Ritchie Blackmore Tones

[la szum]

I still say if you get the phrasing and the general style and any recognizable licks copped, as long as the tone is in the ballpark, no one's gonna care.
Music first. Tone second.

There's just a lot of what I call "wiry-ness" from that scalloped neck. I can't get that kind of metallic ping
from either Strat I have with Rosewood fretboards.

 

[TSJMajesty]

There's just a lot of what I call "wiry-ness" from that scalloped neck. I can't get that kind of metallic ping
from either Strat I have with Rosewood fretboards.

I don't get how that can affect tone. I thought having a scalloped neck was just for the way it plays.

 

[la szum]

Maybe I am nuts, but I have thought fretboard material (or lack of) has an impact on tone.


To my ears, a Maple fretboard will be a tad brighter than a Rosewood board on a similar guitar.
Ebony is denser and not as soft as Rosewood and can be snappy and a little more articulate.

There's just a certain wiriness (metal ping) that is kind of an overtone that I am hearing, and without
a fretboard wood (no Maple, Rosewood, or Ebony) to absorb any of that energy from the string's
vibration it just sounds to me like there is that little difference.

 

[eaeolian]

I still say if you get the phrasing and the general style and any recognizable licks copped, as long as the tone is in the ballpark, no one's gonna care.
Music first. Tone second.

Seriously. A distorted Strat tone and dead-on feel (good luck with that) and no one will notice.

 

[eaeolian]

Maybe I am nuts, but I have thought fretboard material (or lack of) has an impact on tone.


To my ears, a Maple fretboard will be a tad brighter than a Rosewood board on a similar guitar.
Ebony is denser and not as soft as Rosewood and can be snappy and a little more articulate.

There's just a certain wiriness (metal ping) that is kind of an overtone that I am hearing, and without
a fretboard wood (no Maple, Rosewood, or Ebony) to absorb any of that energy from the string's
vibration it just sounds to me like there is that little difference.

Pretty sure that's how he picks, or the strings maybe hitting the frets? I don't think the scallops make any difference, tone wise.

Caveat: I'm in the camp of wood making no discernable difference in an electric guitar, which is a recent change for me.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Pretty sure that's how he picks, or the strings maybe hitting the frets? I don't think the scallops make any difference, tone wise.

Caveat: I'm in the camp of wood making no discernable difference in an electric guitar, which is a recent change for me.

Wood matters more for structural integrity. ie, if the wood is soft, it might not be the best idea to have a bridge with a whammy bar, especially with very little wood between the bridge posts and the pickup route.

What matters more in terms of brightness/darkness of the instrument is the scale length, as well as the construction of the guitar (ie, thick body versus thin body, the amount of wood around the bridge, etc.) For instance, you can have a guitar with the same wood types, but one is 25.5" with a thinner body/neck vs a 24.75" with a thicker body/neck. The 24.75" is going to be inherently darker, while the 25.5" is going to be inherently brighter.

 

[DrewJD82]

Maybe I am nuts, but I have thought fretboard material (or lack of) has an impact on tone.


To my ears, a Maple fretboard will be a tad brighter than a Rosewood board on a similar guitar.
Ebony is denser and not as soft as Rosewood and can be snappy and a little more articulate.

There's just a certain wiriness (metal ping) that is kind of an overtone that I am hearing, and without
a fretboard wood (no Maple, Rosewood, or Ebony) to absorb any of that energy from the string's
vibration it just sounds to me like there is that little difference.

I agree for sure in regards to ebony, rosewood and maple. I finally played an Yngwie Strat last year and didn’t sound like total ass on it, so I have no insight in regards to a scalloped board. I try an Yngwie Strat every so often out of curiosity and it’s kind of like the giant neck thing, at first it feels terrible and I think “No way can I get on with this”, but that last time it started clicking for me. It’d be a GREAT way to back off my hand pressure and re-learn that muscle memory.

A Blackmore Strat popped up locally for $1200, I can’t remember what those went for originally but I considered it for a few minutes before going back to my “Nah, I need a maple fingerboard on a Strat”.

