Drendino Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 I just played a spruce top Newport Pro that my buddy just picked up from Wilcutts for $1,800. Oddly, he asked about 20 questions, but never asked if the price was negotiable. I was not prepared for just how great of an instrument it is! The fit and finish was perfect and that .90 neck at the first fret just melted in my hand and took zero time to get used to. The tone is a bit more focused than my maple top I-35, but maybe not quite as woody. I was surprised to find that it overlapped a lot with my Collings, yet was different enough to make me GAS for one! I have a few questions. 1. Will a Bigsby alter or deaden the overall tone? 2. Will I lose some of that tonal focus if I went with a different top?3. Anything else I should know?
django49 Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 If you get in the general vicinity, you are welcome to try out a pair of quite different ones and see for yourself!
Disturber Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 The Newports sounds awesome with the Bigsby, definately not killin' tone. Hamer knew how to install them just right.But if the TOM bridge ones sound different I don't know.
gorch Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 Newports need a Bigsby! I don't see sound differences for the spruce top with or without Bigsby. With other tops, sure there would. Get yourself one and become a happy guitar player.
burningyen Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 I never had my Pro and my regular Newport side-by-side, but my sense was that the Pro was punchier but that the regular Newport had more sustain.
tbabinec Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 The stock pickups make for a difference in tone. Newport w Bigsby has Phat Cats while Newport Pro has Seth Lovers.
ib2010 Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 When i think of Spruce tops vs. Maple tops, i tend to think the Spruce is more of a "blossoming tone" , less direct ,less sharp a snap, and not as immediately "focused",----perhaps. --I had a standard spruce top Newport, and currently have a Spruce top Newport 90, and A Birdseye Maple Newport Pro. Love the Spruce tops "lush" character/range, especially when using fingers for the attack. Hope that helps.
JohnnyB Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 There is a reason spruce is the soundboard in pianos, the top of orchestral string instruments, lutes, acoustic guitars, mandolins, and just about anything else you can name--it resonates pretty equally at all frequencies, whereas maple has a sharp midrange response and falls off from there.Second, the standard Newport has Phat Cats, which were originally designed specifically for the Newport.Third, even with a Bigsby, the Newport is a tone monster able to accommodate a broad range of styles with quick response and a wide spectrum of tones.
serial Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 The Newport ranks up there as one of the top two best all-around Hamers in my opinion.
TobiTill Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 Hi serial,I don't want to derail the thread ( as I've never played a Newport and therefore do not have anything to add),but if you don't mind:Which other Hamer models would you consider the most versatile? Prototype?Curiosity demands to be served.Cheers,Tobias
Drendino Posted May 6, 2014 Author Posted May 6, 2014 Hey guys, thanks for answering my questions and throwing fuel on the fire. I'm going to wait patiently until one with a Bigsby pops up here. Haven't seen too many of them and now know why.
Disturber Posted May 6, 2014 Posted May 6, 2014 One main question is, what music do you play? The spruced top Bigsby version with Phat Cats sounds great through a Fender type of amp. Clean, up to mild breakup. It can sound great with a pedal too. But I had a very hard time dialing it in through my Marshalls. And others here have complained about the same thing. The Phats Cats are just to weak and thin to sound good through a Marshall type of amp in a hollow body construction. The bridge pup sounds kinda trebly, piercing and a little nasal. But for Fender type of amps, they can be absolutely amazing. It's a great rockabilly guitar with a cool Gretsch type of sound with the Phat Cats with their original magnets. If you are mainly going to use it for rock then I'd go with the Newport Pro, with the Seth Lover pickups. Or if you like to tinker a bit yourself, you can swap the A2 magnets in the Phat Cat pickups. That will make them more P90 like with a better grind. I swapped the bridge for an UOA5 and an A8 mag. And the neck has an A4 and an UOA5. I think that makes the Phat Cats much better pickups. They sound warmer, fatter, bluesier/jazzier and they drive my amps just right. Through a vintage Marshall they sound like a very good P90 pickup. The only downside is I lost some of the Gretsch vibe for a more 335'ish vibe. But I used to fiddle with the bridge pickup constantly before, now It sounds just great. So it's a very good upgrade to do with the Phat Cat pups if you are playing rock. It's easy to swap the mags. You open up the pickup. Carefully lifting the bottom plate from the cover. It has a wire from the bottom plate to the cover, so you don't lift that side, you open it like a door. Like in the picture here. Then you just take the two mags out. Check your polarity with the new magnets, then just pop them in. And the you re-solder the cover to the base plate. And you can take a hair dryer to heat the pickup some, to let the wax settle around the new mags. It would take 10, 15 minutes per pickup tops.
