Easy stuff for beginners, MK guitar style and licks

Chord changes in News on live version of the Making Movies tour

Have you ever noticed that some chords of  News were changed in the live version that Dire Straits used to play on the On Location tour (Making Moviers tour) in 1980/81?

The original chord sequence of News – as recorded on the Communiqué album – was:

Em –  Bm –  C –  Bm –  Am – Am –  C –  C

Live it was changed to:

Em – Bm – C – G/B – Am – Am  G/B – C – C  D

In words: The second Bm was changed to a G (while the bass still plays the B). This also lead to some changes of the melody over this chord. The G before the last C chord (also with a B in the bass) was just a transition chord (played for the last two beats of that bar), the same is true for the last D which was the transition to the Em of the next verse.

Here is a video which shows them playing this version:

 

MK guitar style and licks

Interesting lick in Telegraph Road from a 1992 live version

In today’s blog post I want to feature a lick again, one I think that stroke me because of the interesting and logical idea behind it. This idea is: what will it sound like if you steadily repeat the same five sixteenth notes?

In detail:  On a recording of Telegraph Road from Nimes, France, September 29,  1992 (this is NOT the gig in Nimes that was filmed for the On Every Night video earlier that year but the one that was shown on TV in many European countries), Mark played a lick that consists of the following five repeated notes:

If each of these notes is played as a sixteenth note, always each fourth of them will fall on the beat. As there are five different notes over a rhythm of four sixteenth notes, the first note of a sixteenth group will always be different, see the following tab.

After 20 notes, which is on the 2nd beat in the 2nd bar, the notes will repeat, after 80 notes which is after 5 bars, the first c note will be on the “one” again.

Simple but clever, isn’t it? Often the simple ideas are the best anyway. However, if you try to play the lick, you will find that it is everything but easy to play. Since always the first note of a group of four sixteenth notes is stressed, you have to stress a different note all the time (always the one on your foottap of course). Sometimes you even have to stress the pulled-off note. It is hard not to lose the musical context, in other words not to lose where you are in the chord scheme (which is basically Dm, Dm7, G , D by the way).

Here is the video that shows what I am talking about. Unfortunately specifying a starting point seems not to work any longer in embedded youtube videos, so you manually need to go to where the lick is, which is ca. between 6:52 and 6:57. I will also try to record a tutorial video on this lick as soon as I will find some time. Happy practicing!

Guitar in general, Vintage guitars

Why do certain pickups like Stratocaster pick-ups from the 50ies or the Schecter F500T die so often?

A guitar pickup does not contain any moving parts, and for this reason it is generally free of mechanical wear and might work for many decades (maybe even for centuries?). Nevertheless, certain pickup models seem to be prone to die earlier than others. One example are Fender pickups from the 50ies or early 60ies. For this reason you will often see vintage Stratocasters with rewound pickups. The same is true for the Schecter F500T – a tapped pickup which consists of two individual coils.

It is mostly corrosion of the magnets that kills the pickup

The reason is simple. A pickup consists of some magnets and a coil – in case of a standard Fender-type singlecoil pickup we have individual magnetic pole pieces for each string, but some pickups also have non-magnetic metal pieces (or screws) that are connected to one bar magnet that often sits below the bobbin. The coil consist of hair-thin wire that is wound around the magnets. The wire is an extremely thin copper wire that is insulated with some film (e.g. laquer, formvar or enamel). For this reason – the wire itself is insulated – it is not necessary to insulate the magnets from the wire.

Now the problem: the magnets are made of metal – normally alnico which is an alloy of ALuminium, NIckle, and Cobalt – , and metal can corrode when exposed to humidity or other environmental factors like sweat, beer, or whatever. It is this corrosion of the magnets in the interior of the pick-up that can destroy the wire of the coil.
There are two different things that can happen: (a) the wire breaks and the pick-up will not produce any output at all anymore, or (b) only the insulation is destroyed and the coil is shortened. The pick-up will still produce some output but not as much as it normally does. It depends on the number of turns that are shortened how much output the pick-up will produce – any value from 0 – 100% is possible.

Those old Stratocaster pickups often look like this

Fender reacted to the problem which killed so many pickups from the 50ies and applied a thin coat of laquer on the pole pieces before winding the coil. Alternatively some manufacturers  put some tape around the pole pieces.

Measurung the resistance of the pickup

The exact diagnosis of a defective pickup is simple. All you need is to measure the resistance of the coil with a multi meter (or to be concrete an ohm meter). Make sure that the pick-up is NOT switched on at the 5-way (or whatever) pick-up switch, but switched OFF. Then measure between the two poles where the cables are soldered to the pick-up. If you don’t want to open the guitar, you can also turn up the volume and tone controls, switch on the pick-up and measure at the output jack (plug in a guitar cable and measure between the two poles of the other plug). However, this measurment is not as exact as the other method since the potis will be in parallel to the pickup and reduce the resistance you will measure)

Measuring the resistance of a pickup

If the wire is broken, the multimeter will read an extremely high value (indefinite), if it is shortened it will read lower than the normal resistance of the pick-up (which is about 6 kohms in case of a vintage-style Stratocaster pick-up)

If the pickup is defective, there is nothing you can do to repair it except exchange it or let it be rewound by a specialist. If the correct type of wire is used, there should be no audible sound difference after the job.

