With mass vaccinations of Iowans occurring daily, by most visible measures life is slowly returning to pre-pandemic normal. Though masking is still a prevalent and required, people are involving themselves in old routine behaviors like eating at restaurants, visiting coffee shops, and in the case of this posting, attending musical events such as Open Mic Night! We had the great good fortune of access to a most excellent coffee shop, Cup of Joe in Cedar Falls, to host such an event.
The Conditts perform at Open Mic Night
My friend Grant Tracey and I hosted our first Open Mic Night together this past Friday evening, May 7, 2021. In a previous blog posting I wrote in some detail about the technical aspects of hosting an Open Mic scenario, particularly the use of a Bose L1 Pro 32 PA system.
To the left you can see the general set-up situated in the rear of the coffee shop. Between the two performers, on the floor, you will note the Bose subwoofer, the line array speaker tower and hidden behind the singer a T4s mixer that all comprise the PA system. The Bose 32 is spec’d for a larger space than the coffee shop so it easily performed admirably without stress and filled the room with a pleasant level of performance sound. Audio level adjustments of volume, bass, treble and reverb were easily executed. Audience members commented positively on the quality of the sound, which was a relief to me since I personally invested in all the PA hardware. You’ll also notice guitar and mic cables everywhere, stools, mic stands, guitar pedal boards, guitars, and guitar and music stands.
The fact is, there was a great deal of schlepping to get the performance space properly set up. Even though the Bose PA is valued for its portability, by the time you pack in the PA, cables, stools, mic stands, guitars, guitar stands, and guitar pedal boards, its quite an effort! You can see below, in the image of me performing, all the surrounding support hardware required to pull off the event. At first glance, it might not seem like a lot, but it was a lot to haul from home, and then get from the parking lot into the coffee shop. I am grateful that we planned to take 90 minutes to get set up for our first time, and we needed every minute, considering that Grant had to make an emergency run back to my home to fetch a music stand and my iPhone which contained a Bose app to remotely control PA sound quality.
Me and my Collings I-35 knocking out my first set…
I would make the following preliminary conclusions regarding the Open Mic set up to consider before Grant and I do it again:
Get to the Coffee Shop early, because set up takes time. I still think we need 90 minutes. Perhaps we will be able to streamline matters in the future, but we’re not there yet.
Contrary to my above assertion, as advertised, the Bose L1 Pro 32 snaps together very quickly and gives solid performance. Its the routing of mics, guitars and pedal boards that take extra time.
It seems to me easiest to use the 3 channels available on the Bose L1 power stand because the sound quality can be easily manipulated using the Bose app on my iPhone. The app allows me to wander anywhere in the coffee shop to check sound level and tonality and easily adjust it where I stand. With a variety of performers using different guitar types and styles, quick and easy adjustments of sound are of great value.
That first night we set up three mics, but I think two is enough. Dropping to two will save time, space, and reduce cables.
The two guitar channels and a mic will run off the power stand. An additional mic can be routed through the T4s. This set-up is not written in stone.
I do not think we need 2 stools and am thinking one is enough.
It is my understanding that there are music stands in the basement of the Coffee Shop, so we do not need to haul one in on Open Mic night.
Grant Tracey and his Les Paul playing his set…
All in all, it was a good night. I’ve seen the coffee shop more crowded on previous Open Mic nights, but there are still some residual pandemic fears keeping people away, and there was an outdoor music venue in operation around the corner, down the street, which was drawing people in. Nevertheless, we had a respectable audience for our initial First Friday Open Mic night.
To the right, you can see fellow host Grant Tracey playing through his set. One of the perks of hosting Open Mic is the chance to play your self and depending on the number of performers who sign up, you may get to play even more.
Playing my National Reso_Lectric in a second set…
In the end, both Grant and I squeezed in two sets each. Anticipating that I might have the opportunity to play more than the standard 15 minute open mic set, I brought along two guitars, both of which made their first public appearances: my Collings I-35 Semi-Hollow bodied electric and my National Reso-Lectric, as seen with me on the left. In addition to the guitars, making a first public appearance, I, for the first time sang publicly. Ever since, Mrs. Silliman, in the 3rd grade, tossed me onto the “inadequate singer” refuse heap when sorting students for participation in grade school chorus, I’ve believed my singing voice somewhat suspect; however, with the encouragement of my wife, Annette, and others I decided to give it a go. Playing finger-style Travis picking technique is also a challenge when trying to sing simultaneously; however, after 5 years of concentrated dedication to guitar playing, I finally broke through this Spring and was able to play and sing simultaneously, which is no mean feat for me!
Here was my playlist:
Set One
If I Needed You – Townes Van Zandt
Long Distance Call – Muddy Waters
Pancho and Lefty – Muddy Waters
Vigilante Man – Woody Guthrie (arranged by Ry Cooder)
Set Two
Paris, Texas – Ry Cooder
You Got to Move – Mississippi Fred McDowell
Railroad Bill – traditional (arranged by Tom Feldmann)
Corrina, Corrina – traditional (arranged by Stephen Grossman)
Baby, Please Don’t Go – Big Joe Williams
Annette was kind enough to film a couple of my tunes… you can view one below, warts and all… I dropped a few notes along the way. This was my rendition of Muddy Waters’ “Long Distance Call.” A bottleneck tune played in standard tuning… You will note that the Coffee Shop was quite noisy and I found it a bit of a distraction, but powered through…
Steve Surles, waiting his turn to play at the Open Mic
If all goes as planned, I will be hosting First Friday Open Mic in June on the 4th. My regular co-host Grant, to my chagrin, is tied up with a local theater engagement, so Steve Surles, who also played the open mic with us on the first night, has volunteered to guest co-host in June. Hopefully too, my son Parker will come back from college in Iowa City to help haul equipment and listen-in which will be a great delight for me! See you then!
What to do? What to do with yourself in retirement that continues personal development? What do I like to do? I love the road and photography… Seeing live music is always fun too, but it’s even more fun to make music. Nevertheless, I’m not ready, nor interested in solo gigging at this time nor playing in a band… what is realistic for me is 15 minutes behind the open mic… I’ve missed the open mic as much as anything during the pandemic “lockdowns.”
Cup of Joe on Main in Cedar Falls, IA
Now consider this… What could be more fun than playing at an open mic night? Not only playing open mic night, but also hosting it! You get to play, organize the event, and operate the sound tech, and I’ve always loved tech. For example, I had a ball building a proper pedal board.
In my experience, the best existing open mic night in the Cedar Falls/Waterloo area is hosted by Rick Vanderwall and Bill Guernsey at the excellent coffee shop, Cup of Joe on Main Street. Yet it only happened (pre-pandemic) once per month on the third Friday.
It occurred to me a couple of months ago, as the pandemic began to wane somewhat, and I finished out my two Pfizer vaccinations, that it might be possible to add another open mic night at Cup of Joe on the first Friday of the month. I believed the interest would be there for an additional open mic session. This is especially true when you consider the sizable increase in guitar sales during the “lockdown.” My guess is there is now a more-than-modest increase in the number of live-performance aspirants with new guitars and open mic night is the place to start!
So… I asked Dawn, the proprietor of the coffee shop, if she would be interested in providing the space for an additional open mic night. Along with the request, I promised her that I would provide a “world-class” PA system to support the event… and, to my great, good fortune she said YES! Her only request was that I apply energy to make it a success by marketing the event in the community… fair enough!
A World-Class PA for Open Mic Night
Grant (left) and me (right) checking out axes at Bob’s Guitars in the days before COVID. I love the optical illusion in this photo. In real life Grant towers over me, but in this shot he looks like my little buddy…
I should note that before I embarked on this project, I enlisted my longtime-Iowa-best-friend and guitar playing partner in crime, Grant Tracey, as a cohost for open mic night with me. Running one of those events is really at least a two person operation. Without reservation he agreed to participate. Like me, he saw this as a routine way of getting to play publicly in an easily manageable way.
With Grant on the team, the next step was to acquire a sound system. Cup of Joe does not own a sound system, so a portable one is required to schlep in on the night of the event. A functional small venue sound system would offer multiple channels permitting a few microphones and two to three instruments, which are almost always guitars. Gigging performers at Cup of Joe often use multiple amplifiers; however, a multi-channel portable PA (short for public address system) is also commonly used. In fact, Rick Vanderwall, who hosts the third Friday open mic night has used a Bose portable PA system successfully for several years.
Rick Vanderwall (center) and his PA (seen arrayed behind him)
To the right, you can see Rick’s Cup of Joe open mic set up, with his early model, Bose portable line array in the background. Note in this image that he has three microphones and two instruments “plugged-in.” The Bose system is referred to as a “line array” because it uses a narrow vertical tower containing multiple two inch speakers alternatively angled left and right. In addition to the tower, which handles the mid and high ranges, there is a sub woofer to provide coverage for the lower sound frequencies. Sitting on a chair behind Rick you can just see a section of a mixer used to add extra channels to the PA and to manage tonal balances. I’m not sure about Rick’s, but some mixers, like Bose’s T4s also provide effects such as delay and reverb.
As I said earlier, I promised Dawn (of Cup of Joe) that Grant and I would deliver a quality sound system for our open mic nights. I did not want to beg or borrow a system, nor did I want to chase anyone around for funds. This project was initially my idea… I wanted to make it happen quickly and without complication, so I made the personal commitment to invest in a good PA. In the event that I ever do a solo gig, I would also be set up with a personal PA. These systems can be pricey, but I saw it as an investment in my primary retirement avocation. My retirement counselor at TIAA stated bluntly that if you want to do something that’s important for yourself, then do it now if it’s within reason and resources… don’t wait! So there it is… I went shopping for a PA.
