Get that Charlie Christian sound

[Hep To The Jive]

My ears disagree, man:

Jeez, why everything is so dark? The tone knob down, is that it? In a blind test I would never guess it's a single coil guitar haha! CC tone was livelier than that, no?

[Phil59]

Jeez, why everything is so dark? The tone knob down, is that it? In a blind test I would never guess it's a single coil guitar haha! CC tone was livelier than that, no?

Well, to my ear, it sounded great, pretty close to an ideal jazz tone. However, in relation to my original post about getting the CC sound, I would want something with more mid range and a little distortion. After all, Charlie Christian's sound was not the so-called classic jazz tone, was it?

[Hep To The Jive]

After all, Charlie Christian's sound was not the so-called classic jazz tone, was it?

That's what I'm saying! CC tone wasn't "turn down tone knob and treble on the amp" classic jazz tone, it had an edge!

[mr. beaumont]

Thought they all sounded pretty great...well, the L5 was a bit muddy. The es-300 was perfect.

Ain't none of em sound a lick like Charlie, though.

[Cunamara]

I don't know where the "classic jazz guitar tone" comes from- it was not the sound of Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, George Barnes, Carl Kress, Dick McDonough, Barney Kessel, Jimmy Rainey, Tal Farlow, Joe Pass, Johnny Smith... are there other classic guitarists that are pre-eminent compared to them?

[BeBob]

Interesting vid. I liked all of the tones presented and I agree that they were some great/classic jazzy tones. But I also think that none of the guitar/pickup/amp combinations actually sounded like Charlie Christian. They sounded like a good clean single coil pickup, in a generic sense. The tone was obviously rolled back to the point that the attack on the strings was muted and the tone was dark, while the dynamic range was pretty well preserved. that's in contrast to what I think of as the CC tone, which keeps the tone control rolled up enough to have crisp attack on the strings. But IMO the CC tone goes beyond that. The genuine CC-type pickups have a tonal characteristic that none of the other CC-wannabe pickups have. to my ears there's a component of signal compression (rather than outright distortion) on the loudly picked notes. The compression comes partly from the amp (as Mr. B suggested previously) but IMO it also comes from the magnet characteristics of the genuine CC pickup design that the humbucker slot pickups just can't successfully emulate.

I think that video shows that any of those pickups can be used to create a great jazz tone, and they are to be commended for great jazz tone -- but that jazz tone doesn't necessarily sound like CC. I think it's particularly noteworthy that even with the right guitar and the right pickup, the player still can still manage to make a "proper" CC setup not sound anything like CC, presumably due to his playing style and his use of the amp... always clean, no compression. Part of the CC tone (to me at least) involves utilizing those big magnets to create a signal that's just soft enough to not make the amp compress the signal when you're playing soft, and just hard enough to make the compress when you're playing hard. In my mind CC played with sharp attack, right on the brink between dynamic and compressed tone. the guy in that video never went close to that compressed tone, he stayed dark, clean and dynamic all the time. To me he sounded like a dark Mr. Clean.

Here's an example of what I'm thinking about, your ears may or may not agree with any of this:

[ruger9]

I don't know where the "classic jazz guitar tone" comes from- it was not the sound of Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, George Barnes, Carl Kress, Dick McDonough, Barney Kessel, Jimmy Rainey, Tal Farlow, Joe Pass, Johnny Smith... are there other classic guitarists that are pre-eminent compared to them?

We had a long thread on that very subject awhile back... I think that was here, might have been over on Grestch Discussion Pages LOL.... as you get older, you can't remember crap LOL

[oldane]

Interesting vid. I liked all of the tones presented and I agree that they were some great/classic jazzy tones. But I also think that none of the guitar/pickup/amp combinations actually sounded like Charlie Christian. They sounded like a good clean single coil pickup, in a generic sense. The tone was obviously rolled back to the point that the attack on the strings was muted and the tone was dark, while the dynamic range was pretty well preserved. that's in contrast to what I think of as the CC tone, which keeps the tone control rolled up enough to have crisp attack on the strings. But IMO the CC tone goes beyond that. The genuine CC-type pickups have a tonal characteristic that none of the other CC-wannabe pickups have. to my ears there's a component of signal compression (rather than outright distortion) on the loudly picked notes. The compression comes partly from the amp (as Mr. B suggested previously) but IMO it also comes from the magnet characteristics of the genuine CC pickup design that the humbucker slot pickups just can't successfully emulate.

