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PART ONE - PETE'S GUITAR GALLERY

PART TWO - The EARLY YEARS

PART THREE - STRATS 'n' THINGS

PART FOUR - SOUNDTRACK GUITARS

PART FIVE - COMPUTER AIDED COMPOSITION P

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PETE'S GUITAR GALLERY (2004)

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Hoefner Nightingale "Heidi" (prototype)	Hoefner Nightingale "Rose-Marie" (prototype)	Revelation with Roland midi adapter
Gordon-Smith GS2	Jordan with AC carbon fibre neck	Dobro c.1970
Gibson B25 Acoustic	Broadway (early 60's)	Hoefner Shorty
Fender Strat 1971 bullet	Gordy 1840	Yamaha SBG 2000

	Pete's acoustic/electric collection Left to Right Yamaha FG-412SB 12 string Epiphone Chet Atkins Ibanez AE602N
	Hoefner acoustic 458/S "Grannie"
	Harmony Rocket

 

Two Hoefner Alphas

"I have two Hoefner 'Alpha' guitars too which were my main 'open D' tuning slide guitars with ELO. They look like a weird mutation of a Firebird and sound VERY strong and positive without being "instant metal" if you know what I mean. They still have a great tone despite looking downright DANGEROUS!"

.PETE'S GEAR PART TWO- THE EARLY YEARS ....................

This is a transcript of a conversation with Webmaster Reg Godwin where Pete Haycock talks about some of the equipment he has used over the years. Reg had been talking about his collection of Watkins (WEM) guitars from the sixties and his Hofner Violin Bass.

A Broadway Guitar similar to Pete's first solid electric

PH - " I had a two pickup 'Broadway' which my Dad bought me.. I wish I still had it..but I do also seriously regret selling the original valve Watkins Copicat that I used to split my signal to two Vox AC30's. It was such a great valve pre-amp…I never used the echo at all! What a fantastic company that was! Watkins…or WEM…were to be seen everywhere. Do you remember a college gig without a WEM P.A.? How on earth did they disappear?"

(ps. Santa Claus has now brought Pete one of his beloved old Broadways!)

 

RG - " Well Charlie Watkins is still going but I think he became seriously disillusioned with the big music festival scene and gave up that aspect of the business.He is still turning out a digital version of the Copicat and he has some fascinating reminiscences on his website especially about some of his great disasters when giant P.A's went spectacularly wrong at the worst possible moments." (see links)

PH - " I once borrowed a WEM containing a wicked valve amp from Robin Trower when he was still with Procol Harum and recorded 'St.Michael's Blues' from the 'Tightly Knit' album'

The Fender amp is an old Tremolux that I renovated. I bought it for 15 quid from a Stafford Newsletter ad. about 35 years ago and then discovered that, although it was painted black, it had a flat Fender nameplate, which eventually made me very interested of course, so I literally started scratching at it and discovered that it originally had a blonde Tolex covering, which along with research into the transformer, dates it to 1961.......bargain or what?
It sounds so beautiful now I've had the electronics checked and new valves put in.

The black amp is my original "Design" amp from Elvic Electronics. British through and through, I'm proud to say. It was the main amp on "Guitar and Son", in fact every track on that album is played through that amp except for about 30 seconds played on a "Peterson".....then a brand new amp which Vic and Joan made too. Their son is called Peter............ What wonderful people those two guys are. They were here once for the Frankfurt Music Fair and we really enjoyed their company.
When he was making "new generation" amps in the early 80's , Vic did a lot of research into the output stages of overdriven valve amps (rather than the pre-amp stages) and then built his own "replica" using transistors. This is very weird stuff when you consider that this lovely old guy probably knows more about real valve amps than Jim Marshall ever did! I mean no insult to my old pal at Marshall, Ken Bran, of course, when I say this. Whatever, it's a magnificent sounding beast. The very posh Mahogany-cased Peterson amp which I've used a lot is, as I mentioned before, a direct descendant of the Elvic.

PH then talks about his association with Hofner guitars:

" The Hofner (or more correctly Hoefner) bass you've got looks in good shape for it's age, Reg. It reminds me of the tours of the factory I used to make in the 80's and 90's. They have stuff there that would make your palms itch! They're all in this huge room, hanging from hooks in the ceiling, partially covered and it is a surreal experience to be allowed in there!

