blackmore's treble booster

[changes]

i found a schem where sais that the hornby skewes treble booster used by blackmore has a jfet
but bsm company (the one that reissued the hs treble booster) sais it's an OC44
which one is true???

[ildar]

It's just a guess, but judging from his tone I would bet it's a silicon-based pedal. It would be a higher gain boost than a Ge obviously, and that's The Maninblack's sound.

[brian wenz]

Hello Hello--
    Blackmore only used a TB when he was playing his ES-335 through a Vox AC-30 in the very early days.  The Strat through Marshall  years was augmented by an old tape deck that he put inbetween the guitar and amp.
Brian.

[lovric]

I have made both versions and connected them to the strat and single end tube amp I have but could not get Blackmore's tone. (I would like that. Maybe it's the single-end)

jFET variant schematics on the web do not show input or output coupling capacitors. Mr Keen (if I remember well) asked himself was HS really a treble booster at all due to the lack of those caps.

In Range master the caps are the main thing that makes it "treble" and the transistor is what makes it a booster.

Lacking of input/output coupling caps will put a small voltage to guitar pickups assumin that the guitar is connected directly to it (HS booster being first in pedal chain). I guess it won't change the tone. It will also change the bias of the first tube in the amp if it's connected directly. It may change the tone by asymetrical clipping and not allowing you to clean it up from the guitar.

Further, its topology is similar to Dallas Rangemaster, Apollo and Orange bass/treble boosters minus the caps. They all have similar biasing. Another writing from the web said that Hornby-Skewes (still in bussines) only resaled the Dallas products.

BSM are saying that they produce both Ge and jFET variants of "Blackmores's" booster.

I'm hoping that someone helps me with this! Do you guys have any new findings?

best regards, Marin

[phaeton]

No offense, but ugh...

I never could get into that megaphone-honking/mosquito RangeMaster sound on Book Of Taliesyn, early Clapton stuff, etc...  Great, great music but awful guitar tones IMHO...

How did Iommi go so right where they went so bright?  Were the Laneys just that dark to start with?

[bwanasonic]

How did Iommi go so right where they went so bright?  Were the Laneys just that dark to start with?

His unit featured a larger input cap from what I've read.

Kerry M

[Strat Cat]

Hello Hello--
     Blackmore only used a TB when he was playing his ES-335 through a Vox AC-30 in the very early days.  The Strat through Marshall  years was augmented by an old tape deck that he put inbetween the guitar and amp.
Brian.

Here's a photo of Ritchie with the tape deck in the background. How exactly is it being used?

[jrc4558]

YAY! Ritchie!!!

[phaeton]

His unit featured a larger input cap from what I've read.

I see.  Was this a mod that he arranged, or an accident?

Could it also be assumed on my part that in each of these cases these guy's amps couldn't produce any distortion on their own, and it took a booster (such as a Rangemaster) to push the front end into clipping?  Or was this the only way to get a LOT of distortion?  All three of these guys distorted heavily for the times, especially Toni.

[GFR]

I think formerMember1's live sound was Marshalls, but his studio stuff was a VOX AC-30 (like in the Machine Head album).

Also I've read an interview with Jim Marshall he said formerMember1's 200W Marshall was not stock - it was modded to sound like a much louder VOX. (It seems that the two inputs were cascaded plus a master volume).

The tape deck was an AIWA reel to reel, solid state.

Ritchie Blackmore
("Guitar Player", December 1997)

       "...It's my preamp, which is an old souped-up Aiwa reel-to-reel tape recorder that I originally used as a tape delay. It has an input and an output stage, so I plugged into it and noticed that it gave me a fatter sound - about a 3-watt boost. I used it from that day on. If I don't use it, the sound is too shrill. It seems to calm the sound down and give it more midrange. I just thought it was a normal tape deck, but now it's become this little soul on the side of the stage. It's like my little friend."

This guy did some tech work for Blackmore:

http://www.dawksound.com/

Some discussion (cached by google):

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:E3R7UhBz-QQJ:www.vintageamps.com/PlexiPalaceUBBcgi/ultimatebb.cgi%3Fubb%3Dprint_topic%3Bf%3D5%3Bt%3D002412+blackmore+%22tape+deck%22&hl=pt-BR&client=firefox-a

[GFR]

One more link:

http://www15.ocn.ne.jp/~dp70tool/darktop.html

[Mojah63]

Yeah I've been all over those sites too...  Lots of info there if you dig a bit.