As one who actually owns a guitar with an original 1938 CC pickup as well as two guitars with Pete Biltofts HCC, I can comfirm that they don't sound quite the same. That said, I have a very hard time reproducing the CC tone AS WE HEAR IT ON THE OLD RECORDS. I hear nothing of the compression you mention when the old CC pickup is played through a modern amp with my normal settings.

The CC tone and the compression you mention is just as much - or more - a product of the amp and its speaker. As we hear it on the records from back them it's also a product of the recording technique back then which introduced a lot of compression and other distorsions. The playing technique plays a huge role too.

As others have said, flatwound strings were not invented at the time of CC. Back then some kind of nickel roundwound strings were used. After the mid 1950s we often hear the sound of flatwounds, which will also mean a difference in sound.

Here's an example of what I'm thinking about, your ears may or may not agree with any of this:

That particular recording is a live session from one of the now mythical pre bop jam sessions at Mintons Playhouse. It's recorded at a time when the tape recorder was just invented and not yet widely available as portable units, so laquer record cutting equipment or the more primitive wire tape was likely used. Wire tape technique was used by Dean Benedetti as late as the late 1940s when he made bootleg recordings of Charlie Parkers live performancies. In addition, one has also to take into account the room characteristics and the fact that the microphone could likely not be placed close enough to the amp to give a fully satisfactory sound recording. I think we all know how odd an electric guitar can sound if it is recorded in our living room with the mike some distance from the amp and no special consideration of placement in the room. So what we hear on this live record is nowhere close to what we would hear if we had been in Mintons Playhouse ourselves that night.

As said, I agree that the original CC pickup - everything else equal - sound different from the modern "wannabees" (which sound good in their own right), but I don't find the difference that dramatic - and everything else isn't equal after all. Whatever difference there is can to a large extent be levelled out by adequate adjustment of the EQ and maybe an added tone shaping pedal. I find the importance of the pickup to be somewhat overrated and I have a hard time seeing/hearing the almost sancrosant properties of the old CC pickup version. Given the disadvantages of the design of the original CC pickup - which I have described in a post higher up in this thread - and given that it is so hard (impossible?) anyway to get the sound you hear on the old records, I must confess that I prefer my guitars with modern HCC pickups. They are far more practical, are easier adjustable and have fewer quirks. I think there was a reason Gibson abandoned the CC design after only 4 years while the P90 lasted 16 years and the humbucker has lasted 62 years so far. My old L37 with its retrofitted 1938 CC pickup is mostly a museum piece for me. But then, I don't see the original recorded CC sound as an end in itself so I have seen no reason to go on a lengthy hunt for it.

Just my humble opinion, of course.

[ruger9]

As I think there was a reason Gibson abandoned the CC design after only 4 years while the P90 lasted 16 years and the humbucker have lasted 62 years so far.

Just my humble opinion, of course.

Agreed... but, the P90 is still around.

The fuel injector was invented to be superior to the carburetor, and by all rights it is.... but... if you want a '55 Mustang or a '63 Corvette... it's GOTTA have a carburetor.....

[sgosnell]

Recording equipment - microphones, recording media, all of it - is far different today than it was in 1940. The cheapest phone you can buy will give much higher recording quality than it was possible to get from state-of-the-art studio equipment back then. Charlie Christian's sound, whatever it may have been, isn't something we know or have really heard. There is so much compression and loss through the entire chain - pickup, amp, microphone, recording media, playback media, et al - that we can only guess as to what he really sounded like to human ears. Trying to recreate his sound is tilting at windmills, an impossible dream. We can get somewhat close to what we hear on recordings, but that isn't what he or anyone else actually sounded like. The old 78rpm records are higher in fidelity than Edison cylinders, but not by a huge difference.

[christianm77]

I have a friend, Harry Sankey, who plays a ‘60s L7 with a retrofitted cc pickup into an old Gibson amp (I forget which but Dave B might know) and Monel strings and it sounds legit to me.

[ruger9]

And don't forget the WAY they used their gear played a big roll as well.... crank the amp, all volume/gain is controlled from the guitar. Our own Jonathan Stout demonstrates:

[customxke]

Agreed... but, the P90 is still around.

The fuel injector was invented to be superior to the carburetor, and by all rights it is.... but... if you want a '55 Mustang or a '63 Corvette... it's GOTTA have a carburetor.....

I want a '55 Mustang. .....and Corvettes introduced fuel injection in '57.

[BeBob]

As one who actually owns a guitar with an original 1938 CC pickup as well as two guitars with Pete Biltofts HCC, I can comfirm that they don't sound quite the same. That said, I have a very hard time reproducing the CC tone AS WE HEAR IT ON THE OLD RECORDS. I hear nothing of the compression you mention when the old CC pickup is played through a modern amp with my normal settings.

