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Topic: Old Farfisa organ and Wurlitzer electric piano memories. |
Denny Turner
From:
Oahu, Hawaii USA
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 1:16 pm |
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This posting is a side-note to Paul Hoaglin's Fender V/T/ pedal troubleshooting discussion posted here:
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=2392195
It didn't seem to bother anyone else, but it bothered me that I thought my reply was too close to being an off-topic "hijack" posting, so I moved it to this 'Electronics' board.
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My teenage days "geetar tech" beginnings; Humorous intrigue:
Paul, not meaning to hijack your thread here; But it seems appropriately intrigueing and comical to troubleshooting electronics; (Moderator can move this somewhere else should you or he desire):
I just (acutely) noticed you mentioning your friend's Wurlitzer and Farfisa experience. Geezzz that caused old fond memories to pop out of my old brain. The keyboard player in my teenage-days band played both, (I played guitar). Other than doing basic setups on guitars a few times, and great interest in mentor Jerry Blanton and his shop work (what a fantastic guy), ...opening up that Wurlitzer was one of my first attempts at complex low-tech intuitive "tech" work, to try to figure-out how to tune that thing that had some notes so out of tune they were becoming annoying; We didn't have enough money to have it done professionally. Conferring with Jerry he said, "go for it, Hoss ...the worst you can do is kill yourself (laughing)". So on the phone with a favored piano/music store's tech, I learned that the weight of blobs of solder on the tips of the metal reeds controlled the speed / frequency of each reed; More solder, slower vibration, lower pitch .... file some away, faster vibration / pitch; I knew / know no other nuances about tuning that thing ...and never touched one since. So I grabbed Dad's soldering kit, small file, vacuum cleaner, some rags and an old Conn spinning-wheel strobe tuner and went to work, ...scared to death avoiding anything electrical. The difference between Tempered / Stretched and Just Intonation tunings (which I knew nothing about until I had to learn it then) drove me nuts with disparity between the scope and my ear ...with no clue what the cents increments on the scope were actually for; Damn teenager with more desire than brains. I felt piss-and-vinegar proud being able to eventually tune his Wurlitzer, ...albeit with some small beat frequencis and ghost tones from my amateur tuning work, a slightly different sound character which we liked back in those in-yer-face rock'n roll days, especially running through a 100 watt 2x15 Sears Silvertone Danelectro amp running at or near full-bore (Jerry Blanton installed a line out on the Wurlitzer to fix our mic'ing the speaker). Soon afterward we got a Farfisa which I opened up a few times for adjustments; Then a Vox Continental I didn't dare touch ... too new for any local techs to know anything about and consult.
Waking up those memories will make for a nice day; Thank You!
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1964. First promo photo; With Wurlitzer, and silver jackets sewn by a neighborhood seamstress; Bullet mic in singer's hand. Hand-drawn business cards and flyers. Ages L-R: 18, 16. 15, 17, 19. We're ready to ride this horse:
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A year later with Farfisa:
http://dennysguitars.homestead.com/concert2.html
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Playing lounge music for the Lackland AFB Officers Club, ...slipping in a few pop-rock tunes during the last hour when those remaining in the audience were too drunk to notice (except young lieutenants who liked it, ...and the variety got us rehired regularly):
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Now I'm off to Costco for whatever jumps into the cart......
_________________
Aloha,
Denny T~
http://www.dennysguitars.com/
Please help support humanity:
http://www.redcross.org/en/aboutus
Last edited by Denny Turner on 3 Jun 2015 2:20 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Jon Light
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 2:08 pm
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| Ha! Caught my attention with "Farfisa". My first gigging instrument was a Mini Compact. I've got sentimental feelings, if not warm loving feelings, for that thing. Sold it cheap many years ago so that I might eat another day. |
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Denny Turner
From:
Oahu, Hawaii USA
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 2:43 pm
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Yessir Jon; It's intrigueing how one or a few words can call-out old memories from the fog, ...and Good when they're fond. When I read Paul's posting the second time (first time was in a late-night fog), his mentioning Wurlitzer and Farfisa opened old memories floodgates; Right away I "heard" their sounds, followed by a flow of fond old memories. ~~~~~~~ And yessir, gosh how many great old instruments have we let slip away!?! A nice Hagstrom solid body 12 string electric comes to mind ... hocked in 1975 for $30 to buy food, and I didn't have money to get it back by the time the pawn expired; Plus a number of other even greater guitars have slipped away under various circumstances. The lard giveth and the lard taketh away!
