Musicians Agency
and what's so special at all those Equipment?
here's two video's of Ritchies guitar room to get started:
The Major wich has an extra tube in it (and it has fur)
also on the back it seems to have another mod but what??
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The strat can be seen in the Youtube video:
"Ritchie's Guitar collection 2" i posted earlier, 50 seconds after the
video starts he shows it for a few seconds.
here are a few picture's
with some explaining of the special parts:
first a few screen capture's from the Youtube video:
It whas mentioned in the video that the necks wood whas about 250 years old.
At the top-left you can see it's a string-trough-body, the reason can be
seen at the top-right: it has a golden Tele-like bridge.
the bridge p-up is a hotrail and in the neck position is a (zebra colored) humbucker.
three other things that are quite special is the shape of the pickgaurd,
the magnificent Renaissance inlay/decal on the pickgaurd wich spells
"Only for Ritchie", and the fact that there's no tone pot, just one single
volume pot. (i would love to know if the switch is a 4 or 3 way)
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I've had it for about 15 years and i asked to my roadie,
if he could get it refretted, and he said: "Of course!".
so now te get this effect (Scallop) it usually takes about 3 days,
sandpapering, sandpapering... And putting tape over the frets.
i had it send away, and the man who did the refretting job,
saw that the wood whas shaped like this (scalloped)
So when he gave it back to me he said:
"Oh, by the way, no extra charge: as well as doing the refretting,
i plained your neck Flat." So i Proceeded to go Berserk!
It took 3 Days to get the Fretboard scalloped again, which resulted
in a unplayable Strat because the neck got too thin to play...
Also the idea of the Strapholer on the Headstock
whas just to make people wonder what it whas for...
"It must be for something, Maybe a Extra string?"
someone said. but it does nothing"
The 12 String Lute-Guitar from Lakewood Guitars.
this guitar is very special since there is only one(!!)
and thats made for "The Man in Black".
the pictures and little story already reveals something
about the sad condition of this rare instrument: the neck
has been broken, glued together and since then the neck could'nt
bear the tension of 12 strings anymore, tough Ritchie still uses this
instrument but with 6 strings.
here a Quote of Ritchie about the Lute-Guitar:
"We were touring in Germany once and this guy gave me one and I kept it. I didn’t play it for months, and then suddenly I remembered it. It’s made of Brazilian wood, I think, and it resonates very well. So I had three guitars custom-made by them, including a lute-guitar which I had made up. It looks just like a lute but it was a 12-string guitar. Then the neck got broken by somebody who dropped it on stage and wouldn’t own up … after it was fixed the 12 strings didn’t work, so I just use it as a 6-string."
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This one is made by Ritchie's guitar tech Dawk,
it's assembled from smashed guitar parts and whas used
by ritchie as a Back-up Guitar...
and i think it's even for sale at the moment!
On the top left you can see a "Cast" Tremelo and the Master knob instead of a Volume Knob. On the top right is the prototype MTC #2 mod that Ritchie's Guitar technician developed. And on the underside of the Picture you can see the whole Guitar (it actually has a small headstock!) And R. Blackmore's Signature style Scalloped frets.