gorch Posted May 6, 2014 Posted May 6, 2014 This thread deserves a pic. ... and a sound sample. https://soundcloud.com/gorch_de/rock-on-newport
JohnnyB Posted May 6, 2014 Posted May 6, 2014 One main question is, what music do you play? The spruced top Bigsby version with Phat Cats sounds great through a Fender type of amp. Clean, up to mild breakup. It can sound great with a pedal too. But I had a very hard time dialing it in through my Marshalls. And others here have complained about the same thing. The Phats Cats are just to weak and thin to sound good through a Marshall type of amp in a hollow body construction. The bridge pup sounds kinda trebly, piercing and a little nasal. But for Fender type of amps, they can be absolutely amazing. It's a great rockabilly guitar with a cool Gretsch type of sound with the Phat Cats with their original magnets.There are several other amps that match well with the Phat Cat spruce top Newport. The Mesa DC-5 and DC-10 are fantastic matches. So are the Trace-Elliot Velocette-based amps, such as the short-lived Gibson GoldTone series, esp. with a 12" speaker or two. You'll also get great sounds through the Yorkville Traynor series, esp. YCV40/50 and YCV80. The Phat Cats sound so ballsy through all those amps I'm not sure it's fair to characterize them as weak and thin. Given how well the Phat Cats can light up so many amps, I think it's more of an EQ mismatch with the Marshalls. Along that same line, I have a Top Hat Club Deluxe which is a little harder to match up with the Phat Cats. It has a 6V6 Fender Deluxe-type amplifier, but the preamp is based on the Vox AC Top Boost and the speaker is a 12" Celestion Greenback. I find I can dial in a pretty good tone if I turn the midrange EQ way down.So I suspect the Phat Cat plus Marshall electronics plus Celestion may be too much midrange. Oddly, the Gibson GoldTone/Velocette amps were based on Vox preamp/power amp + Celestions too, but man, that 2x12 GoldTone sounded fantastic with the Newport. It's the amp I auditioned the Newport with and it's that Newport I brought home that day.
Case Posted May 6, 2014 Posted May 6, 2014 But I had a very hard time dialing it in through my Marshalls. And others here have complained about the same thing. The Phats Cats are just to weak and thin to sound good through a Marshall type of amp in a hollow body construction. The bridge pup sounds kinda trebly, piercing and a little nasal. Interesting. I had a very opposite (and very pleasantly surprising) experience with my spruce topped Newport Phat Cat paired with mid-gain/Marashall types. I absolutely love it overdriven, even with gobs of high gain. That being said, I do have the luxury of the Axe FX which means I can eliminate noise easily and EQ to my hearts content - but I hardly had to. With my Splawn patch and JCM800 patch, it sounds just absolutely killer.