I did some initial shopping at the local guitar shop and googled around on the internet, but I must admit I was predisposed towards Bose primarily because Rick Vanderwall’s system worked so well and reliably during the many open mics I played at Cup of Joe. Further, I’ve owned several Bose products, including floor standing speakers, bluetooth speakers, Wave radios and earphones. They were all solid products. In the end, if Bose was good enough for Rick, it was good enough for me!
Selecting a Bose PA for Purchase
Bose L1 Pro line of portable array PA’s. From left to right: Models 8, 16 & 32 (with two choices of subwoofer)
It so happened that Bose just introduced a whole new line of vertical array portable PA’s in late 2020, so I had available to me the latest Bose technology to select from. Referred to as the L1 Pro Systems, they came in with three different models. The diminutive Pro 8, the middle size Pro 16 and the full sized Pro 32. The numeral refers to the number of speakers in the vertical array.
I must admit that I was a bit astonished when I first saw Rick Vanderwall’s Bose with the narrow vertical tower. The vertical array of smallish speakers accompanied with a sub woofer is relatively new technology, but it’s been widely accepted (and copied) since its introduction some years ago. Following is a Bose PA introduction from Youtube:
I spent a good deal of time studying reviews of the various Bose L1 Pros. Many of the reviews were simply regurgitations of Bose marketing literature; however, out in YouTube world were several independent reviews which helped clarify my final decision as to which model to purchase.
Interior layout of Cup of Joe
First a word on the space in which the PA must perform for open mic night. As you can see in the image of Cup of Joe, it is a long, relatively narrow space. The performers are located way down at the far end of the facility, so a PA system would have to possess the power to project along the entire length and width of the space. The music should project evenly so that sitting and standing people get roughly the same sound level, as well as from front to back of the room. Fortunately, Bose claims a properly spec’d and set-up L1 system meets those requirements.
The disassembled L1 Pro 16, with small plastic spacer (center) that locates between the subwoofer and the speaker array.
In sum, my conclusion was the Pro 8 was underpowered for the venue in which Cup of Joe is located. The Pro 16 appeared to be a logical choice as it had the power to cover the space adequately, was reasonably priced and did not appear to be particularly cumbersome to move around. As you can see on the right, the Pro 16 comes in three pieces: the subwoofer, the longer array of sixteen two inch speakers and a 8 inch blank spacer that resides between the woofer and the speaker array. The purpose of the spacer is to raise the height of the sixteen two inch speakers to get a proper sound distribution. Unfortunately, the decision by Bose designers to use a “plastic” spacer has raised some criticism. Some reviewers claimed the spacer was insubstantially engineered resulting in wobbling of the tower. Other reviewers complained of a high pitched hiss emanating from the speakers. As I understand it, PA’s do come with a built in “noise floor” that varies by speaker design and system wattage; however, a high-pitched hiss is not what I wanted to contend with… period. I contacted Bose technical staff, but they were either evasive or oblivious to the critiques of the Pro 16. No help there…
Though it was more money than I initially wanted to spend, I decided to acquire the L1 Pro 32 because of the issues raised about the Pro 16. Bose offers either a very large Sub 2 or a smaller, (but big enough) Sub 1 woofer to pair with a two part vertical, floor standing tower. I chose the smaller Sub 1 because of its more manageable size and the low frequency sound profile was more in tune with live music, rather than DJ bass thumping that the Sub 2 is best designed for. Because both sections of the vertical array are substantial metal columns that lock into each other and because the column sinks several inches into the floor power stand, there is very little, if any, wobble.
L1 Pro 32 power stand into which vertical array is mounted.
The power stand offers a chunky, substantial, and stable base from which the vertical array arises. The stand connects to and powers the subwoofer with a proprietary cable, which is nice as only one 120 volt AC receptacle is required to power the entire rig. The stand also contains jack access to three channels. Two are 1/4″/XLR combo jacks, and the other is a 1/4″ jack with various other auxiliary possibilities, including bluetooth access. Lots of flexibility with channel tonal controls are available. The tonal controls are also remotely adjustable through an iPhone/Android app, which is super convenient. Finally, Bose has a baked-in library of tone profiles for various instruments and brands that can be deployed to fine tune the mix.
Here’s a Bose summary review of the L1 Pro 32:
Bose T4s
Because the L1 Pro 32 power stand offers only 3 channels, I decided to acquire the Bose Tonematch T4s mixer to provide an additional 4 channels. The mixer attaches to the power stand with a ruggedized LAN cable, which transmits digital instruction to the L1 and receives power from the L1, thus keeping power needs simple. The T4s offers deep functionality in terms of sculpting sound profiles and will take me some time to master to its best advantage.
Experience to date with the L1 Pro 32
The Bose system arrived a day later than expected because of a freak snow storm that prevented UPS from getting to my home, so I was delighted when it finally arrived. I set up the L1 tower first, which went together easily and quickly. The connection to the Sub 1 also was rapidly accomplished. Sadly, I could not use the T4s because Bose recommended a firmware update and I had to order a cable from Amazon to connect my computer to the mixer.
Sub 1 with race track speaker (left) and section of vertical array of two inch speakers (right)
Without the T4s attached, I still had three channels and was able to test my Collings I 35 electric, my Taylor 812ce, my National Resolectric and a Shure SM 58 microphone all in my living room. In fact, via Bose software, I saved individual tonal setting in the system’s memory for each guitar. The system played clean as country water and interacted nicely with my pedalboard. The combination of the racetrack subwoofer and the 32 neodymium 2 inch drivers offered a consistent ear pleasing sound.
32 speaker vertical array
According to Bose literature, the speaker tower offers a floor to 7 foot high vertical sound spread outwards that also arrays itself 180 degrees, side to side. My experience was that you could sit anywhere in the living room of my house as long as you were not behind the tower and hear the music perfectly well. I made this test by bluetoothing my iPhone to the system and then playing the Beatles’ Revolver. When I disassembled the system and moved it up to my garage, the sound produced by the L1 could be heard across my yard quite easily when either Grant or I played guitar and sang.
Initial Disappointment and Concerns with the PA/Tonematch Combination
LAN cable to Connect T4s to L1 Pro
I will cut to the chase. After I updated the firmware on the T4s Tonematch mixer, I had intermittant success connecting it to the L1 Pro 32. In short, the instruments or mics channeled into the T4s received the signal as evidenced by a green flashing light, but failed to make it to the L1. It actually worked for a while in my living room, but when I disassembled the L1 and moved it to the garage, the T4s was a total fail! No matter what I tried, I could not get it to work.
Bose L1, T4s, my pedal board, an SM 58 mic and my Collings in my garage.
The fail was on a Saturday, and on Monday Bose frontline technical help in the Philippines had no suggestions to remediate my problem of connectivity, but agreed to replace the entire system including the L1 and the T4s. The new L1 came the next day, but the T4s took almost two weeks to arrive. Even then, after replacement I had some initial difficulty making the connection between the two devices. I concluded that the weak link is the LAN cable and unless it is solidly connected, signal failure will occur. When queried about this shortcoming the Bose people were evasive. This time around though I was able to get the device to work in my living room, and after disassembly and reassembly up in my garage. So we’re good to go, but I do have some remaining qualms about connectivity issues between the two devices.
To be prudent, I plan to run another garage set-up to calm my nerves and make sure the system is functional.
We are Good to Go!
My son Parker who is a dual major at the University of Iowa, including Graphic Design put this poster together for us, so in a month we will be at Cup of Joe!
A year or so ago, I posted a blog article about replacing paper with electronic charts using an Apple iPad, combined with the forScore app bluetoothed to a PageFlip DragonFly foot pedal. The pedal enabled page flipping for a multi-page tune. I use all this tech because I play a lot of country blues tunes, but simply cannot memorize them. While I develop finger-muscle memory for the tunes, it is necessary for me to have the chart as a cue when playing.
Smallish iPad Air in my practice zone…
In sum, with an iPad Air, a mic stand, a Hercules tablet holder, and finally, a DragonFly foot pedal, I replaced an ungainly, non portable music stand and sloppy, wrinkly, taped together hard paper music charts that flopped all over the place. How did it work out over time? Good, but after a while, I wished I’d purchased the larger, more expensive iPad Pro to make reading the music easier (the Pro screen actually projects a size equivalent to single standard 8×10″ page in a paper chart). Still, I made the investment in the smallish iPad Air and was initially loath to waste money by trading it in, much as I wanted to.
PageFlip Dragonfly foot pedal…
It’s important to note too that while the foot pedal functioned properly most of the time, I found it a challenge sometimes to stay focused on the music and simultaneously stab my foot out to find the proper forward shift pedal and avoid going accidentally backwards. Furthermore, the pedal would go to sleep when not in use for an extended period of time, and required multiple stomps to wake it back up, which was frustrating when immersed in the middle of a tune. Finally, the “in-screen” keyboard on the iPad was disabled by the pedal when active, which made typing annotations onto the music chart impossible.