Since my first endorsement with them was for the little 'Shorty' guitar with a built-in amp which I used to play slide on, I was allowed to see, touch even play a semi-acoustic prototype guitar with a built-in VALVE amp dating from the late 50's! It had a mains plug and everything! They couldn't be persuaded to part with it of course. It goes without saying that they have mint examples of all the 'Committees' and 'Golden Hoefners' you could fantasise about and much more.

Once I took Ted Turner (Wishbone Ash) to Hoefner during the 'Night of the Guitars' tour. He said he desperately wanted a 'Shorty' after he saw mine because he had left his various lap steels in the States. The Hoefner people were really wonderful to us and at the end of the day, they gave Ted a blue 'Shorty' free of charge for him to play for the rest of the tour.

I now have several Hoefners, mostly hand-made prototypes. My favourite semi-acoustic (pet name Heidi!) is a black and gold 'Nightingale' 335-type. 'She' is the main guitar on the "Guitar and Son" album and most of the "Livin' it"album.She was actually christened by an audience in Stuttgart some years ago when it occurred to me that B.B.King has his guitar called Lucille, Albert King has his Lucy etc. So I asked a typically German crowd what I should call a typically German guitar and Heidi got the most laughs!

Playing live in Germany with "Heidi"

I have a second, very lovely deep red maple-striped sunburst Nightingale as well named Rose-Marie..another German joke I'm told. It's the equivalent of calling your guitar Doris or Gertie in English, old fashioned ,un-cool and definitely not rock 'n' roll. The second guitar has a factory fitted master volume control. Hoefner incorporated this modification in their models at my suggestion since I explained that I like to control the two pickup sounds quickly like on a Strat, so I contributed in a small but effective way. It's also a great honour to have met the guy called Hubert who physically made those prototype guitars and to know that he was pleased I was using them rather than those mass-produced US models.

Playing "Rose-Marie" Hoefner Nightingale

 

RG - " I tried a pedal steel guitar the other day and found it incredibly difficult to play. Have you ever played one,Pete?"

PH - " Yes, I admit that I had one. It was a Shobud beginners model. I am known for playing pretty good slide guitar but..how do I explain this?.. I don't have a driver's license and playing pedal steel is for me a bit like improvising a slide solo whilst driving an Aston Martin (manual) throught the Welsh countryside at an average of 150mph whilst wearing laquered false fingernails which aren't quite dry yet and having no idea if you're going in the right direction. Oh yes, and mind the sheep! Get the idea?"

RG - " I couldn't have put it better myself!"

Pete freely admits that he has had more guitars and amps than most people have had hot dinners. His memories of gear over the years is continued below

Pete Haycock with Robbie Krieger from The Doors

PETE'S GEAR PART THREE- STRATS 'n' THINGS

I was thinking about the old days and that reminded me of the Framus "Star" I had at the time ( the Broadway was beginning to crack on the headstock...ouch....) with my first little band ( Mason Dixon ) which was a weird and wonderful beast - the Framus guitar, not the band......well maybe.....anyway I digress. It was a deep red sunburst, big, fat semi-accoustic, similar in shape to the bass Bill Wyman had. It had a metal scratchplate with the pick-ups and electronics all mounted on it and believe it or not it had a strange screw -on plug/socket arrangement instead of a jack plug, which meant that you had to be very careful indeed to look after your cable, which was only about 3 metres long anyway - a bit restricting when it came to the Whirling Dervish impressions - no wonder Pete Townsend never had one!

A Harmony Rocket semi-acoustic similar to Pete's guitar

The little Selmer amp which Pete used for home practise

I also had a Hoefner Club for a while and then a Harmony Rocket - I REALLY wish I still had that one. Again deep red, but this time it was a "thinline" single cutaway semi with 3 DeArmond pick-ups and six BIG cream coloured knobs, not arranged like a Gibson but set in a curving line along the bottom, and a selector switch. Cool or what? How silly we kids were to trade those things in for a few quid against other guitars instead of just waiting a while and saving a bit harder. There was also a little single pick-up short-scale Fender ( Musicmaster?) I had for a while back then. Considering the fact that the finish was already wrecked when I bought it there is a very good chance that it was one of the very first ever made. Of course like an idiot I got rid of that too, just like the first Strat I had shortly afterwards.