On this one you can see the Tremelo springs on the top left. in the middle there's a picture of the inside of the guitar, which is painted with "Radar Paint" to reduce unwanted noises. and on the right you can see the "bolt on" neck joint which is also glued with "Epoxy". i guess the pickups are original Fenders but i only know for sure about the Bridge one, it's a "Fender Hot X-1"
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To be More Precise: The Aiwa TP-1011 TapeDeck. this TapeDeck has been modded for Ritchie so again it's the only one in it's kind, but if you have much money and a tiny bit of luck you can find one un-modified for a thew thousand dollars. :shock: (for Reel to Reel TapeDeck Collectors this is a very rare collectors item too) The Aiwa Tape Deck Whas used for Delay, Reverb and Treble Booster effects, Also it whas used as a Pre- Amp. Sadly enough Blackmore's TapeDeck is'nt in the shape he used to be and also missing it's Tapes (wich can be seen on the lowerright) wich reveals that it is'nt used very extensively anymore. :( (the only function of this TapeDeck is reduced to Treble Booster-like effects nowadays, so the Delay and Reverb are disabled due to defect or no longer need of the effects)
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Lets start with the strings Ritchie mostly uses on his Electric Guitar: The Picato RB77 Nickel roundwound special gauge, the thicknes in order is: .010" .011" .014" .0.26" .038" .048". Many Guitarists who play on these strings say that they feel diffrent then a regular type guitar strings. also Nickel wound strings sound less bright when they are in perfect condition and they last MUCH longer then Phosphor Bronze, Brass and steel strings. Then the slide on the top right: Ritchie uses an All metal slide much like the massively made ones, but the difference with Ritchie's is that it's slightly wider, also fun to know is that Ritchie Blackmore's Guitartech built "Slide Holders" onto Ritchie's amps. not much more to tell about this peice of bended metal, but there is about Blackmore's Playing style with the slide. Ritchie always lays it in the palm of his hand instead of on one of his fingers, that gives him more control over the vibrato's he can make with the slide. Last but Definetly not least!: The MTC, (the funny black-box on the top left) the device that has more influence on Ritchie's sound then the two things mentioned before. The MTC is developed and built only by Dawk and costs around $300. It's a tone circuit that smoothes his sound when he turns his Master/Volume knob of his guitar slightly down. it is'nt a radical change in the tone of the guitar but it definetly changes it. Also there is a copy of the MTC, it's called the RBTC and it works exactly the same way, these cost €105 so that's a real money saver, tough it works and does the same, it could sound a bit diffrent but i dont know for sure since i never had an opportunity to test either of them next to eichother.
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The Hurdy-Gurdy model Ritchie has is a Standard Pheonix made by: Helmut Gotschy. A Hurdy Gurdy sometimes is also called a wheel fiddle, and is much like a violin only the hurdy-gurdy is controlled mechanicly (tough the sound is'nt exactly like a violin ;) it's more like a bagpipe because of Drone strings that make a sound at a certain constant pitch). Under Ritchie's left hand is the "Keybox" in wich the blocks press on the strings to get the desired note that is played on the keyboard. along with previously mentioned this are the most important parts of a H-G: 1. The Tailpiece (on wich one end of the strings is connected) 2. The Bridge (for the melody strings) 3. The Buzzing Bridge (for the Buzzing strings) 4. The Crank (without moving Crank, no sound) 5. The Tuning pegs (well.... it's the same as guitar tuners) 6. The Wheel (is connected to the crank, and when the strings pass over they make sound) The preffered material for Hurdy-Gurdy strings is Gut. Ritchie has just one Hurdy Gurdy (the model is mentioned at the begin of the post) and does'nt appear very much with it tough he there is a recording on the Blackmore's Night DVD "Castles and Dreams" with the song "The Clock Ticks On"
I can only say thank you to Blackster, who wrote this!
Richard Hugh "Ritchie" Blackmore (born 14 April 1945 in Weston-super-Mare, England) is an English guitarist, who was a founding member of hard rock bands Deep Purple and Rainbow. He left Deep Purple in 1993 due to a growing rift between Blackmore and other members in spite of renewed commercial success. His current band is the Renaissance influenced Blackmore's Night.
He was influenced in his youth by early rockers like Hank Marvin and Gene Vincent, and later, country pickers like Chet Atkins. His playing improved and in the early 1960s he started out as a session player for Joe Meek's music productions and performed in several bands. He was a member of the instrumental combo, The Outlaws, and backed Heinz (playing on his top ten hit "Just Like Eddie"), Screaming Lord Sutch, Glenda Collins and Boz among others. While working for Joe Meek, he got to know engineer Derek Lawrence, who would later produce Deep Purple's first three albums. With organist Jon Lord he co-founded hard rock group Deep Purple in 1968, and continued to be a member of Deep Purple from 1968-1975 and again from 1984-1993.
Blackmore co-founded the hard rock group Roundabout with Wayne Blade in 1968 with Chris Curtis (vocals), Dave Curtis (bass), Jon Lord (keyboards), and Bobby Woodman aka Bobbie Clarke (drums). Later on the name was changed to Deep Purple and vocal, bass and drums were changed to Rod Evans (vocals), Nick Simper (bass) and Ian Paice (drums). It was Blackmore's idea to call the band Deep Purple, after his grandmother's favorite song. The band had a hit US single with its remake of the Joe South song "Hush". After three albums Evans and Simper were replaced by Ian Gillan (vocals) and Roger Glover (bass).