Then, one day I was annotating a country blues chart and did a web search to see if it was possible to cut and paste lyrics or move a music bar to another location while using forScore. After finding online instructions for how to execute that capability and then fumbling around for an extended period of time trying to accomplish a simple cut and paste, I finally discovered that you had to be a member of forScore Pro to access that feature!
forScore Pro is similar to one of those patreon accounts that are so popular now for financially supporting online activities. For an additional small annual fee, you get added features like cut and paste and also support future improvements for the app. I joined because cut and paste is a very, very useful feature to arrange and annotate a chart. You also get occasional new update notes from forScore as a Pro member.
Apple True Depth Camera tech…
What I soon discovered after joining forScorePro was that the 2020 iPad Pro equipped with their True Depth Camera technology, combined with the latest iOS 14 operating system would allow page changing within forScore with facial gestures! This is the same highly sophisticated technology that allows a person to log into an iPhone or iPad with facial recognition.
12.9 inch iPad Pro
The enhancements offered by the new iPad Pro were enough to push me over the edge. I wanted a larger surface area to see the charts and I was really interested in using facial gestures to replace the foot pedal! So, easy as pie, I arranged a trade-in for my year-old iPad Air and ordered a 12.9 inch iPad Pro. When the new iPad arrived, I transferred forScore and my music library over to it in short order.
I found out right away that my existing iPad mic stand holder no longer worked with the 12.9″ iPad. I owned a Hercules holder (lower right) and really liked it as it was very stable and easy to get the iPad in and out of the holder, but sadly it does not open wide enough to easily get the larger iPad Pro into the grips. So, after searching around I found a “decent” holder manufactured by Caddy Buddy (lower left). It’s good enough, but I still would prefer the Hercules device for ease of getting the iPad in and out of it and it’s more robust in construction. It would be a relatively easy design change to fix the Hercules device, but I see no evidence that the manufacturer is planning to do so.
Caddy Buddy iPad Holder
Hercules iPad Holder
Once the iPad is mounted in the mic stand at roughly the same level as your face, it can then be set-up via forScore to activate facial gestures to turn pages in a musical chart. As a reminder, you cannot access this feature in the settings menu unless you are a Pro subscription member (lower left). Inside the Pro settings (lower center) you can access Face Gestures and activate a calibration procedure for facial recognition purposes.
Settings Menu
Facial Gesture Calibration
Fine tune Facial Gesture
You have two face gesture choices, which are “turning your head” or “moving your mouth” in a kind of smirk to the left or right. I hoped that one of the gestures would have been a head tilt, but that was not available, and when I queried the forScore people about adding that feature they demurred. Head turning made little sense to me because you have to take your eyes off the music, and to be frank, I could never get it to work reliably.
Lip movement to change page
On the other hand, lip/mouth movement does work! After calibrating the iPad to recognize you with 1) a relaxed face, 2) lips moved right, and 3) lips moved left the device will flip pages on command. In the upper right image you can see that there are sliders also available to fine tune sensitivity. There’s also a test protocol to see how well you’ve tuned sensitivity by ease of moving small blue dots on the screen by shifting your lips.
So… How does it work???
For the most part it works pretty well; however, I do have some concerns with over sensitivity of the device. Sometimes, for reasons unknown to me, the page will flip without command. If you reduce sensitivity with the calibration slider to much to avoid phantom page flips, then you must really wrench your face to flip a page, which is distracting to you and an audience. Consequently, it takes time to fine tune the system’s sensitivity to your facial movements. I have some concern that changes in ambient lighting may also affect the reliability of the page flip. Also, I play sitting down and am concerned about seat height variation from home to perhaps a coffee shop open mic stage seat also affecting page flip accuracy. Finally, on occasion when I am playing for someone I will miss a note, then grimace at the pain of musical failure, and at that moment the device will sometimes respond to my dismay by flipping the page on its own, which makes matters all the worse.
Cut and paste option for moving lyrics to the chart…
In conclusion, the iPad Pro combined with forScore Pro is a keeper… I really like the larger surface area for viewing a musical chart and the cut and paste option for annotation is a great addition to the app. As far as page flipping goes, I am intent on working with the facial gesture feature, but will probably keep the foot pedal on standby to reverse unwanted spontaneously flips. There you have it…
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Bill Collings: “The world is made of stuff that’s OK… just fine… but when something’s made by a group of people that really know what they’re doing, engineering, time and passion are put into it… it doubles it…”
Guitars are back, baby! Or so says the New York Times… For me, they were never gone, but according to several news articles and anecdotal information from guitar stores, the COVID 19 “lock-downs” of 2020, resulted in a sizable upward swing in guitar sales. As a result guitar shops are suffering from some inventory deprivation because the guitar manufacturers are having difficulty keeping up with demand resulting from pandemic depleted work forces. What’s driven guitar sales? To a large extent, it’s probably the quarantine produced time and space available for people to chase new pursuits and guitars apparently fit the bill.
Summertime is National time…
Since I am retired and an avid student of guitar, I did not need the added incentive of quarantine time to focus on the instrument; however, because of limited opportunities to do other things outside my home I am even more obsessed with the guitar now!
To that end, I have a very nice collection of instruments, descriptions of which can be found here… Even though I possess a nice stable of guitars I, not unlike lots of other guitarists, fall into the psychological trap of believing we are always one guitar away from completing our musical dreams… it’s a sad affliction, but also fun to indulge as long as you don’t overtax your personal finances like Johnny Depp‘s done…
What drove me to my latest purchase was the human psychological need for novelty, which is somewhat more exacerbated by the limited stimuli associated with quarantine lock down. Further, I was suffering some doubts regarding two of my Taylor electric guitars. Seen below is the T3 on the right and the Walnut Solidbody on the left… While both are lovely guitars, I decided that their controls were too gimmicky… too many pickup selection opportunities and odd tone controls that I could never quite master to suit my ears…
Taylor Walnut Solidbody
Taylor T3 Custom
Taylor Solidbody Custom (left) and Taylor T3/B (right)
The truth be known, the Taylor’s are excellent guitars and beautiful in their own right and any difficulty managing them, sound-wise, is really on me. Still… in the back of my mind, for quite a while, I considered trading them off for a different guitar. But, it was not going to be for just any run of the mill electric… For example, I was totally not interested in a Fender Strat or Tele (never liked their necks nor fretboards) or a Les Paul (too awkward and heavy for me) and I had my run with a Gretsch a few years earlier and unceremoniously dumped it. Perhaps the endlessly fascinating Gibson ES-335, but there is so much commentary out there in the guitar universe about sample to sample variability in quality and tone. That said, I just don’t believe I have the acumen to identify, nor access to enough samples to find that perfect one. So, I looked around for several months, not totally convinced I could unload the Taylors for something I would find better… It would have to be a helluva a guitar to move me forward…
Then, one day I was noodling through the Dave’s Guitars website, which I do on occasion, and found a guitar worth considering… way worth considering… It was a Collings semi-hollow bodied electric guitar… At that moment, Dave’s inventory contained four Collings electrics, two of which were semi-hollows. I’ve been aware of Collings since I first picked up a Yamaha guitar in the early 90’s… In guitar magazines of the time, Collings advertised factory produced but immaculate, boutique quality acoustic guitars that successfully replicated the highly sought after pre-war Martin aesthetic. They were top-drawer prestige guitars, reserved for the most committed players. The prices too were astronomical.
Taylor 914ce
I have a brief story, from a few years ago, about my first, in person, interaction with a Collings guitar. When I returned to serious guitar playing about 4 1/2 years ago, I took lessons in Rochester, MN while I was up there for an extended period of time receiving radiation treatment. I found a very nice re-introduction-to-the-instrument teacher at Avalon Music, a local store, which sadly no longer exists. I remember my teacher playing some nondescript beater guitar during lessons, which took place on the second floor of the store.
Downstairs the owner sold guitars, specializing in Taylors, a brand that I regarded very highly, and after several weeks, I traded in an older Taylor 700 series for a drop dead beautiful Taylor 914ce, a top of the line spruce and rosewood grand concert sized guitar… there are arguably not many guitars better than that 914 in both design and quality… The purchase was a statement to myself that I would fight through the radiation treatments and come out the other end… When I showed up at my next lesson with the new axe, my teacher was apoplectic when he saw the guitar… why, I am not totally sure, but perhaps he felt “shown-up” by this lovely instrument residing in a rusty old reentry guitar player’s hands… Well… the next week my teacher returned to the lesson room with a Collings in his hands! I suppose he wanted to show me who ruled… it was an enviable guitar, both in appearance and how it sounded… I made note…
So, back to the future… There it was on Dave’s website… A Collings guitar, but not an acoustic… this one was electric… I’d been vaguely aware of Collings’ electrics for a few years… Primarily because a recent Facebook acquaintance purchased a pre-owned solid body version called the City Limits (inspired by the Gibson Les Paul)… he made quite a public production of his purchase and was way pleased with himself…
Gibson ES-335
After my dalliance with the Taylor Solidbody and some in-shop fiddling around with a Fender Strat, I was done with planks (solid body) guitars… As a dyed-in-the-wool acoustic player, the semi-hollow electric is, in my mind, a perfect complement to my style of playing, which is largely finger-style and bottleneck country blues. A highly regarded, and prototypical semi-hollow bodied guitar is the Gibson ES-335. There are others like the Gretsch Falcon, but the ES-335 has legendary status.