It was a sunburst, one of those rare "Big Headstock but no Bullet trussrod" models with a 4 screw plate, which I'm told by those in the know dates it to the time when CBS technically owned Fender but they were using up all the old original pre - CBS stock, and simply cutting the necks with the "new" headstock style. It was really slim at the nut too, which made it extremely comfortable, and to top it all it was a non-tremolo model.................AAARGH!.......

.O.K. - I've now got a very nice 1971 mapleneck ( with Bullet ) sunburst Strat here in almost mint condition, but when I think about that first one it makes me wonder what planet I was on when I modified it and then eventually sold it.
Around about the same period I had several other guitars including a Grimshaw "Les Paul almost-copy", a Fender Mustang ( stolen!) and some weird Rickenbacker copy which was literally from one of those mail order catalogues like Littlewoods or whatever 'cos I needed another slide guitar. I think it may have been a "Shaftsbury", anyway that was a particularly shiny but very wimpy sounding thing which didn't exactly endear itself to me.

When we first went to the U.S. I was still using the original sunburst Strat and borrowing Derek Holt's gold coloured Strat for slide - I wonder if he still has that one? I doubt it. I bet he regrets selling that one too. Of course America was "2nd. Hand Guitar Heaven" back then and we all bought loads of guitars from Pawn Shops and friendly Music Shop owners who were fans of the band. One guy who ran a shop ( in Milwaukee I think 'cos I remember it was just over the lake from Kalamazoo where the Gibson factory was back then ) always came to the shows we did and would open up the shop after hours for us to browse around his recent "trade-ins" to see if we wanted any of it......imagine that!

Back then he'd let you have a Gibson Junior for $75 , a Les Paul for $200 etc. but perhaps my favourite from that store was a mint condition cream coloured Epiphone 2 pick-up solid, I think was a "Crestwood", which I got for about $150 . That one was stolen almost immediately after I'd played most of the "Gold Plated" album with it. It was backstage in the dressing room at the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton at the bottom of a pile of about 8 empty guitar cases whilst we were on stage, because I never used it "live". There were backstage security guards etc. etc. but after the show one of our crew happened to notice that this particular case felt a bit light, and sure enough, it was gone. I was completely gutted as you can imagine.
The old original Strat was always the main "live" instrument though, until one night in Florida a guy called John Veleno turned up backstage.............to be continued!

Picture above is a Gold-Plated Veleno Guitar similar to Pete's(more details on John Veleno's Website) Picture courtsey of Steve Szirotnyak (who would welcome via webmaster any information on the history of Veleno serial No.41)

(See Links Page for more information on Veleno Guitars)

Click on the Gold Veleno for an enlarged image

PETE'S GEAR PART FOUR - SOUNDTRACK GUITARS

The guitars I used in the live Flanders Film Festival concert with Hans Zimmer were the same ones I used on the the movie score :
Electric "slide" guitar was a Gordon - Smith ...all original except for a master volume control fitted instead of 2 tone controls. The guitar is a very simple but beautifully made "Les Paul Junior" type. Made in the U.K. circa 1975...maybe a " Gypsy" model but I'm not sure so don't quote me!
Electric guitar solo's were played on a " Gordy 1840 " which was a hand - made prototype and, as you may have noticed, it does have a connection to the slide guitar, in that the " Gordon" in " Gordon - Smith " is indeed the " Gordy" mentioned here, but by then the 2 original partners had gone their separate ways.

Anyway, the reason I got to try this guitar was that, when he heard I was doing the " Night of the Guitars" tour, Gordon called me and asked if I would be interested in his new baby. By then I was using Hoefner's "Nightingale" model as my main guitar, I said I would be prepared to test it for him - but only as a slide guitar. It was very impressive but a little bit too "modern" or "80's" to become my main guitar at the time, however when Hans asked me to play on " Thelma" it found it's voice very well. After that I used the 1840 on a lot of the E.L.O. " part 2" recordings and concerts but I managed to stay true to my friends at Hoefner as well by using their prototype " Alpha" guitars as the slide guitars......a strange reversal indeed, but whenever I toured with the " Pete Haycock Band" I always played my " Nightingale" for 90% of the gigs.

