04.12.15
A vintage Hiwatt rig
Here are some more pics from my restored Hiwatt DR504, taken at a session on Saturday.
It furnishes a loud, precise and high fidelity sound. My friend whimsically says it does a “clean distortion.”
In stark contrast with the latest e-mail adverts for guitar gear landing in my in inbox — 100 classic guitar amps digitally mimicked in hybrid computer power amps, slaved to a control panel on your iPhone and connected through Bluetooth — it’s simple, direct and old school.
One might say it restricts your choices in a good way.
Play or go home. Don’t twiddle. Everything is there: warm cleans, big jangle, chopping rock n roll rhythm, roaring rave-up into feedback. All of it at the twist of a volume knob on a one-pickup guitar.
Here’s the front end.
At then center, a Nick Greer Black Fuzz. There’s only one way to set it. It’s volume knob, on the left, on full. And the pedal is, generally, left on.
By rolling the volume knob back on the guitar, the fuzz/distortion cleans up into the front end of the Hiwatt. It allows you to transition from a clean warm sound with a little grit, to a chiming rhythm and then to hard rock fury.
To the right is an Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 booster. When the fuzz is off it’s used to kick up the gain into a mild distortion on the Hiwatt.
And on the left is a cheap Danelectro Fish and Chips EQ that pushes up the signal at 800Hz while pulling everything above that down. It’s used to focus the Greer fuzz and add a bit more oomph for thickening as well as lead runs. It works great kicked for arpeggios and some rhythm lines. And by attenuating the highs when on it opens a bigger sonic space for vocals and the high end of the drum kit.
Stomping the LPB on when both fuzz and the EQ are already active pushes the Hiwatt into controllable feedback.
It’s a fairly simply setup and how many Hiwatts were used, with some variations, during the late Sixties and Seventies.
Pete Townshend, the most famous Hiwatt user, employed a set-all-the-way-on fuzz tones (a Univox Superfuzz) for many years. In 1979 he switched to an MXR compressor.
His philosophy was to match his guitar to the amplifier, adding that a Hiwatt made even a relatively simple guitar sound great. It helped to be able to play like him, too, one supposes.
Many years ago I wrote briefly about my Greer Black Fuzz here. This was at the beginning of the American-made artisan guitar pedal boom. Today, everyone makes a fuzz. The market is plagued by glut.
Eight years later, I’m still using it. Nick Greer and his designs are still in business. On his homepage he maintains his work carries a lifetime guarantee. I believe it!
Over the years the look of his pedals has changed quite a bit. The hand-painted lettering, while still practiced, has taken a bit of a back seat to a more uptown and modern approach in graphic design.
Regardless, his Black Fuzz is a great circuit. While I do not avoid digital processing for the guitar, there’s no way hundreds of choices, computing power, emulation or smartphone interfaces can do better in this matter.
With Greer’s Black Fuzz, you turn it all the way up. It’s a silicon transistor fuzz that hews more to the distortion side than brittle buzz but the distinction is moot if you play in the style of late-Sixties or early Seventies hard rock. The volume control on the guitar controls the amount of hair the fuzz gives you. Rolling it down cleans up the circuit while retaining brightness and a pleasant slight compression.
I also have Greer’s Razor Burn Fuzz, now about five years old and of similar hand-painted anti-style. It’s a higher gain unit described as a bit of a cross between an old Fuzz Face and a Tone Bender Fuzz. It runs as a hybrid circuit of two transistors, silicon and germanium.
It has more gain than the Black Fuzz. One might say it’s more greased while delivering a greater degree of the old school hairiness. But in the context of my rig it plays virtually the same role.
On Saturday, I started the session with it and pulled it out for the Black Fuzz because it was noisier in the warm weather here, edging into pulling in a radio station. In truth, sometimes that has its uses and I like it.
And here is the story of the Hiwatt DR504.