Disturber Posted May 6, 2014 Posted May 6, 2014 One main question is, what music do you play? The spruced top Bigsby version with Phat Cats sounds great through a Fender type of amp. Clean, up to mild breakup. It can sound great with a pedal too. But I had a very hard time dialing it in through my Marshalls. And others here have complained about the same thing. The Phats Cats are just to weak and thin to sound good through a Marshall type of amp in a hollow body construction. The bridge pup sounds kinda trebly, piercing and a little nasal. But for Fender type of amps, they can be absolutely amazing. It's a great rockabilly guitar with a cool Gretsch type of sound with the Phat Cats with their original magnets. . The Phat Cats sound so ballsy through all those amps I'm not sure it's fair to characterize them as weak and thin. Given how well the Phat Cats can light up so many amps, I think it's more of an EQ mismatch with the Marshalls. .Definately not an EQ mismatch. More a weak output thing. I put the bridge as close to the strings as possible, still it was just treble, very little mids and with the whole band it was just cutting through in a very un pleasant way. It sounded best through my Super Champ with the 10", but also okay in the Deluxe Reverb for Clean, not so with the amp overdriven, but better with a pedal.The strange thing is the neck and bridge Phat Cats had different coloured A2 mags. The neck had almost black, very dark mags, and the bridge had a more normal iron colour. I don't know if Duncan uses different mags on purpose, or if it's just coincidence. I don't know if they weaken the mags or if they are full strength in the bridge.But overall the sound of my Newport is just where I want it now. The bridge sounds more like a good paf, like a Seth mixed with a Custom, and the neck is not muddy and dark as it used to be, it's got more shimmer and balances much better with the bridge. They had quite a miss match in output before. You had to have the neck way down and the bridge way up, That caused the neck to be muddy and the bridge to be kinda ear piercing.
gorch Posted May 7, 2014 Posted May 7, 2014 It's true! The Phat Cats sound thin. In the right setup they sound just perfect. They are also pretty hot. So, there is plenty of options to dial in. My friend keeps saying that the Newport is my best guitar. So, Hamer may have done it just right.
bubs_42 Posted May 7, 2014 Posted May 7, 2014 WTF THIN? You have to be kidding me. The last time I went to a band try out I took 3 Guitars, T51, Standard with a Custom5 in the bridge and my Newport. They played plenty of rock so I played the Standard, then switched to the Newport. We played one song and the other guitar players turns to me and says "That is what i'm talking about, that thing sound HUGE!".HUGE was what is did sound like, so much so that when we put together the first Phantom Twist I ask Murkat to Fit a Phatcat in the bridge of the Phantom in place of the Humbucker. OMG that guitar sounds Big and Phat, so next to my Newport is holds its own, they both make Tally sound weak (this too will change) and thin.
Caddie Posted May 7, 2014 Posted May 7, 2014 All Newports neeeeeeed:Bigsby Spruce Top Phat CatsAfter that its all just lipstick n mascara.Cheerscaddie
ib2010 Posted May 8, 2014 Posted May 8, 2014 A little mascara can sometimes help a goddess release her awesome devil.
Drendino Posted May 8, 2014 Author Posted May 8, 2014 This thread deserves a pic. How 'bout another? BRR fingerboard?
Disturber Posted May 8, 2014 Posted May 8, 2014 WTF THIN? You have to be kidding me. The last time I went to a band try out I took 3 Guitars, T51, Standard with a Custom5 in the bridge and my Newport. They played plenty of rock so I played the Standard, then switched to the Newport. We played one song and the other guitar players turns to me and says "That is what i'm talking about, that thing sound HUGE!". Yeah, I know.... ...I have a bunch of old 70's & 80's Hamers with the old Dimarzio PAF's. Most of them sounds pretty much the same, with the same EQ. But two of them were awfully bright and ice picky. I have swapped the mags to A2's in them, and now they sound killer. But they also sounds pretty similar to the other ones now, with the original A5's mags. So, same kinda guitars with the same construction and build - still they sound different and needs different EQ. That is the fun thing with guitars, the wood is alive. So, I'm thinking my specific Newport just didn't sound good with the Phat Cats in their original form - as I never could dial them pups in right. But now that I changed the EQ the damn guitar sounds absolute huge, and totally fantastic. As I never played another Newport I have nothing to compare with, but I suspect this could be the case.... My Newport did not sound like this before, but now it sounds pretty much like this - probably a tad fatter even....
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.