John Birch (luthier)
Encyclopedia
John Birch was an English luthier
mainly known for his electric guitars
. His customers included Tony Iommi
and Geezer Butler
of Black Sabbath
, Brian May
of Queen
, Dave Hill
and Jim Lea
of Slade
, Gerry Shephard of The Glitter Band
, and Roy Orbison
.
, Nottinghamshire
, United Kingdom
in 1922. He became involved in guitar building as a young RAF
officer based in the South Pacific Islands in WW2. Returning to England at the end of the war his interest musically was in collecting Hawaiian Records.
In 1963 he met Basil and Pat Henriques of the "Waikiki Islanders" group, a Hawaiian group formed by Pat's father Bill Cox and his brother Archie in 1937. Birch was, during the 60's, living at 33 Innage Road Northfield and working as a field service engineer for Ampex VTR's.
After a series of experiments with a few joint designs Basil Henriques and Birch (using Henriques' Fender 1000 pedal steel guitar as a test bed) came up with a new pickup design using multiple polepieces and a coil potted in baked epoxy resin. On subsequent BBC "Night Ride" broadcasts and later EMI Abbey Road recordings, the pickups on Basil's guitar proved to be a revolutionary design in both sustain and fidelity. EMI were so impressed with the Stereo sound of Basil's guitar that they offered Basil and the Waikiki Islanders a 10 year contract on their premier STEREO Label "Studio Two Stereo".
At Basil's instigation John gave up his "Day Job" and started making pickups for the guitarists in the local Birmingham beat group scene. Much later on in the late 80's John was again to use a pedal steel guitar as a "Test Bed", this time for a midi pickup system.
SG Junior Leslie West
of Mountain
gave to Tony Iommi (the guitar is currently owned by Greg Dorsett of Rock Stars Guitars). He eventually started building his own guitars. Later he moved his shop / factory to a large house at 106 New Road in Rubery, Nr. Birmingham GB.
Birch started to advertise his parts, pickups, and guitar customization in a magazine called Beat International in the late 1960s. John Diggins saw one of these ads and showed one of his custom guitars to John Birch. Diggins was offered a job and became part of Birch's workshop. Arthur Baker came in as a production manager, breaking down the various jobs around the shop to create an assembly line like process. Birch was mainly in charge of electronics and pickup making while Diggins mostly took care of woodworking. There were many other employees through the years, though the roles stayed largely the same.
The very first guitars that were made completely in shop were SG or Les Paul shaped, featured 24 fret fingerboards, and a black or white finish. At first, the fingerboards were Brazilian rosewood, but eventually the expenisive and rare Brazilian Rosewood was replaced with more plentiful and cheap maple
fingerboards.
The majority of the shop's guitars, like those of most small outfits meeting the demands of players during the British Invasion, were built quickly and on the cheap. John Diggins, however, was a master craftsman and always built top notch instruments at the shop.
in the bridge position and John Birch's own Superflux in the neck position. This guitar is in the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe. In 1975, Birch built Iommi his black 24-fret, cross inlay SG Special. This was the main guitar used on the albums Technical Ecstasy, Never Say Die, Heaven and Hell, and Mob Rules. This guitar is now in the Miami Hard Rock Cafe. Around the same time Birch's SG was built, John Diggins also built Iommi's Jaydee SG, which features a custom wound pickup by Diggins in the bridge position and a standard Biflux in the neck position. The guitar also has peeled and cracked paint due to a rushed finish job. During the Cross Purposes tour, the guitar was left in a hot car on a date in Brazil, and the finish bubbled and cracked due to the heat. This guitar was first used for some overdubbing on Heaven and Hell, but quickly became Iommi's main guitar. The Birch shop also built a guitar for Tony that featured the ability to remove and replace pickups. The pickups plugged through the back into slots which had quick connectors that allowed them to be pulled and replaced easily, and didn't require any soldering. This allowed for more tonal options than any standard guitar, no matter how complex its wiring. Geezer Butler also had some basses made by Birch, one of which can be seen in the music video for Black Sabbath's "A Hard Road."
