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Sellars
Sep-17-2004, 3:58am
Hi all!


I am listening to a CD with recordings by Django Reinhart and Charlie Christian (not at the same time mind you). Both play electic guitar.

I really love their sound, it is not as fat and wooly as a lot of the later jazz guitar players (the sound of wes montgomery comes to mind). It has more of a bite. The tone is more piercing and aggressive (MAN trying to describe a sound makes me feel like that wine mambojambo, it is really hard to describe these things).

I would like my electric mandolin like that. Any suggestions on how to get such a sound?

Type of amps, strings, reverb, compression, anything?

Jim Garber
Sep-17-2004, 8:19am
I assume that you are listening to a late Django -- for the most part and, I believe, the majority of his recordings, he played acoustic guitar, Selmer roundholes with light gauge strings and a long scale.

Christian played a late 1930s Gibson electrics using the first pickups they made commercially, called nowadays the "Charlie Christian" pickups.

As to duplicating the sound, a nice tube amp is a definite for that warm sound. I have a 1930s EM150 with the mandolin equiv of a Charlie Christian pickup and, tho noisy, can get that sound. I also can do it with my EM200 solid body with the right settings on the amp... bosting midrange, for instance.

I had played my electrics thru a transistort amp and it just doesn't make it.

Jim

Sellars
Sep-17-2004, 8:39am
I assume that you are listening to a late Django -- for the most part and, I believe, the majority of his recordings, he played acoustic guitar, Selmer roundholes with light gauge strings and a long scale.
Yep late Django. I really like his acoustic tone too.

I will play somewhat with the midrange.

What makes the charlie christian pick-ups so special?

I will try and play with the midrange a bit tonight, thanks!

Dave Hicks
Sep-17-2004, 9:18am
I can get a jazz sound that I like (warm but not too wooly, piquant but not turbid, with a smooth mouthfeel and a long finish) with single coil pickups in the neck or middle setting (bridge and neck pickups both in the circuit). #The amp eq is important too, you can change the tone a lot if you have a three band (bass, mids, treble). #As jgarber said, a tube amp works much better for this than solid state. #And, I've been told (but haven't yet tried them), flatwound strings give a warm, jazzy tone.

Ted Eschliman
Sep-17-2004, 9:33am
I would concur on the flatwound string suggestion. With the ball ends, it's a simple matter of getting electric guitar strings in singles; my preference, the D'addario Chrome (ribbon wound) series.
Though you seek a more "aggressive" sound, I feel the warmer nature of this string allows me to dig in when I need to, giving me a nice contrasting range of "pinch" to the sound (from "slur" to "snap"), something I wouldn't be able to do with regular roundwound.

John Rosett
Sep-17-2004, 9:37am
something to consider is that when those recordings were made, the amps were smal, and had to be turned up pretty high to be heard. when those guys hit the strings hard, it would overdrive the amp, giving a distorted edge to the sound. try playing through an old, 20 watts or less tube amp. having one of those old em-150's doesn't hurt, either.
john

Dave Hicks
Sep-17-2004, 10:02am
Seth Rosen mentioned that he gets strings from juststrings.com, but I have yet to check them out.

'try playing through an old, 20 watts or less tube amp'
I use a Gretsch 6150 with the mando - equivalent to a tweed Champ.

michaell
Sep-18-2004, 11:29am
I think that a single-string instrument is very helpful for jazz (four or five); it is very hard to use vibrato and to bend strings on traditional mandolins. I also use very light strings.

Joel Glassman
Sep-21-2004, 12:36pm
I would try a humbucker pickup in the neck position through a Polytone amp.

Jim Garber
Sep-21-2004, 12:47pm
I would try a humbucker pickup in the neck position through a Polytone amp.
Joel:
Does Polytone now make tube amps? I tried for years ato get a warm jazzy sound out of my old mini brute and gave up when i finally got my Vibrolux Reverb.

Jim

mandobob
Sep-23-2004, 10:02am
I just recv'd a mando to experiment on to try and achieve a somewhat similar goal; my favortie guitar (yikes, did he say GUITAR!!!)tones can be had on archtop instruments with neck position, low output humbuckers, 500K pots, and quality cap in the tone circuit, flatwound strings hit hard thru a properly tweaked amp.
The mando is an extremely cheap one but, again citing my guitar preferences, some of my heroes played instruments that would be considered 'low tech' and still achieved some wonderful tones.
I can't wait to start this project!

Joel Glassman
Sep-28-2004, 3:05pm
Jim--
I believe Polytone did make a tube amp at one time--
but I'm recommending their standard solid state amps.
My recording of Tiny's Bounce on the first CoMando
compilation was recorded on a Polytone. My sound
is a bit different now, but pretty close to the recording.