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

His guitar slung across his back, his dusty boots is his cadillac.

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daveweyer
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Re: Jimi Hendrix' Gear and Mods at West Coast Organ and Amp

Post by daveweyer » Mon Jun 07, 2021 9:38 pm

Franco,
I hope you mean total idle current and not 65 ma per tube! If the latter, each tube is dissipating 32 watts at idle, leaving nothing left for high output, otherwise operating pure class A with a maximum power output of 30 watts per output tube pair.

Just sayin.......

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

Post by daveweyer » Mon Jun 07, 2021 9:41 pm

Flo,
They will probably work okay. Not enough beta for the West Coast Fuzz, but some fuzzes.

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

Post by FloPoeKo » Tue Jun 08, 2021 4:09 am

daveweyer wrote:
Mon Jun 07, 2021 9:41 pm
Flo,
They will probably work okay. Not enough beta for the West Coast Fuzz, but some fuzzes.
Hi Dave, thanks for taking the time to write. Maybe you have some more information from experience. What bugged me recently:
A) It seems the NKT275 were the standard transistor in the Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Faces, whereas the AC128 seems to be the one first appearing in the 90´s reissues.
Now, the NKT275 is supposed to be in the 30-90 Range for beta, the AC128 from experience more in the 80-150 Range. I tested a fuzz-face with 80 (Q1, trimmed to 0.54-0.60V) and 90 (Q2 trimmed to 4,5 - 5V ), and it sounded quite right.
Any thoughts on how to do this better?

B) Also: How were the NKT275 or whatever stock transistors they used back then in terms of leakeage? I have an assortment of pulled Mullard OCxx and they´re really quite low (around 90µA). So I became a bit suspicious of my TFK´s with 200µA...

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

Post by daveweyer » Tue Jun 08, 2021 1:50 pm

It seemed that whenever we replaced the transistors in the original Arbiter units, everything improved, leading me to suspect that they were really the cheapest "bottom of the barrel" transistors Arbiter could find on the market at the time.

My solution for finding good PNP low power signal transistors came from Allen Organ Company. Since it was typical to find over a thousand of those PNP transistors in one of their organs, I knew they had done their homework on getting solid and repeatable results from their transistor suppliers. Allen was probably the biggest single user of those devices, having purchased millions of them for their products. In the early days it was the 2N591, but that later changed to the OC series and included the Matushita product offering of the same type as well.

The OC models ran generally lower in current gain but with good leakage characteristics, and they are a lot easier to find than the 2N591. I have seen "white dot" 2N591 transistors with gains of 180 and very low leakage, Allen used them for low level preamp stages in their solid state amplifiers where low noise was critical.

Opinions vary, but let's say there is a loose agreement that in a fuzz unit Q2 is best at over 100hfe (120-150) and that Q1 should be at least 90 (possibly better at 100 -110 or thereabouts).

Low leakage is a plus in either situation. So it looks like you are on the right track.

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

Post by Xplorer » Thu Jun 10, 2021 12:21 pm

Hello everyone ! :)

Here's my version of the west coast fuzz, thanks a ton to Dave for his help, this fantastic fuzz design, everything ... !!!!
MERCI !!!!

It's the best fuzz i ever had, and it's almost not even a fuzz, rather a magnificent boost. Glassy and organic at the same time, it's truely made for the west coast amp. Here i use mainly ( or only ? i don't remember ) the normal stage of the fuzz. For the wild stage, i'll present some other clips later, but i'm running out of time, i could re do burning desire because this one is a pity.

This fuzz has so much power that even with the vol at 1 on the amp, it almost killed my SPL Transducer made for 100 watts only , it got sooo hot, and the resistors were making crack noises.

Thanksfully Bill helped me figuring out some impedance solutions to divide the power : two outputs into two attenuator ( spl + homemade, both in 8 ohmand the amp in 4 ohms when for years i had the amp set to 8 ! ) .

Clips, who knows and burning desire. i'll delete this folder later :

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

pictures and a new layout i designed as i sadly broke tek's board, so i re did it the old school way :

https://imgur.com/a/V4fDSoK
Last edited by Xplorer on Thu Jun 10, 2021 6:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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

Post by bill bokey » Thu Jun 10, 2021 12:57 pm

I have not yet found the time to build a 3 transistor fuzz but I am currently working on a West Coast Replica

Here are some photos :
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?van ... 4893796034

It's changed a bit since I took these photos. The power supply is now 600V on the plates and 300V on the screens, through the choke.