I'd like to clarify that I don't lay any claim on having copped the CC tone. I'm just a guy who's been building amps for 40 years and has wound a few pickups, and understands some of the ways that the parts work together to make different sounds.

Thanks for confirming that the pickups do sound different, even if the difference appears subtle on your gear. I agree that there are several different components to "the formula" when it comes to getting close to the CC tone, and that recording methods play a large role. I chose that particular recording because I thought it was one of the most extreme examples of the compressed sound that I was referring to. Emulating the antiquated recording methods isn't something that we can easily control when we're playing live, but paying attention to those other factors that you've mentioned can help a lot.

Having the right pickup definitely gets you started, but it's not like any of us can just drop a CC-look pickup into a Telecaster and expect to sound like CC. The pickup sellers make a lot of money by selling that concept, but on their own the pickups don't solve the problem. They do sound good, and in the quest for CC tone I think they're a step in the right direction but they don't take us all the way there. The amp plays a huge role as well, and I don't think modern amps are going to help us. If anything, I think that modern amps are more likely to make the different CC-targeted pickups sound alike, where accentuating the differences between them is going to provide a better result. I think old design amps are going to be helpful to that end.

People have already talked about octal front ends, volume controls and cusp distortion, but it's more complicated than that. Sagging B+ voltages on large signals also act to decrease the magnetic field strength in field coil speakers and that adds a direct compressive effect to the tone. Clean compression tends to add 2nd harmonic distortion that imparts a warmth quality to the tone, rather than the edgy odd-order distortion that's commonly targeted in today's modern amps. Today's modern amps also use speakers with fixed magnets and fixed magnetic fields. They sound different. They're a totally different animal. I'm going to step farther out on the limb that I'm already standing out pretty far on, and say that a modern amp isn't going to be particularly helpful in getting that elusive CC tone, and that a modern amp is probably going to make the pups hard to distinguish from one another.

As you noted, there are other important considerations like roundwound / monel strings, picking technique. Many different factors go into getting that tone, and today's equipment preferences and the preference of many players for flats and the darker 50s tone make getting the CC tone all that much harder. In many respects I think that people who utilize the modern CC "wannabe" pickups get what I consider to be a great dark/clean single coil tone out of those pickups, without trying to get anywhere close to the CC tonal territory. To me the "wannabe" pickups sound a lot like a cross-dressing P90. <ducks for cover>

In the end I think we're all in agreement that getting the authentic "CC tone" is an elusive challenge. I think that some people over-simplify the complexity of the challenge by thinking that just laying down the cash to buy a pickup that's designed as a drop-in for a Telecaster will get us there. Unfortunately, that type of over-simplification is exactly what all of the pickup winders are banking on. I guess my point is to say that a genuine CC-type pickup is going to be necessary for anyone who is headed in that direction, but on it's own it's not going to be sufficient to take them all the way there. There are lots of other pieces to the puzzle.

JMHO.

[Uncle Vinnie]

I use a Fender M-80 Chorus amp that has bass, midrange and treble control.

I set the treble to about 3.5, midrange to 8 and treble to ~4.5. A midrange control on your amp will go a long way to getting the sound you're looking for.

[ruger9]

I want a '55 Mustang. .....and Corvettes introduced fuel injection in '57.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm not a "car guy", but then.... what's this?

1963 Corvette Carter AFB 3460S 300hp/327 Date Code Bb3 Feb 63 Unrestored | eBay

[BeBob]

Fuel injection was available as an option on the Corvette. It didn't catch on right away and most of the early Corvettes were carb'd. Original 50s Corvettes with FI are rare birds. The 55 Mustang is even more rare.

[Cunamara]

Thanks for confirming that the pickups do sound different, even if the difference appears subtle on your gear.

Another problem, of course, is that the extant comparison "real" CC pickups don't sound like they did in 1938. The cobalt steel magnets used in those pickups are not magnetically stable and will have partially weakened over the years. And of course pickups often don't sound exactly alike direct from the manufacturer when brand new. Short story is that no replica CC pickup is 100%. There's no way it can be. We've got the best guesses of the pickup maker to go by.

And few living people know what CC actually sounded like at this juncture, if any. Most anyone one old enough to be in a club when he was alive would be about 95-100 years old by now. The recordings are limited representations of his sound- studio recordings went through custom-built tube boards onto discs or tape, through whatever permutations in mixing and mastering, etc.; field recordings were done on pretty crude equipment during Charlie's short life.

