It seems to calm the sound down and give it more midrange. It’s funny, I never saw anybody do it before I was doing it and I did it years ago. It’s like you’re in a hallway. Especially with overwound pickups one gets lost of the treble and receives a dull sound. In late 1972, this sunburst axe was rather damaged at its headstock.
I just overload the input side and I can get my sustain as well. This twin-blade L-450 guitar along with the F500T axe were Ritchieâs main guitars for a long time.
Afterwards this guitar was used additionally with the Lace Sensor loaded Strat in Ritchie´s Rainbow reunion.As for Rainbow and Blackmoreâs Night studio work he often used a heavy weighted black Strat supposably with an ash body with a small headstock and noise free pickups of unknown brand. Unicord (or was it Korg back then?) I can’t take credit for that idea, as Ritchie explained to me he had bought an used acoustic guitar in England and it was so worn out that the wood between the frets were scoped out from the player’s finger nails. In spring 1969 Ritchie bought a stock 1968 black maple neck Stratocaster. ;-)Ritchie Blackmore in mid/late 1977 with his famous 1974 sunburst Fender Stratocaster (Serial number: 576183) with scalloped rosewood fretboard and staggered singlecoil pickups.This L-250 Strat (alongside the F500T and the 77 Velvet Hammer Strats, the latter had a white pickguard now) was especially used in 1981 during the âDifficult to cureâ-Tour. The L-250 remained Ritchieâs only guitar with active electronics. With this pick you can be more nimble.Over the course of Rainbow with Dio, pickups went from stock Fender to higher-output Schecters (didn’t actually use quarter pounders but they are copies of the Schecter) – although the full windings of the Schecters were not used to avoid too dark a sound. I just thought it was a normal tape deck, but now it’s become this little soul on the side of the stage. The circuit could be bypassed with the small switch.
And you tend to get feedback and overtones you don’t want.I don’t really know. You can see part of this in the Fire in the Basement video (it’s not one of his white stage Majors). Blackmore used this guitar until mid 1978 as his main axe.
During one of the last DP Mk2 shows Ritchie destroyed the fine 72 sunburst. Echoes always thin the sound.
For this tremolo, Ritchie used a special custom-made ¼" (6.3mm) heavy weighted steel arm, to attack the tremolo real hard. He put an additional 1000 ohms on the Fender neck pickups, a little bit more on the lead pickup. It’s done up like a medieval dungeon. That’s why every two weeks things just tend to disintegrate. It doesnât thin out my sound like all the echoes do. I use tortoiseshell because plastic is too soft. Then I can get a perspective of what’s going on; otherwise all you can hear is yourself.
At this time, Rainbow used a huge rainbow on stage, equipped with more than 4.000 light bulbs which caused a lot of humming noises in Ritchieâs stock singlecoil pickups. I know Jim Marshall personally, and he boosted them for me. Like on his old black Strat the tremolo was as well customized to his specification: a heavy custom-made tremolo arm made of steel was fitted and a bigger hole had to be drilled into the steel block to hold the fatter arm. I’d really be in trouble if somebody stole my recorder. But some more words about the Lawrence pickups, Ritchieâs favorite choice.
So as to retain the crisp sound when rolling back the volume pot Ritchie´s tech installed a âtreble bleedâ capacitor into this guitar. 1993 for the song "The battle rages on", still without the Roland GK-1 system at this time.
The legendary âBeat Clubâ session from September 1971 was recorded with this sunburst Strat. To get rid of the treble loss, the original dummy-coil for the neck pickup was used for the bridge pickup again. I had an extra stage built onto it, and a couple more valves. tone and no high-end cut. I turn down on the guitar for dynamics. The top-end came back, but now the bridge pickup produced noticeably more hum than the neck pickup. [In a later interview he said:]I’ve always played every amp I’ve ever had full up, because rock and roll is supposed to be played loud. I knew Jim Marshall.