Among vintage guitar amps, Marshall is of course the 1st or second name you will hear and it’s for good reasons : those amps forged Rock’n’roll and I really cannot imagine music without them. Most guitar heroes have used or still used a Marshall and their music and tones are closely linked to the signature sound of these wonderful amplifiers. So I propose here a trip though the vintage Marshall of my collection, the Blues Breaker having its own page.

JTM45

What would be a better start that the amp that started the whole business ? I will not come with more history about the creation of this legend, but instead will try to give a short description of its tone : beautiful clear at low volume and a really unique smooth with lovely high-end when pushed.

This, of course, if you use original G.E.C. KT66 tubes. Other 6L6 won’t give this amplifier its genuine signature tone. Note both plexi front plates, golden in front and white on the back, folded aluminium chassis and round three prongs AC plug.

JTM100

Shortly after the creation of the JTM45, a strong demand of higher power amps raised in the UK, as the British bands played in bigger venues and needed to be loud. This particular amp may have been created for P.A. but I am sure many guitarists used it.

Very rare amp, which can be considered as the missing link between the JTM45 and the later famous 100w plexi. Spot the very ‘Voxy’ copper vents on top and unusual power transformer.

The Pig

A very rare and mostly interesting amp, as for a long time only mine could be searched on Google. As the audience increased, the guitar players wanted more power – remember in the ’60s , guitar did not come though P.A. – so why not make a 200w amp ?

This clever idea had some drawbacks : MIGHTY and fragile power and output transformers -on my pig, we had to change the power transformer- and the use of KT88…. when it was quite simpler and maybe less expensive to get two 100 watters.

This explains the short life of the wonderful pig , life in which it had the time of recording the legendary tone of Mick Ronson, and the later great number of amps on stage.

1960 cabinet

All these amps needed cabs of course, and the most famous is the 1960A or 1960B. The beautiful original pinestripe grillcloth of the sixties is now a rare sight.

plexi 50w super lead

The succesor to JTM45 differs from its ancestor from few things : a stronger and more convenient stell chassis and the use of the tube that will become standard in all Marshall amps : the EL34 .

You can find great EL34 tubes these days, thanks to the reactivation of once-lost vaccum tubes factoried. But nothing will replace the perfect distortion of the original Mullard when pushed to their far, far limit. This amp is anyway close to perfection unless you need of course its Majesty ….

The Plexi

By ‘plexi’ I mean Marshall Super Lead 100w plexi front, the king of all amps, used by the most famous guitar heroes of all time. You will often hear you don’t know what is electric guitar until you plug into one of these vintage monsters at full volume, and this is really not far from truth.

The power tubes distortion of this amp is perfect : all of a sudden the raw power in your face turns into a nearly mellow distortion so pleasing you won’t stop playing. Tinnitus-friendly for sure. Here again , genuine distortion tone is obtained with vintage Mullard, newer tubes giving a less smooth overdrive, while this could be subtle if you correctly bias your amp and get a perfect quartet of EL34 as it was done here.

Park amps

Park amps were Marshall when Marshall could not use its brand for legal reasons. They had different but becoming cosmetics and supposed to be a tad better. Most Park had the same Marshall equivalent and mine was simply a JMP 100w.

I say was because because this particular amp of my collection went to another famous collection : Joe Banamassa’s. You can actually spot it in numerous video thanks to its flashing blue colour.

Flag logo super P.A.

This 100w P.A. have a rare and short-lived ‘flag’ JTM logo and is a direct sibbling of my JTM100 P.A. on this page. A real beautiful design with its large front face.

It also features the famous cloth-retainers , made of heat resistant coton and giving a real Lewis Caroll look to the amp chassis. Spot the yellow capacitors and laydown transformer, making it a real plexi amp.

Marshall Major

Well the idea of 200w amps did not die completely : they still wanted to use high-power tubes for P.A. as it was the weak point of all big shows at that time. It’s not a plexi anymore and I wonder if this green light is original. But I still like the large front plate…

The cloth retainers were left for sturdy steel to protect the expensive KT88 or 6550 while it may not have been a good idea to mix them like here. I suppose the strange small double circuit board on the left is a test point for bias or a bug killer.