_________________
Aloha,
Denny T~
http://www.dennysguitars.com/
Please help support humanity:
http://www.redcross.org/en/aboutus
Last edited by Denny Turner on 4 Jun 2015 12:33 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Bill Sinclair
From:
Waynesboro, PA, USA
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 8:44 pm
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| Enough about the keyboards... I want to know what's that geetar yer playin'. Can't tell in the first picture, National maybe? Second picture: Mustang? Duo-sonic? Your high school band was a lot cooler than mine! |
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Denny Turner
From:
Oahu, Hawaii USA
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Posted 4 Jun 2015 12:00 am
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Bill,
My guitar in the first photo was a white 1959 Framus single cutaway Hollywood model; My first electric Guitar, Mom and Dad bought me for Christmas 1959 in Germany. I sold it 6 years later to buy the Mustang in the 2nd photo. I've had an ebay automatic email notice search going on for a few years now with no luck; I'd sure like to buy one just for old times sake.
The second photo is a blue (like Fender's modern Sonic Blue) 1965 Mustang (can't remember the 1965 color name at the moment ...68 year old CRS).
"Cooler" band than yours??? Thank You for the kind words, BUT... my getting up there in years now, I think just about any high school guitar band was / is about as cool as cool gets! Every high school musician in guitar bands that I knew back then, was thrilled to the point of never forgetting (not withstanding personality challenges that seem to take many years to overcome for many if not most "pickers", ...directly related to a bands ability to succeed). But then again the size of the thrill / success was meaningful too. The large market and production-industry of old Garage Band recordings is a testiment to how good and liked young & raw music is in it's own way, ...especially when processed through decent tube preamps with high gain capabilities; Studios / Producers were way prone to want clean / undistorted sound back then, ...while most of those bands young piss and vinegar played at or near as loud (and thus overdriven) as their amps would go most of the time; And thus often needing some extra gain today to hear their music like their souls were playing it. ....Hmmmmm.... come to think of it, that's the way we felt about discovering / finding predecessor Blues Men recordings back then, where distorted amps were a big part of their sound both personally and studio-wise! Over the last 20 years or-so I've also noticed that many old (c.a. pre-1955 or-so) Country and early Rock musicians were running their amps at higher gains too, just not as pronounced as the old Blues men. ~~~~~~~ Yessir, good / fond memories; And I'll bet you feel the same.
_________________
Aloha,
Denny T~
http://www.dennysguitars.com/
Please help support humanity:
http://www.redcross.org/en/aboutus |
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Bill Sinclair
From:
Waynesboro, PA, USA
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Posted 4 Jun 2015 6:28 am
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"My guitar in the first photo was a white 1959 Framus single cutaway Hollywood model... I've had an ebay automatic email notice search going on for a few years now with no luck; I'd sure like to buy one just for old times sake."
Hey, you could get a new one. Kinda doubt that it's made in Germany though.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-FRAMUS-VINTAGE-HOLLYWOOD-RED-GOLD-LP-STYLE-GUITAR-FR05131HOLLYSCV51-/301627014168?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item463a5efc18
"...while most of those bands young piss and vinegar played at or near as loud (and thus overdriven) as their amps would go most of the time;"
Not just the garage bands. I remember the note on the back of Paul Butterfield's first album (with Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop on guitars) "We suggest that you play this record at the highest possible volume in order to fully appreciate the sound of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band."
"~~~~~~~ Yessir, good / fond memories; And I'll bet you feel the same."
Absolutely. Though most of my high school playing experience was in the school band trying to work the saxophone. I got a late start and couldn't sight read for beans but they made me first chair alto in the stage band because I could improvise, well, more like fumble my way through the chord changes without sounding too awful. Come to think of it, that's kind of what I'm still doing 40some years later!  |
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