mosriteforum.com

Hi,

Posting here because I'm required to do so.

Had two subjects to discuss.

1) Mosrite Tenor. In the early 90s a friend showed my band a Mosrite Tenor guitar that Semie had given his father, we were told, in some sort of exchange for manufacturing equipment. The friend's father was and remains from a town in the San Joaquim Valley just north of Bakersfield. I recall that the tenor was sunburst and it seemed very small to me. I'm still trying to get a picture of it but this is proving difficult for a number of reasons.

2) I have in my parts box an old Mosrite pickup. I was thinking to sell it but I am getting interested in new sounds on my Gretsches. I have a 60 Anniversary that's great for routing and testing. I also have a P90 that reads about 7.6 ohms. I can't recall what the Mosrite reads.

I was thinking of putting the Mosrite into the neck position and the P90 into the bridge. Has anyone ever tried combining these two pick ups? What did you think?

Oh yeah, one more thing. My brother has a 66 Ventures bass. It is Ok but what I really like are the strings that he got with it.

Gretschster wrote:Hi,

Posting here because I'm required to do so.

Had two subjects to discuss.

1) Mosrite Tenor. In the early 90s a friend showed my band a Mosrite Tenor guitar that Semie had given his father, we were told, in some sort of exchange for manufacturing equipment. The friend's father was and remains from a town in the San Joaquim Valley just north of Bakersfield. I recall that the tenor was sunburst and it seemed very small to me. I'm still trying to get a picture of it but this is proving difficult for a number of reasons.

2) I have in my parts box an old Mosrite pickup. I was thinking to sell it but I am getting interested in new sounds on my Gretsches. I have a 60 Anniversary that's great for routing and testing. I also have a P90 that reads about 7.6 ohms. I can't recall what the Mosrite reads.

I was thinking of putting the Mosrite into the neck position and the P90 into the bridge. Has anyone ever tried combining these two pick ups? What did you think?

Welcome to the list, Gretshster! My opinion on your pickup change to the Gretsch is don't do it. Folks put far too much faith in the affect pickpus have on the tone. Yes, a single coil to humbucker change will give a duller and louder sound but a single coil to another single coil or a humbucker to another humbucker (or filtertron) is not going to give you a very significant change in tone. Putting Mosrite pickups in a Stratocaster for example, will not make the Strat sound like a Mosrite. The problem is scale length.
-Marty

Welcome to the forum Gretschster. I can tell you from experience that not all pickups match well together - when I got my '61 Anniversary it had a HiloTron, a FilterTron and a DeArmond Dynasonic. The Dynasonic has way more output that the others and simply couldn't be used with them - you couldn't hear the other pickup in the blend, as if you had selected only the Dynasonic. Swapped in Dynasonics in place of the 'Trons and now the guitar sounds great.

Regardless of scale length, a 2k ohm HiLoTron is going to sound a lot more like any other guitar with a HiLoTron than the same guitar with a 10K ohm Dynasonic, even though both are single coils. Of course, that's going to the extreme comparing those two particular pickups.

In general the Mosrite pickups, as high output single coils, will sound similar to Dynasonics. Given that Eddie Cochran used a P90 with a Dynasonic, you could match a Mosrite pickup in place of the Dynasonic. I'd put the higher output pickup (Mosrite at 10-12k ohm vs. P90s in the 7-8K range) at the bridge.

I was thinking the same thing about the output of the Mosrite at the neck especially causing issues with the P90 at the bridge for the reasons you state.

I have a few sets of TV Jones filtertrons but I have loads of other Gretsches with filtertrons and just want to play around. Eddie Cochran has come into this mix as well but not the way most people would think. Blasphemy perhaps but I don't think his sound with the P90 at the neck was great (as opposed to his playing, singing and general coolness, which was beyond great).

I find that DeArmonds really sound good at the neck so my original thought was to go with the reverse Eddie and put the P90 at the bridge and the deArmond on the neck.

But I have this Mosrite pick up lying around and thought it would be nice to use somewhere. I reluctantly agree that in theory this means the bridge, but I'm not sure I'm keen on a dominant Mosrite sound.

Anyhow.

I'd love to hear a before and after demonstration of you do make the change.
-Marty

Nokie wrote:I'd love to hear a before and after demonstration of you do make the change.
-Marty

I can give you the "before" right now. The current configuration is the original hi-blow tron in the neck and a ceramic filtertron at the bridge. I relatively recently figured out the filter was ceramic. I bought it from Duke Kramer in like 1989 and figured it was old stock--but it turns out he was also selling new production parts as well.

The ceramic filters have a very stinging sound, to me in some ways similar to the Mosrite pickups, which is why I'm hesitant to put this Mosrite pick up on the bridge. I joined this forum largely as I thought if there were anyone who experimented with Mosrite pick ups it would be you guys, and I'm interested in any feedback from the experience.

The guitar with the current situation records well, it's not hard to make things sound good with Neumann mics, Echoplexes and blackface Deluxe Reverb amps. But live it lacks.

The subject guitar is the the one at the very beginning and not the slide / wah wah one that follows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwENFLFfrAg

Cool song. I wouldn't say Mosrite pickups sound much like a Filtertron. Again, to me, they're much more like Dynasonics.

Here are two video demos I did a while back, one of the TriArmond Gretsch and one of my Mosrite repro with M3 pickups. Even with the different amps I think you can hear the similarity.

Welcome Gretschster, you guys play cool music...professionals, no doubt

Veenture wrote:Welcome Gretschster, you guys play cool music...professionals, no doubt

1) Thank you for the kind words. I wish I could say that we were "professionals" in a musical sense but unfortunately it's more of the Dr / lawyer sort. I'm happy that the song you heard is coming out on an EP we did in any case.

2) MWaldorf, first, your band's theme is excellent and you have to tell me where in Europe you are playing (as listed on your site). A business partner of mine lives in Tel Aviv and I sent him your link which will definitely amuse him. ---> I knew when we packed the dance floor playing Dick Dale's version of Hava Nagila at my nephew's bar mitzvah in 1998 we were on to something. Glad you guys seized upon this. Great angle! Seeing "Hot Rod Hannukah" made me laugh out loud.

Your home decor is cool too.

As to the content of your videos thank you for the methodical approach. Your Mosrite (style) pickups made me rethink my views on the Mosrite classic sound, which i've always thought of as kind of farty. But it sounds cool when you are doing Walk Don't Run 64 and Caravan.

Of course as with all guitars, I never really know what they got till I get them on a gig.

I'm thinking that if I drop this Mosrite PU I have into the bridge on my Annie it will be OK as I've never had problems when a hot pick up is at the bridge (my Mosrite PU registers 12.65ohm BTW). With a dearmond in the neck it should be a good combo as to me the neck dearmond is the best pickup of any in the neck spot I know.

But then I wouldn't get to use that P90 which I pulled from a 61 ES125 someone gave me 25 years ago in 2 pieces (no headstock to be found dumpster dive). I don't own any Gibsons and I'm keen to try that P90.

I've never really thought of a 3 PU guitar like you have but you seem to get a lot out of it. I always thought of 3 PUs more like Lennon who supposedly cut out the middle one on his 325 because he kept clicking it with his pick or some such.

I guess at the end of the day I just need to solder the PUs in in the various configurations and tape them to the body (I can do that with the P90 and the Mosrite, not the dearmond) and see what works.

PS, you say that the 61 Annie is a single 6124--wouldn't that mean that the knobs in the lower bout and extra 3 way switch are also un-original? Not that I care, a single hi lo tron in the neck is about the biggest waste of the wood around it that there is!