The second line-up's first studio album, In Rock, changed the band's style, turning it in a hard rock direction. Blackmore's guitar riffs, Jon Lord's distorted Hammond organ, and Ian Paice's jazz-influenced drums were enhanced by the vocals of Ian Gillan, who Blackmore has described as being "a screamer with depth and a blues feel."
The next release was titled Fireball and continued in the same hard rock style established on the previous release, with Blackmore's guitar remaining a prominent feature of the band's style.
Deep Purple's next album was titled Machine Head. The band originally intended to record the album at a casino in Montreux, but the night before recording was to begin the casino hosted a Frank Zappa concert (with members of Deep Purple in attendance) at which an audience member fired a flare gun which ignited a fire inside the building and the casino burned down. The entire tragedy is documented in the lyrics of what was to become Deep Purple's historic anthem "Smoke on the Water".
In 1973, shortly after the release of the album Who Do We Think We Are, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left Deep Purple.
They were replaced by former Trapeze bassist Glenn Hughes and an unknown singer named David Coverdale. The album recorded by the new line-up was entitled Burn.
Deep Purple continued to perform concerts worldwide, including an appearance at the 1974 'California Jam', a televised concert festival that also included many other prominent bands. At the moment Deep Purple were due to appear, Blackmore locked himself in his dressing room and refused to go onstage. Previous performers had finished early, and it was still not sundown, the time at which the band had originally been scheduled to start. Blackmore felt this would dull the effect of the band's light show. After ABC brought in a sheriff to arrest him, Blackmore agreed to perform. At the culmination of the performance he destroyed several of his guitars and threw one of his amplifier stacks off the edge of the stage. He also struck one of the ABC cameras with a guitar, and in recorded footage can be seen arranging for his road crew to set off a pyrotechnic device in one of his amplifiers, creating a large fireball that was quickly extinguished. The band quickly exited the venue by helicopter, avoiding fire marshals, police officers and ABC executives.
Deep Purple's next album, Stormbringer, was publicly denounced by Blackmore himself, who disliked the funky soul influences that Hughes and Coverdale injected into the band. Following its release, he departed Deep Purple to front a new group, Rainbow, which was originally thought to be a one-off collaboration by Blackmore and the Ronnie James Dio-fronted band Elf, but was later revealed to be a new band project.
After Deep Purple, Blackmore formed the hard rock band Rainbow. The name of the band Rainbow was inspired by a Hollywood bar and grill called the Rainbow that catered to rock stars, groupies and rock enthusiasts. It was here that Blackmore spent his off time from Deep Purple and met vocalist Ronnie James Dio, whose band Elf had toured regularly as an opening act for Deep Purple.
The band's debut album, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, was released in 1975. The band's musical style differed from Blackmore's previous band and much of Blackmore's inspiration came from his love of classical music which matched nicely with Dio's lyrics about medieval themes.
Blackmore fired every original band member except Dio shortly after the first album was recorded, and recruited a new lineup to record the album Rainbow Rising.
For the next album, Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, Blackmore kept the drummer Cozy Powell and Dio but replaced the rest of the band. Blackmore had difficulty finding a bass player for this record so he handled all the bass duties himself, except on three songs: "Gates of Babylon", "Kill the King", and "Sensitive To Light" (the bass on these songs was performed by Bob Daisley.) After the album's release and supporting tour, Ronnie James Dio left Rainbow due to "creative differences" with Blackmore.
Blackmore continued with Rainbow and the band released a new album entitled Down To Earth, which featured his ex-Deep Purple bandmate Roger Glover on bass. The album contained Blackmore's first chart successes since leaving Deep Purple, as the Graham Bonnet-fronted single "Since You Been Gone" (a cover of the Russ Ballard penned tune) became a smash hit.[] In 1980 Blackmore's Rainbow headlined the inaugural Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in England. Bonnet and Cozy Powell would leave after this, Powell would go on to join former Deep Purple members in Whitesnake.
The band's next album, Difficult to Cure, introduced vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. The title track from this album was an arrangement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a personal favourite of Blackmore's.