What kind of pickups are in your Strat? I might dick around with this song tonight, I learned it a couple years ago and got excited to do a cover of it, but then life happened.

 

[Blix]

Certainly quite Blackmore-ish using my YJM strat and Jcm800 with Gower Jose mod. I pull out the master halfway in, it's the more saturated option. :)

 

[DrewJD82]

Certainly quite Blackmore-ish using my YJM strat and Jcm800 with Gower Jose mod. I pull out the master halfway in, it's the more saturated option. :)

Is that a black YJM? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in the wild before. It’s always the yellow or CAR ones I see in stores.

 

[Blix]

Is that a black YJM? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in the wild before. It’s always the yellow or CAR ones I see in stores.

Definitely CAR

 

[la szum]

Pretty sure that's how he picks, or the strings maybe hitting the frets? I don't think the scallops make any difference, tone wise.

Caveat: I'm in the camp of wood making no discernable difference in an electric guitar, which is a recent change for me.

Yeah, I am not there yet. I think it all matters. Like a recipe. Take out/change one ingredient, no matter
how small you think it may be in the context of every other ingredient, and the end result will be different.

 

[la szum]

I agree for sure in regards to ebony, rosewood and maple. I finally played an Yngwie Strat last year and didn’t sound like total ass on it, so I have no insight in regards to a scalloped board. I try an Yngwie Strat every so often out of curiosity and it’s kind of like the giant neck thing, at first it feels terrible and I think “No way can I get on with this”, but that last time it started clicking for me. It’d be a GREAT way to back off my hand pressure and re-learn that muscle memory.

A Blackmore Strat popped up locally for $1200, I can’t remember what those went for originally but I considered it for a few minutes before going back to my “Nah, I need a maple fingerboard on a Strat”.

What kind of pickups are in your Strat? I might dick around with this song tonight, I learned it a couple years ago and got excited to do a cover of it, but then life happened.

Sheptone AB Single Coils. I think. I bought them off some dude on TGP years ago. They may be a little
too vintagey for Ritchie tones. Also, Rosewood board.

Pretty sure the Blackmore Strat is MIM so $1200 used seems a little steep.

I spent more time tweaking the Fractal and trying to dial something in. Ritchie has some
shrill Buddy Guy Strat thing going on, but it is also super full and fat. The Marshalls are
working but I am still not nailing it. Volume may be an issue!! I can't push 120dB here.

 

[la szum]

Seriously. A distorted Strat tone and dead-on feel (good luck with that) and no one will notice.

I agree. I've never done anything like this, and am having a hoot (besides staying up way too late) messing about.

My harmonic minor chops are getting better.

 

[la szum]

Certainly quite Blackmore-ish using my YJM strat and Jcm800 with Gower Jose mod. I pull out the master halfway in, it's the more saturated option. :)

Cool! I was messing about with Mistreated a bit last night. He made 10 different singers sing that fucking song!!!

And Live it was like 10 to 13 minutes long. Rein it in a bit Ritchie. That's a long time to stay in F# minor.

 

[ptb1]

Trying to find the "right" Blackmore tone you´ll first need to define which of them.
The tones from the studio recordings or from the different live periodes/epokes.

During the years I have tried to find out as much facts as possible when it comes to different Strats he used as his master Strats, and the different set-up´s for each of them during the years.

On most of the studio recordings - from 1972 to the 90s, he either used his ´72 Strat with Black body and maple neck or a ´72 with natural body. These ones was "never" used live, as for the different Strats he used live, was seldom used in the studio. The "studio" guitars seems to have been kept more or less original during all these years.

As mentioned earlier here a lot of his "tone" comes from his fingers and playing style/skills - and that´s the worst part trying to "copy".
When it comes to the gear, you can get pretty close, but - again, you need to decide which.

Until ´77 he´s Strat´s was more or less original, except from scalloped necks (from ´72).
He´s ´74 Sunburst w/rosewood neck was the first guitar that he and Dawk started to really "experient" with in ´77.
The reason was not about the sound or tone, but they tried to reduce the hum picked up by the huge enlightened rainbow that was used on stage.