If you are curious as to what a semi-hollow bodied guitar is, I borrowed a few shots off the Collings website below. You can see below that the Collings guitar body is routed out of a solid piece of mahogany where the hollowed chambers on each side of the center are visible. The hollow chamber gives this guitar its characteristic tone, which differs significantly from a plank guitar. According to the Sweetwater website, “These guitars… [offer] the tightness and focus of a solidbody electric guitar but with a hint of that more round, acoustic tone of a hollow guitar.” I would agree with that…
Center Block
Routing Out the Hollow Chambers
Finished Lower Body with Center Block and Adjacent Chambers
The term, semi-hollow body comes from the practice of inserting a block of wood into the center of the guitar between the hollowed chambers. The carefully designed Collings center block can be seen in the above photo on the top left. The center block reduces the propensity for feedback when the guitar is played at loud volumes. Not all center blocks are equal and can affect the tone of the guitar by how it’s designed and what it’s made out of. Design versus tone of the center block is above my pay grade, but from what I’ve read, the precision of the center block design is one of the reasons a Collings electric commands such respect and stands out with tonality.
As I dug deeper into the Collings aesthetic, I found this wonderful overview of their electric guitar production:
And here, world-class guitar player Charlie Sexton speaks to the design of Collings electrics… He is playing a SoCo, which is one of the Collings designs I was considering… it is a semi-hollow bodied guitar with a single cutaway, as opposed to the I-35, which has a double cutaway, giving it the characteristic “mouse ear” profile similar to the Gibson ES-335… Anyway, below you can hear Charlie wax poetically about Collings electric guitar design…
If you are wondering who Charlie Sexton is, one of his main gigs is lead guitarist for Bob Dylan’s touring band. Below are a couple of shots I took of Dylan and Sexton playing in Cedar Falls, IA ten years ago… a great show!
If you really want to understand what distinguishes Collings guitars from all the rest of production instruments, then you have to understand the singular drive for design and manufacturing excellence that Bill Collings demanded of himself and those who worked with him… sadly Bill Collings succumbed to cancer in 2017… here’s a brief biography of this extraordinary man:
So, after due diligence I concluded that purchase of a Collings guitar could be a real “jewel in the crown” acquisition. There were some Collings electrics available pre-owned on Reverb, but in my case I thought purchasing new would be, perhaps not least expensive, but the best route for me. Now, to those of you who read my blog this decision probably comes across as contradictory. This is because I wrote a whole blog entry on the cost-benefits of buying used; however, I’ve also been burned on used purchases mostly because I do not possess the wherewithal to identify problems with a used instrument, and they do exist, such as I’ve experienced… i.e. poor set-up, cracked lower bouts and twisted necks…
To purchase a new guitar, it made perfect sense to me to shop for a Collings at Dave’s Guitars in LaCrosse, WI which is about 2.5 hours by car from my home. Last winter, before the attack of COVID 19, I purchased a National guitar from them and it was, as I wrote on this blog, an excellent experience. Nevertheless, I was still tentative because I had two guitars to trade and there was still the overall sticker price on the Collings guitar which was a bit prohibitive… I proceeded to see what I could work out, and was pleasantly surprised… Overnight, I received two very fair offers for the Taylors and they reduced the new guitar’s price by 15% because it was a 2018 model and had been hanging around the store far longer than Dave wanted it! So it was off to Wisconsin to test the guitar and make a deal!
In Dave’s parking lot…
Because of the pandemic world we live in, Dave’s only took clients in the store by appointment, which I promptly made for the next day. The following morning I got in my car at 7:30 am to make a 10:30 appointment.
My wife was a bit anxious about me making the trip as Wisconsin was a COVID 19 hot zone, and this was my first trip out of town since the pandemic’s onset in mid-March, 2020. Undaunted, I grabbed a mask, stuck a carbon filter in it, and took off. It was good to get out and it was a pleasant drive through the late harvest farm fields and small, backwater towns of Iowa. I had a full tank of gas so I would not have to expose myself to the virus by making any unnecessary stops along the way. Making good time I arrived 30 minutes early and it was especially nice that they took me right in so I would not have to sit in a cold car for 30 minutes! To the left you can see me in the parking lot, with the iconic Dave’s sign over my shoulder.
A pair of Collings semi-hollow bodies… the SoCo in the foreground and the I-35 behind.
There was no time wasted, which suited me… The handful of floor staff are always very pleasant and were all masked up and pretty good about physical spacing. Nevertheless, I decided to get in and out as soon as practical; however, I still wanted to take my time checking out the Collings electrics.
I dragged my two Taylors in for the Sales Manager to look over, and he guided me over to the store section that had a handful of Collings guitars hanging way up high to keep the hoi polloi from pawing over them. I narrowed the choices down to the I-35 Deluxe and a SoCo. Curiously, Bill Collings decided to name his electrics after the roadways in and around Austin, Texas where his factory is located.
Inside Dave’s… dropped the mask momentarily for the photo…
Fortunately, I was able to plug into a Mesa Boogie Fillmore 50 amp like I have at home. I spent most of my time with the I-35, which is the guitar that initially moved me into undertaking this journey… the SoCo was nice but did not call to me. The whole process was a bit stressful… I was not warmed up, nor was I acclimated to the I-35’s fretboard and neck so my playing was not particularly admirable… no one seemed to care, but they could hear me, so I was a little rattled because I can play better than I did in the store.
Eventually, after floundering around for about 30 minutes with the I-35, I decided to acquire it because I was confident, given some more time that I’d be able to play this thing and it was sweet to my sensibilities. I was particularly taken by the capacity to separately control the volume and tone for each pick-up and to blend the two together when played simultaneously, something neither of my Taylor electrics could do… Booyakasha!
While we were closing the deal I had the great good fortune to meet the Dave, who was in an exceptionally good mood because he had just acquired a vintage “transition model” Gibson ES-335 for his extensive, museum quality guitar collection housed on the second floor of the store. They wiped my new Collings down, put fresh strings of my choice on it (NYXL’s), and then threw in a Dave’s Sweatshirt to boot! I was out the door and on the way back home in about one hour… All in all, shopping for premium guitars is a great experience at Dave’s!
Ameritage Case Damage… a Tolex tear on the top of the case
My only criticism of the purchase process was the condition of the guitar case. Collings sources out their cases for electric guitars from the Ameritage company. They are premium solid cases, but frankly, I think both Taylor and National do a better job with their cases in fit, appearance and interior appointment. In a video I recently watched, Bill Collings also expressed some dismay with sourced-out cases and in response built a line of cases for some of his high-end acoustics, but in the end dropped the case business project because it’s too expensive.
Red Bubble Collings sticker…
Further, and most irritating, the case that came with my guitar was damaged. The Tolex coating was torn about the width of a thumbnail and could be pulled back to expose white fibrous matter beneath. There was also some scuffing on the case too… Besides being ugly, I was concerned the tear would continue to propagate over time. I should have made a point about the damage, because I found out later that they had the ability to repair the case in the shop, but I wanted to get the hell out of there and get into my car away from other people. In the end, in a very nice personal touch, Steve McCreary, General Manager of Collings guided me, via telephone, through the repair process. The case, though not perfect, looks pretty good now. Even so, I decided to acquire a Collings sticker from Red Bubble and laid it over the repair so I wouldn’t be irritated by it anymore…
Collings I-35 Deluxe
Now let’s review the guitar… Holistically, it is a stunning example of industrial art. When I’d mentioned to Steve McCreary (see above) that I thought the guitar was an object of fine art, he responded saying that “we [Collings] really appreciate when someone gets what we do here…”
The guitar has a mouse eared profile/shape reminiscent of the Gibson ES-335 from which it is inspired, but Bill Collings, after thorough research, reduced the lower bout width by an inch and designed more angular curvature, making the guitar somewhat smaller and lighter thus enhancing it’s playability. I’m not a big guy, so the smaller profile had greater appeal to me, especially after coping with the larger bodied Taylor T3 and the Gretsch Falcon, which was really a beast. While I was at Dave’s playing the Collings, the sales manager brought over an ES-335 and it looked large and unwieldy by comparison. I said, “please take it away…”
Solid Honduran mahogany lower body and neck
What you pay for when you acquire a Collings is engineering, design, manufacturing precision and all around fussiness. I don’t think there’s a guitar manufacturer who puts more care into high end wood quality than Collings. Only the finest woods are selected for their instruments, considering variables such as appearance/figuring, moisture content, tensile properties, specific gravity, and most importantly acoustical responsiveness. The I-35 is comprised of a carved, solid flamed maple top, the body is routed from a solid piece of Honduran mahogany, with a single piece mahogany neck as well.
In my mind’s eye, I imagined the guitar would be red, but in reality this particular model’s color was referred to as “amber sunburst,” which does a nice job of displaying the soundboard’s flamed Maple striations underneath the multiple layers of polished lacquer. This is my first lacquer finished guitar and it is remarkably shiny and classy looking.
The lower bout, with controls, 3 way switch, F holes, and bridge area visible.
Here it is very important to point out that not all semi-hollow bodied guitars are built the same. As shown in photos earlier in this post, Collings routes out the lower body from a solid piece of mahogany and the top is carved from a single piece of solid maple. Conversely, the Gibson ES-335 is manufactured from laminated maple and poplar layers and constructed similar to an acoustic guitar where the sides, back and top are separately cut or shaped in a press and then combined with glue. The center blocks are also engineered quite differently from each other. To me the solid wood routing of the lower body, the art-carving of the top, and the precision engineering of the center block pushes the Collings I-35 to a completely different aesthetic level in construction and subsequent tonality. During roughly the same time period Gibson produced a similar “tonally carved” solid wood design in limited quantities that they designated the CS-336, which I think is available by special order through their custom shop.