If you are looking for a replacement for the Schecter F500T pickup, you should check out our tapped pick-ups by the German pick-up specialist Harry Haeussel. Click on the image below for more info.

Guitar in general, Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

White Aluminium Schecter-style pickguards now available

After the brass pickguards, the white ones are also available now. Just like on Mark Knopfler’s red Schecter Strat, they are made of white enamel aluminium, they feature three mini toggle switches, one volume poti and one tone poti with chrome or gold knobs (e.g. Mark Knopfler’s blue Schecter – played on stage by Hal Lindes – had gold knobs).

Just two potis are great: you can finally rest your right hand closer to the bridge to get that funky, crisp attack like Knopfler.

Probably there will be other pick-up choices (e.g. Seymour Duncans) available soon. Note however that with standard (= non-tapped)  pick-ups you won’t get those 27 sound combinations.

Here are some first pictures.

Check it out in the shop.

Misc, MK guitar style and licks

Alternate Sultans of Swing solo take from first album session – unheard before – exclusively on mk-guitar.com

Here you will find an alternate take of the Sultans of Swing first  solo from the recording session for the first album at Basing Street Studios in February 1978. Unfortunately the quality is more than poor, you might guess where it is coming from…

It is not so much different, but it is for sure not the take  that was released. This can maybe heard best between 0:15 and 0:22 where the phrasing and some notes are different, similar to some live versions or to the version from Pathway Studios.

And that’s the neck pick-up, I’d think the FS-1, isn’t it?

 

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear

Inside the Schecter F500T pick-up – What is a tapped pick-up?

The Schecter-F400 loaded pickguards normally came with Schecter’s F500T pick-ups. The ‘T’ stands for tapped. So, what is meant with this, what is a tapped pick-up?
A normal Strat pick-up consists of six individual magnet pole pieces wrapped by a coil of thin wire. The original Fender design had about 8,000 turns (varying to some extent, the vintage ’54 pick-up was specified to 8,350, while a 1978 Strat pick-up had about 7,600 turns). This will result in a coil of about 6 kOhms. Compared to a humbucker like Gibson’s PAF the Strat sound is rather thin and weak with lots of treble, which is not ideal to get a heavy distortion from most vintage amps. Adding more turns will result in a louder and at the same time fuller sound (more midrange, less harsh treble). This was the reason why pick-ups like the DiMarzio FS-1 or SDS-1 were invented in the early 70ies. They had a coil with almost twice as many turns, which means about 12 – 13 kOhms. Great for distortion, and a great fat and warm sound for clean stuff. However, you cannot recreate the crisp original Strat sound with these.

The solution that combines the best of both worlds is the tapped pick-up. David Schecter was probably not the person who invented these, or used them for the first time, but probably the one who made them popular in the late 70ies. The idea of a tapped pick-up is to make a coil with the standard number of turns first. Next a second coil is added around the first one, wired in series with the first. Consequently a tapped pick-up has three cables: ground, normal coil output, and the output of both coils in series (which is equal to one coil with the double number of turns). Of course you need some switching system to select the normal or double coil, ideally individually for each pick-up. Here the three mini toggle switches of the Schecter Dream Machines came in. Each of them has three positions: up is the first coil for a standard Strat sound, in the middle position the pick-up is off, and in the down position you have the full coil. As you can combine the three pick-ups in any coil position, you will get 27 individual sounds this way.

A tapped pick-up has two coils, an inner (blue) and an outer coil (green). The inner coil gives you the standard Strat sound, adding the outer coil will result in a higher output.
A tapped pick-up has three connectors

For my loaded Schecter-style pickguards, I use handwound pick-ups by Germany’s pick-up specialist Harry Häussel that are based on the F500T design. Check them out in this site’s shop.

Misc, MK guitar style and licks, Recording

Mark Knopfler on Thomas Dolby’s 17 Hills – Auditioning different lead guitar takes

I recently watched a few Youtube videos by Tomas Dolby about recording for his new album. One track – 17 Hills – features Mark Knopfler on lead guitar. There is one video in which Thomas tells about recording the guitar at Mark’s British Grove Studio. Mark recorded various  guitar takes for this song, and Thomas explains how the recording session developped – “and how to give direction to a demigod” (quote from Thomas).

It is quite interesting to hear the different takes in comparision. They reveal Mark’s approach of jamming along the song, and reacting to Thomas’s suggestions. The guitar sound is still very direct with lots of dynamics, still without all the effects they will put in in the final mix. Enjoy!