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All pictures copyrighted. Any use should mention JACQUES PEDALS source, thank you

Pedals brands can issue new effects making your guitar sounds like an organ, a piano or your deceased aunt voice, it all started and will end with this scandalous tone of fuzz. Let’s face it : the whole history of music has changed with these dirty two transistors wonders that gave guitar a leading place in all kind of music. If you play electric guitar, you know that is the tone you want and that you will never regret buying. Even several of them.

This page is about my personnal collection of vintage fuzz pedals, which are a favorite of most collectors. Why ? Usually they are very simple circuit anyone with a soldering iron could replicate. But the thing is, with simple circuits that EVERY component can be ‘heard’ and thus each pedal has its own signature. Tonal differences are not small if you swap any of their components. And their enclosures, with the beautiful sign of time, are the best time capsule I could think of. Most of the most expensive vintage pedals are simple circuits in an old box. I have sorted them by country of origin.

FRANCE

Yes, there were fuzz in France and this one is really beautiful. Garen was mostly an amp manufacturer , and their small amps are looked after because they are related to Django Reinhardt. But this item is a real germanium fuzz. Here are the innards :

The transistors look like modern ac128 but they are blank. A very useful and nice feature of this pedal is its filter switch : works like a fixed tone with 3 positions.

This baby fuzz is more obscure and there is no real proof she’s french. I base my belief on the lettering which was very up to date in the early ’70s in France. And from its knob : I had the same on my car radio.

It is worth noting that transistor were produced in France since 1946 , and one of the best fuzz germanium transistor is for me the SESCO ( Societe Europeenne des seim-conducteurs ) 324TI …. too bad I seem to be the only one to own a few….

JAPAN

This is much more obvious, of course . I started my collection with the pedal you can see at the right of this picture : The uncanny companion fuzz from Shin-ei .At this time –I was 15— I simply bought it because it was the cheapest : how could I know this pedal could become so collectable now ? But I just fell in love at first note : I could at least get a REAL guitar sound. It is considered nowadays as a very rough square signal buzz tone, but its nasty fuzz tone still turn heads.

This second model, is much better sounding to my ears.Its crafty electronic circuit has been used in several pedals such as the ibanez fuzz, univox superfuzz and numerous wah-fuzz pedals but remains the most classic tone for me. Its tone switch , labeled differently through time, is a great addition. If I has to choose one ….. here it is, ibanez style :

rare, in its round edges enclosure style :

And of course a look at its circuit, which , as you can see, is quite complicated if you compare it to a fuzz f ace. It use high gain ( between 450 and 500 ) plastic silicium PNP transistors, my personnal favorite being the BC239, preferably made in France or Germany, while you have a numerous choice of great devices which can do the job. Electrolytics are important too.

ENGLAND

Well , a good choice indeed, isn’t it ? First of all, because a real lot of collectible fuzz pedals are collectible because they are linked to a british rock band, and these bands bought their fuzzboxes at home. A good start should be the circuit of the arbiter fuzz face :

A real simple circuit circuit means a high sensitivity to the components, which means a VERY simple one to a VERY high. Every component here is vital. In this original version, we have NKT275 transistors which are AC128 from outside continental Europe. We have these days great transistors testers, giving us precise gain and leakage –leakage is what made a blank noise— but I use my own method. Anyway, choosing a pair of transistors for a fuzz face is like haute-cuisine. Same thing for the carbon resistors and the caps. Even the enclosure is somehow important. All that fuss makes the difference, believe me. Here is one of my recreation :

Then we have of course the mighty supa fuzz from Marshall amps. 3 transistors give a more refined tone we all love :

The OC75 used here are a kind of AC128 too but made by Mullard in England or Valvo in Germany. They are very good and consistent transistors. They come in black but sound the same if they are not. All these are PNP transistors, and even if you don’t care, please consider that the metal enclosure is usually connected to the + side of the battery, which means that if it comes to your mind to install a DC plug on these pedals, you will have a short circuit in case it touches another modern pedal, which enclosure is to ground. Don’t do it. And it is true saline 9v batteries give these fuzz a nice sag a la rectifier tubes.

My rare jennings fuzz is a beauty : it uses rare silicium white-head ME4102 transistors . Think silicium fuzz face in a good day. From the VOX amps inventor, my friends.