Rainbow's next studio album was Straight Between the Eyes and included the hit single "Stone Cold." It would be followed by the album Bent Out of Shape, which featured the single "Street Of Dreams". The song's video was banned by MTV for its supposedly controversial hypnotic video clip.[ The resulting tour saw Rainbow return to the UK and also to Japan where the band performed with a full orchestra.
By the mid-1980s, Blackmore and his former Deep Purple bandmates had reconciled past differences and a reunion of the successful "Mark II" lineup took place. A final Rainbow album, Finyl Vinyl, was patched together from live tracks and "b" sides of singles.
In April 1984, it was announced on BBC Radio's Friday Rock Show that the "Mark Two" line-up of Blackmore, Gillan, Glover, Lord, and Paice was reforming and recording new material. The band signed a deal with Polydor in Europe and Mercury in North America. The album Perfect Strangers was released in October 1984. A tour followed, starting in Perth, Australia and wound its way across the world and into Europe by the following summer. It was the highest-grossing group tour of the year. The UK homecoming proved mixed as they elected to play just one festival, 'The Return of the Knebworth Fayre', at Knebworth Park on 22 June, 1985. Despite poor weather conditions, an audience of 80,000 attended the show that also featured Scorpions, Mama's Boys and Meat Loaf amongst others. BBC Radio One broadcasted the set.
In 1987, the line-up recorded and toured in support of the album, The House of Blue Light. A live album, Nobody's Perfect was released in 1988. A new version of "Hush" (sung by Gillan, who had not yet joined the band when the original recording was made), was also released to mark the band's twentieth anniversary. In 1989, Ian Gillan was fired from the band because of a poor working relationship with Blackmore. His replacement was former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. This lineup recorded one album titled Slaves & Masters (1990). Though the album was a favorite of Blackmore's, his bandmates were disappointed with the efforts of the album and tours.
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Neither the album nor the tour were critically or commercially successful. Following its conclusion, Turner was fired from the band. Both Jon Lord and Ian Paice argued that Deep Purple needed Ian Gillan as the band's frontman. Blackmore relented and Gillan returned prior to recording The Battle Rages On in 1993. During the support tour in late 1993, tensions between Gillan and Blackmore reached a climax and Blackmore left the band permanently. His last show with the band was in Helsinki, Finland on 17 November, 1993.
Gillan said: "Joe Satriani came in at the last minute. Blackmore walked out and the tour was taking off to Japan... it was all very dramatic. He said: 'Alright, that's the end of the band,' and assumed because he left that we were going to fold up." [ Satriani was asked to join full time but had to decline as he was tied into a long recording contract. A permanent replacement for Blackmore was eventually found in another guitar legend, Steve Morse of Dixie Dregs, who joined the band in 1994.
Ian Gillan, who had been Ritchie Blackmore's roommate during the early days of the band, stated in a 2006 interview that Blackmore had "turned into a weird guy and the day he walked out of the tour was the day the clouds disappeared and the day the sunshine came out and we haven't looked back since." [] Gillan noted that after Blackmore "walked out, things picked up and recovered unbelievably, remarkably well and the band's in great shape now". [] He added that "there are certain personal issues that I have with Ritchie, which means that I will never speak to him again. Nothing I'm going to discuss publicly, but deeply personal stuff."
Ritchie Blackmore reformed Rainbow after leaving Deep Purple a second time in 1993. This Rainbow line up with singer Doogie White lasted until 1997 and produced the album Stranger in Us All. In the years Rainbow was together, Blackmore was the only consistent member.[] Stranger In Us All failed to measure up to the critical and commercial acclaim of previous releases, possibly due to the popularity of grunge rock at the time and the fact it was not particularly well publicised. In 1996, he appeared on the tribute album to Hank Marvin and The Shadows "Twang" on Sting's Pangea label with a rendition of Gerry Lordan's Apache.
In 1997, Blackmore and his (now) wife Candice Night formed the Renaissance-inspired pop group Blackmore's Night. They have also performed the music for MagiQuest, a live simulation game located in Myrtle Beach, SC. Their debut album Shadow of the Moon (1997) went gold in Japan and enjoyed some success in Europe. In subsequent albums, particularly Fires at Midnight (2001), there was an increased incorporation of rock guitar into the music, whilst maintaining a folk rock direction.[]
Source: wikipedia.com