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| Random quote: "It's much too late to do anything about rock & roll now ..." - Jerry Garcia / Grateful Dead |
 Mr. Templeman
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| Forums Archive -> The Vault: 2002-2003 | Message format | |
swat274 |
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Joined: October 2002 Posts: 125 Location: Dallas | ...You mentioned owning "2 B-bender equipped Vipers". Can you expound on this? I know my Viper is a Korean product, which makes me a bastard step-child here. Are there USA versions? What is "B-bender"? If I upgraded my preamp, what should I get? Please educate me. Regards, KD | ||
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| moody, p.i. |
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Joined: March 2002 Posts: 15677 Location: SoCal | Swat: First, were you aware that Ovation made solid body electric guitars in the 70's and early 80's? Not like today's Vipers (which are solid body acoustic guitars), the Vipers of old were solid body electric guitars, with 2-3 single coil pickups. A B bender (developed by Clarance White and ???) is put into a guitar and connected to the neck strap button. When you pull the guitar down on the strap, it bends the B string. I suspect that it couldn't be done with the current Viper. If you look on ebay under Ovation Viper, you'll see the older guitar. | ||
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| swat274 |
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Joined: October 2002 Posts: 125 Location: Dallas | That is freekin WILD! Putting tension on the strap is kinda like pulling up on a vibrato bar? I have wondered if Ovation ever made solid bodies. Mine is definitely hollow as far as I can tell. Any idea why why they reinvented the Viper in the CV68 configuration? And....what differentiates the Viper models? I'm eager to learn here......Thanks, KDC :D | ||
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| Paul Templeman |
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Joined: February 2002 Posts: 5750 Location: Scotland | I was referring to the "old" Vipers as opposed to the current semi-solidbody electro version. As Paul said the B-bender was developed by Clarence White & Byrds drummer Gene Parsons in the late 60's to emulate pedal-steel guitar. The prototype was an entire new back for a Telecaster which contained the linkages to the strap button. This can be seen on Clarences Tele, now owned by Marty Stuart. The guitar appears much deeper tha a regular Tele. You can see it here in the lower pic http://www.fenderplayersclub.com/artists_lounge/hall_of_legends/whi... They then developed a similar & much neater system which was routed into the guitar. The downside being that the routs were huge & if you didn't like Telecasters, tough. Gene Parsons still produces his bender systems, including double benders & string benders for acoustic guitar & banjo. Check out www.stringbender.com. There have been several other systems including Bigsby "Palm Pedals" the Jim Glaser system & The Hipshot. It's the Hipshot I prefer because it involves no modification & can be used on just about any electric guitar without an arched top, including Ovation Vipers & Preachers (wont work with the later Schaller bridge) Hipshot operates by shoveing you hip against a lever. Sounds great but can look kinda gay if you're not careful. http://www.hipshotproducts.com/ A friend of mine designs & builds superb b-benders. He's currently installing a system into one of Al Perkin's Teles. He made some replica Viper bridge saddle for me with rollers built-in, so the strings return to pitch more accurately. While he had my Viper he figured he could build a bender system specifically for & built into a Viper using the third bridge bolt as a pivot point for the pulling lever. The drawings are just about done & I'm chasing down a cheap Viper from a guy in Wales for him to carve up. I'll keep you posted. There have ben a few, not paticularly succsesful attemps at b-benders for acoustics. The Parsons version involves a lot of metalwork & very invasive surgery. The Brit company Manson Guitars made a neat bender that had a lever built around a bridge-pin, but it wont work with saddle transducers or non-pin bridges. I've been promising myself that I'll try out The Higgins Peg-Bender. This will work on any guitar, including acoustics, with minimal modification. http://www.bradivarius.com/#HIGGINS%20PEG%20BENDER The pre-amp on the current Viper is unique to that guitar, no other Ovation pre will fit. The USA & imported versions have different pickups (the import uses a thinline) but the pre-ampss appear to be identical. Paul [ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: Paul Templeman ] | ||
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| Bailey |
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Joined: May 2002 Posts: 3005 Location: Las Cruces, NM | Dang In an earlier post I said I was pursuing songs as a hobby, after this, I think I might pursue benders for my Viper as I have never had a guitar with a bender. Life can be turned around in an instant and all of the feelings that you've seen it all destroyed by one post. That is some interesting stuff. Bailey | ||
