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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 5:31 am
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without a Clapton neck carve


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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 7:21 am
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ZZDoc wrote:
All the relevant specs on this can be found on the Pensa website. I'm preferential to the original design with a non-trem bridge. But without a Clapton neck carve, I passed. Last time I spoke to Rudy about that it was not a thing which could happen.


Why go to Rudy when you can go to the guy who made the original - John Suhr? I suppose to me the most important name on the "Pensa-Suhr" headstock was "Suhr", not "Pensa".

It seems like John gets orders for a handfull of guitars with the old MK1 spec every year, and you can spec whatever neck carve you want from him. If you have a specific Clapton Strat you love you can even send him the guitar and he can digitally copy its neck for you.


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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 7:46 am
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[quote="chromeface"]If you watch the Sultans of Swing video you'll notice this guitar sporting a maple-cap neck.
There was never any question of that in the discussion. The 'snapshot' signature guitar was obviously of the rosewood board swapped in.

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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 2:18 pm
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And here it is with the Rosewood fingerboard

http://youtu.be/uDzzGXk-hg4

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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 3:29 pm
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Art1 wrote:
And here it is with the Rosewood fingerboard
http://youtu.be/uDzzGXk-hg4Art

Haven't we done this dance :?: :wink:

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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 3:32 pm
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ZZDoc wrote:
Art1 wrote:
And here it is with the Rosewood fingerboard
http://youtu.be/uDzzGXk-hg4Art

Haven't we done this dance :?: :wink:


Think it was a different vid with the maple cap. I'm going back to "my" Strat now. :lol:

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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 3:53 pm
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Wasn't that guitar a copy? The maple cap a mistake in the design that Schecter confirmed during the period when Knop switched to Schecters?

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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 3:57 pm
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nikininja wrote:
Wasn't that guitar a copy? The maple cap a mistake in the design that Schecter confirmed during the period when Knop switched to Schecters?


I thought the Schecters had little micro switches instead of the 5-way switch.

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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 4:19 pm
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John C wrote:
Why go to Rudy when you can go to the guy who made the original - John Suhr? I suppose to me the most important name on the "Pensa-Suhr" headstock was "Suhr", not "Pensa".
It seems like John gets orders for a handfull of guitars with the old MK1 spec every year, and you can spec whatever neck carve you want from him. If you have a specific Clapton Strat you love you can even send him the guitar and he can digitally copy its neck for you.


The history of that relationship seems to have left the guitar stuck on Rudy. With his roots in midtown, I just naturally leaned in THAT direction. They obviously settled the use of the headstock shape between them. I knew that Warmoth once offered it on their necks but no longer, it seems. I wasn't aware that John was building the MK1. Have never seen it on his website unless I've missed it somehow. Thanks for the heads up.

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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 8:58 pm
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Art1 wrote:
nikininja wrote:
Wasn't that guitar a copy? The maple cap a mistake in the design that Schecter confirmed during the period when Knopfler switched to Schecters?


I thought the Schecters had little micro switches instead of the 5-way switch.

Art


The Candy Apple Red Schecter had the three mini-toggles. It also sported master volume and tone controls with chrome dome knobs. Its maple neck lacked off face dots on the fretboard.

This guitar can be seen with either black or white pickup covers.


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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Wed May 01, 2013 9:47 pm
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John C wrote:
Have never seen it on his website unless I've missed it somehow.


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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Thu May 02, 2013 6:10 am
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ZZDoc wrote:
I never understood the sense of that guitar in the first place. Nor where its specs fit into the picture of Knopfler's stage guitar history.

Hi guys: just catching up on this thread.

There has been a lot of confusion about Knopfler's guitars over the years, especially his use of Fenders. It is true that many of the S- and T-type guitars he's played are in fact Schecters and Suhrs, including a white Strat-a-like that John Suhr built partly from Fender hardware which he has admitted in an interview with Dave Burrluck to fitting with fake Fender decals. Tut tut!

However, Knopfler has also played real Fenders from the start of Dire Straits and there are two red ones in particular that relate to this thread. The first is the red Strat with a laminated maple fingerboard and no skunk stripe. John Suhr has claimed that it was a '70s Japanese fake, but Knopfler's longtime tech, Ron Eve, says that's not correct and that it was a genuine 1961/62 Strat, s/n 80470. It was later sold for charity and I don't know where it is now, so we may never know which of them is right. What we do know is that this guitar was modded in 1982 with a one-piece Schecter maple neck with no dot markers - which causes some confusion when trying to ID guitars from videos of the period. Confusion increases, since this guitar was also at some point fitted with a two-knob pickguard, and the confusion explodes out of control when we learn that Ron Eve says that pickguard was sometimes swapped between this and Mark's other red Strat.