On the image shown above, you can see the four tone/volume control knobs, the body binding, and the pick up rings are all manufactured from grained ivoroid. Ivoroid is a plastic-like substance that is created by dissolving cellulose in the form of short cotton fiber and then restoring it through extrusion into a solid form. The grained version is extruded to give it fine lines to simulate ivory, which was considered a luxury material since ancient times. Obviously grained ivoroid production and its use is far better than killing animals such as elephants to acquire the substance. The ivoroid knobs and pickup rings are custom made at the Collings shop. It’s very satisfying to get up close enough to the ivoroid to see the fine grain lines or to twirl the tactilely pleasing knobs. For an acoustic guitar, I prefer wood binding, but almost all electrics use some sort of manufactured substance for bindings and grained ivoroid is about as cool as you can get.
Tail piece/bridge section… note the section of grained ivoroid pickup ring.
This particular version of the I-35 uses a clean and neat appearing Kluson bridge and tail piece assembly which is fairly common hardware for Gibson semi-hollow bodies. In contrast, my Taylor T3 semi-hollow body deployed a heavy, cluttered Bigsby, which I never really used to purpose, so I don’t miss it, particularly during string changing.
The pickups are where the rubber meets the road for an electric guitar. Bill Collings selected vintage-like Low Wind Lollar Imperial humbuckers for this guitar.
The combination of “throwback” 1950’s wiring, the low wind humbuckers and the vintage pots and caps are the “pixie/fairy dust” that Collings sprinkled into the guitar to create the vintage sound he was searching for. Having never played a vintage ES-335 nor possessing the ear to recognize one, I can only take the I-35’s spec on face value for being “sonically vintage;” however, I can attest that it is a fantastic sounding electric guitar, at least to my ear, my wife’s and my friends who’ve heard it.
As to whether the I-35 Deluxe produces verifiable vintage sound, that may be open to debate. For example, the ES-335 was manufactured with a laminate top, while the I-35 is unusual in that it has a solid top. The solid, non-laminate nature of the top was really appealing to my own aesthetic, so I like it and the “unique” sound it produces… it possesses throaty, round, woody, clean and defined note definition, with excellent sustain.
My guess is some of the fussier former Gibson/Gretsch players did not like the sound palette created by the solid top because their ears were more acclimated to the tonality created by laminated wood. To that end, Collings introduced an LC (laminated top) version of the I-35 and it is very popular. Nice for them, but I’ll take the sold top baby!
Fretboard
Headstock
Bindings
In the images directly above you can see some of the reasons why my I-35 is also designated Deluxe. The rosewood fretboard is adorned with parallelogram inlays, the headstock tuners are sourced from Gotoh, and equipped with grained ivoroid knobs, and as I mentioned earlier grained ivoroid appointments grace the instrument throughout.
In one of the Collings marketing videos, Bill Collings describes what elements are key to excellence when manufacturing an electric guitar… He says tone is a given… the guitar must feel right and be eminently playable, and finally it has to have a look… all those elements combine to give the guitar its character… that Collings character…
It’s one thing to read the marketing materials about Collings guitars, but it’s another thing to experience it first hand. They truly are remarkable instruments… As I said earlier the I-35 is a manufactured object of art…
Below I am adding some performance examples for my I-35… you can find other jazz and arty examples for how the guitar plays by accomplished musicians on Youtube, but my sound cuts will be just a regular guy doing the best he can to make some music. My genre is country blues, which I play on acoustic guitars, resonators and also electric guitar… I am no Muddy Waters, but he played the same music on all of those same type instruments… Here goes…
First, here’s a rendering of Cocaine Blues which is a Stef Grossman arrangement of the Rev. Gary Davis tune. I am playing through a Mesa Boogie Fillmore 50 amp on a clean channel (which I almost always do). I am blending both pickups with the neck pickup predominating. All my pedals are disengaged except my Dunlop Echoplex, which is set for a slight slap back:
Second is a rendering of Coffee Blues which is a Happy Traum arrangement of the Mississippi John Hurt tune. Again, I am playing through a Mesa Boogie Fillmore 50 amp on a clean channel and I am blending both pickups with the neck pickup predominating. All my pedals are disengaged except my Dunlop Echoplex, which is set for a slight slap back, and I added my Boss RV-6 Reverb which is set on Hall:
Third is a rendering of Police and a Sergeant which is a Catfish Keith arrangement of the Reverend Robert Wilkins tune. Again, again, I am playing through a Mesa Boogie Fillmore 50 amp on a clean channel and I am blending both pickups with the neck pickup predominating. This time the pedals include my Dunlop Echoplex, which is set for a slight slap back, my Boss RV-6 Reverb which is set on Hall, and some light vibrato through my Boss VB-2w pedal:
Finally, here’s a partial rendering of Long Distance Call which is a Tom Feldmann arrangement of a Muddy Waters tune. This my first bottleneck tune in standard tuning. As with the above tunes, I am playing through a Mesa Boogie Fillmore 50 amp on a clean channel and again I am blending both pickups with the neck pickup predominating. Pedals include a Jangle Box Compressor, a Mesa Boogie Tone Burst Drive, a Boss CH-1 Super Chorus, a Boss TR-2 Tremolo, a Dunlop Echoplex, and my Boss RV-6 Reverb which is set on Hall.
Well… there it is… my review of my new Collings I-35… I’ll sum it up by saying, I think I will keep it and will hand it down to one of my kids one day… it’s a family heirloom now!
If you have any comments please leave them below… and thanks for checking in!
Last week I posted a blog entry in which I compared video recordings of me playing my National Reso-rocket WB with the new Revolution Biscuit/Bridge, with and without the addition of a wooden gasket that sits between the biscuit and the resonator cone. The posting can be found here…
As I usually do, I shared my blog posting on my Facebook page, as well as a few other FB guitar enthusiast pages, including one dedicated to National Guitars users/fans. Sharing on Facebook gets my entries better exposure… in fact, people from all over the world have checked in to what I have to say and I am grateful for the time people take to read my articles and to comment on them.
My previous two articles about the Revolution biscuit received quite a bit of attention, but none more so than the most recent one. In fact there was quite a bit of consternation and dissatisfaction about how the guitar sounded with the Revolution biscuit, either with or without the wooden gasket. Someone suggested that the guitar strings may to too light… in fact, they’re quite heavy. There was even a bit of mysticism, one commenter suggesting that the installation of a Revolution Biscuit in a friend’s guitar removed its ghost, thus diminishing its sound quality. Another implied that perhaps my playing was at fault, which may be true, but I think the dominant variable was the Revolution Biscuit itself.
Reso-rocket WB, cone and biscuit removed…
I decided then that it might be useful to explore more closely a before and after comparison of the traditional wooden biscuit versus the Revolution biscuit. I had not done this before. The only other comparison that I am aware of that is publicly available is the one created by Steve James in his workshop, which you can find in this posting. It was hard for me to tell much difference between set-ups in James’s posting.
So, to respond to the sound critics I decided to do my own A/B comparison on the same exact guitar. I recorded myself playing first with the Revolution Biscuit (with wooden gasket deployed), then I disemboweled the guitar and reinstalled the original wooden biscuit and recorded the same tune again. The transition of one to the other was made easier because each biscuit was equipped with its own cone. If you’re interested in my recording technique you can find that information here. I recorded myself playing Muddy Waters’ tune I Feel Like Going Home, which I learned from Tom Feldmann’s excellent Guitar Workshop DVD. The guitar is tuned to Open G and I am using a heavy, solid brass Tone Dome slide.
Well… here are the two recordings:
First, the recording with the Revolution Biscuit installed:
Second, the recording with the tradition wooden biscuit re-installed on the guitar:
After completing the recordings and editing them a bit on my MacBook Pro with iMovie, I did some intense comparisons… I listened, comparing section by section of the tune, on my MacBook speakers, then through some nice Grado headphones, and finally piped it through my very nice Marantz/Paradigm sound system using Apple AirPlay. I also had my wife Annette and my Iowa-all-time-best-friend Grant listen to the recordings too and share their impressions with me.
In sum, everyone, including me liked the traditional wooden biscuit sound far more than the Revolution biscuit. The sonic and tonal differences were quite obvious. I am not particularly articulate when it comes down to discussing guitar tones, but I will try. The traditional wooden biscuit tones were more present, more naturally acoustic sounding, perhaps more resonator twangy sounding. The Revolution biscuit tones sounded more truncated, lacking tonal subtleties, and were flatter and more compressed sounding, with the compression increasing as the strings got heavier.
I’ve decided to climb out of the Revolution Biscuit rabbit hole and leave the wooden biscuit installed on my WB for the time being…
In conclusion:
I was persuaded to try the Revolution Biscuit because it would allow me to improve my set-up in terms of playing action. My strings were a bit too high for comfortable finger-style playing. One of the key selling points of the Revolution Biscuit is the easy raising and lowering of the saddle using set screws to adjust the guitar’s action. Plus it was cool looking… I like the high-tech machined aluminum appearance of the new biscuit… To state the obvious, how a guitar looks is very important, but not near as important as it sounds…
I did not expect a noticeable or negative tonal difference when replacing the wood biscuit, based largely on Steve James’s recording, but detected some immediate difference. Not doing an A/B comparison initially, I was not sure how much difference there really was and at that point I was too lazy to switch back and forth… it was a lot of somewhat stressful work setting up the Revolution biscuit the first time…
Later, I accepted Steve James’s offer to try out the wooden gasket that sits between the Revolution Bridge and the cone mostly because I wanted to see if it would alter the tonal qualities in a positive way. There was some change in tone (positive I think) which I reported on earlier.
