Steve Vai was NOT the first! Guitar design history revisited!

everybody welcome back to the channel in this video I'm going to get a bit geeky on you or more icky than normal and talk about the history of humbucker single coil humbucker or HSH equipped guitars now must book people associate them with Steve Vai and the Jeff guitar but there are some examples mostly with Steve I of this type of configuration occurring prior to the gym now there's one particular guitar player well-known guitar player that was using this pickup configuration going back at least as early as 1980 so it's a few years before Steve I did I'm going to talk about him in a minute but first let's talk a little bit more about Steve Vai because that will help set the context and the timeline that we're looking at all right now it's pretty well documented that the first mass-produced guitar with the HSH configuration was the now classic Ibanez Jim right the first ivan s guitar to be created in collaboration with steve vai that guitar debuted in 1987 and despite some color option changes it's still being produced today now surely that wasn't the first guitar to have the HSH configuration in fact steve vai prior to working with Ibanez had at least three HSH guitars the first and best known is the green meanie and many people were introduced to this guitar when Vai made his debut in the David Lee Roth band in 1986 and in that Yankee Rose video but Steve had actually been using that guitar prior David Lee Roth while he was in Alcatraz you can see it in the 1985 video god bless video and in addition there is live Alcatraz footage where you can see Steve using it now the green meanie was originally acquired by Steve from Grover Jackson who of course is the Jackson from charvel Jackson and Steve had borrowed the guitar from Grover and basically you know didn't give it back to him and so finally Gruber said you know it's a gift it originally had two humbuckers and Steve added the single coil in the middle he also had it wired basically the way the gem would ultimately be wired so that in position one it's the bridge pickup humbucker in position - it's the middle pickup plus the inner coil of the bridge pickup position three is the middle pickup position four is the middle pickup plus the coil the neck pickup and position 5 is the neck pickup the full humbucker now it was originally a sunburst color too but while in alcatraz steve painted at the infamous Loch Ness green that most people recognize it as he made some other modifications to it which I won't get into but the point is this is the earliest HSH configured guitar that Steve was seen playing now on the website Viacom which touts itself as the official Steve I website it states the year acquired the guitar that is as 1983 but with a question mark now I know I joined Alcatraz in 84 which is the first time we saw a Vai with that guitar so the timing of 83 vs 84 is close enough for our discussion now vai had two other guitars with the HSH configuration that predate the Ibanez Jim the next is a custom guitar built for him by performance guitars which is a custom shop in Hollywood that guitar also had an early version of the monkey grip that would be a part of the Jim Wright you can see this early version was without the finger outlines but this guitars generally considered the impetus for the Jim the other Vai guitar that predated the Jim was a Tom Anderson built guitar this came after the performance guitar custom build and was at the time when Steve was being courted by numerous guitar manufacturers it basically told a bunch of them here's what I want from A to Z and this was Tom's response now Steve liked that guitar and he used it for some recording but would ultimately go the ibanez route alright so those are Steve eyes HSH equipped guitars that predated the infamous Ibanez Jim so what is this controversial guitar that I initially referred to well I'm talking about the modified 57 strat that was best known as the primary guitar of Dave Murray from Iron Maiden during his early years with the band here's a nice clear photo of the guitar with Dave during the powerslave tour in 85 however Dave was using this guitar back in the very earliest days of Maiden as evidence to numerous photos and videos taken during the Paul Di'Anno days of Maiden right during the first two albums here's a very early photo which is probably 1980s 1980 based on the logo on the back but it could be a little earlier now Dave purchased the guitar in 1976 and the former owner was none other than the late Paul Kossoff of free who had an untimely death earlier that year in 76 now here's where things get a bit murky did dave or paul modify the guitar to add humbuckers in the bridge and neck positions instead of the single coils I'm guessing dave did but I can only find two references and they were conflicting one article specifically states that Dave did it but but keep in mind this was not an interview just a piece written about Dave and another article says that the opposite occurred and assumes that the addition of the humbuckers occurred before dave owned it because well there are no specific mentions by Dave of doing it himself so you know it could have been that or it could have been that someone in the months after Paul's death and before Dave's acquisition of the guitar did it I really don't know but I'm guessing Dave did it given the style of music etc he was playing but regardless when Iron Maiden first started playing gigs after the release of the first album in 1980 we see evidence of day of using this guitar live with the HSH configuration and it was his primary guitar for quite a few years too so you can see that at a minimum this predates Steve wise HSH guitars by you know three or four years at a minimum and then here's one more photo of Dave with a completely different guitar this is in 1983 on the peace-of-mind tour you can see the HSH configuration completely different body completely different headstock this is a different guitar and another example of day of using the HSH configuration in the early days know the last thing I want to say about Dave's guitar that's an important difference between it and the Vega tars that came later obviously is to pickup selector and the pickup configuration and how how the wiring worked right because Dave's was an original it was a 57 right so it probably still had the 3-way selector where position 1 is bridge position 2 is middle pickup position through his neck you didn't have positions 2 & 4 you could try and take the switch and and stick it between 1 & 2 & 2 & 3 to get those in-between sounds but it still wouldn't have been the same as the wave I wired it so I thought that was important to call out alright everybody well that was my video on the HSH pickup configuration and I hope you enjoyed it don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe if you did I'm also got lots of other videos here on YouTube including guitar lessons etc cover songs give questions comments leave them down below and I will answer all as time allows until next time rock

Channel: PDX Guitar Freak's Tabs & Lessons

Views: 16,296

Keywords: Steve, Vai, Steve Vai, Jem, 777, HSH, Humbucker, Single, Coil, Fender, Strat, Dave, Murray, Dave Murray, Iron Maiden, guitar, history, design, PDX, Freak, Paul, Kossoff, Paul Kossoff, Free, pickup, pickups

Id: 0R6RtgQR7i0

Length: 6min 48sec (408 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 20 2019