Nobody has ever doubted the authenticity of the red Strat with the rosewood fingerboard. It is a 1961, s/n 68354. Ron Eve says it was bought in the '70s with the paint stripped to natural, and was then refinned in a darkish red. This red lacquer then checked rather badly, no doubt due to poor application. Knopfler still owns and occasionally plays this Strat and this is what Fender's Artist Series model is based upon. This is it:

Image

Knopfler is a bit of a collector and has many other Fenders, some of which I've seen him play. Most notable is a 1954 guitar he calls his "Jurassic Strat". Unusually for him, he has it fitted with heavy 12s including a wound G and plays it with a pick and whammy bar - not his regular technique.

Since it's been mentioned, a word on Knopfler's guitar "voicing". As we know, he plays a large range of guitars, from Fenders to Gibsons to Gretschs to Nationals and more. In my gig-going experience he seems to take a particular pleasure in playing Sultans of Swing on everything from Strats to Teles to Les Pauls to the Pensa-Suhr and even a Danelectro. And I've seen him play it through Fender, Soldano, Orange and Marshall amps. Every time, regardless of set up, it always sounded like the classic Sultans tone - which is quite something on an LP with humbuckers. I have a pet theory that Knopfler is on a mission to show us by example that his sound comes from him, not from his gear; and my ears say he's right.

I have good tickets to see him yet again this month: we'll see what rig he's running this time round. :)

Cheers - C

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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Thu May 02, 2013 7:34 am
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ZZDoc wrote:
John C wrote:
Why go to Rudy when you can go to the guy who made the original - John Suhr? I suppose to me the most important name on the "Pensa-Suhr" headstock was "Suhr", not "Pensa".
It seems like John gets orders for a handfull of guitars with the old MK1 spec every year, and you can spec whatever neck carve you want from him. If you have a specific Clapton Strat you love you can even send him the guitar and he can digitally copy its neck for you.


The history of that relationship seems to have left the guitar stuck on Rudy. With his roots in midtown, I just naturally leaned in THAT direction. They obviously settled the use of the headstock shape between them. I knew that Warmoth once offered it on their necks but no longer, it seems. I wasn't aware that John was building the MK1. Have never seen it on his website unless I've missed it somehow. Thanks for the heads up.


ZZDoc - the name "MK1" of course stayed with Rudy but John makes what he calls the "Carved Top Standard" and you can spec it out like the MK1 - as shown in the photo chromeface posted. At one point it might have been listed on their price list as something like a "fully loaded carved top standard" but if that was the case that was only for a year or two in the early/mid 2000s (I had a Suhr Classic back in 2003 and that might have been on the price list at that time).

During the Pensa-Suhr days they didn't have the capacity to cut the bodies and necks in-house so they got them from other sources. Knopfler's original carved top was a body and neck John sourced from Tom Anderson (who was only doing parts at that time circa 1984-1988); John sent the body and neck specs to Tom and he cut the wood on his pin routers. The raw body was not carved; it was just the mahogany with the thick maple cap and John hand carved the top.

In 1988 Anderson stopped selling bodies and necks and only sold completed guitars so John began sourcing the Pensa-Suhr bodies and necks from Warmoth - again carved to his specs not off-the-shelf. I'm not sure about the current Pensa models - I don't know if they ever expanded their facility to include a wood shop or if they still outsource the milling of the bodies and necks. Suhr of course has done all the wood shop milling in-house since he opened up on his own in 1996.


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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Thu May 02, 2013 9:16 am
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Ceri wrote:
Knopfler is a bit of a collector and has many other Fenders, some of which I've seen him play. Most notable is a 1954 guitar he calls his "Jurassic Strat". Unusually for him, he has it fitted with heavy 12s including a wound G and plays it with a pick and whammy bar - not his regular technique.


Image



Quote:
Since it's been mentioned, a word on Knopfler's guitar "voicing". As we know, he plays a large range of guitars, from Fenders to Gibsons to Gretschs to Nationals and more. In my gig-going experience he seems to take a particular pleasure in playing Sultans of Swing on everything from Strats to Teles to Les Pauls to the Pensa-Suhr and even a Danelectro. And I've seen him play it through Fender, Soldano, Orange and Marshall amps. Every time, regardless of set up, it always sounded like the classic Sultans tone - which is quite something on an LP with humbuckers. I have a pet theory that Knopfler is on a mission to show us by example that his sound comes from him, not from his gear; and my ears say he's right.


Mark was recently seen playing an Olympic White Electrajet Custom with dual P90s, tort guard and rosewood fretboard.

Image



It's the first time I see Knopfler using a Grosh. :o


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Post subject: Re: Mark Knopfler Signature Strat
Posted: Mon May 13, 2013 6:59 am
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Ceri wrote:
Hi David: news to me. Sounds like you know more than the rest of us. Where did you hear about that, please?
Cheers - C


http://www.mk-guitar.com. Ingo mentioned it on Facebook.

Cheers

David

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