So we are left with approximations. Even pickups that attempt to replicate the original design down to the alloys in the springs and screws are still going to be an approximation- nearer to or farther from the sound we imagine.

[oldane]

I'd like to clarify that I don't lay any claim on having copped the CC tone. I'm just a guy who's been building amps for 40 years and has wound a few pickups, and understands some of the ways that the parts work together to make different sounds.

Thanks for confirming that the pickups do sound different, even if the difference appears subtle on your gear. I agree that there are several different components to "the formula" when it comes to getting close to the CC tone, and that recording methods play a large role. I chose that particular recording because I thought it was one of the most extreme examples of the compressed sound that I was referring to. Emulating the antiquated recording methods isn't something that we can easily control when we're playing live, but paying attention to those other factors that you've mentioned can help a lot.

Having the right pickup definitely gets you started, but it's not like any of us can just drop a CC-look pickup into a Telecaster and expect to sound like CC. The pickup sellers make a lot of money by selling that concept, but on their own the pickups don't solve the problem. They do sound good, and in the quest for CC tone I think they're a step in the right direction but they don't take us all the way there. The amp plays a huge role as well, and I don't think modern amps are going to help us. If anything, I think that modern amps are more likely to make the different CC-targeted pickups sound alike, where accentuating the differences between them is going to provide a better result. I think old design amps are going to be helpful to that end.

People have already talked about octal front ends, volume controls and cusp distortion, but it's more complicated than that. Sagging B+ voltages on large signals also act to decrease the magnetic field strength in field coil speakers and that adds a direct compressive effect to the tone. Clean compression tends to add 2nd harmonic distortion that imparts a warmth quality to the tone, rather than the edgy odd-order distortion that's commonly targeted in today's modern amps. Today's modern amps also use speakers with fixed magnets and fixed magnetic fields. They sound different. They're a totally different animal. I'm going to step farther out on the limb that I'm already standing out pretty far on, and say that a modern amp isn't going to be particularly helpful in getting that elusive CC tone, and that a modern amp is probably going to make the pups hard to distinguish from one another.

As you noted, there are other important considerations like roundwound / monel strings, picking technique. Many different factors go into getting that tone, and today's equipment preferences and the preference of many players for flats and the darker 50s tone make getting the CC tone all that much harder. In many respects I think that people who utilize the modern CC "wannabe" pickups get what I consider to be a great dark/clean single coil tone out of those pickups, without trying to get anywhere close to the CC tonal territory. To me the "wannabe" pickups sound a lot like a cross-dressing P90.

In the end I think we're all in agreement that getting the authentic "CC tone" is an elusive challenge. I think that some people over-simplify the complexity of the challenge by thinking that just laying down the cash to buy a pickup that's designed as a drop-in for a Telecaster will get us there. Unfortunately, that type of over-simplification is exactly what all of the pickup winders are banking on. I guess my point is to say that a genuine CC-type pickup is going to be necessary for anyone who is headed in that direction, but on it's own it's not going to be sufficient to take them all the way there. There are lots of other pieces to the puzzle.

JMHO.

I agree. I think we more or less say the same. You give a more technical description while I have more end user perspective.

The question is how much money, time and energy we can/will spend to have a particular sound which is so hard to get witout the gear of times gone by and how much time should be spent on other aspects of music making. Some are very demanding about each and every little part of the gear while others are happy to just grab their guitar and "go out and blow" whith whatever amp and other gear happen to be there. Both approaches can lead to great results if the musician is talented and skilled. If he is not, no amount of gear can save him.

At one end of the scale we have a musician like John Coltrane who was on a lifelong hunt for that one and only perfect super mouthpiece and literally bought and discarded more than a hundred of them while some of his collegues happily used the dicarded ones he gave them and got excellent results. At the other end we have Joe Pass who sometimes sounded like exacting tone shaping was not his primary priority. Joe Diorio was once quoted saying that he always used "the amp de jour". Wes Montgomery said that he didn't want anything special or customized, "just a standard box", because if something happened to his guitar he could just borrow one from somebody and still be playing. At least one of his earlier recording sessions was actually done with a borrowed guitar.

Where to be on that scale is a personal choice - largely depending on mind set - and I don't think there's any right or wrong here. As we say in my country: "One man wants the mother. Another man wants the daughter. That way both get married."

[jazzbow]

Ah, chasing that ole' tone Dragon...

Be happy with what you have.

Don't forget that Mr Christian only had a blade pickup to work with, we have infinite options.

Carburettor over fuel injection, more snap to throttle response.