Because vox of course entered the bandwagon before that. Here you have on right hand an old english vox tone bender with its colorsound more modern version. Both pedals use germanium , while colorsound went silicium on their bigger jumbo rendition. You may have noticed most english fuzz pedals are painted with hammerite paint, usually grey. This paint was everywhere in my youth but mostly on anything professional : tools, desks, office cupboards, office armchairs, etc … it really means one thing : You are at work. Work implies serious stuff. I suppose it was a way of protecting them from abutse and that was the way musical instruments executives see that trend: a worktool. Later, they start smoking.

This london aka top gear fuzz is quite an exception : its enclosure is made of wood covered in leatherette . Like an amp. One could guess time would have destroy them but they’re still here. I would still prefer hammerite metal over this nice arrangement.

ITALY

Another very good supply source. Italian makers went head first on the new fuzz pedal market with great designs and ideas.

Their 1st pedals certainly came from subcontracting vox . Italian made vox pedals have their own personnality while the enclosure shape was a copy of the original vox ‘foot’ shape enclosure. To fuel the growing market , they made them under their own JEN brand. The Jen factory was located in Pescara and was really skilled in musical electronics up to synthetizers.

They use this enclosure with numerous pedals. The 3 slits could be used for sliders like here, but were also fitted with a round hole for classic pots. Then they used this small blue box with several brands. The black knobs could be found on guitars too and are genuinely italian.

They eventually went to a more big muff like design, but still it has a nice classy italian touch. Sounds like a big muff too as we are now for from the english fuzz origins.

This fuzz king from electronic sound is a rare bird which bears the Gary Hurst signature. Mr Hurst is the inventor of the tonbender but there is few information of this italian connection. Those pedals were made in ABS moulded plastic but well made circuit wise. They are quite rare and expensive now.

While at watching over the ocean, they also made a nice Fender Blender lookalike , made by Cosmosound , famous at that time for their Leslie cabinet copies ( again )

Last but not least, the rare and expensive Elka Dizzy Tone , which was made with French SFT transistors.

U.S.A.

Last but not least, but I don’t have old american made fuzz boxes in my collection, certainly because they were really rare in Europe. But I will go with my first american pedal and I suppose no one will raise an objection seing the muff here :

It is the point where fuzz became ‘civilized’ with the addition of the double diode that leads towards distortion. An all-time classic here in its ramhead version. I also love the reverse logo one pictured here :

So that’s conclude my fuzz pedal personal history from the companion shin-ei bought in France in 1974 to the big muff purchased in London in 1977.

I also have my own designs based on the Mercer Box for germanium and the Fuseblower for the silicium, they both represent my own vision of what is the very sound of fuzz.

BACK TO JACQUES PEDALS

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Never give up! I had long ago abandoned all hopes to find one day an original bluesbreaker combo. And here is is: the rarest and most valuable collectible amp of all quietly waiting for me to turn it up. Hard to believe. Furthermore, this amp is 100% stock if your except the light black spray on the speaker cloth ( « paint it black » fan?) and much more than this, it is « stock-working » which is my expression to say that the amp has never been repaired and works perfectly. When I say « work », I should say fill your ears with pure guitar tone fanatic nirvanesque delight. Maybe now I should move to stamps.

It has a JMP plexi front, which confirm my knowledge that JTM had ceased to exist well before 1968 as it is currently said on books. Apart from this, it is the same chassis than my 1967 50w trem.

No surprise with the back plexi plate and serial number. T/ means plexi 50w trem chassis and you can see the din female plug for the trem pedal. Nobody I know has ever seen an original marshall trem pedal with its so European din plug but then again nobody I know uses the trem in a marshall amp.

Here is the back view. 1961 models are 4×10 while 1962 are 2×12. Concerning the famous Bluesbreakers « Beano » album , there is no other evidence than 2 front pics of the amp ( those with E.C. in the forefront playing his Les Paul ). So, while it is always stated this was a 2×12 i.e. model number 1962, it is certainly not impossible that this reknown amp was a 4×10 like mine, thus explaining why this historic tone is so hard to obtain with 2×12 reissue or other goodies. In other words, this could be the real amp recorded on this seminal album. Chills. The speakers are ceramic I think, but they still bear the uncanny silverdale road gold marshall label on them. How stock can you be?