So, the ´74 can be seen w/flat pole neck pick up and staggered mid and bridge. These staggered pick up´s was re-wound (hotter) in combination with a treble bleed and a change of the volume pot. A bit later the mid pick up was removed - as the first, to be followed for the rest of the Strats in his use.
As Fender introduced the flat poles in 1974 it´s not easy to tell if his first OLW (a ´74 that he bought and started to use in ´76) was equipped with staggered pick up´s from the factory, or not. But, during the first years of use, it had staggered poles in all 3 positions.

Then, from ´78/´79 when he turned to use the different OLW´s, a lot of different set up´s was tested and used. More on that later.

 

[DrewJD82]

Trying to find the "right" Blackmore tone you´ll first need to define which of them.
The tones from the studio recordings or from the different live periodes/epokes.

During the years I have tried to find out as much facts as possible when it comes to different Strats he used as his master Strats, and the different set-up´s for each of them during the years.

On most of the studio recordings - from 1972 to the 90s, he either used his ´72 Strat with Black body and maple neck or a ´72 with natural body. These ones was "never" used live, as for the different Strats he used live, was seldom used in the studio. The "studio" guitars seems to have been kept more or less original during all these years.

As mentioned earlier here a lot of his "tone" comes from his fingers and playing style/skills - and that´s the worst part trying to "copy".
When it comes to the gear, you can get pretty close, but - again, you need to decide which.

Until ´77 he´s Strat´s was more or less original, except from scalloped necks (from ´72).
He´s ´74 Sunburst w/rosewood neck was the first guitar that he and Dawk started to really "experient" with in ´77.
The reason was not about the sound or tone, but they tried to reduce the hum picked up by the huge enlightened rainbow that was used on stage.

So, the ´74 can be seen w/flat pole neck pick up and staggered mid and bridge. These staggered pick up´s was re-wound (hotter) in combination with a treble bleed and a change of the volume pot. A bit later the mid pick up was removed - as the first, to be followed for the rest of the Strats in his use.
As Fender introduced the flat poles in 1974 it´s not easy to tell if his first OLW (a ´74 that he bought and started to use in ´76) was equipped with staggered pick up´s from the factory, or not. But, during the first years of use, it had staggered poles in all 3 positions.

Then, from ´78/´79 when he turned to use the different OLW´s, a lot of different set up´s was tested and used. More on that later.

I’m not even a huge Blackmore fan but I LOVE reading stuff like this. These days we have so many options to get around issues or they aren’t even issues at this point in time so we don’t go through the same experimentation these guys did back in the day. I can eat this sh*t up all day! Thanks!

 

[ptb1]

^ Well, I guess I can be characterized as a RB "nerd" . The first LP i bought from my own money, back in ´77, was Ritchie Blackmore´s Rainbow, that had been released two years earlier. I already had Who do we think we are (gift) and I loved it. Soon after that I had collected enough money to by Made In Japan.

Now have all the official released LP´s and CD´s of DP and Rainbow (+ some not official recordings). BN I only have Nature´s Light on vinyl (the others on CD), but March can´t come soon enough, when Shadow of the moon will be released on vinyl.
Of course I also have several DVD´s.

During the later years I have tried to dig a bit deeper into the subject.
I have- and have read several books (14 different ones) about RB, Rainbow and DP - and of course also read a lot of different published articles and watched most (I guess) of the different intervjues available on YT, but I have not been very active discussing on different web.forums.
Though I have read a lot of topics and comments on different forums, and I see that a lot of what´s written, expecially when it comes to RB, is wrong, or not fully correct. The same with different web-sites listing he’s gear.
Not that I know everything - not at all (learning new things "each" day), but I try to gather as much fact´s as possible.

Some years ago I bought the MiM RB Signature Strat. Nice guitar with a nice scalloped neck, but I found out that I wanted to take it a bit further, as the Signaure model deviates a bit from any guitar RB has ever played. So, instead I bought a 70s Classic and started to modify that one towards a copy of RB´s ´74 OLW, that he used as his Master Strat from the end of the 70s, into the 80s (pictured in my avatar). It turned out to be a better guitar than the Signature, so I sold that one.