And here's how it sounds with a West Coast modded Fuzz Face and a vintage wah :


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

Post by daveweyer » Sat Jun 12, 2021 7:22 pm

Wow!!
The forum comes alive again, and it's wonderful! Bill even figures out a way to post an embedded video!

This is just great. I encourage anyone and everyone to chime in on these incredible projects. As for me, I'm lovin it!

Thanks so much guys, for sharing these labors of love. I'm listening again and again, hoping to offer some choice comments.

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

Post by FloPoeKo » Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:20 am

Guys, could this be real or is this offering a fake?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265143925091?h ... UK7KZ2pSUY

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

Post by daveweyer » Thu Jun 17, 2021 1:04 am

This appears to be the same fake that was just offered on Reverb.com and that has been floating around for a few years now. It is being presented in the same way, but this time the serial number is not being disclosed, that number missing the A in SL-A. Also no West Coast sticker on the back.
Tazin has the whole story.

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

Post by Xplorer » Thu Jun 17, 2021 10:43 am

Since the last time, when i wrote to him on reverb, he added more photos, got a brand new back pannel made, stealing the serial number he found in a book, and he's probably still an ass to talk to,thinking he can fool peoples ....
Marshall authentification only authentificated it ... as a Marshall .... But not a Hendrix amp ... What would marshall guys know about it anyway ... only Dave would know, and maybe a few other peoples.
maybe a rich guy will buy it, but ... his loss.

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

Post by 37024388 » Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:59 pm

daveweyer wrote:
Sat Jun 12, 2021 7:22 pm
Wow!!
The forum comes alive again, and it's wonderful! Bill even figures out a way to post an embedded video!

This is just great. I encourage anyone and everyone to chime in on these incredible projects. As for me, I'm lovin it!

Thanks so much guys, for sharing these labors of love. I'm listening again and again, hoping to offer some choice comments.
HI Dave!!
my name is Esteban Puma from Argentina!

I've been following this thread for a long time
I want to know if any user could be so kind to upload a simple layout of the fuzz face with the west coast mods for a beginer

THANKS YOUR FOR ALL!!!! REALLY, THANKS!!

PEACE AND LOVE♥

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

Post by daveweyer » Fri Jun 18, 2021 10:04 pm

You know, if you really wanted to compare sounds very closely, of Jimi and his tones at certain stages of his career, to current construction attempts at recreation of those sounds, you could hardly do netter than listen to the clips posted here by Bill and Xplorer. They don't try to be Jimi, but just aim for playing styles to get a feel for the similarity of the sounds.
What they have done is amazing, if you listen real closely you can hear certain performances and characteristics that should make any historian excited--it is really quite forensic.
Jimi's 45/100 amps got the 600 volt plate and 300 volt screen treatment, and they had a special masculine sort of sound quality--and they didn't blow up any more. 6550s will output 100 watts per pair with these voltages.

But every time I have looked on this forum to see the comments about these two new posts, what I see is the tracker info at the bottom telling me "on-line, daveweyer and 0 guests".

It seems we may have abandoned this forum for too long. It feels like "the left behind" .

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

Post by FloPoeKo » Sat Jun 19, 2021 3:08 am

daveweyer wrote:
Fri Jun 18, 2021 10:04 pm
It seems we may have abandoned this forum for too long. It feels like "the left behind" .
Time to muster a search-party I´d say...

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

Post by Joshabr1 » Sat Jun 19, 2021 6:29 pm

Great to see this thread still rollin along however many years later. I remember years ago waiting on Dave’s next reply with baited breath. Coool.

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

Post by daveweyer » Sun Jun 20, 2021 10:51 pm

Maybe I gave too many secrets away! If nothing else, it has sure given me great pleasure and satisfaction to watch the builders and players on this site try the tips and circuits out for themselves, and get pretty damn close to the tones Jimi was making with the actual West Coast gear during the later Experience days and the BOG period.

We all know every performance was different, and gear changed almost daily during some tours, especially speakers, but there are enough consistencies to get a general idea--that's all the closer we are going to get I am afraid.

Now I have to abandon this old forum again to go to the mountains for a few weeks--I hope it hasn't rolled over and died by the time I return!

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