This my favourite shot of all: the unbelievable gold silverdale label (which clearly show that these labels were used well after June 66 as it is currently admitted) and the 16KM celestion t-code. For the young amp tiro, 16KM does not mean that your speaker can be heard as far as 16 kilometers from your amp, but 16 October 1967.

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In these times of digital technology and computer based effects, tape echoes nevertheless remain musicians’ favorite delays , just after their old competitors , the analog delays.
This is quite weird, as no effect wanted digital so badly: as you need to play back a signal one or many times with a given delays , nothing should work better than computers.

Why such an obsolete, stuttering , noisy, unreliable tape recorder is preferred by serious musicians to ultra precise 24bit ( or even 32bit ) sampling?
When everyone and his sister will go for a harsher/trebly theory, I would rather invite you to watch any movie where Ray Harryhausen performed special effects. While made with prehistoric do-it-yourself technique, these various monsters will always seem more real than computerized equivalent.
You know why? Because when you use weird ways of creating them, monsters look weird. And monster must be weird.
I don’t want my dinosaurs to move like milk cows! I want them to move in a weird pixilated way.
And echo is a special effect. Echo MUST sounds weird to be real. After all , in mother nature, you need a big mountain to create it.
And when we talk about weird, the least we can say is that our Italian friends from binson got ahead.

Why a simple tape when a direct drive magnetic rotating disc with heads all around can be such fun !

And why using dull jack plugs like everyone when Geloso non-standard bizarre 3 prongs plugs are available only in Italy and for a short time in History?

And why black or chrome, when medicine greenish yellow look so nicely strange?

And why anonymous silk screen when we could look different with plexi non-smoking railway station signs with our logo ?

But, but, even with all this, binson echorecs were a hit because, because their delay tone is RayHarryhauseneskly tremendous!
The main reasons why are:

1- The use of these disc allows to put heads all around it, thus permitting to catch and play back delay in places where no tape recorder can do it. This gave this primitive machinery to create a beautiful sort of reverb, one of the only alternative to spring reverb at this time.

2- These Binson engineers were no beginners at amplifying and create for their monster one of the most complicated all-tube preamp I have ever encountered. Most of the tube were German E83CC double triode , maybe the best 12AX7 tube equivalent ever made.

3- The disc was coated with magnetic substance that was supposed to last ( well maybe not to be still used to day, some 45 years after) and thus react differently from the usual tapes loops to the guitar frequency range.

Pink Floyd , then enjoying a climax in inspiration and taste, made this echo unit their main effect for guitars, bass and organ. For a complete demonstration, buy « Pink Floyd at Pompei » and spot the yellow echorecs all along the movie. It is worth noting that this movie was a French TV production, at a time when money was not important in our cultural landscape, the 2 TV channels then belonging to the republic. It was coinciding with my teen-age too, and believe me it was a wonderful era for rock music.

Anyway, these echoes were not intended to be used as a guitar or instrument effect, but as part as a PA system. Their were sold with their mixer to go then into a power amp for a nice 50w or something all tube PA.
I bought this system from a band of my area, which bought it new in the sixties, and while the PA use of Binson stuff is now obsolete, it somehow interesting to see this surviving all tube mixer.

This is a newer solid state system, with this time all-in-one mixer+echo. Fortunately, while they wised up about all the former weirdnesses, they kept the disc system, making this mixer a guenuine useful (but pretty large) echorec.

Here we have a Binson power amp to go with the modern mixer. They had the matching speakers but I did not bother buying them. What I would really love to find is Binson guitar amps, which I know had a very good reputation, but were kind of rare.

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The Matsumoku made guitars have always bring fascination to my collector ego. Their craftmanship and quality really do not deserve the low price market they are currently going for, or at least to this day. Anyway, this is quite good from an aficionado point of view.
How do you recognise a matsumoko ? Certainly not with brand name, as they seemed to work for all Japanese makers in their glory time. Easiest start is the incredible wood work on them, and often complicated-to-death electronics, while this a not a rule, as we will see.
I will not enter here in precise description of all models, description you can easily find on the web. Consider this page an ode to my beloved ‘woodies’.

