Dana_V

If no one here buys them, there was a guy posting in the Shishkov group on Facebook about how he desperately wants an Ultimate. I don't know him and I don't know how serious he is, but it might be worth looking into. It was in response to when I posted a picture of mine: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10213790137302469&set=gm.2456616787753990&type=3&theater&ifg=1

I heard from Josh tonight: my pickups are finished and have been delivered to Mike. Progress is being made. 😏

No affiliation, but someone please buy this so I can stop thinking about it. I mean, it's BLUE. https://reverb.com/item/28525808-hamer-studio-1995-rare-kool-blue

It's a little messy, but here's 0063 on Slim Harpo's "Shake Your Hips" from last Saturday night.

Do NOT use dimmer packs - not with fixtures like these. Dimmer packs are only for conventional (incandescent) fixtures where the brightness is controlled by the applied AC voltage. LED fixtures like the Venue Thinpar64 should be connected to constant line voltage, then the intensity and color are controlled by DMX. They also have built-in presets to allow them to be used with no controller. There are DMX controllers in every imaginable configuration and price range, from simple and inexpensive to really complicated and expensive. There's also software-based lighting control, although you'll need USB-to-DMX hardware. Just don't plug those Venue Thinpar64s into dimmer packs.

I could narrow it down to three. The obvious choice is the ’81 Special that has seen more playing time than any of my other guitars, My Beloved Blackie. I’m the original owner; I bought it bought new from The Musician’s Shop (it’s long gone now) in Bellaire, Texas. When I was at GIT in the 80s, people tended to be identified by the guitar they played. The guy with the yellow Charvel, the guy with the red Strat, etc. I was The Guy with the Black Hamer. Next is my 1975 Gibson SG, bought new from Evans Music City in Houston on November 8, 1975, for $470.89, including hardshell case and sales tax. I was 14 years old. I saved up for it for months and months, forgoing any and all frivolous spending. I worked out a deal with my parents that when I was halfway there they would loan me the rest, and that’s what we did. It took a while, but I paid them back in full with money I earned playing it. These days it mostly stays in the case, but it still makes an appearance from time to time. (Sadly, after over 70 years in business, Evans closed in 2018.) Finally, Shishkov Ultimate #0063. It’s an amazing instrument in every way: workmanship, sound, playability, you name it (but y'all know that already). Beyond that, it was the first time I was able to have a say in every step in the process, from selection of the wood for the top to the neck shape. And as if that wasn’t enough, in the summer of 2017 my daughter and I embarked on an epic Texas-Connecticut road trip and picked it up in person, spending the day with Mike and his family. (0063, by the way, is a nod to my wife’s birthday, August 9, 1963. We had been married 30 years when she passed away in 2014.)

Just in case anyone wondered what would happen if a Hamer Special and a Gibson S-1 had a baby (and added a Bigsby).

Got another update yesterday.

In no order: Randy Jo Hobbs Peter "Mars" Cowling dUg Pinnick Tom Petersson Dusty Hill Honorable mentions (also in no order): John Entwistle, Geddy Lee, Phil Lynott, Billy Sheehan, Les Claypool, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Stuart Hamm, and a bunch of others I can't think of right now.

Thanks for picking up the torch on this one - you've done a much better job of explaining it than I have. And yes, it makes perfect sense. Here's a chart that shows the different light engine options for one of the fixtures the company I work for sells, the SolaSpot 3000. All LED-based, but with different outputs. You can opt for the "Ultra-Bright" engine for 37,000 lumens at 7000k and CRI > 70, or the "High Fidelity" engine for 25,000 lumens at 6000K and CRI > 95. It's a compromise: brighter with less accuracy or slightly less bright with better accuracy.

It's possible that the LEDs have a higher color temperature, making it look brighter – blue-white instead of the yellowish merc-vapor – but the actual light output (lumens) is lower, therefore the shorter throw. I discussed it with one of the optical engineers at work and he added, "It also could be that the LED looks brighter because the light distribution is wider, but the axis intensity is lower than that of the mercury vapor light."

For my 300th post, I thought it might be time to start an 0093 thread. I took the first picture myself, but all the others are from Trish - thanks. 😊 It started on Monday, July 10, 2017, at Shishkov HQ when I picked the wood for the top. There were several choices and Mike and I discussed the piece that he thought would work best with the color I had in mind. It's the one in the middle. April, 2019: the neck. And the body. June, 2019: the binding. More updates as they occur.

With the exception of some high-output projectors, LEDs have replaced any other form of light source in the professional touring world. All of the major manufactures' fixtures are exclusively LED-based. It just hasn't trickled down to our level yet. But anyway: Are you sure we weren't in the same band? (haha) In the early 80s my band used a massive setup of 500W PAR 64s (plus some other incidental lighting). Our sound guy was an electrician and would tap in to the breaker box pre-fuses. And yes, at least one of us would stand nearby with a 2x4 ready to knock him away from it if something went wrong (luckily, it never did). We had our own distro system. Maybe it was a little dangerous, but it sure beat tripping the breakers. We also made our own pyro, and it's really, really amazing that (a) nobody got seriously injured and (b) we never burned any buildings down. These days for me, though, it's all Chauvet, for better or worse. Four 4BARs with one band and two with the other. One person can literally carry all the lights in one trip. No more tripped breakers, no more tapping into the venue's electrical box, no more huge road cases filled with heavy lights and cables. And no more waiting for the fixtures to cool down before you can pack them up at the end of the night. It's smaller lighter, not as dangerous...but also somehow a little boring. And of course, no more homemade pyro. For old time's sake: homemade pyro, 1981.

Exactly. The viewing angle of a single LED is very narrow, and since the fixtures we're talking about are almost exclusively direct-view, even the wash fixtures create a relatively narrow beam. To create a proper light source, multiple white LEDs are assembled in a cluster under a lens. This is a light engine from a typical modern fixture, and you can see the individual LEDs under the lens: Once the source is established you can manipulate the beam however you want - color, shape, brightness (with mechanical dimming), etc.

Absolutely. Having said all that, and even though I work for a world-renowned lighting company, both bands I play in use Chauvet LED-based lights. They're lightweight, relatively inexpensive and we don't have to worry about tripping breakers in the bars where we play (like we did when we used PAR 38s). But man I wish they were brighter. Even video shot on a full-HD camera ends up looking murky.