NGD Harmony H-62

[Minnesota Flats]

A lot of that is the amp...

That H51 in the video above is running through a tweed Princeton. 5E3 tweed Deluxe or tweed Bassman are other good matches. The 5E3 would pretty much be my "desert island" guitar amp (if there was a generator on the island. of course).

P13s and P90s through tweed are matches made in Heaven. You can really go nasty, junkyard dog with the tone. Once you master the interactive controls on the Deluxe, more possibilities than the simple control layout would suggest are available.

 

[Minnesota Flats]

About 5E3 interactive controls:

(careful with this first one, especially if you're listening on headphones: the guy didn't match the volume of the narrative at all well with the volume of the playing)

 

[Minnesota Flats]

More Gibson P13/P90 trivia.

The way I heard the story, Gibson sold all their existing inventory of P13s to companies like Harmony when the P13 was superseded by the P90 in their own guitars.

Fast forward: suddenly, everybody who wants a Les Paul wants one loaded with Humbuckers. Trouble is, Gibson has a big stack of Les Pauls already routed for soapbar P90s, whose popularity has just fallen off a cliff. What to do?

Well, they also had a bunch of "mini" Humbuckers which they had gotten via their acquisition of the Epiphone brand. Don't want to just toss all those P90-routed Les Pauls, so let's cut rectangular, "mini"-sized openings in our soapbar covers and use them as pup surrounds! Voila: the Les Paul Deluxe is born!

Necessity does, indeed, appear to sometimes be the mother of invention.

 

[Minnesota Flats]

More cool tweed amp stuff (hope I'm not dragging this thread too far afield but, at least in my mind, these guitars and amps are all connected):

 

[shihan]

Flats, there’s no such thing as too much discussion about vintage tweed and older guitars. Zack does a great job with those amps.
Here’s my ‘69 LP Deluxe. It came with the mini HB’s, but I changed it to P-90’s about 30 years ago, ‘cause, Freddy King.
Although it’s apples to potatoes, solid body to archtop, I’ll see if I can record a direct comparison between P-90’s and P-13’s.

 

[Westerly Wood]

Flats, there’s no such thing as too much discussion about vintage tweed and older guitars. Zack does a great job with those amps.
Here’s my ‘69 LP Deluxe. It came with the mini HB’s, but I changed it to P-90’s about 30 years ago, ‘cause, Freddy King.
Although it’s apples to potatoes, solid body to archtop, I’ll see if I can record a direct comparison between P-90’s and P-13’s.

My friend had/has one of these, I think it was his father in laws, don't recall. I got to play it once thru a marshall head with big amp. I have never heard anything better in my life except when I got to play another friend's Martin D-45. These are the pinnacle mountain tops of sound for me in my life, musically.

 

[GGJaguar]

Les Paul + Marshall stack is the sound that launched a thousand careers. It's not really "my" sound, but I will admit that it is loads of fun to play even if for just a few minutes. It puts even a novice guitar player into rock god territory with a single power chord.

 

[Minnesota Flats]

Here’s my ‘69 LP Deluxe. It came with the mini HB’s, but I changed it to P-90’s about 30 years ago, ‘cause, Freddy King.
Although it’s apples to potatoes, solid body to archtop, I’ll see if I can record a direct comparison between P-90’s and P-13’s.

I did that with a 2006 Goldtop Deluxe re-pop. Harmonic Design Z-90s dropped right in: I didn't even have to drill any holes in the body because I attached little pieces of mahogany using the screw holes drilled at the factory for the minis and attached the Z-90s to those. The pup routes required no alteration whatsoever.


Chester & Lester

I think Gibson phased out the P-13s during the late 1940s, but I could be wrong. I've personally never encountered them anyplace other than in Harmonys.

 

[Minnesota Flats]

More tweedy goodness:



Right at the beginning, he's almost into the late James Wilsey's territory.

 

[shihan]

Flats, your GT looks like a pretty direct copy of the ‘69, with the exception of the knobs And truss rod cover. My truss rod cover has faded, but it says Les Paul Deluxe instead of just Deluxe.
As an aside, I got to play a ‘56 GT once; it was EXACTLY like mine. If It was a dark room, I wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart. I’d like to check out the reissues sometime; I wonder how similar they are.
Good tweed tone video. I can’t get enough of those...

 

[Norrissey]

More tweedy goodness:

Noice! Amp GAS coming on! : )

 

[Minnesota Flats]

Getting back to the OP's topic:

 

[LeFinPepere]

Getting back to the OP's topic:

Yeah!!That's smoooooth!Love your playing and that sweet tone!!!! Your guitar looks mint, tell us about her , please!

 

[Minnesota Flats]

Not me, just found it on YouTube.

The lack of truss rod cover makes me think early-mid 1950s, either a Harmony Españada or Silvertone S-1384. The tailpiece looks Harmony: the Silvertones usually used a simpler, more standard-looking trapeze (like a Gibson ES-330 or 335).

​

 

[Minnesota Flats]

Sorry, can't seem t'help myself:

 

[SFIV1967]

...tell us about her , please!

The lack of truss rod cover makes me think early-mid 1950s, either a Harmony Españada or Silvertone S-1384.

Vince Lee answers that under the video: "1955 Espanada. This is the rarer version with the aluminium binding on the body."

Ralf

 

[Minnesota Flats]

Vince Lee answers that under the video: "1955 Espanada. This is the rarer version with the aluminium binding on the body."

Ralf

Guess I oughta always read the text below the videos I post, eh?

 

[Rocky]

Well, they also had a bunch of "mini" Humbuckers which they had gotten via their acquisition of the Epiphone brand. Don't want to just toss all those P90-routed Les Pauls, so let's cut rectangular, "mini"-sized openings in our soapbar covers and use them as pup surrounds! Voila: the Les Paul Deluxe is born!

Sorta true. I'm pretty sure that when Gibson owned Epiphone, they used some Gibson-designed mini-humbuckers on some models. However, the pickups left over from when Epiphone was an independent company were all single coils, even the ones that superficially look like mini-humbuckers. Like this one, for instance.

 

[Minnesota Flats]

I bet you're right. I had a friend that had a 1950s Epi archtop (I think it was a Zephyr Regent) that had a "New York" pup in it like the one you've posted above. Never having owned a guitar with New Yorks in it myself, I didn't realize that they were single coils.

Since they acquired Epiphone in 1957, Gibson likely used up any of those that were left over in solid-body Coronets(?) like yours, above, and then switched to mini humbuckers and P90s in the Wilshires, Cotonets and Crestwoods when the supply of New Yorks had been exhausted.

The oldest Epis I've owned was a mid-sixties Riviera and a early-mid '60s Crestwood, both of which were loaded with two of the same type minis that were used in the the LP Deluxes, but they were mounted differently, like so, in both those guitars:

 

[shihan]

The mini HB’s are pretty great pickups. Plenty of brightness and no mud. I’ve been planning to put the ones from my LP in a Jazzmaster for decades. I may do it yet....