Ibanez

Mr.Famous first here with the Musician , an incredible guitar I have always loved for its ultra flat and thin neck, and mega-humbuckers, here in a light natural color and simple wiring. Then, my rare top-of-the-line studio in its elegant veneer. Please note the massive Cimar electric in the back, Cimar being an budget-brand of Ibanez for years.

Slap that bass, as Fred Astaire would say. Two musician and two studio, one being offensively modified. The musician bass was made famous by young Sting, who had nearly every model of this line, including a very rare 8-strings. These bass are excellent but heavy. Better work your back muscle with long rehearsals.

Aria Pro II

Aria was certainly one of the best customer of the mats factory. They came with a lot of models, all of excellent quality, such as my fave red with its casted bridge, really an incredible wood work. You can also spot an Urchin, weird shape at its best. Let’s have a look at their booties :

A very proof that matsumoko mastered all type of necks : bolt-on, glued-on and neck-through live together in perfect harmony, while their neck-through really are exquisite and personnal fave. Cavities are as numerous as in a candy-lover-non-flosser-teen-ager, but always fitted with precise plates within micron precision.

Vantage

Vantage was a very good customer too, but with less fantasy : most of their models, while always at the same level of high quality, look the same.
The dark beauty on the right side was not made in Japan by mats, but in Korea by some crafty admirer of the famous luthier. You can see the woodstripes are not organise as usual at Matsumoko and the dark wood is from a different lumbers. Turn back !

Same display of neck work here and clearly different gluing for the Korean…but I love her the same.

The other brands

Their always should be a french man in every story….and I found one in the matsumoko history with these Morris guitars. The back of these weird Globalsound Morris—brand mostly know for their cheap ripoff guitars in the ’70s—says : ‘ Designed by Patrick Vrolant’…

This french designer even had time to propose bolt-on and neck-through before vanishing in Sologne fog on a winter morning hunting party…
The other guitar bearing the C.G.Winner brand is quite a mats classics if you except its blade humbuckers from hell.

Supermodels time now : The Washburn really is a luxury guitar with a mad array of special features, including metal circle neck markers. Do not snob the Eagle which is by far the best sounding mats of my collection. Light as a feather and ringing like a vintage sg special , this guitar could convert you to matsumoko before you could spell their name correctly.

Really those guys had no family life : matching veneer backplate that comes so precisely in the cavity
you could not put a piece of cigarette paper in the slit.

These poor siblings have hidden talents. Both the Westone—propietary matsumoko brand–and the Kawai Aquarius AQ-555 fro 1984 are perfect axes any pro guitar player could use on a daily basis.

This picture is only here to show you the mapple choice for this cheap westone was far from economics reality…

From my The Aria Pro II PE100 guitar…4-11 NM ?

The post Jacques Matsumoku collection appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

Personal history

In the early ‘70s there were no such things as an overdrive pedal. When we talk about choice of good guitar tones , it usually went from Fender twin clean to fuzz face in a Marshall amp, while these options were way too expensive for teenagers. Even in our favourite records , that creamy tone we all know and like now, was totally absent . Of course, it was always possible to roll-off our guitar volume knob when engaged in a fuzz pedal to obtain something more coherent for rhythm—and then of course go full volume for fire-breathing solo. As far as I can remember, the first time I heard this tone was from a Stevie Ray Vaughan track and it changed everything. So don’t take for granted this tone has always been here : most classic rock album , the foundation of our music , did without.

First experiences

While Boss OD-1 was already there when the Ibanez ts808 came out, it somehow flew under the radar. Some would argue the MXR distortion + could be near, but as we used it only completely cranked up, we totally missed the point.
Another thing is that our beloved fuzz pedals was not that great on cheap transistor amps, with maybe the exception of the Electro-harmonix big muff, a class of its own.
So when we first tried a tubescreamer on our band Emthree 100w tranny amp, it was kind of a revelation: it was just like we eventually got a good amp for almost free.This was so good , I had to KNOW why and how those Japanese engineers have succeeded in that miracle, as I was already building fuzz pedals for my fellow guitar players at that time.

The biggest secret revealed

Intense scrutiny gave me the secret : two diodes in the feedback loop of an opamp ! Believe me at that time opamps were close to the electronics state-of-the-art , and while two diodes head-to-tail was not really new, the arrangement was ground-breaking. From this mythical times , I have been working on my own version, leading me to the fierce Overtube. But the original green Grail have been cherished all these years, and still part of my pedal collection at the best place.

