Sehr Schon, Sehr Gut!

[Drak]

This is a tailpiece upgrade I just did to one of my late 60's Ovation Thunderheads, which have a German heritage.

The body was made by Schaller and imported by Ovation back in the days of manufacture.

I always liked the 'German Way' of accenting their builds back in the day.

One of the 'tricks' they often did was to use a black and white theme of some sort to accentuate the rest of the build.

Sometimes checkerboard binding, sometimes some variation of a black/white headstock motif, sometimes black and white hardware accents, just depends...

They had various ways to 'sneak it in' there and I always liked that, the way they'd just sneak it in somehow, somewhere.

Not always, but its there if you look at a lot of old German builds.

And so, I have done the same with my German heritage Ovation Thunderhead. Let's say we done gone 'legit' wid it.

Yes, yes, pics are forthcoming, I just finished gluing up the tailpiece and its ready to mount on the guitar now.

I'll leave this one pic as a teaser. This is the tailpiece, on the very far left, as it started life.

I bought this thing on eBay as a standalone about 15-20 years ago, can't remember the make that it would have come off of.

I was doing a gold hardware shoot the day I took this pic, I think in 2014. It doesn't look like this anymore, I can Gur-un-tee you that.

Its...well...its black and white! And...well, you'll see.

[Drak]

This is the 'sacrificial lamb' 3rd one I bought, just to rip off all the hardware which was all in great shape.

The body was toast, but you can see the very original bracing system it used, which I Adore.

It allows the body to vibrate and resonate wonderfully, unlike a 335 solidblock hunkajunk, and not the cheesy-ass Japanese full hollow routine.

This is mass-produced real German goodness.

[Drak]

And this is 'the other one', not the one the new tailpiece is going on, but 'the other one'.

I completely 100% gutted, re-sprayed, and rebuilt both of them over the past few years.

I didn't take the old finishes off, I just cleaned them up, sanded and prepped them, and added a little tinting to the clearcoats.

This one was turning a sort of greenish hue before I added a little Nutmeg to warm it back up.

I never posted the guitar that's getting the new tailpiece, but it looks exactly like this one, just a different color.

[Drak]

These guitars are pretty much vintage Gretches-hide-in-plain-sight with genuine vintage DeArmond pickups.

Both bridge and neck clock in about 7.3K-ish. Other models clock in around 8.4k, of which I have one of those (you'll see it).

Ovation completely blew it by installing some really weird-ass pickup selector switching system. Totally bizarre wiring scheme.

So any YT you watch of them, they always sound like SHIT, they all sound like shit, I've never heard or seen a decent YT of these things, not one.

Due to the completely bizarre circuit they installed around a pair of drop-dead gorgeous DeArmonds.

Oh the insanity...I mean, you take a pair of gorgeous DeArmonds and Completely Whackamole the circuit around them...Danger Will Robinson!

Mine blow them ALL out of the water as I re-wired them both to standard old Gibson (50's) wiring w/ 500K's all around and .01uf caps.

Which actually works and sounds great, and the way they should have come out of the factory.

Both of mine sound like vintage Gretches, which is what they basically are when wired right.

[Prostheta]

Yeah, they're an aesthetic of their own , that's for sure. Italy had a weird run of guitars in the (I think 60s-70s) which was a similar path of discovery and art like German guitars. Is that the sort of aesthetic that's caught you?

[Drak]

Not really 'caught me', I was 'into' the German thing probably 20 years ago, its long since left me for the most part.

But yes, there was a different European aesthetic compared to USA builds back then, so yes.

This was just an idea to use up a part that had been laying around.

OK, tailpiece sprayed red lacquer.

1/16" piece of Mahogany for the insert. Couple of CA glue layers to get smooth for lacquer.

Rough fitting insert, and I thinned out the section where the ball ends need to enter with no  obstructions.

Insert sprayed with the black/white pattern and clearcoated.

Fitted and glued in.

Guitar Before:

And after:

[Drak]

If you notice the bridge pickup on this one, it is from a Tornado. They're still DeArmonds, but a different build style alltogether, it looks completely different on the bottom. It measures about 8.4K, and I really like it better in the bridge than the 7.4K originals. It adds just enough extra 'heat' to get the thing to growl a little. Just a little. But I like it better.

A funny story...this one was built from nearly completely separate parts bought at different times through a 10-year period. That bridge pickup is microphonic as HELL, I imagine whoever sold it thought they were getting rid of a dog, but I LOVE it. The microphonic pickup combined with the very acoustically resonant body just WORK together, its glorious. It makes the entire guitar microphonic, you tap a fingernail anywhere on the body and the whole thing is microphonic 'like that'. Like the body is an amplified extension of the pickup.

I typically never use these guitars through a pedalboard, just guitar>cord>amp (and usually a tweed thing), so I never really run into howling feedback.

But there is an added resonance to the sound the other one doesn't have.

These are my 'old school jump-swing-blues' guitars, tho they work great for Ernest Tubb style old-school country too, and it goes w/o saying they're Rockabilly Monsters.

This is pretty much what they sound like, These sound nearly exactly like Duke's guitar.

If you pay attention, Duke's Epi has a bit clearer sound as opposed to Charlie Baty's HB'ered up Gibson.

PS, I was there at that very show way back when, it was a jaw-dropping show from start to finish if you like this kind of music.

Skip to about 7 min. in to get to 'the action'.

Little Charlie - Duke Robillard

[Bizman62]

Oh my! Those loose pants and double breasted suits! I used to wear them at work all the time, you could get a suit from a bargain rack for next to nothing and it didn't go out of fashion - at least not as fast as the casual business clothes.

It was about at the date of the video I last saw Duke live, he was having a gig with the Pleasure Kings at a smallish pub in my hometown. The previous time had been a few years earlier... A 70's very popular local singer and her husband had set up a record wholesale business and had acquainted with Duke during a road trip in the US and brought him over a couple of times. Very good music for a very decent ticket price! - Oh, and I worked at a small record shop for the summer of '85 and actually ordered some Duke records to the shop from that pop star of my childhood! And of course I bought myself the LP's for the stock price...

[Drak]

I just found this video about a year ago and couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I thought it was just another show out of hundreds I saw, lost to the annals of my fading memories, mostly forgotten.

I remembered the 'can of worms' remark very clearly, and was completely smoked to find the whole show online, I couldn't believe it.

I saw both Little Charlie and Duke various times through the years, but this particular show was like a magic show, it topped all the others.

They seem to just mindlessly vomit up never-ending musical ideas without ever stepping on each other or having to even think about what they were doing.

These are the amps I usually run through when using these Ovations.

This is my 'old school rig', they're late 40's Ampower Model 80's, rebuilt by my amp guy, I never put pedals through these things, just guitar>cable.