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| swat274 |
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Joined: October 2002 Posts: 125 Location: Dallas | Very interesting indeed & thank you. | ||
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| Paul Templeman |
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Joined: February 2002 Posts: 5750 Location: Scotland | Bailey, Hipshots turn up regularly on ebay. I bought one a couple of months ago with a 2nd & 3rd string raise, and a drop-D toggle on the 6th string, for $70. | ||
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| Bailey |
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Joined: May 2002 Posts: 3005 Location: Las Cruces, NM | Thanks Paul Good information and I'll keep my eyes open for a deal on one. I might have to wait as we just spent some of our mad money today on a new computer which we should get in a week or so. My wife is tired of this antique giving her "this program has performed an illegal process and must be terminated" about every other site she accessed when she's on line, requiring a reboot to continue. I particularly was convinced to buy a new one when I started getting this message during my late night access to this board "this program has performed an illegal, immoral, and totally indecent process and all you &$#@*^& low lifes should be summerarily terminated. strike any key to continue your worthless pretense at civilised life." Anyhow, I'm going to switch over when it comes so if I disappear for a few weeks you will know that my new computer has exceeded my capabilities. (What does the computer code "signed Al" mean after a message like the one above?) Bailey | ||
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| alpep |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 10583 Location: NJ | bailey it means you better run. funny I am looking to put a new computer together myself just bought the cdrw, HD and modem shopping for the mb processor case and memory. | ||
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| Bailey |
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Joined: May 2002 Posts: 3005 Location: Las Cruces, NM | Al Just bought a monitor a few months ago, so I'm just buying a tower with a CD-RW, 40gig HD, 128MB mem, and some speakers with Windows XP and the Word Perfect package about as vanilla as you can get but sufficient. I'm going to leave open the option of adding some memory. Quite an advance from the 4k wire frame memory DEC computer I had in our lab at General Atomics that had to be programmed in machine language, or the Univac 1100 we had that had to be programmed in Fortran using punch cards and took up a large air conditioned room at our central facility. I took Fortran classes and looked down on those dummies using Basic on their little playthings. I believe I lost. Bailey | ||
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| alpep |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 10583 Location: NJ | Bailey Fortran Fortran IV cobol punch cards Ibm 360/370 yup I learned all that stuff then got out of it for a tandy trs-80 (affectionately called the trash 80) I never looked back. I have always put my own computers together it is just an old hot rodder thing the way I see it. I gave up on word perfect 2 years ago when Miles took me kicking and screaming to microsoft word. I figured if you can't beat them join them. I am debating on using windows xp. I think I just may be better off with win 98 and all my "legacy" gear. new computer will include soyo dragon kt 400 MB, athlon xp2400 cpu, 512 ddr 3200 ram, case with 450 watt power supply 48x16x48 cdrw 80 gig hd ati all in wonder 128 video and some generic fax modem. give me a couple of weeks to assemble the parts | ||
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| moody, p.i. |
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Joined: March 2002 Posts: 15677 Location: SoCal | You guys got me thinking about computers. The last time I wore a coat and tie (1985) we had a new computer system installed. The computer itself and all the memory (storeage as it was called) was in a huge cold room and had a whole department to run it. The computer on my desk today is fast, more powerful, and has more memory. Al, check that all your programs with run with XP before upgragding. I screwed up a month ago, did a total install (from ME) and found that about a third of my programs, which I needed for work, wouldn't run any more. I've been scrambling since. By the way, my Word Perfect 6.1 for windows runs just fine on XP. | ||
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| alpep |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 10583 Location: NJ | Paul I am leaning toward sticking with win 98 SE winXP seems like a big hassle to me. I have a copy of win Mil around but have been warned by many to stay away | ||
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| cliff |