Dating an original ts808

For a long time, that question was utterly useless : there were only originals , they were cheap, and the reissue trend was not yet even on my mind of marketing executives : they only changed the models and the pedal became ts9, ts10 ts5 and ts7 .But when market went crazy on prices , Ibanez made these pedals again and confusion started .
Well the outside look is kind of a give away : most of the original tubescreamers have been played A LOT and therefore display the wonderful patina of time. The backplate is also different from the but there is a much safer way to know when the treasure you hold in your hand was made: Japanese capacitors manufacturers had the crafty idea to print the year of production on their products. Just read it and you will know : on these pictures , both pedals shows 1981 date .
You can also spot the registered r near the Ibanez logo which indicates older models.

Tone-wise : is it right to spend so much money on an original ts808 ?

That should be short : YES. Any time we did a blind test with several tubescreamers we had on our feet original ts9 pedals, luxury ts808 reissues , modified reissue surgery victims , clones of various skills , etc … , any of our original pedals was chosen 10 times out of 10 . We could start an argument about mojo or any other vaporous theory but facts are facts. I of course have my personal theories about chaos theory and how original components have somehow learned to work together but I won’t bother you with them. I have seen and heard that enough with numerous vintage original pedals to be sure.

Collector-wise : is it right to spend so much money on an original ts808 ?

Then again it’s an easy YES : the price of vintage original have raised permanently though the years with no limit yet. I remember fondly when those pedals could be bought for 30$ or euros in the short synthesiser era of the ‘80s. So whenever you find one at a price you would agree, just buy it.

The 4558 opamp chip and the Malaysia story

As we was before ,the circuit of this pedal was conceived around the 4558 operational amplifier issued by Texas Instrument in the ‘70s. By all means this opamp was not targeting high-end audio but meant to be a more modern 741, and then received the modest ‘ general purpose ‘ sticker. You can find it in numerous domestic appliances of that period and that’s a fun game to spot it in thrift stores cassette recorders or radios. Several brands of this chip were used by Ibanez, and some aficionados would only swear by the Malaysia RC4558P from T.I. or Japan Radio Company JRC4558D. My habits in hi-fi tend to direct me toward the original, and as a matter of fact, my favourite ts808, nicknamed ‘ West’ has an original made in USA RC4558P from Texas Instrument themselves. But we are talking a subtle differences here. None original pedal lacked the magic in tone.

Mini-jack power supply

All original ts808 pedals had mini-jack positive tip power supply plug input. But a much lesser known fact that their enclosure was ready for standard Boss barrel DC. A square hole was already present as you can see on pics, while it was not a good idea from the precedent owner to punch it opened.

The ts808 siblings

And that leads us to its brothers : od850 and od855.
At the time of their issue the competition was still opened.
Many music mags gave the OD 850 the award for best harmonic distortion around and no doubt it is a great pedal.
Here are the ts808 signal-to-noise ratio precious info from a yore French tech mag:
Maximum gain: +30 db (+ 40db for OD850 and +45db for OD855)
Equivalent input noise: -100db (-70db for OD850 and -100db for OD855)
Price in French Francs of 1980 : 345,- ( FF 325,- for the other two)
All in all it seemed logical to the testers to choose the OD850 as a perfect ratio between gain and noise.
History made another choice.

My own creation : the Overtube.

I dislike making clones for at least two reasons :
I love to pay homage to the original object of my collection and it is a real joy for me to own several examples of this legendary pedal as well as other milestone pedals. I can find any value of a servile copy and if someone cannot afford an original , a cheap ts7 will always do the job and it is still an original pedal which can one day be cool, who knows.
The other reason is from an artefact point of view : I will always be much happier to sell a circuit I have created myself , expose my own sonic ideas and get the proper feedback from a satisfied customer.
This is why I built the Overtube on a new electronics basis to catch the creamy magic of the original ts808 and add it a CASCADE switch to emulate the use of 2 tubescreamers in series popularised by SRV himself.
Thank you for reading this article and let’s meet on my Overtube page

The post Jacques Ibanez ts808 page appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

Beautiful French singer from the ’60s, Isabelle Aubrey…

Well, to say the awful truth, France has never been a gear country.
When somebody use the word  » vintage  » in our delightful country, you better raise your glass then your axe.
Camembert yes, cheesy fuzz pedals no. Or is it so?