Guitars, Mark Knopfler gear, Misc, Vintage guitars

MK-Guitar.com presents: Loaded Schecter F400-style pickguard

I am proud to announce a brand new product which will be available exclusively on this site in the very near future.

For a long time those vintage Schecter pickguards, loaded with the sought-after F500T tapped Schecter pick-ups, have been the ultimate tool to convert your guitar into something similar to the legendary Schecter Dream Machines, or as a start point to build a high-end custom Strat. With those three mini switches and the tapped pick-ups you can select from not less than 27 pick-up combinations, ranging from the classic Strat sounds to fat p90-like blues sounds.

The loaded Schecter F400 pickguards came with the Dream Machines, or were available separately to upgrade your Strat in the 70ies and early 80ies. Anyway, they are extremely rare and for this reason almost impossible to get. No wonder that used items have sold for up to 1,500 USD on ebay since then.

Here they are again – exclusively on MK-Guitar.com

I had the idea to build one of these for myself but I soon found out that the price will be astronomical for two reasons: most of those fancy parts like for example the American flat-lever mini switches or the conductive plastic potis are hard to get, and if so only in certain quantities. Also, some jobs like constructing the pickguard in AutoCAD to get a vector file that controls certain high-tech machinery imply an enormous amount of work and time, and would not pay for just one single board. So the idea of a small production run was born.


Highest quality only

The core idea of Schecter was to offer upgrade parts for your guitar, and as an upgrade these need to be of superior quality. Mind that a complete Schecter Dream Machine was never considered as as Strat copy because even back then it cost a multiple of the price for a US Fender Strat. Everything was made with finest parts. The potis for example were not simply some potis, they were US made conductive plastic potis for extended life, fully dust capsuled. When you turn them, they do not feel like a crappy Chinese poti found in many guitars these days. Instead, they have that creamy tight feel you associate with the volume knob of an expensive  HIFI amplifier. We have them again!
Or those mini switches: they are still available today but normally they have a round lever instead of the flat one. I indeed found Asian switches with flat levers that look alright but if you compare them with the real stuff, they simply feel different, they rattle, and – call me a snob – when you switch them, the “click” sound is different than with the US switches. Finally I managed to get hold of US made switches, they cost me three times as much as the Asia stuff but it is worth the price. I even got those  fancy round dress nuts for the switches, essential for the authentic look.

Flat-lever switches with dress nuts

Hand-wound finest custom pick-ups by Harry Häussel

Another problem were the pick-ups. The original Schecter F500T was a tapped pick-up for both the classic Strat sound and a fat, warmer lead sound. The ones you see on ebay are extremely expensive, or often defective. It seems many of them have problems after some decades, something which is also true for 50ies Fender pick-ups. A few companies, e.g. Seymour Duncan, still make pick-ups that are somewhat similar to the F500T. However, similar was not enough for me, so I teamed up with one of Europe’s hottest pick-up winding gurus – Harry Häussel – to come up with something superior. Those of you who know Harry’s outstanding vintage Fender replicas will not be surprised to hear that our pick-ups are made with real love and attention to even smallest details. They have the same kind of magnets, the same winding wire, the same winding method. I even got American gauge cables of the same colours – black, yellow, and purple –  simply because the European cable gauges looked too skinny, or were too fat.

Tapped pick-ups with those big Alnico magnets

What you get

Our loaded pickguards should fit on all Strat-sized guitars (8 holes like vintage Schecter).

* Made of solid brass (alternatively white aluminium), professionally high-tech cut to our specifications in Germany, professionally polished for that magic, shiny look.

* Hand-wound pick-ups for that F500T sound. Magnets, wires, winding etc.,  like vintage Schecter. These are definitely not the cheapest but the best!

* Two US high-quality square potis, conductive plastic, extended life, just like vintage Schecter (in fact by one of the two suppliers that Schecter had, the other one  is out of business)

* Three US-made flat-lever mini toggle switches, with dress nuts, just like vintage Schecter

* Tone capacitor and treble bleeding capacitor with resistor, like vintage Schecter.

Price:  to be announced soon (Update: 419,- €)

Availabilty: coming soon (Update: first pickguards shipping)

See product in our shop:

And here the original, a real vintage Schecter

 

... and another vintage Schecter. Compare to the previous picture and note that Schecter used switches and potis from different manuafacturers.
The backside of the Pensa MK-80 pickguard looks quite different
MK guitar style and licks

Jamming over “Dire Straits – In the Gallery” groove loop

For some weeks I have been playing around with a Boss RC-50 loop station. The RC-50 allows you to record your own playing and play it as a loop. This way you can create multiple sound layers, and then jam to it. A really nice tool that makes a lot of fun.

Here I am live recording a rhythm guitar and a bass over a drum rhythm from the RC-50, similar to the groove of In the Gallery from Dire Straits’ first album. The guitar is a part-o-caster with an old Squier body and neck , the bass is an old Precision Bass.

Everything was monitored over a Music Man RP 112 RP amp, and recorded with the microphone of the video camera. There are no effects except some reverb from the amp.