So it’s no secret that I’m. Jimi Hendrix guy. It’s kinda a family thing. My dad loves Jimi too! it’s almost impossible to not enjoy Jimi, unless you had the unfortunate accident of being born to be a peer of his, like Eric Clapton.
So I posted a video on my facebook about working on this rig and trying to find the right things for it.
So let’s get the most important part out of the way, the guitar. I’m using a Strat Squier, that’s been superficially modified only. This should not drastically alter everything. So my dad grew up around tech, so I’ve read his books and have a good understanding of tech of the time. My hypothesis here is that a modern Squier is on par with a Fender custom of the 60s. That because as tech improves, the old physical cap starts to become the “inferior” tech. So $119 gets you something that’s on par with an old 60s fender. At least for non giging guitarist like myself. I can’t promise this will work on stage.
Jimi Hendrix’s Fender had 5 springs in the back, common for the time. Modern Fender’s have 3. Altering this is irrelevant. I have three. You will have to float the trem by about a half inch.
I also modded the tuners to cheap tuners from chia. The stock ones were decent, but I wanted to emulate the era. So my logic was, cheap tuners, plus whammy=60s era tuning problems. I was fairly accurate on this. It helps to understand Jimi on a deeper level.
I’ve also tested this on a non modded fender affinity and it works.
Cost to far: $119
Next is the amp. Jimi used Marshall’s. Any amp should technically do. I don’t have a bunch of amps to test this out on, but that’s not the point. The point of this whole experiment was to establish competency in guitar, so much like a P.H.D I expect most people to put the rig together and shred it apart, aka “peer review”. Let’s see if it holds up to muster.
Cost so far: $180+$119= $299
Next up is the Vox. Jimi used it and I’m no exception. His was the silver version, but the basic 805 will do.
Next up is the fuzz box. I’ve listened to a plethora of YouTube videos and this was the best sounding one. Berhinger orange fuzz.
Next up is the univibe. Much like the fuzz, this one sounded truest to the tone. It’s the 69’ vibe by Berhinger. It’s sold out everywhere but Europe.
The last peice of the puzzle is the Roger Mayer Octavia. The white one. I don’t have this yet, but it sits on Amazon for a bit over 300. It’s the only one that sounds true to tone. The rest don’t work, but my Marshall GFX has an Octavia setting that works well enough.
$563 dollars for all pedals accounted for.
So for about $862 dollars you can become Jimi Hendrix himself: This rig is really versatile. You can even play every Sabbath song very well. So the Marshall and the guitar pay for itself.
It’s probably the closest to a modern rig of his you’re going to get.
So the set up is as follows
Vox, Fuzz, 69 vibe, Mayer Octavia.
There is a pic online that shows the jimmy rig with a splitter. This is probably accurate and he had it as two individual rigs. I haven’t done this, but I can confirm it’s true, because Jimi didn’t have his univibe unit on all the time. He used it in select songs to accent certain areas. Since the 69 vibe only has true bypass, you’re going to have to separate them so so can essentially turn it off. Its biggest contribution to Jimi was probably making all his music in sound rounded and in stereo. This would probably have been important because most music was recorded in monophonic. If a basic Strat sounded too frail, this worked.
If you can’t afford the whole rig, you can get by with just the fuzz and the Vox. so once you get it set up, there is two important variables in this.
Key of E standard
It’s often said Jimi played in E flat or C. This is untrue. There could be many reasons for this. Such as recording in monophonic made E standard sound like E flat. However, here’s two ways to confirm he was in E.
First his cover of the Trogs Wild Thing is best sounding in E. Second is the riff to Burning the midnight lamp is only correct in E standard.
The melody to the riff is
E ———————————————
B———————————————
On B, 2, 4 open, repeat.
G———————————————
D———————————————
A———————————————
E———————————————
To further prove my point, you can replicate this on the acoustic without fuzz and it sounds the same. I’ll post a tik tok later to prove my point and link later.
EDIT: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT64wdvqy/
The other mistake people make with Jimi is that they buy the fuzz face. From my understanding, Roger Mayer, Jimi’s technical guy, modded the fuzz face so it was basically the casing only.
So back to facts, if you want to be more accurate in Jimi Hendrix.
Turn the gain to 10.
Dime the Strats volume and two tone knobs
Put the Stratocaster style guitar into lead mode. Last single coil only.
Hook up the Vox, then fuzz and set it to 10 on all settings. when you get them, the 69 vibe and the Mayer Octavia.
We will go through the settings in the 69 vibe and Octavia at a later date.
Now you can start playing Jimi Hendrix more accurately.
The next time I write a peice on Jimi this long, we’re going to be looking at techniques to sound more accurate. I’m going to be buying some things to make it more 60s accurate.
Once you try it, I think you realize that my Squier, definitely deserves the new neck plate I bought it.
SOURCES:
https://share.google/Y4xumOxTZpwU7gwRO
https://stringjoy.com/guitars-of-jimi-hendrix/
Scuse me while I kiss the sky a Jimi Biography