 

[ptb1]

A bit beside the topic - tone, but...
Just a few words about the deviations between the RB Signature Strat and the guitar I guess is the model it was ment to be similar to.
The RB Signature was first released by Fender Japan, listed as ST72-145RB, in 1997. Later on the production was moved to Ensenada, were it still is in production, under the Artist Series.
The deviations was/is:
The tuners (well the first ones from Japan had Schaller locking tuners) is vintage tuners. Blackmore used Sperzel and Schaller locking tuners.
The trem block is a vintage model, not a 70s 1 piece
The trem arm. Blackmore used different "custom" trem arms
The saddles are vintage saddles, not 70s block saddles
The nut is black - should be white
The pick up´s - can be discussed, as Blackmore (Dawk) at a time switched from Schecter F500T´s to SD SSL-4T
The pick guard. Blackmore used a mint ´62 pick guard

 

[Piing]

^ Well, I guess I can be characterized as a RB "nerd" . The first LP i bought from my own money, back in ´77, was Ritchie Blackmore´s Rainbow, that had been released two years earlier. I already had Who do we think we are (gift) and I loved it. Soon after that I had collected enough money to by Made In Japan.

Now have all the official released LP´s and CD´s of DP and Rainbow (+ some not official recordings). BN I only have Nature´s Light on vinyl (the others on CD), but March can´t come soon enough, when Shadow of the moon will be released on vinyl.
Of course I also have several DVD´s.

During the later years I have tried to dig a bit deeper into the subject.
I have- and have read several books (14 different ones) about RB, Rainbow and DP - and of course also read a lot of different published articles and watched most (I guess) of the different intervjues available on YT, but I have not been very active discussing on different web.forums.
Though I have read a lot of topics and comments on different forums, and I see that a lot of what´s written, expecially when it comes to RB, is wrong, or not fully correct. The same with different web-sites listing he’s gear.
Not that I know everything - not at all (learning new things "each" day), but I try to gather as much fact´s as possible.

Some years ago I bought the MiM RB Signature Strat. Nice guitar with a nice scalloped neck, but I found out that I wanted to take it a bit further, as the Signaure model deviates a bit from any guitar RB has ever played. So, instead I bought a 70s Classic and started to modify that one towards a copy of RB´s ´74 OLW, that he used as his Master Strat from the end of the 70s, into the 80s (pictured in my avatar). It turned out to be a better guitar than the Signature, so I sold that one.

What changes did you do to the Classic 70's?

 

[ptb1]

What changes did you do to the Classic 70's?

The first was the non reversible scalloping of the neck (graded Blackmore style).
Then to drill out and fit the flush mount Dunlop strap locks.
I tried to find a pair of original Schecter F500T pick up´s (instead of just mount the SD SSL-4´s), but that turned out not to be easy, as they were notorious to corrode. Then I found out that a German guy (H. Haussel) produce the most accurate copies of the F500-T´s, so I purchased a pair from him. I added a empty pick up cover in the middle position, and switced to black knobs.
I switched the pick guard to a mint ´62, wired up a 3-way switch. I changed the tuners to Sperzel locking tuners.
I made (diy) a overdim trem arm - longer and thicker than an original. I switched the vintage bent steel saddles to the 70s block saddles.
I bought- and use the Piccato RB77 strings.
I also added the strap button on the neck.

The last- and most difficult part was the leather strap. The strap that RB still use (by a specific reason) was produced by Reunion Blues. A company that hand made genuine straps for bass guitars. They went out of business (was sold) many years ago. So, to buy a new one was not possible. The new owners (who I contacted) neither kept any templates. So I studied a lot of pictures, ending up with my own template, as close to the original as possible. Then I contacted a local leather maker who made one for me.

What´s "missing"?
Well, the guitar is still- and will always be a MiM, and not a US ´74.
I have not reliced the body in any way. The low dot on the 12th band is still in place.
I have not a 70s trem block on it - yet, and I do not have the MTC. If a MTC shows up at a reasonable price I´ll consider to buy one - or I might choose to try out the Spice Box from BSM, who claims that is an accurate copy. I have tested back and forth with different dummy coils and loads, but still not landed a fixed solution for that.