In response to “sound critics” on Facebook, I finally did an A/B comparison of the two biscuits and as I perceive the results, the wooden biscuit is more natural sounding.
Caveat: in another lifetime, I was a statistician (having minored in the subject) during my doctoral studies. My conclusions about the Revolution Biscuit are probably best applied for the National Reso-rocket WB… this was not an extensive factorial analysis… there may be other important variables at play such as saddle-type (i.e. wood) and guitar type (i.e. metal vs wood body or size) that may interact and cause noticeably different results!
In my last posting I discussed the installation of National Guitar’s new machined aluminum biscuit/bridge on my Reso-Rocket WB. You can find that posting here. Just as I was wrapping up that discussion, it came to my attention via a YouTube posting by Steve James that National was now producing a wooden gasket to place between the aluminum biscuit and the resonator cone. Since I had just completed my installation, I was naturally curious as to what purpose the wooden gasket served. To that end, I sent inquiries to Steve James, Mike Dowling and National Guitars. Both James and Dowling are recording artists and they represent/sell National Guitars so they would have the inside scoop. I was interested in their take on the purpose and value of the gasket. I contacted National to see if I could acquire one as the gasket was not yet available for sale on their website.
Biscuit gasket awaiting installation atop the WB…
After receiving a response from all the aforementioned contacts, there were basically two thoughts regarding the gasket. Steve James believed the wooden gasket which was located between the aluminum cone and aluminum biscuit would bring the guitar’s tone back closer to the sound of the older wooden biscuit design, which he thought was important.
On the other hand, Mike Dowling believed the gasket served the purpose of enhancing how the aluminum bridge “seated” onto the resonator cone during installation, particularly when using a “used” cone that had a wooden biscuit removed from it. According to Dowling, the used cone was “dimpled” by the wooden biscuit which prevented a uniform contact with the Revolution biscuit during subsequent installation. The gasket mitigated this problem. In Mike’s opinion the gasket was totally unnecessary when the Revolution biscuit was installed on a new cone. Mike was pretty firm in his recommendation even though he shared that the president of National thought the gasket might “mellow” the guitar’s tonality.
Since I had installed my Revolution biscuit on a new cone, I was inclined to drop the subject, especially after National confirmed, via email to me, Mike Dowling’s same position on the gasket. National Guitars seemed to have more than one opinion regarding the gasket. It is indeed true that two things can be true at the same time!
Almost immediately after hearing from Mike Dowling, I decided not to pursue the wooden gasket any further. Somewhat ironically, I was simultaneously contacted by Steve James and he basically insisted that I give the wooden gasket a try. In fact, he arranged with National Guitars to send me one! Despite the fact that Steve James did not know me at all, he was super nice and exceptionally accommodating during this process. Below you can see Steve’s initial YouTube posting about the wooden gasket:
In just a day or two, the gasket arrived from National… in fact they sent me two! The gaskets were very thin and flexible wooden shim-like contrivances designed to fit snugly into the underside of the Revolution bridge. To the left you can see the resonator cone I disassembled from my guitar with the Revolution biscuit sitting upside down upon it. The gasket is shown fitting snuggly to the underside of the biscuit. You can also see the the gasket is cut away to make space for the center mounting apparatus that is used to screw the biscuit into the cone. In sum, the gasket is sandwiched between the biscuit and the cone. Since it is so thin, it is basically moldable when the biscuit it screwed into the cone, yet it maintains a thin wooden layer between the two.
Revolution biscuit, Maple saddle with gasket…
To the right, you can see the Revolution bridge attached to the cone with the wooden gasket sandwiched between. Also visible is the Maple saddle inserted into the biscuit. Because the gasket raised the height of the saddle, I had to remove it and sand it down to compensate for the gasket’s thickness. Removal of the bridge is quite easy and one of the selling points for the Revolution biscuit. It took a bit of trial and error but I got the saddle sanded down to get the string action that I wanted. If you refer to my earlier posting on the subject you can find the tolerances I was shooting for.
After I reassembled the instrument I made a recording of the guitar with the gasket installed and compared it the an earlier recording that I made after initially installing the biscuit (without the gasket). The clips are shown below. I am playing Muddy Waters’ “I Can’t Be Satisfied.” The first two recordings are “unplugged” and the last one is the guitar plugged into my Mesa Boogie Filmont 50 and through a series of pedals:
Revolution Biscuit Bridge – Initial installation without wooden gasket
Revolution Biscuit Bridge with wooden gasket installed
Revolution Biscuit Bridge with wooden gasket installed and guitar “plugged-in”
The tonality differences between the guitar with and without the wooden gasket are, I think, subtle; however, after repeated listenings, I believe the gasket fattens and lends a woodiness to the tone. I plan to keep the gasket installed. Feel free to comment below what you think.
I believe it was on Flipboard, the online, choose your own content magazine, that I first learned that National Guitar Company had redesigned it’s bridge and biscuit, which they referred to as the Revolution Biscuit-Bridge. Having owned 3 National Resonators and still possessing two of them, I was naturally interested in the innovation, but decided at first glance that it looked a bit too complicated to install and it was expensive… still, I remained interested and would occasionally look for a review… when I queried one of the National Guitar Facebook groups about the new bridge all I heard was crickets… So, I pretty much forgot about the subject…
Mike Dowling on Zoom…
Earlier in the Summer of 2020, I had the great, good fortune of spending several Zoom sessions with recording artist and highly accomplished performer, Mike Dowling. Being prevented from doing his usual summer festival and workshop gigs because of the COVID pandemic, he was recruiting guitar enthusiasts to study with him via Zoom from his home in Mexico. So, I spent several hours with him over the course of a month.
My favorite Mike Dowling recording…
If you’re not familiar with Mike Dowling he is a guitar virtuoso and I discovered him because of his particular artistry with National Resonator guitars. He’s made a couple of excellent educational DVD’s for Happy Traum’s Homespun Music Instruction enterprise. That’s how I found him as I was looking for some basics about how to play bottleneck guitar.
After working with his DVD’s, I was delighted to learn that Mike was performing at the Creek House venue in Minneapolis in May 2018 on a Friday Night and the other two days he would host a guitar workshop. Having never done a workshop before, I decided to attend! The concert was sublime and the workshop was great fun though I was in over my head, surrounded by guitarists far more accomplished then me.
Me and Mike Dowling at Creek House Workshop
To the right you can see a shot of me and Mike at the Creek House Workshop. You will also note I am holding, what was at the time, my recently acquired National Reso-Rocket WB (wood body). Mike is holding the metal version of the same guitar.
I involved myself with resonator guitars because of my interest in playing country blues. I tried out an inexpensive Fender resonator at my local guitar shop and really liked it; however, I thought it was a little under-built and decided to go with the gold standard and purchased a National NRP Steel resonator online through Reverb. I liked the NRP but thought a wood bodied guitar might be even more to my liking so I subsequently purchased the WB from Dream Guitars near Asheville, NC via Reverb. I remember sitting at a concert in the balcony of the Englert Theater with my wife in Iowa City, and covertly communicating via text with Dream Guitar’s owner Paul Heumiller. He made me a great offer and we closed the deal right there… I was stoked! The short Youtube segment below gives more detail about the WB and it’s developer Steve James:
Reso-Rocket WB with Hot Plate
On the left, you can see that my WB has two knurled knobs for tone and volume control when the guitar is plugged into an amp. The sound pickup is a single coil design located between the guitar’s bridge and finger board. This whole arrangement is referred to as a Hot Plate and was actually designed by Mike Dowling. In fact, Mike sold me mine. In addition to performing and teaching, Mike also is an agent for National Guitars. You might be interested to know that Mike also worked with National Guitars to resurrect the deeper wooden bodied El Trovador model.
All this brings me to the fact that during our time on Zoom, Mike brought up the new Revolution Biscuit-Bridge, which he had installed on two of his resonators. He enthused about the flexibility of the bridge, particularly that it could be raised or lowered with set screws while the standard one could not. As he described it, he would lower the bridge when playing finger-style and raise it when he planned to play bottleneck. I became interested because the action was very high on my WB and it made playing anything other than bottleneck-style difficult, which was not really a monumental problem because I had plenty of other guitars that would serve for finger-style, but I was intrigued anyway.
Screen shot of Revolution Biscuit from National Guitar website…
Mike also mentioned that the new biscuit was machined aluminum, thus appearing shiny and metallic, which was very different from the black painted wood of traditional National biscuit/bridge combinations. I inferred from his discussion that traditionalists might be put off by the shiny metallic appearance of the new bridge. He informed me that National was considering selling painted black versions of the new bridge in the future and that I might want to wait. I was not particularly bothered by the shiny appearance of the new bridge and actually like it a lot.
Screen shot of National resonator cone…
About a week or so later I ordered a Revolution Biscuit bridge from Mike. He said he would be happy to consult with me during the installation, and strongly recommended that I purchase a new cone along with the bridge. The traditional biscuit is both screwed and glued into the cone and removing it leaves a dimple that can prevent the new bridge from seating properly unless the dimple is sculpted out, which is difficult given the fragility of the cone. Since I wanted to DIY this conversion, I purchased a new cone with the Revolution bridge to avoid sculpting the older cone.
