregon.
They're still all here, and know some or all of the story.

You know, if you really wanted, you could find "proof" without very much effort, and it might make you feel better about staying around here listening to all these stories.

By the way, the roadie for Cat Mother can verify the Guild Quantum amp, he used to haul it around.

The thing that keeps me from believing is all the Hendrix amps available to see don't show much modding and no 6550's. Also the 5000 amps worked on is hard to believe or the list of people you met. The guild quantum amp looks like a thunder bass to me in the pic's you provided which I own and is a total pile of junk i cant give away.How about the phone numbers for the people you name above and I will call them to verify. That would satisfy me and others

[daveweyer]

Okay Tone, let me try to work something out for you. I'll contact some of these people first to make sure it's all right to involve them.
In the mean time I'll have Xplorer post one of my weekly pay stubs from West Coast Organ and Amp so you can see that I actually worked there, (and made pretty good money cranking out ten amps a day or more).

[Billy Batz]

Okay Tone, let me try to work something out for you. I'll contact some of these people first to make sure it's all right to involve them.
In the mean time I'll have Xplorer post one of my weekly pay stubs from West Coast Organ and Amp so you can see that I actually worked there, (and made pretty good money cranking out ten amps a day or more).

I will say this Dave. While it will always seem rude to call someone out publicly on a forum and I have no issue taking you at your posts, online forums are such a huge waste dump of misinformation I like to see the genuine article- ie people who have something real to contribute, have their credentials out there so no one can ever disease good topics with questions of validity. Not that I have a problem with TS's skepticism. Its maybe not the most diplomatic way to go about things but as I said when you consider the huge mass of parroted misinformation and the lack of a read you get of someone from fonts on a webpage so considering that I wouldnt take it personally.

[Tone seaker]

Okay Tone, let me try to work something out for you. I'll contact some of these people first to make sure it's all right to involve them.
In the mean time I'll have Xplorer post one of my weekly pay stubs from West Coast Organ and Amp so you can see that I actually worked there, (and made pretty good money cranking out ten amps a day or more).

Cool thanks that will make a believer out of me especially the pay stub. But why does Xplorer have it and not you, Thanks all this is just so important I think people want to be sure.

[daveweyer]

Xplorer has all his sound cloud and video cloud accounts set up. It saves me from that chore plus it makes him happy cause he gets to see it first. Seems like I spend most of my time digging through old boxes of stuff to try to find another piece of information to post. It took me at least four hours to find that pay stub............just had to rise to the occasion!

[Xplorer]

Now which new proof asking it's going to be after this one .... that's silly. just blocking the subjects and discussions because of paranoia..

http://imgur.com/a/zsJ9H

[Tone seaker]

Now which new proof asking it's going to be after this one .... that's silly. just blocking the subjects and discussions because of paranoia..

http://imgur.com/a/zsJ9H

Thank you. Its not Paranoia. Its wanting to be sure with things as important as Hendrix's gear. That should be no problem.

My Apologies Dave just wanting to be certain as this is groundbreaking and very important information about Hendrix

[daveweyer]

I think I have something set up which might be good for everybody; I'll do a phone interview with both Jerry Sanders, who started West Coast, and Neal Moser, who built the Strat with the Tele neck and has the long running business of Moser Guitars.
Then if time permits, I'll interview Bob Hovland, who was engineer at Vox and who helped me design amps for Jimi and many others, obtained all the Rola speakers we replaced in Jimi's amps, and was generally around for much of the Hollywood experience.
You can call it proof, or just good information for everyone interested in those times.
In the mean time we'll carry on with the discussions.

[Joshabr1]

Tone seeker is a skeptic of sorts. That's ok to. But this guy is as legit as the freakin day is long. Why not enjoy the info instead of running it off. Jesus

[Tazin]

Ok, I watched the Hendrix woodstock concert (for the first time) and to me it sounds like EL34's....So, I revisited some of the pictures posted throughout this thread and I noticed that V4 doesn't cover up that much of the OT end bell....The coverage ratio looks like a EL34. A 6550 (the narrowed top of the bottle) would cover up much more of the OT end bell since it's almost 5/16 of an inch greater in diameter. I know I'm the 'odd man out' on this but I'm going with EL34's for Woodstock.

[frenchie]

V4 doesn't cover up that much of the OT end bell....The coverage ratio looks like a EL34.

I'm open to debate on this but i need common grounds .....
in which unit exactly ?
the ity bit ?
or the many chunk ?

2nd superlead or first superlead ?
which photo ?
top of the tube width or middle of the tube width ?
augmented the contrast to make up for the difficulty to see the actual glass limits due to the grill ?
aren't you lowballing the size of the glass an ity bit too much ?

do and say whatever you wan't man , but back it up with precision .
the second super lead seems to be loaded with thinner glass yes , but one it could be straight bottle rca 6550 which is thinner , second if it is EL34 it doesn't suppress the fact that for the first super lead it is 6550 ......

[Tone seaker]