My experimental data on how different vibratos change the sound

parker_knoll

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well, it's all so subjective. When producing a recorder, we might say our aim is complete neutrality - we're recording after all, documenting, not seeking to produce a pleasurable listening experience or anything else. Leave that to the amp and speaker makers. With guitars, it's a whole 'nother kettle of fish!

And then added to that we lose our top end hearing as time goes on. When I worked in a major London concert hall we had an old sound guy who'd been on the heavy rock circuit for years. We would get audience complaints about shrill sound at his gigs as he pumped those highs up on the mixer to compensate for his damaged eardrums :)
 

parker_knoll

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THAT was a major part of Mr Köykkä's studies way back then - modern - those days - transistor amps used massive long feedback chains to make amp flat within +/- 0,1 dB from DC to daylight - nothing else was importatnt - then it dawned that inspite of perfect trace them amps sounded quite different.

So - there were many other things to measure.

My ex-boss Mr Willi Studer was building worlds finest reel-to-reel tape recorders - they measured everything - but they also listened - and have other people listen and evaluate products before releasing them.
what did you do for Willi Studer? I had a Studer mixer for a while. bought very cheap ex-broadcast, sold at a big markup when I needed the cash.
 

Nuuska

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I was there as "Praktikant" @ 1973 & -4 while studying to become electric engineer - which I never did - I was mostly working on servicing A-80 tape recorder pc-cards - A-80 was very modular - one could exchange cards within 10 seconds and send faulty ones back - I was repairing returned cards. They came always like 50-100 of the same gathered in one bunch.

The Studer-bug is at least as sticky as Guild-bug - I have a 980 mixing console in my living room - 169 - 961 & 962 consoles in my warehouse. Some B-67 machines - ReVox home stereo + ReVox all-time first T-26 tape-recorders ( 6 of them ) plus . . . . .

Realizing I'm no more that young - I really should get rid of most of them - maybe keep the 8-track C-278 w 962 for a small analogue home-studio . . .
 
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parker_knoll

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Now slightly regretting not trying a few other trems before I went whole hog with the Mastery, namely:

cheap ass vintage style vibrola - £19!

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Duesenberg Les Trem II - £75

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Maestro Vibrola - £55

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Both might work well for the M70 but now I've lost my test platform. At the same time I can say that the Mastery works really well now I have it adjusted properly.
 

Rocky

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Spent years with a Vibrola on SG Jr. It's really not that great a tailpiece.

Agreed. It's pretty stable as long as you remove the arm. With the arm on, it goes out of tune easily, even if you don't touch the arm. I think simply moving the guitar around while playing it combined with the mass of the arm destabilizes it.
 

Guildedagain

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I had one on several SG's over the years without ever wanting one. Gibson just didn't do stop tailpieces in the 60's, very rare.
 
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