Various Bridge saddle woods available from National Guitars… another website screenshot…
In addition to the newly machined biscuit, National now offers a choice of bridge saddle woods, including, maple, ebony, rosewood, walnut and holly. I was under the impression that I would receive the full set of saddle woods with my order, but only received the traditional maple one, which is just as well because it was a bit of a stressful effort to “fit” it out for the biscuit. I do remember Mike recommending the maple saddle wood and I like the way it eventually came out in both appearance and sound. Just today in a note to me, Mike wrote that in a “blind” sound test he cannot tell much difference in the various woods or between old and new biscuits. To him the real value of the Revolution Biscuit is the ease of string height adjustment.
So, the package arrived from National about a week or so later. Contained therein was the cone, the aluminum biscuit, a single maple bridge saddle, a length of synthetic sandpaper, and two small Allen wrenches… Why the sandpaper? Because the saddle wood must be shaved down to achieve the proper string to fretboard action…
Measuring string height bridge to biscuit…
For starters Mike had me measure the string height off of the original biscuit and from there he recommended that I shave one 1/8th of an inch off of the bottom of the new maple saddle. Below you can see an image sent to me from Mike Dowling illustrating how to mark the saddle wood for trimming. You will note that he angled his where-to- sand-to mark so that the saddle is slanted, which would allow for the treble string to be closer to the fret board than the bass string. He recommended, in the end, for the bass string to be 7/64 of an inch off of the twelfth fret and for the treble string 6/64 of an inch off of the twelfth fret for a good nominal setting. I had to do quite a bit of sanding in stages, fitting the saddle into the bridge and then measuring before the process was completed.
Before (left) and after (right) images of saddle wood as a result of trimming.
Reso-Rocket sound cavity exposed…
To the right you can see the Reso-Rocket with the original cone and bridge removed. To avoid having to restring the guitar, I controlled the strings on the neck with a capo and used electrical tape to hold the string balls within the tail piece. This way after setting the new cone and biscuit in place it was easy to refasten the tailpiece and tune the guitar back up.
As I said earlier, I went through several stages of sanding the saddle, placing it in the biscuit and mounting the biscuit on the cone. Then I would drop the cone into the guitar, replace the coverplate, remount the tailpiece, retune the guitar and then make my string measurements. The bridge guard was also removed and stayed off throughout the fitting process. During one iteration of fitting, I realized I had to make sure that there was more of a slant sanded into the base of the bridge. I think I did this three, maybe four times… it was a tedious process and not for anyone in a hurry.
Above you can see the two cones, side by side with the new one on the left. If you’re not familiar with resonator technology, the string vibration is intercepted by the bridge, then transferred down to the cone via the biscuit. The cone then amplifies the string vibration giving the characteristic resonator sound back outwards to the listener. The original biscuits were wood, so the transition to an aluminum biscuit makes some traditionalists uncomfortable. Some posters on FaceBook do not like the new biscuit, either on face value or after they’ve tried it out. There are others who have adopted the new approach.
To the left you can see a close-up of the new aluminum bridge and maple saddle mounted onto the cone. You will note that there are three holes set into the saddle that are located in between the carve-outs where the guitar strings traverse. The holes allow access to set screws that are located below in the biscuit itself. Adjusting the set screws can raise the height of the saddle and consequently the height of the strings off of the fret board.
The saddle fits very firmly in the biscuit. The biscuit is machined with a slight zig-zag shaped channel and the saddle is shaped to fit snuggly in the aforementioned channel so that there is only one way for the two to combine together. I really had to press firmly to get the saddle into the channel and the only way I could get the saddle back out was to raise it with the set screws and then pry it out with a small flat head screwdriver, being mindful that the Maple bridge was pretty delicate and kind of expensive.
I was not prepared to make a wood vs aluminum biscuit comparison after completion of the project; however, below you can see a quick A/B comparison made by Steve James:
I do have below a couple of short videos of my WB with the new Biscuit installed. Just below is a short clip of me playing Muddy Waters’ I Can’t Be Satisfied in Open G tuning, bottleneck style. I am using a brass Tone Dome slide purchased from National:
I Can’t Be Satisfied… McKinley Morganfield
I am also presenting a brief finger-style tune on the same guitar. Before I installed the new bridge, it was very difficult to play finger-style on this guitar because the action was so high. Here now I am able to do it, but I must admit because I followed Steve James advice on Youtube and installed a heavy set of Newtone Archtop strings, it was more difficult for me than it should have been… those strings are fine for bottleneck playing but a bit heavy for me to play finger-style… another lesson for me in the school of hard knocks and dirty socks! This is a Stef Grossman arrangement of the Rev. Gary Davis’s Cocaine Blues in standard tuning.
In sum, I am pleased with the biscuit conversion… I believe the saddle as currently located is in a sweet spot where I can play it bottleneck or finger-style without adjustment; however I think I will eventually migrate to the lighter string gauge I was using before following Steve James’s advice.
I like the sound of the guitar too; however, I just noticed during this writing that National Guitars is now recommending placing a wooden gasket between the aluminum biscuit and the cone which probably alters the sound somewhat… According to Mike Dowling, in correspondence while writing this blog, the gasket may be most important for people mounting the Revolution biscuit on an older cone… While the folks at National believe the tone may be mellowed out with the wooden gasket, that remains to be assessed… I may explore this wooden gasket further…
The soundtrack from the Coen Brother’s film O Brother, Where Art Thou? is one of my longtime favorites in my CD collection… I practically wore the bits and bytes off the disc it was played so many times… The film was great too… The tunes on the soundtrack are a broad sampling of old time American music, mostly sung by contemporary musicians… My favorite recording was an old country blues tune performed by Chris Thomas King… it was a haunting rendition and I searched King’s other recordings to find more tunes just like the one he sang; however, I did not have very good luck and gave up… most of his other body of work was very different, so far as I could tell…
click for Amazon link…
It wasn’t until just this summer 2020 that I tumbled onto what Chris Thomas King was singing in the film. I had the great good fortune to take a few online guitar lessons with a highly accomplished performing musician/recording artist and he pushed me, after hearing some of my video recordings, to listen more closely to the original tunes that I was playing and listed several 8 bar blues tunes as starter examples, one of which was a Skip James tune called Crow Jane. Suddenly, I remembered reading about Skip James in Zeke Schein’s excellent book, Portrait of a Phantom. Schein’s book actually inspired me to dig deeper into roots music and I eventually committed to learning and playing country blues. Back at the time of reading Schein’s book the connection of Skip James to O Brother! went completely over my head, other than to note that Schein had a very high regard for the musician, and that he was somewhat obscure except to country blues aficionados.
After purchasing and listening to a Skip James CD to study Crow Jane, it finally occurred to me that Chris Thomas King was playing a Skip James tune in O Brother! I was awestruck by James’s precision finger-style guitar playing and his haunting and unique, for that genre, falsetto voice. It was at that point that I decided to try to learn to play some Skip James tunes, which I thought might be difficult but would be a great summer challenge!
click on image for link to Guitar Workshop
Having had excellent experience with DVD lessons sold on Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop website, I went shopping for Skip James material and found this wonderful set of lessons including tabbed tunes of some of James’s most memorable tunes. Similar to the way in which Grossman teaches a tune, Tom Feldmann breaks down the song section by section and then plays it slowly with a split screen showing both hands in action. This approach works great for me.
Nehemiah Curtis “Skip” James, was born in the very early 1900’s in Bentonia, Mississippi, and died after a lengthy battle with cancer the year I graduated high school in 1969. For the most part, he was obscure much of his life and today is barely mentioned in books about country blues in comparison to other genre musicians like Lonnie Johnson or Blind Lemon Jefferson. He recorded a few sides in the early 1900’s and drew some notice, but the depression of the 1930’s drove him into obscurity, so he quit performing and entered into the ministry. Years later while languishing in a hospital room, dealing with the onset of cancer, he was discovered by country blues aficionado John Fahey, and in 1964 Fahey brought him to the public’s attention at venues such as the Newport Folk Festival. As a result, he was re-recorded so there are two sets of James recordings that can be found either from his early days or later in the 1960’s. Below you can listen to an early recording of Hard Times Killing Floor Blues, the tune that initially beguiled me when I saw O Brother!
According to the introduction of my Guitar Workshop DVD, Tom Feldmann explains that James wrote and played songs in standard tuning (EADGBE) and also in what’s referred to as Cross-tuning or D Minor tuning (DADFAD) which is somewhat similar to Open D/Vastapol tuning except the F# string is flatted to F. I like D Minor tuning and the somewhat unusual haunting tone it creates. I currently have my Taylor 914ce tuned to D Minor all of the time.
Well, I dove right into Skip James tunes. I began with the standard tuned 8 bar, Crow Jane, although my tabbed transcription varies from 8 to eleven bars from verse to verse depending on how James played it when he recorded. The source of Crow Jane is unknown; however, it is believed to have emanated originally in the Piedmont region of Virginia, North and South Carolina. My online teacher found James’s approach “crooked” because of the verse/bar variation, and it annoyed him as well as my use Feldmann’s tablature, which actually ended with us parting ways, even though I liked him a lot. Below you can see my rendering of a few versus of Crow Jane on my Taylor 812ce piped through a Fishman Artist amp, some compression, octaver, and reverb.
