Jimi Hendrix' Gear and Mods at West Coast Organ and Amp

[daveweyer]

He always used SOME bass volume it appeared. I never noticed the bass volume on zero when the equipment would show up at West Coast Organ and Amp. Around 4 was typical, meaning a slight bass cut from the signal coming in.

[VintageCharlie]

I've been a long time away from the forum and found this thread and am catching up.
A highly interesting thread, thank you very much for your time Dave!

I'm looking forward to trying out the advice given here. I'm particularly interested in the Fuzz and incidentally Dunlop has just released the JHF3 BOG fuzz, which is made in the moniker of the famous Hendrix red fuzz unit with the white knobs.

Maybe i have missed some posts (excuse me, if it is the case, i have not made it through all the pages of the thread yet), but, Dave, do you have specific info on this particular Fuzz unit? Is there a chance you worked on it?

Does anyone have more info on the JHF3? they state it's the fuzz section of the Octavia, which is something i have red here on the forum a long time ago as a liable option of what circuit it might have been that Jimi had in the white knob red fuzz.

Looking very much forward to what this thread is about to reveal in the future.

Best regards,

VintageCharlie

[Xplorer]

Hi Karlis, long time long see

Dave talked about the fuzz quite a lot in the fuzz section , "fuzz experience" , and i've build one but i didn't play with it since something like a month ! it's the three transistors fuzz, allways on / high gain fuzz.
i promised i'd do some clips about it. i may need to debug something on it but i'm clueless.

Thorleif had a very cool olympic fuzz , sounding very Hendrix BBC session, fantastic one, based on the helios console ( the one giving the octavia, later, in the myth.
he did a thread about it, still in the Hendrix section.

what do you mean about the Dunlop bog fuzz ? it's really made after a Hendrix fuzz or is it just an attempt to get close to it ?

[VintageCharlie]

I have not dived deeply into the sales and marketing mumble of it, but what i could deduce from it is that they basically made a halfway educated guess and went with it. i would not be surprized, if they took the idea from this or other forums where the idea of the helios console, octavia, fuzz without octave up section was floating around for quite some while and which some guys had confirmed as sounding closest to BOG they've tried yet.
Thanks, will look into the other threads.

[Tek465b]

So your saying the West Coast 3 transistor mod fuzz is probably the one that was used at woodstock and bog? interesting
I guess i really need to give myself a kick in the butt source the component, make the board and build it.

[shakti]

Hi Karlis,

very nice to see you around! I thought you had left the forum for good. You have some catching up to do!

The thread about the Castledine Olympic Fuzz is here:
http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=44004

Since then, I have learned from Stu himself that there may actually have been two different Helios preamps; one a two transistor circut, and the other a three transistor circuit that mine is based on. However, the three transistor circuit may have been a hybrid Si/Ge circuit. This may be old news to some of you, as the discussion about the Helios console and its derivative pedal circuits has been going on for some time and I have never delved deep into it.

In any case, the new Dunlop is, according to the PR, based on the Octavio circuit, but without the octave up. That circuit itself is, as we all know, largely based on a Helios circuit. However, the new Dunlop is a three transistor circuit, whereas the Roger Mayer Axis Fuzz that is commercially available is a two transistor Si circuit...

So there are still lots of unanswered questions. FWIW; the videos of the new Dunlop sound nothing like BOG to my ears, and the RM Axis I had sounded terrible. The three transistor all Germanium Castledine Olympic sounds fantastic, but may actually be an entirely new creation.

As for the *actual* BOG fuzz, that is stil a great big can of worms. Catch up on the latest threads that Dave Weyer have contributed to, and join the discussion!

[daveweyer]

If anybody has dived onto the West Coast three transistor fuzz and can't get it running right, just send it to me and I'll set it up so it will do what it's supposed to. The old one here is really working great.

There were other fuzz units used on the BOG stuff than what is generally known. I have been told that there are still some who would like to keep their secrets from those days, and one of the reasons is that pedal manufacturers are still looking to capitalize on those old designs when they see them floated on the forums and such.
If this is the case, then exact designs which may have been used on certain gigs will probably remain elusive.

If there is time, we may be able to reconstruct designs which I came across at West Coast. There are some unfamiliar designs which showed up for repair of which I remember the topology, at least to the general level.

Anyway, what happened to Bill Bokey? Is he well?

[Tone seaker]

Seems like there would be a huge market to license those fuzzs making money for all involved.

Question: if you run the output all the way up on a fuzz or tube screamer does it push the output tubes harder or preamp tubes or both. Thks

[daveweyer]

Most generally it just pushes the input tubes harder. Most amps will take the output tubes to full clipping on their own.

[Tone seaker]

Most generally it just pushes the input tubes harder. Most amps will take the output tubes to full clipping on their own.

If i run my amp on 7 or 8 and push the output of a tube screamer all the way up does it run my output tubes harder wearing them out sooner?

[daveweyer]

Not really, it just saturates the input stages more. The tests I've done show that no matter how hard you drive the input stages you get no more cathode current in the output tubes (well maybe just a tiny bit), and so the output tubes really don't burn any hotter.

[daveweyer]

Tazin that was quite a find on the Hendrix effects. I listened to a bunch of his (fuzzfaceexp) offerings, but would be real curious to hear what the other forum members think about how authentic the sounds actually are.
It seems to me some of the members here have it dialed in a little closer. Am I right?

[daveweyer]

Maybe, if we could get Kim K to say something dumb about Marshall amps, we too could get a million hits on the forum.

[Xplorer]

ha ha ha ha it took me a while to Wonder ... who's this guitar player ??? lool

[bill bokey]

Anyway, what happened to Bill Bokey? Is he well?

I'm fine ! I'm just extremely busy working on old amps, bringing them back to life (and selling them) and at the same time working on my own designs...
I have not had the time to come here for quite some time, I had to browse through my mps so I thought I'd say hello !
It seems I'll have a lot of catching up to do !

I sold the '73 Super Lead I modded to West Coast specs but I have a 1959 RI I intend to upgrade with Marstran trannies and fit with a proper turret board, then I'll experiment some more with the 6550s

See you soon !