The Tone Tubby

Mountainview Publishing, LLC INSIDE the John Harrison of A Brown Soun... The Player’s Guide to Ultimate Tone TM The Wizard of $10.00 US, January 2002/VOL.3 NO.3 Report Hemp The Tone Tubby 9 e’ve said it many times before in these pages... Speakers are the final transducers in the chain that defines your tone. Well, gang, get comfortable and settle in for our An American W exclusive report on what may be the most significant development in guitar speaker design to have occurred in decades, and it’s based on an organic ‘technology’ that is over 2,000 Treasure years old. Master Arch Top Builder Bob Benedetto 14 Output Transformers 101 with Victoria’s Mark Baier 15 Mercury Magnetics’ Sergio John Harrison at A Brown Soun (no typo, it’s Soun) has been reconing speakers in San Rafael, Hamernik... Good California for nearly 30 years, and his client list is a Who’s Who of respected bands and musi- cians, including Carlos Santana, Pearl Jam, Metallica, REM, Van Halen, Robert Cray, Ronnie Iron is Hard to Montrose, Steve Kimock, Mark Karan, Boz Scaggs, Steve Morse, Neil Young, and many, many more. Harrison has been refining his reconing techniques and selection of superior speaker com- Find ponents for decades, and he has earned a reputation for having set a high water mark in reconing www.tonequest.com cover story vintage speakers. The ugly truth about reconing is this: the TQR: You’ve been The use of hemp fiber for pulp and majority of reconed speakers were (and still are) rebuilt with doing this speaker thing paper dates back more than 2,000 inexpensive, unspectacular generic parts and kits. Standards for a long time. Did years. The oldest surviving scrap among reconing shops are very inconsistent, and far too you move from Atlanta of paper in the world was discov- many reconers compensate for their lack of experience and to the Bay Area ered by archeologists in 1957 in a knowledge with good intentions and cheap parts assembled because of a band, per- tomb near Sian in Shensi with gobs of glue that choke the life out of speakers that haps? province, China. It is about 10 cm could otherwise deliver the tone you deserve. Sadly, without square and can be dated precisely the benefit of being able to directly compare your reconed Yeah, I’ve been out between the years 140 and 87 BC. vintage Jensen or Celestion with an identical, fully original here since 1973, and I The first paper sheets (reported model in good condition, you may never know what you’re still feel like a visitor 105 AD in China by Ts'ai Lun) missing. here on planet ‘M’ were made from hemp fiber. (laughs). Believe it or During the 8th century, Chinese Harrison had become so adept at tweaking reconed Vox not, I’ve been playing papermaking craftsmanship was Bulldogs that guitarist Steve Kimock started buying brand in the same band the transferred to Arabic and North- new reissue Bulldogs and having Harrison recone them right entire time. There was African countries. In fact, the first out of the box. The results were extraordinary. Harrison’s a period when we were paper mill in this part of the experience with the Bulldogs led him to create The Tone kind of embarrassed to world was located in Baghdad. Tubby, which is a supercharged cousin of the original 15W say that, but now it’s The first European papermaking Vox Bulldog. Steve Kimock routinely uses a pair of Tone pretty cool to think that was reported in the first half of the Tubbies with his custom 50W Two Rock amp and a 50W or we’ve been together 16th century and until the early 100W Dumble, and Carlos Santana has been playing Tone that long. 19th century, the raw material Tubbies through 100W amps... Supercharged indeed. used for paper consisted of rags. TQR: On your web These rags were worn out clothes The success of The Tone Tubby spurred Harrison to experi- site you tell the story made from hemp and flax (and ment further, and his latest innovation may prove to be one of of having been told sometimes cotton). Therefore, the most significant developments to occur in the history of years ago that the only almost all paper in history was speaker manufacturing. Harrison located a stash of hemp speaker reconer was in made from hemp and flax fibers. pulp that had been previously acquired by a supplier who Oakland, to which you The first Gutenberg bible and the had unsuccessfully flirted with hemp paper cone formula- replied, “Not anymore,” first drafts of Washington’s tions. Fortunately, they kept the two tons of hemp pulp that and that’s how you