There are country blues fans who believe that the tunes should ONLY be played on acoustic guitars, which, in truth, has never constrained me. I like playing the tunes on both acoustic and electric platforms. Occasionally, I have a posting kicked off a FaceBook group for violating that sanctity, but if it was good enough for Muddy Waters, it’s good enough for me. So in that regard below I am posting a more complete version of Crow Jane played on my Taylor T3z acoustic/electric hybrid piped through a Mesa Boogie Filmont 50 amplifier on a clean channel, and pedal effects including octaver, compression, tremolo, delay, and reverb:
I will note that for me, a tune, is a work in progress for weeks, months, and even years until I have it nailed down to where I am totally happy with its rendering. I will also point out the obvious that I choose not to sing these tunes, though there are lyrics for them. To quote Stefan Grossman, “I am a guitar player, not a singer.” Consequently, the tunes I choose to play must stand on their own as instrumentals, at least in my judgement. My James tunes are early in the process, but I have them functional enough and absolutely love playing them. After getting Crow Jane through its initial paces I moved onto a the D Minor tuning, Hard Time Killing Floor Blues, the tune that initially attracted me to James’s work.
There are a few other James tunes that sound good as instrumentals that I intend to add to my repertoire in the future. In fact, I am currently working on another D Minor tune Four O’Clock Blues… until then, thanks for looking in… comments are welcome…
Good Morning Little School Girl… I love this tune… it’s considered a blues standard and resides in the Blues Hall of Fame as of 1990… Sonny Boy Williamson is credited with having recorded it first in 1939, but as with many blues tunes, original authorship can be a bit foggy… Williamson’s tune is believed to be a reworking of Son Bonds’ Back and Side Blues… The melody of Bond’s tune and Williamson’s are very, very close…
Here’s Bonds’ original Back and Side Blues…
https://youtu.be/3QJYeNNJOt0
And here’s Williamson’s original 1939 Hall of Fame version of Good Morning Little School Girl…
Though backed up by a pair of guitars, Williamson’s version is dominated by his harmonica, for which is most well known… The first version I remember hearing was recorded by Muddy Waters and in this version, his guitar playing carries the tune:
What struck me besides Waters’ masterful guitar playing was the Rolling Stonesesque lecherous nature to the tune… Basically an adult male chasing after an underage girl reminiscent of Jagger and Richards’ Stray Cat Blues, which is equally nasty… Here is the opening stanza of Good Morning Little Schoolgirl:
Good morning little school girl
Good morning little school girl
Can I go home with
Can I go home with you?
Tell your mother and your father
I once was a schoolboy too
Wicked… nasty… not politically correct… but so bluesy… love it…
After hearing Muddy Waters’ version of the tune, I thought how fun it would be to learn it and I was delighted that Stef Grosman included the tab and lessons in his Bottleneck Blues Guitar DVD. Grossman based his arrangement on Fred McDowell’s interpretation of the tune. I really like McDowell’s version… his guitar playing is clean and penetrating and his slide vibrato is perfect…
I do not like to sing when I play… I am guitarist, so I tend to learn tunes that sound decent when played as an instrumental and Good Morning Little Schoolgirl fits the bill… I also tend to favor playing the tune a bit slower and “swamping” it up…
When I was shopping for my Reso-Lectric at Dave’s Guitars in LaCrosse, WI one of the store guys approached me and told me how much he likes my swampy play as compared to so many others who rip through slide pieces when trying out guitars in the store… He compared me to Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas Soundtrack… I was a bit taken back because I am not in the same galactic dimension as Ry Cooder, but the compliment was encouraging…
Here’s my version:
There’ve been a bajillion cover recordings of this tune, like the poppy, somewhat inane version by the Yardbirds, or the long jam version by the Grateful Dead, or Taj Mahal’s own idiosyncratic take, which you can see below:
Finally in closing, I will remind all that country blues is the foundation upon which rock and roll music stands and these old tunes are often reinterpreted in a variety of way… here you can see the great Alvin Lee of Ten Years After ripping out a version of School Girl…
Butterfly shot on the banks of the Cape Fear River…
We have a longstanding tradition in my family to visit one of my grown daughters during Spring Break. In year’s past we’ve travelled either to Jacksonville, FL or Wilmington, NC for our brief escape from the typically raw, cold, dreary Iowa late Winter/early Spring.
Sadly, for us and many more fellow inhabitants of the U.S. travel plans were kiboshed because of the volatile circumstances revolving around the dreaded Covid19 Corona virus. Being of retired age, I’ve been repeatedly warned by the media and government that I’m flying in the danger zone, so I, along with my wife, college age son and Brittany dog are hunkered down in our home waiting for the Angel of Death to passover…
Here’s an interesting mini-documentary elaborating on key factors leading to the Angel of Death’s most recent origin…
In addition to packing for my cancelled Spring Break trip, I was also in preparation mode for my first official gig along with my pal Grant at our local coffee shop in Cedar Falls, IA, so rather than learning any new tunes, I was focused on refining those in my repertoire. I planned on playing a country blues bottleneck/fingerpicking guitar set and Grant plays his original folk/punk/Americana tunes. The gig was scheduled for April 3 and it does not take a lot of imagination to conclude that our national virus drama will not be over by then, and our show will be postponed until another time. Hopefully, Cup of Joe weathers the storm…
Cup of Joe exterior
Cup of Joe interior
Pre-Covid (PC), Grant and me (standing) hanging out at Bob’s Guitars
So, what to do? Take walks, read, cook, make tea, watch the tube, obsess over the stock market collapse and look on in dismay at the latest word on community spread of the virus… Learning a new tune might take my mind elsewhere to a more constructive space… So that’s what I decided to do…
National Reso-Lectric…
Because I so enjoy playing my new hybrid acoustic/electric National Reso-Lectric, which is tuned to Open D, I decided to learn another bottleneck tune on that particular guitar. I own an educational DVD with instruction and tablature available from Stef Grossman with tunes still unlearned in Open D, so I dug in and decided to study the last tune on his set list called Guitar Rag.
Stef Grossman Bottleneck DVD
Stef Grossman is an extraordinarily excellent teacher in video format and the included tablature’s are accessible and easy to follow, though the tab arrangement is a little idiosyncratic. Rather than placing the fretting instructions on the lines of the tab which is the usual format, they are in-between the lines… i.e., the spacing between the lines symbolizes the six guitar strings instead of the lines themselves. It takes a little getting used to and I like it now.
Typically, Grossman introduces a tune and gives some brief historical background, then he plays through it at speed, following that he breaks down the key elements to playing the piece and finally does a slow split screen playback showing both hands in motion.
Stef Grossman at work on my MacBook…
To the right you can see Stef Grossman at work on my MacBook. The pair of DVD’s that come with this instructional are packed with country blues to learn, as well as film and recorded examples of the tunes in their original form, pulled straight off the 78 rpm platters. One DVD focuses on Open G while the other on Open D bottleneck tunes.
Weaver and Martin…
Upon first pass, I did not listen too closely to Grossman’s introduction, but on second review I learned that Guitar Rag was a tune played/recorded originally by Sylvester Weaver in the early 1920’s, and written by Weaver with blues singer Sara Martin. Even more interesting, Guitar Rag was the first solo blues tune ever recorded! Consequently, this tune is exceptionally important in country blues history. Weaver was one of the first guitarists to accompany blues singers like Martin. Before then, larger bands backed the singers.
Below I include a link to Weaver’s recording of Guitar Rag. He first recorded this tune in 1923 and later re-recorded it in 1927, which sounded much better. Known also as The Man with the Talking Guitar, he spent most of his life in Louisville, KY. It’s written that he played slide-style with the guitar flat on his lap and used a knife as the slide. After recording about 50 tunes, he retired from music in 1929 and chauffeured a wealthy family for years afterwards. This is his 1927 version of Guitar Rag:
Not only was Guitar Rag an historically important tune, it was also popular and covered by other artists, including Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys playing it as Steel Guitar Rag. The YouTube recording I share below suggests that the Bob Wills’s pedal steel guitar player Leon McCauliffe claimed to have written the tune in 1936, which I hope is not true, but if it is, seems all wrong and exploitative… Steel Guitar Rag was immensely popular and introduced the archetypal pedal steel guitar to country music.
https://youtu.be/hxzxH6wIPCY
Guitar and associated amp with pedal board…
As I wrote earlier in this piece, my go-to guitar for this tune is my acoustic/electric hybrid National Reso-Lectric. I run it through a Black Faced Fender Princeton Reverb Amp, as well as an Octaver, Compressor, a bit of boost, Tremelo, Delay and Reverb. The pedals fatten the sound and enhance the natural sustain of the resonator cone. I use mostly, the P90 neck pick up, with a dash of the piezo that resides on the biscuit bridge to get a warmer tone.
Guitar Slides…
I own a variety of slides though I have never tried using a knife like they say Sylvester Weaver used. My favorite slide now is the solid brass one located second from the left. It gives me a nice, fat, warm tone that I am partial to. That particular slide I purchased from National and it is a Tone Dome design created originally by master slide guitar player Ben Powell.
I’ve been working on this piece just a few days; however, it is coming along enough to generate an excerpt recording of part of the tune, which I decided is necessary to end this blog entry properly. There are still some rough spots as I lack full familiarity with the piece. I’ve attached an image of the first page of Stef Grossman’s arrangement of Guitar Rag. If you’re interested in acquiring the DVD’s you can find them here at this link.
Grossman tablature…
Recording at home is a bit of a challenge when my wife and son are both sequestered here with me, but here is my latest version of this classic piece. For information about how I record, follow this link.
Final notes: Guitar Strap by El Dorado. Hat by Carlos Santana. If you can’t play like him, look like him… Sweatshirt logo: Tar Heel Bred, Tar Heel Dead…
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