Author: Ingo

Amps, Mark Knopfler gear, Misc

Speaker shoot-out for the Mark Knopfler sound: Electro Voice EV 12L, Celestion Vintage 30 & G12M “Greenbacks” in 4 x 12 cabinets

I recently had three different 4 x 12″ cabinets here to play around with. They all were different, and they all had different speakers. In the video below I am playing various licks and chords over the three cabinets, it might be helpful to find out for yourself what you like most. But first, the candidates are: Electro Voice EV 12 On the left you can see a birch cabinet […]

Guitar in general, Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, Misc

The iSound-ST – New sounds for the Stratocaster – Does it help to get the Mark Knopfler sound?

With this blog post I want to introduce my latest product – the iSound-ST. The what you might ask? The iSound-ST is a rotary switch that is thought to replace one of the controls of your Strat, normally one of the tone controls (I recommend to make the other tone control a master tone control). It mainly changes the Strat’s behaviour when you put your 5-way switch into the 1&2-psotion […]

Guitar in general, Guitars, MK guitar style and licks

First demo of the VFS-1 pickguard

After the last video in which I already  compared the VFS-1 pickup to a 1955 Fender Strat pickup and to the DiMarzio FS-1, here is a first demo of the complete Schecter-style pickguard with the VFS-1 pickups. I was jamming in the Mark Knopfler style over a self-produced 2 chords backing groove on my metallic pink Strat, which is mainly a 1983 Japanese vintage Squier but with a new bird’s […]

Guitars

How close is the VFS-1 Pickup to the Original Fender Vintage and the DiMarzio FS-1?

I recently introduced the new VFS-1 pickup as an alternative to the F500T-style (Schecter-style) pickups in our loaded pickguards, and I already started to work on some video demos of  the complete VFS-1 pickup assembly , the first of these should come within the next days. What I can present today is a side-by-side comparison of the new VFS-1 pickup against the two pickups that inspired us to design this […]

Guitar in general, Guitars

The VFS-1 – New pick-up for our Schecter-style pickguards

Our loaded metal pickguards are now available with a new pick-up model: the VFS-1. V stands for vintage, F for fat, (and S for Strat). Unlike our Schecter-style pick-up (which is very close to a Schecter F500T), the new pick-up has the “normal” sized magnet pole pieces, like a vintage Strat pick-up, and can be used with a plastic cap (the F500Ts do not allow to put a cap on […]

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, Vintage guitars

The Gibson Chet Atkins CEC – Classical Electric Guitar with Nylon Strings

This week I had a nice guitar here – a Gibson Chet Atkins CEC. The CE stands for classical electric, in other words a solid-body guitar with nylon strings and a piezo pickup, while the last C stands for conventional neck width (2″/5.1 cm  at the nut, a CE model with a neck width of 1.825″ / 4.6 cm was also available). This guitar model was developed by Chet Atkins […]

Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos

Dire Straits – Portobello Belle – The Point, Dublin, 1991

Again I found something nice on youtube I personally have never heard before: Portobello Belle from the On Every Street tour in 1991, performed at The Point in Dublin.. I have had one “official” bootleg (= silver pressed CD) called Strait to the Point from a Dublin gig of that tour (August 26 – they played there for 5 nights from August 23 – 27) but the one I have […]

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

The wrong colour of the first Mark Knopfler Signature Strats

The Mark Knopfler Signature Stratocaster was introduced by Fender in 2003. Officially it was available in one colour only – Hot Rod Red. However, the first production run was in a different colour. I remember when I first saw one in a shop in 2003: it did not look like on Fender’s product pictures, or like Mark Knopfler’s famous red 1961 Strat, instead it was much darker. Without the headstock […]

Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos, Misc

Video Clip of Dire Straits – Lady Writer – Pinkpop Festival 1979

That’s the nice thing about internet: I just released the other blog post about a little snippet of In the Gallery which I found on Youtube the other day where I stated that no other video clips (except of a snippet of Lady Writer in bad quality) exist from the Pinkpop Festival in 1979, when a reader of this blog – Brunno Nunes – added a comment with a link […]

Dire Straits/ Mark Knopfler live pictures and videos, Misc

Video snippet of Dire Straits – In the Gallery – Pinkpop Festival 1979

I was surprised to find this video today which starts with an excerpt of Dire Straits –  In the Gallery – live from the Pinkpop festival, Gelen/Holland, June 4, 1979. The whole gig was broadcasted on TV in 1979 but it seems those video tapes then disappeared – at least I don’t know of any rebroadcasts, and thus of no video clips anywhere, except some parts of Lady Writer in […]