Not exactly. This neat overdrive pedal was produced in the late ’70s by the Stimer firm, better known for its acoustic guitar pick-ups: Django used one for his famous Selmer jazz guitar. They still produced this item when they issued the ST7 pedal as you can see in this wacky catalogue:

The Django pick-up is the 2nd bubble in the central column.

Their complete 5 pedals line was : SP100 preamp, system5 phasing, fuzz machine sustain, my distor tube machine, which, by the way, gives a very becoming overdrive tone, somewhere between a ts9 and a well-done Maurice Chevalier impersonation. The fifth pedal is mysteriously interesting: it is called « The Polyphonic » and bears 6 switches labelled..1 to 6. Room enough for imagination on what this effect was supposed to do…Cassoulet ? Bouillabaisse ?

Garen, as in « lapin de Garennes », is the other French brand with some notoriety. They were mainly present in the small tube amp market at a time where there were nothing else but tubes, and disappear when small Japanese tranny amps enter the market. These small tube amps are now looked after in France, for their champ-alike cranked-up distortion, French black and white ’50s gangster movies vibe and funny way to burst in flames at embarrassing moments.

Here we have a much rarer venue, La Chambre de Reverberation, or more humbly ,the reverb box. All tubes, modern swinging-Leningrad look , spring fitted, this rack is really useful to add some much needed empty swimming pool reverb to your pseudo-surf recordings with a French accent.
Please note that this beautiful box is now part of Musee de Montlucon for popular music collection.

This is a rare europa rack, made in France, complete with a digital prehisotric programming. You can memorize 8 configurations including very noisy overdrive with its dedicated noise gate ( any attempt to use it alone will end up catching an obscure Hungarian AM radio, full volume ) and super-easy-feedback-catching analog delay . All in all , it can give nice tones, all including a nice but obligatory pumping a la slow gear. I have seen other Europa product in ’70s French mags, mostly rackable pedals with exotic connections, but they really are quite hard to find in the flesh. Those into heavy make up ’70s french girls will enjoy….Myself, I can’t resist :

Beat that southern France product….Mireille Darc (French: [miʁɛj daʁk]; 15 May 1938 – 28 August 2017) was a French model and actress.

Now a great pedal. Made in France, by Garen which was somehow affiliated to Stimer in some way. It’s a big and heavy pedal which is more or less a great germanium tonebender, featuring blank marking AC128 transistors, with a great 3 positions tone filter.

I don’t know if these trannies are blank on purpose for copyright fear …however workmanship or ‘ artisanat ‘ is great and this pedal would have been very useful for Maurice Chevalier if he ever had a stratocaster and a marshall stack.

The post French beauties appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

Wandre Pioli (Pelotti is often quoted but is incorrect) really was a precursor in the guitar design.
Not only predating any other attempt in  aluminium necks , this genius could not help to be radically different
technically and aesthetically. Playing a Wandre, under his own name or under numerous other brand names such as
Framez or Davoli, is really a completely new experience, even if these guitars were manufactured more than 40 years ago.

SOME CORRECTED HISTORY…

Most books present Mr Wandre as a motorbikes manufacturer who decided one day to make guitars using his technical knowledge, and this genesis would explain the weirdness of the Wandre guitars.

This is totally wrong.

Born June 6th 1926, Antonio Pioli learned the beautiful art of luthery in his father workshop, a reknown luthier.
This succession took place in Cavriago, Reggio Emilia, Italy. We are at an hour driving distance from Cremona,
the cradle of human luthery, the home of Stradivarius.
Nicknamed « Wandre » by his father —which means ‘go in reverse’ in local Reggio slang—because of his eccentricity,
Antonio Pioli was a pure juice luthier, familiar with ancient and classical fine art of making resonant instruments.
He only wanted to make the guitar a better instrument. He constructed a factory in his hometown at his own standard:
to rationalise the manufacturing process, he built a round building to allow interactions of the multiple stages of the fabrication.
A well ahead industrial idea at its time, while quite at the right place, Northern Italian industry was then enjoying a peak of prosperity.