Declaration of Independence were they had ordered, and Harrison forged ahead with the notion began reconing speak- printed on hemp paper. of using hemp pulp for speaker cones, relying on his hunch ers. that hemp could provide dramatically superior Yep, we were playing out here and in fact, that’s the only tone and durability speaker I’ve ever personally blown. Some friends of mine in over traditional Atlanta founded Wizard Electronics, and I went back to paper cones. He Atlanta and asked them to show me how to recone. I needed is now building another source of income in addition to playing clubs all of and reconing the time. I had a week in Atlanta on my return ticket, so we speakers with partied for six hemp cones and days and the the remarkable night before I results are avail- left I went down able for your enjoy- to Wizard and ment. Harrison’s they taught me interview follows, along how to do with our own story related to the recones. After restoration of a vintage JMI Vox 2x12 cabinet and two silver that, they basi- JMI Bulldogs reconed by Harrison with hemp. We know you cally bootlegged will enjoy one of the most whimsical, fascinating, and impor- me reconing parts in California, because at that time you had tant stories we’ve had the pleasure to unearth for you, the to have a minimum order of $3,000 to buy reconing supplies, TQR faithful. Best wishes for smokin’ tone, ya’ll. and there was only one distributor in the country. To pay the bills for the reconing business, I played in clubs. The first -continued- 2 TONEQUEST REPORT V3. N3. January 2002 cover story speakers that I ever reconed were out of those old Kustom PA of reconing parts, and they sold their parts exclusively. cabinets, and I remember thinking, “Wow, what a great thing – eight speakers in one job!” So I basically started from TQR: So everyone was using the same parts? scratch. Pretty much. It was a long time before I ever saw a real TQR: How long did you stay strictly with reconing? Celestion recone kit. For about five years, and in 1979 I went out on the road with TQR: When did Celestion start supplying recone kits? my band and we brought our band manager’s brother in to run the operation while I was in and out of town playing. I Well, they don’t, unless you are an authorized warranty repair was still doing some reconing myself when I could, but we facility. When I became Mesa Boogie’s exclusive speaker were on the road a lot. Eventually, I got back into the busi- facility, I obviously started seeing a lot of Celestion kits ness full time and really concentrated on building it up with about eight years ago. warranty business from companies like Boogie, JBL, EV, Celestion, Altec, Gauss, etc. I quadrupled the business in TQR: So you are manipulating speaker design for a spe- about a year, and aside from playing music, it’s really the cific outcome with each different make and only other thing I know how to do. model… TQR: Let’s talk about reconing for a bit, because we have Exactly. Every model is different, and how far you place the acquired a perspective that is rooted in skepticism voice coil down in the gap is really, really important. There when it comes to recones. Frankly, way too many are a lot of beautiful things you can do with speakers. of them simply aren’t done well and they sound like shit. Meanwhile, reconed ‘vintage’ speakers are TQR: How much of the sound of a speaker comes down being sold for huge money – $200 or more – yet to parts, and how much to reconing techniques? you don’t know what parts were used or whether the reconer knew what he was doing. We suspect It’s about 50/50. The parts are number one, but they can that if the players or collectors who buy these mean nothing if you don’t know how to use them. Based on reconed vintage speakers could hear them next to what I see here every day, I’m always astounded by how an identical speaker that was really right, they many bad reconers are out there. I don’t think they do it on would just die… purpose, but I also think that being a musician is a huge advantage. You can hand me a speaker and by feeling the Bullseye, and it breaks my heart, because it’s like somebody cone and spider I can tell you how that speaker is going to that rebuilds your engine and maybe you get the car back and sound. that engine is just OK… You don’t want to tear the whole thing apart again, but if you have the money, that’s what you TQR: What’s your take on the debate over old AlNiCo have to do.

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