Now on to "K2". During the late 70's or early 80's there were some extremely beautiful and rather expensive guitars made by a company in Southend, U.K. called "Heart" guitars. For some reason they always had a stand right next to Rotosound Guitar Strings at all of the Music Trade Fairs, and since I've had a very good and mutually fruitful relationship with James Howe / Rotosound for about 30 years, I just happened to meet these very nice guys who built very lovely guitars. Some years later Steve Smith ( one of the original partners and craftsmen from " Heart" ) called me and said that he had a new company called "Jordan" and that he would like to build a slide guitar for me......which turned out to be so good that I used it not only as one of the the new "main" lead guitars on the ELO recordings with the Gordy, but also as a "roadworthy" replacement for my "Nightingale" guitars, whenever necessary. The Jordan has 2 Bartolini single coils and one humbucker at the bridge....originally a Seymour Duncan J.B. but now an Evans. The neck ( as on all Jordan guitars ) was made by a company called "A.C." in the U.K. and it is a carbon weave neck, which gives it amazing strength and rigidity. This is also an advantage on the road because the carbon necks seem to be less affected by temperature and humidity.

The amp on the score of "Thelma" is a Peterson, the little one with a 10" speaker. I have a connection to the people who originally made this amp ( going back for ages, when they used to be called ELVIC ) . The new stuff is........well, not what it used to be simnce the production is being done by another company now... Just like Vox used to be great.....once they even made me a new 100 watt 2x 12 " mondo AC 30 " combo model called the Vox Climax to get me away from Marshall....then suddenly they changed the team and gave me new transistor amps to play at the British Trade Fair........that's how I got to know ELVIC! Now Marshall owns them anyway !

Anyway I was very happy to see that our bass player for Hans's show , Andy Pask, still uses his Peterson bass amps all the time, and I've had great pleasure in passing on his always positive comments to Vic and Joan at ELVIC.I must say though that it is very frustrating for me that Vic probably knows more about valve amps than any of the people who became rich and famous for it ...........such is life sometimes, but life can also have it's rewards! We have good friends at least and Vic and Joan are two of the best.

Pete Haycock at Night of the Guitar Concert 1988

PETE'S GEAR PART FIVE - COMPUTER AIDED COMPOSITION

LIST OF COMPUTER / MIDI GEAR USED NOV 2002

PC - SONY VAIO - 2.4GHz Pentium 4 with 1.25Gb RAM and additional fast 100Gb hard Drive

Cubase SX software (Steinberg) and Steinberg Midex 8

Tascam US428 midi/audio input interface

Korg Trinity Sound Module

Roland Super JV1080 Sound Module

Yamaha VL-70M Virtual Acoustic Tone Generator (saxes and flutes)

Roland GR-30 Midi Guitar Controller

Roland VS880 Hard Disc Recorder

2 Alexis ADAT Digital Tape Decks and Alexis BRC Remote Controller

Yamaha CS1-X Midi Keyboard

Roland PC-200 Midi Keyboard

Pete says - "I use Cubase SX on my P.C. but there are several free or shareware programmes out there to get you into the swing of it all without spending a fortune. The main problem is that if you want to get into it seriously you should have a dedicated music computer because there are so many things you have to "tweak" to get programmes like Cubase to work properly, for instance my P.C. now thinks it's a Server and my hard disk has its " sleep if nothing's happened for a bit" command turned off, and my Windows "virtual cache" is effectively set at "0" because that function messes up audio recording..........etc. etc.

With a simple Joystick/MIDI converter cable you should be able to use your gameport as a MIDI in/out to give you 16 channels from your keyboard. All you need then is a MIDI sequencer programme to "record" your MIDI. You probably need to set up a couple of things under "settings" or "mixer" to get it to work by the way. As for MIDI sequencer programmes, again there are freebies on the net.

You may like to have a look at Evolution.co.uk where they have a "Sound Studio" programme which looks to be pretty good and very reasonably priced. It seems to be able to combine MIDI with some audio recording."

Pete's Studio Frankfurt 2006

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