I've always thought the markII sound pretty easy to copy but some of the markIII has a wierd flange kind of quality in it. I'm talking about the studio stuff. I saw on the Dawk board that he had a couple of Gerd Schulte Audio Compact Phasing A pedals too around the end of Purple begining of Rainbow time.
I remember buying a digitech gsp-21-legend and saying wow a Blackmore patch....  It was very dissapointing... Only a light flange and I think some verb.... Man in black won again !!

[lovric]

ThaNKFULLY, Ritchie fuels the topic.

I really like the Fireball to MIJ sound. It seems to have more midrange than what you expect from just strat into marshall. Whether its strat to AC30 would not matter much since they have similar preamps. I've seen the schem of upgraded 200w marshall with KT88 and it's not much different from other old marshalls.

On the other hand the schem for hornby skewes TB that circulates the net (from geofex to fuzzcentral) made by 'Armscray' seem to be inaccurate. Everyone  used to put the cap at input to prevent DC going into guitar, and, at least to make it TREBLE. What;s more, I also red that HS TB was just a repackaged rangemaster. In that period, Orange bass&treble booster and Appolp T&B boster were almost the same.

I was not able to find a schem for that old Aiwa tape deck. If I had found any Aiwa fro '70 it would be something. In lack of those  one could speculate that Ritchie used the Zonk machine since it it is supposed to go with HS TB.

There is also an interview with guitarist form 'Sweet'  where the guy says thathe was using strat into HS TB into marshall and someone commented that he sounds like Rithcie. To me, after listening to Sweet records from the time its seems they tried to copy Deep Purple's music rather than nailing Rithie's sound.

blah, blah, blah...

greets, Marin

[lovric]

what can i do. even if no one replies i must go on with this.

in 2003 DougH  wrote in this forum that Hornby Skewes TB schem should be tried in simulator. I did (simulator and in real life) and with the JFET 2N4861 substitute 2N4393 output signal was deep into cutoff and when i switched for the available germanium tranny it fited in bias nicely. It appears that the bias in the HS TB circuit was ment for Ge trannies. More, in transistror substitute database (german - VRT, TDV with two little owls logo) you find that 2N486 is a PNP Ge tranny. Smeared, worn off print on the metal body of the old tranny Interestingly enough, both 2N4861 NPN JFET and 2N486 PNP Ge have metal casing according to their specs. All in all, with strat, into this thingy HS TB and into Marshall 1959, Ritchie Blackmore's recognizable tone was not there. Smoke, but no Cigar.

Maybe, looking into RG's schems and comments in his http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/zonkmach/zonkbst.pdf treble booster was ment to be inbetween the zonk machine and an amplifier. The DC is blocked at the output of the Zonk Machine which makes up for the lack of the input cap in TB. After the TB one could put many things with different consequences. If you plug it into Marshall the first tube would have its bias changed. Maybe there is THE tone?  Maybe THE not.

Maybe the economics were the order of the day. Cutting costs by omitting two capacitors... If you connect that combination into another REGULAR transistror device than you have both sides covered with caps. Captivated, so to speak. Capuzzled...

I appreciate that you red this (far)

[Doug_H]

More, in transistror substitute database (german - VRT, TDV with two little owls logo) you find that 2N486 is a PNP Ge tranny. Smeared, worn off print on the metal body of the old tranny Interestingly enough, both 2N4861 NPN JFET and 2N486 PNP Ge have metal casing according to their specs.

You may be on the trail of why there is some confusion over the device type in this circuit. However, I don't see how you are going to sub a pnp xsistor for the jfet without reversing the 9v and gnd rails. I couldn't find a schem for the treble boost, but I drew one up from R.G.'s layout and it appears to be a garden-variety nJFET circuit. I wonder if R.G. actually tried out the treble boost in his layout? FWIW, I breadboarded the zonk machine a few years ago and wasn't too impressed, so I lost interest in the whole thing.

All in all, with strat, into this thingy HS TB and into Marshall 1959, Ritchie Blackmore's recognizable tone was not there. Smoke, but no Cigar.

Don't know about early deep purple, but Machine Head and Who Do We Think We Are? sounds like a strat plugged straight into a dimed AC30 to my ears. According to interviews, that is the way he liked to play back then. The live Made in Japan has more of the Marshall sound to me, but I don't remember when he started using the tape deck.

