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Saturday, April 25, 2015
Vintage Replica P-90 Pickup "Hysteric Soapland" - Vintage Maniacs
That is more than a little creepy but can't beat the tone! "Soapland" also has a very different meaning in Japan than just the reference to soapbar pickups,
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Tales From The Woodheap : White pup rings arrived today, gave em a quick ag...
There is some nice refinishing work going on with an ESP Navigator at "Tales from the Woodheap."
Go have a look for yourself.
Tales From The Woodheap : White pup rings arrived today, gave em a quick ag...: White pup rings arrived today, gave em a quick ageing and tossed em on. These rings are about a mm wider and longer than Dimarzios and th...
Go have a look for yourself.
Tales From The Woodheap : White pup rings arrived today, gave em a quick ag...: White pup rings arrived today, gave em a quick ageing and tossed em on. These rings are about a mm wider and longer than Dimarzios and th...
Friday, April 3, 2015
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Dry-Z : From the blog of Jun Takano Part 2
Part 2 of the blog entry of Jun Takano regarding the "Z-DRY" development. Translated from the original Japanese.
At the time I had a pretty close relationship with a music promoter who also played guitar and consulted me regarding foreign musicians' guitars and gear more than a few times.
At the time I had a pretty close relationship with a music promoter who also played guitar and consulted me regarding foreign musicians' guitars and gear more than a few times.
Or course, whenever he had problems with equipment of foreign musicians (such as needing emergency repairs) I would always deal with it on an emergency basis so I had come to the point where I had gained his strong trust.
So, when I showed him the guitar with the prototype pickups he told me that he wanted to borrow it so he could show it to some foreign musicians.
There was no particular plan to put the guitar for sale on the market so I agreed and left the guitar in his hands.....
After a few days had passed word came from my friend that he had shown the guitar to Don Felder (Eagles) who really liked the sound and wanted to have one himself.
After that we sent out a newly built guitar with a set of pickups installed. We were both pretty happy to have the pickup get some recognition.
However, there was still some way to go yet. While it was close to the essence of the sound that I was aiming at, there was still a substantial gap to overcome.
On the occasion of the next business trip to Matsumoto I had another meeting with the previously-mentioned Ushimaru-san.
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Around that time I was personally pretty well connected with the music business. There was a very big name in the music business (who everyone probably would still know today) who was a busy producer and studio musician so I passed one of the guitars to him.
A few days later he let me know that he was really satisfied with the guitar. At the time he was playing on a prime-time TV show and had ended up using the guitar all the way through the whole show.
A few days later he let me know that he was really satisfied with the guitar. At the time he was playing on a prime-time TV show and had ended up using the guitar all the way through the whole show.
Another proposal came from Ushimaru-san.
There was a small amount of US-made wire that was a sample (for prototyping). Right away we went to making a third prototype......
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The result came out to be extremely close to what I wanted.
Up to that time the pickup had more recognition by foreign musicians than within Fujigen itself and more and more foreign guitarists gave good feedback.
At a planning meeting it was decided to put the pickup into production. It was now time to name the pickup as a crystallization of the efforts we had made. I really didn't like the inorganic names like U-3000 and PU-2 that had been used up to that time. Respecting that "the name should demonstrate the voice" it was given the name of "DRY" to most closely match the tone. This was way before Asahi Beer did it mind you!
Part three to follow.