His first task was to find a lasting solution for wrapping necks. Italian woods are extraordinary for tone but
not as hard as American maple, and Italian guitars often suffer from bowing necks.

This is a back view of a Wandre neck. A broom stick of aluminium with a wooden finger board glued on it.
To avoid the cold sensation of the metal, a simple adhesive tape is applied along the neck.
While strange at first , these necks are very comfortable and every one of them is perfectly straight.

You can adjust the tilt of the neck ultra precisely because it is mounted on a hinge secured by two screws you can see at the heel. With all this , you adjust your string touching-fret-bottom-low with no buzz. Not bad for an economic ’60s guitar!

This a close view of the peg head, firmly screwed to the neck on three points.
Here we have a very nice angle with no risk of breaking it : the peghead/neck junction is a solid block of aluminium

Here is the most exciting piece of my wandre collection: the mighty cobra !!!
This is the 1st model and believe me and INCREDIBLE guitar.

First, the cobra is really a joy for the eyes, its design being both classic and innovative in terms of color, shape and layout.
Second, the playability is extreme, let say better than a well set Japan RG Ibanez, which is not a small feat.
The aluminium neck is perfectly straight and the great frets allows ultra-low setting with no buzz nowhere.

But , the main originality of the cobra is of course its reverse bridge.
The reverse bridge is some kind of a legend for wandre aficionados, and to see it –and hear it– at last really is a great honor for me. Most people talk about a cythar-like tone given by this device: this is not true at all. The ringing resonance of the guitar is nothing nasal or metallic.
It is a shimmering delight, still present when you plug the guitar, because of the nice microphony of the davoli pick-ups.
Nevertheless, my cobra gives me some of the best jazz tone I can play,
proving that the low frequencies were not sacrificed on Mr Wandre innovation altar.
It is worth noting that the 2nd version of the cobra, aka cobra 2 , bears a standard bridge, making it much less desirable to my eyes, while a splendid beauty of her own.

The fierce headstock is no stranger to the guitar well-sustained tones and uncanny looks. Notice the usual 3 screws system.

To end the cobra article, here is a nice view of its bamboo-mysterious-india-located-movies-green-radical-sunburst finished back.
The vibrato system remains quite obscure for me. All I can say is that this black metal prong contains some kind of spring.
Mr. Wandre really did nothing like the other guitar makers.

Here is my second hollow body Wandre lying on a fellow Davoli amp. It is the same guitar than the blue one.
The body is not as it is often quoted, in fiberglass.
It is pure Italian poplar with a heat arch top construction painted with a heavy glossy finish.

What is funny about the amp is that it says proudly « transistor » on its front plate but is all tube.
Just the opposite of the current trend !!

Here is a very special semi-acoustic electric bass. The shape is somehow similar to the my guitars, while this instrument bears a beautiful sparkling lake placid blue finish. The construction is different too: it is the n°2 type wandre neck through, a massive aluminium device with sliding bridge. The pick-up is missing.

You can see here that this type of neck is more sophisticated, bearing an exotic wood insert, mother-of-pearl pegheads, and complete induction of the cold aluminium neck in some classy ivory white plastic , with a very nice feeling.

  This is the strangest thing about this bass: each fingerboard inlay is different. And the last one is more often found on EKO guitars. No clue why such a complicated work was done on this bass. Before leaving, please notice the exquisite wandre peghead aluminium inlay on the wood insert.

Here is my newest acquisition : a baby blue wonderful fulcrum neck with the strat like head. This means the strings are only supported by the aluminium structure, and that the hollow body is just assembled on this for tone, ergonomics and looks.
The weak small pick up seems original , but this wonderful axe would disserved a better medium.

Here is a side view that helps to imagine the guitar in 3D. Note the curved back and perfect action, once again !

Here are some more WANDRE guitars :
First a very rare plain style DORIS . I have heard the name came from a French woman he kind of fancied.
You can only admire the delicacy of the sparkle red finish and the exquisite exotic wood head. I wonder if the Then another COBRA, with a very nice orange hue.

And last but not least, a ROCKOVAL , in poor condition, with a –I guess– non-original stars and stripes painting . I know Mr.Wandre did make some very unique custom paintings but the style was quite different, involving romantic birds and trees.

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