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Joined: March 2002 Posts: 14842 Location: NJ | Since we've been working with AutoCAD, about a half dozen high-end graphics/rendering/modeling programs, and using dual processors, we HAD been using Windows NT (or as I used to call it "Nice Try"), but about a year ago made the switch (reticently) to Win2000 Professional. Happily, the transition went a lot easier than I had anticipated. WAY better than when we went from 98 to NT. | ||
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| Mr. Ovation |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 7236 Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I'm at an odd point of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" but I think I'm hitting a wall on upgrades. I am running Win98SE, my PC's (3 of them) are on 24/7. No crash issues are really anything. I have XP on my laptop, and although it has a similar cpu and memory to the PC's, the XP if causing ot to go turtle speed compared to my 98 machines. It's actually quite useable, but if I have to do anything special, or something isn't designed specific for XP... I have problems and don't even know where to look. Oh did I mention I've been in the IT field for 20+ years... it doesn't help. I think however, some of my software is starting to upgrade to a point that it is using newer tech, and I do like to keep the sofware up-to-date. So I guess I will have to get a new machine soon... I just dread the thought. I have put 1000's of machines together over the years, but that was when someone else was paying me good money. Now the thought of building a machine turns my stomach. I have been looking at The Boxx from SOnic Foundry. Although at first glance it seems a little pricey, there is about $1000.00 worth of software, all of which are products I currently use (isn't that unique). | ||
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| swat274 |
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Joined: October 2002 Posts: 125 Location: Dallas | LMAO!....Talk about wandering topics! Regards, KD :cool: | ||
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| Bailey |
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Joined: May 2002 Posts: 3005 Location: Las Cruces, NM | Right KD, but us computer nerds get as boring about them as we do about Ovations. Some of the comments about Windows confirms my belief that Microsoft sabotaged OS-2, a true multitasking system for fear IBM would dominate at our expense. Now the only true multitasking systems are available are Linux and Apple's new Unix based operating system. The DOS that Windows ran on destroyed it's efficiency and wiped out all the advances in processor speed. I looked at a Linux system but I'm afraid to get back into using my technical knowledge to achieve some speed. I'd rather drive a fat, sloppy Caddilac than a top fuel dragster, which unix would be on a modern processor. Al Sounds like you are setting up a work station for advanced graphic work or music processing. Are you going to run music studio programs? Bailey | ||
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| alpep |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 10583 Location: NJ | Originally posted by Bailey: [ Al Sounds like you are setting up a work station for advanced graphic work or music processing. Are you going to run music studio programs? Bailey[/QB] Bailey that is correct I am planning on building an addition on my house that will include a music studio. So with that in mind I am building this machine in the hopes of dedicating it for recording. Miles has been threatening to hook me up with some of his old software and after using my korg d 1600 I realized that digital is the way to go and believe me i am going kicking and screaming. I finally came to the conclusion that to use a computer most effectively you need to restrict it's tasks. so eventually I will have one computer for the internet one for my business and one for music recording. the last one would have to be the most up to date one that I could assemble. | ||
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| Bailey |
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Joined: May 2002 Posts: 3005 Location: Las Cruces, NM | Al It's hard to believe that we have advanced to where we can have a computer dedicated to each task and can afford it, and not just a toy but a work station more powerful than the $20 grand DECs of 10 years ago. Anybody want to buy my cherry Tandy 102 with a disc AND tape drive and loaded with memory? Well, it does fit in a briefcase with all accessories and I charge the AAs it runs on about once a month, I had to set the year to 1980 as it wouldn't handle 2000 (give me a good price and I'll throw in my Zenith portable with a built in 1200 baud modem and a beautiful blue backlit screen. Bailey | ||
