Telecaster from 200 Year Old Red Spruce into a Revox A77 Open Reel

By roypat5_wp |

I recently had my old open reel Revox A77 serviced with the intention of selling it, but after hearing how good the fidelity was, I’ve decided to keep it and start using it. It’s a 1/4 inch 2 track machine, meaning that it uses 1/4 inch tape and has two tracks. It’s also referred to as a half track stereo recorder, meaning that it uses an eighth inch of tape for each track. By comparison, my old Teac A-3440 is a 4 track machine, and is a quarter track, meaning that each track uses a sixteenth of an inch of tape. This is one of the reasons that the Revox has superior fidelity. The other reason is that it was designed by the Swiss engineer, Willi Studer, who also designed those great recorders in Abby Road studios back when the Beatles and other groups of the era were recording on a regular basis.

The Guitar

The land under the old homestead in Nova Scotia were I grew up was on record as having sold in 1828. The house would have been build shortly after that, and I recall the old boards in the walls and floors were in some cases about two feet wide. The native species in the area is red spruce. Dad was always tearing the house apart and renovating and whenever I urged him to save the old boards he ignored my request. Eventually after I moved away, he finished off the remnants of the original house, and on a trip home, I put aside a small stack of boards and stored them in the barn. Eventually the barn roof leaked and most of the boards rotted, but I was able to salvage enough wood for one Telecaster body, and this is the guitar; the last of the original house.

Here’s my attempt at an old Tony Joe White tune called A Rainy Night in Georgia. Brook Benton had a hit with it in 1970. Its a very well-constructed melody that stands on its own and lends itself so some slight reharmonization, which I took the liberty of doing.

http://roypatterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/A-Rainy-Night-in-Georgia.mp3

  • A Rainy Night In Geogia by Tony Joe White, arranged by Roy Patterson
  • Guitar-Telecaster guitar made of old growth red spruce from the floor boards of my old homestead in Nova Scotia
  • Amp-1961 Ampeg M12 Mercury
  • Effects-El Pescadoro plate reverb simulator by the Nocturne Brain
  • Microphone-Apex ribbon mic with internal filter removed