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Joined:
August 2012
Posts: 6
| Hello all!
At present due to a divorce I am without a Breadwinner... It has been 12 years since I had to part with my last one and I have some questions. The one I had was Off-White and a very early 70's model and appeared to be stock with the case.
This is where the question comes in... Evertything worked perfectly on the guitar and it had so many tone combinations it had replaced all my electrics, the only guitar it didn't replace was my 1963 cherry sunburst mahogany Gibson Hummingbird, that was lost in the divorce as well.
On the Breadwinner you had the active on/off switch, the pickup selector and two Pots. Pretty standard except that the Pots were push/pull. If you pulled the knob out it acted as an extra control, almost like having four seperate Pots. It has been so long since I've had the beasy I don't remember how they effected the sound but I know that with the proper adjustment you could go from a lush almost twelve string sound to a total melt down sound like hendrix or whatever. I'm thinking that the up position was a control for the Active Electronics and you would set the sound for the preamp and when you pushed the knobs in they acted as regular Pots. When you flipped the active switch, wherever you had set the knobs in the out position came into play. The knobs still controlled pickup volume and tone in the normal position but how you had the Pots set when they were up greatly changed the sound when you flipped that Active switch.
I hope eveyone who might read this is following along and gets what I am saying...
Now, the question...
Was this a stock guitar or a one off? I haven't read any literature or seen anything on the Breadwinner having the push/pull pots. The pickups were the super huge single coils... Everything looked correct but I never took the guitar apart to check it out. It was my first Breadwinner and I had just assumed that they were all built that way...
Anyway, if anyone has any comments or just thinks I'm a raving lunatic. I'd like some feedback. |
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Joined:
August 2012
Posts: 6
| And still i speak fluent typonese .... |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7222
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Well as you didn't mention anything about batteries or pre-amp etc... and that no Breadwinner I know of ever had pull-up knobs, which would have been difficult on the original circuit anyway.... I'd say it was not original. Before we go speculating on what or how... let us know if it did still take the two 9-volt batteries. That will set the scenario from the git-go as they all had the breadwinner electronics which were the Deacon, Preacher Deluxe, etc.. electronics as well. |
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Joined:
August 2012
Posts: 6
| It had two 9-volt batteries placed under the plate on the back of the guitar. Everything seemed stock on the guitar. I wish I still had pictures of the guitar. It was a great playing guitar. I had a Gibson Explorer, a few old Strats and the Hummingbird and the Breadwinner that all went away in the divorce. Only the Breadwinner and the Hummingbird really meant anything to me. I was just curious about the Pots on it. They seemed to control the gain on the preamp above what the little pot in the battery compartment did and changed the tone. I have searched for recordings made with the guitar but they are probably lost.
Eventually I will put up the money for another Breadwinner. It just broke my heart losing all those guitars that were worth so much money. I know material things shouldn't matter so much. But I'm not sure a great guitar is so much a material thing... |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7222
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | The little pot on the pre-amp wasn't really gain.. There were actually two pots. One was for adjusting the phase between the neck and bridge pickup and the other was a sort of gain used to balance the neck pickup volume with the bridge pickup volume. In a sense I guess that's adjusting the gain of each but balance was the concept.
I also updated your account so now you can post in the general forums. Hope you find those pictures !!! |
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Joined:
August 2012
Posts: 6
| Thanks for the upgrade there ... If this was a mod after the fact then I'd sure like to know who did it and what was done. When you flipped the active switch and had adjusted the volume knob all the way up, then pushed it back down, the guitar was on serious steroids. Serious shred type sound and no need for a pedal. If you had left the pot volume low when it was out then pushed it back in and flipped the switch you had the standard Ovation active sound. So the search begins. I know the area where the guitar was sold so I am going to call on some friends and see if it might still be in the area. |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7222
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | It sounds like a completely different pre-amp, although they could have modified it I guess. There was no "active" switch on the original The pickup switch was neck, bridge or both, and that was the order as well... not both in the middle as was standard on others. The other switch was referred to as a "notch"switch. It was described as giving you 6 sounds based on your three-position pickup switch. Basically neck-pickup with switch up or down, bridge pickup with switch up or down, and both pickups, with switch up or down. Those basic settings with creative use of the Tone and Volume and the Breadwinner (or Deacon) had an amazing range. I also especially liked the early Breadwinner toroidal pickups with nylon saddles as opposed to the later humbuckers with brass saddles.
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7222
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I moved this thread into this general postings area so that those who may know a bit more about the early Breadwinners may chime in. |
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Joined:
August 2012
Posts: 6
| Thank you,
I had to post in the welcome section first (=
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Joined:
August 2011
Posts: 187
Location: Florence,SC | I agree with Miles on the explanation of the control functions. If your Breadwinner had push/pull controls and a switch to bypass the pre-amp, that would have required some mighty fancy rewiring of the pre-amp. (Hate calling it a pre-amp because it was so much more than that label implies.) |
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Joined:
August 2012
Posts: 6
| I do know that I have played a huge amount of guitars and I always go by feel more than anything. It could be a $20 guitar or a $15,000 guitar. If it doesn't feel right it is worthless. The Ovation surpassed anything in feel... And in tonal combinations. |
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Breadwinner Fan