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| alpep |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 10583 Location: NJ | Bailey the studio machine will be the screaming meaney with all the ram mhz and whistles. the other two will be rejects from a friends company that sells their old 300mhz systems at 30 bucks a throw instead of putting them in a landfill. In essence we really don't need all the power unless you are doing intensive software and most of the software does not utilize all the memory and cpu speed anyway. The biggest problem I have found is not with the speed of the machine but with the compatiblilty of software. If you have too much software loaded on your machine inevitably you will get corrupted files and crash. I know this smells of monopoly but I would LOVE to have one set of GREAT software that is compatible with all other sets of GREAT software that is compatible with all chipsets motherboards and processors video cards sound cards modems peripherals etc etc etc so that all I would need is one computer that would not crash and would have everything I want and need in one package. Please don't tell me get a Mac because I have had much experience with them in the public schools and have opened new machines that the software packages provided could not be utilized since the machines were not capable of handling it. And you want to see a mac that crashed? go to any public school I am positive you will see a dozen of them or so. | ||
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| Bailey |
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Joined: May 2002 Posts: 3005 Location: Las Cruces, NM | Al You have defined a modern problem that IMHO is because programmers are humans and computers and software today consists of millions of lines of code trying to adapt to rapidly changing processors. The programming systems totally divorce the programmer from the system and are fat and wasteful of resources. I think you are close to the solution when you talk about setting up a powerful system for one application, a regression to the mainframe days. The mainframes ran companies and therefore had to be reliable so the data processing dept would swoon at the thought of even thinking of using their system for word processing etc.. I'm going to use my new computer for mainly logging on line even to the extent of not loading all those interesting plaything programs on it. Except maybe Home Base web editor, Java's newest system, NASCAR game with a steering wheel, maybe a web system program, and maybe a music system that will interface with my Yamaha keyboard, and maybe a photo editing program, a good chess program would be interesting, I wonder if anyone makes a book publishing program to replace my DOS publishing system, and I need an AutoCad type drafting system to plug my digipad drawing board into, I don't like the chintzy databases that come with these systems so I'll get a full featured modern relational data base and load it on there so maybe I can do some consulting on the side, an accounting system with a good payroll would be useful here as it's stupid to write one in the data base, dang, I just remembered, I'll need a C++ compiler and editor and debugger to augment the java system, oh yes, I want to try out Red Hat Linux in case it catches on, I think I can make dual boot work, thank goodness all these programs have on line manuals some with video examples, and I need a live motion video program, and one of those new printers that scans and faxes. Al, you can see how sticking to the basics will avoid those conflicts that people encounter that don't have any discipline. Bailey (I wonder why my new computer just crashed through the table and floor right into the basement, dragging all the accessories with it emitting a loud groan?) | ||
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| Bailey |
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Joined: May 2002 Posts: 3005 Location: Las Cruces, NM | I am now logged on with my new computer and except for the problem of having to buy a new printer, everything seems to be working better. I had to interrupt this post to correct a problem in ordering my new printer which is now corrected. I joked in the previous post about discipline in the management of my new computer system as to loading everything but the kitchen sink, and wondering why the system keeps bombing. Well, modern technology has trumped my joke and left me struck thinkless (if being struck speechless is unable to speak, thinkless (or thoughtless) is not knowing what to think). I activated my Norton AntiVirus and instigated an initial media scan of the hard drive and over two hours later I found I have over 145,000 FILES on the disc as delivered from the seller. That is more files than I have created in my 30 years of computing. Al You are right, buy a blank system and build your own. Bailey [ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Bailey ] | ||
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| alpep |
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Joined: December 2001 Posts: 10583 Location: NJ | Bailey if all works well there is a computer show next to the guitar show this weekend and I will sneak out and buy a mb cpu memory and a case | ||
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