Doug

[Caferacernoc]

I agree with the last post. The early stuff is Strat into cranked Vox. If he is using a boost, well it's just a boost. the sound is still power tube distortion. I think sometimes people think the pedal is the whole tone. These guys like Brian May, early Clapton, Malmsteen all used a specific pedal. But they also used POWER tube distortion in addition to preamp gain. And a pedal only adds to the preamp gain. And who knows how these guys set the tone controls back then. They all certainly sound different. Anyway, it is not just the pedal. A note on "dark" sounding amps, too. I think back then they were looking for maximum gain from amps made without much preamp oomph so sometimes they really did turn all the knobs to ten. And a early Marshall gets very bassy when you crank the volume. They all do because they have brightening caps across the volume and gain pots. So when you try out the new treble boost pedal at workshop volume level, yeah the tone isn't there. Anyway, these guys  were looking for more gain. They dimed the amp. Added a pedal, which was never turned off, so it's tone altering didn't matter. And then adjusted the tone knobs, I imagine, if necessary. I don't think using a treble boost because the amp was "dark" had much to do with it. It was about the gain.

[R.G.]

It's been more than three years since I did that one, and it's a bit blurred in my memory.

acoleman loaned me his Zonk Machine to trace, and I got that part correct, I think. I never had an actual HSTB. I worked from a schematic posted by ammscray and redrawn by aron nelson. The treble booster shemo may be in aron's schematics listings. The JFET is shown as a "2N4861" and the pinout is shown for a "2N4561", and I never knew which was correct. I didn't redraw and post the schematic for some reason.

The schematic has some issues. It shows no input caps or output caps to block DC; I added those. There isn't any treble boost to it as drawn. I didn't build it, as my experience with the underlying zonk machine was like yours - I was not impressed, so I bagged it in favor of spending my time elsewhere. I was somewhat surprised that the device was not a germanium transistor myself, as the rest of the circuit seems suited to that and the biasing is quite odd for a JFET.

If ammscray got the device wrong, the treble booster would make more sense, and putting it before the amp, not before the zonk makes sense as well.

It's funny - BSM appears to have collected up all the treble booster schematics from the net that they can find and then made pedals from them. I'd bet that the JFET "Hornby" comes from the ammscray-aron-geofex line, as there doesn't seem to be any other sources.

If I ever get to actually examine a real HSTB, this will get settled.

[Mark Hammer]

In 1970, without any knowledge of what Mr. Blackmore was doing, I was also plugging my guitar into the mic input of a tube-based tape deck and feeding the line out to my amp.  Sustain for days, and a wonderful wooly sound from my frankenstein guitar (the neck and pickups of my old Kent grafted onto a LP body made from pine with a wraparound tailpiece bridge my machinist dad helped me fabricate from a big hunk of brass rod).

A few things to note:

• the mic preamp expects a signal of much lower amplitude than a guitar pickup, and is easily overdriven
• the preamp output feeds the guitar amp with a much hotter signal than most pedals of that era would likely provide, overdriving the amp
• the mic preamp expects a mic impedance much lower than what a guitar presents, likely resulting in some (in this case) useful bandwidth limiting

It is possible that the tape deck in the picture IS a solid-state model. While any clipping characteristics in the preamp itself may be different from a tube-based unit, the fact still remains that it would be overdriven by a guitar, that the resulting output would overdrive the amp's input stage, and that the impedance differences between guitars and voice mics would have resulted in some bandwidth limiting.  I know I enjoyed my old setup immensely, and I would be prejudiced in favour of tubes, but I suppose there is no reason why a solid-state tape deck, used in the same manner might not provide some sonic benefit too.

[vortex]

I have been giging with Blackmores keyboard player from the "Long Live Rock and Roll" era and when I asked him about the tape deck he insisted that it was only used as a delay and not a preamp.  I have read otherwise and obviously the tape deck does preamplify but thought I would add this info from one who was close to the source.

[Doug_H]

It was about the gain.

I agree. Great post, btw.

If you read some of the early-mid 70s interviews with Blackmore (and other guitar players too), one of his  prime concerns was gain, and more specifically, sustain. Esp with a single-coil guitar. He mentioned stuff like a certain strat he had that had hotter pickups and sustained more, etc, etc. If there was any pedal involved (doubtful in the studio IMO), it was just a piece of the puzzle. Expecting a particular pedal to give you "Ritchie in a box" is an oversimplification.

Doug