Another of Birch's famous customers was Brian May of Queen. Brian wanted a copy of his Red Special to use as a backup guitar, so he asked John to make him what would come to be referred to as the "Yellow Special." This is the guitar that was used on several videos from the album News of the World and the video for "We Will Rock You." May never liked the Yellow Special's sound or feel. The construction of the Birch guitar and his original Red Special are very different. May's Red Special is constructed of mahogany and oak with a frictionless roller bridge, whereas the Birch guitar used all maple construction with an ebony fingerboard, as well as a non-roller bridge which meant tuning was unstable. At a Chicago gig in the early eighties, he broke some strings on the Red Special. After using the Birch guitar for a few minutes, he tossed it offstage out of frustration, but no one was there to catch it. The guitar was smashed to pieces. Fortunately, all the pieces were saved, and the remains can be seen at Brian May's site (link at bottom). Until a few years ago, John Birch still offered a copy of the guitar featuring Dimarzio's
Brian May pickups, but the model has been discontinued.
Roy Orbison also ordered a guitar from Birch. In 1975, Orbison's guitarist, Allen Panter was having problems with his Les Paul. Orbison was also having difficulty with his Ovation, and needed it to be repaired. Orbison was satisfied with the work done, and decided to have a custom guitar built. Orbison, Birch, and Birch employee John Diggins all had discussions on what Roy would like to have built. The Eagle guitar was born, and it can be seen at Jaydee's website (link at bottom) while the actual guitar hung on the wall at Birmingham Hard Rock Cafe until its closure in 2006.
Dave Hill of Slade has used John Birch guitars since the mid seventies. Among the many modified Gibsons and John Birch originals Hill used throughout the 1970s and 1980s were a J1 style maple guitar featuring Hyperflux pickups and, of course, the famous Super Yob guitar, which is styled after a Sci-Fi ray gun. Hill has said he didn't really like using the Super Yob due to its neck heavy nature, its poor sound, and terribly high action. Hill then had a copy built for him by Framus
. Recently, the new John Birch company released a 50 guitar run of the new version that features LED lights in the neck inlays.
The Glitter Band's glitter covered star shaped guitar was built, according to Gerry Shephard, by John Birch in mid-1975 for the release of Gary Glitter's "Love in the Sun. He also repaired Shephard's old gold colored star guitar, which had been damaged at a show by some overzealous fans. The cost of the new guitar was £400. The guitar received more damage over the years, but was fully repaired in 1996 by Ray Cooper. The guitar was used mostly by Gerry Shephard, and retired with him in 2002.
He build a reversed Stratocaster model with two JB pickups and hollow fret caveties for Ritchie Blackmore.
Birch also built the Rook guitar for Rook Music, which can be seen, along with Framus's copy of the Super Yob, in Tony Bacon's The Ultimate Guitar Book. The Rook guitar was designed to emulate a rook chesspiece, complete with a simulated brick texture made of cork and a front gate made of fretwire.
The last guitar that John Birch himself worked on was a replica of the Birch bass used by Jim Lea of Slade
, owned by Stu Rutter.
Colin Gibb, from ‘Black Lace’ who had been a great lover of ‘custom’ guitars, and a great admirer of John Birch guitars (having borrowed one for the ‘Superman’ video) commissioned the company to build an 8-String bass, in 2001. The instrument was based on what Fender ‘may’ have produced, if they ever made an 8-String, in the 60’s, Having a ‘Hockey stick’ headstock (similar to the Fender electric 12 string), and chrome control plate (as on the bass V1) but being mainly designed around the Fender Precision Bass.
4000 style basses and doublenecks. Also available was a teardrop shaped guitar, much like the Vox teardrop guitar. Also available, of course, were custom shapes that could go as wild as the customer's imagination.
The guitars also had features that were uncommon for the time, but are now used by many guitar companies, such as 24 fret necks, neck-through construction, as well as his high gain, low noise pickups and stainless steel bridges. His truss rods went into a tube-like channel, and steel rods went down to the seventh fret for extra security from headstock breakage, though this made them somewhat neck heavy. The guitars were also made of solid rock maple, which gave the guitars great sustain and durability.
or Ceramic
magnets, occasionally Samarium-Cobalt
, as in Bill Lawrence's
Fender SCN pickups, or even Neodymium
, as in Q-Tuner's bass pickups. Birch used Cobalt Steel magnets, oversized to make up for their relative weakness as compared to Alnico. However there are Magnum, Hyperflux, multiflux and Biflux pickups with smaller Alnico magnets. (J1 Hyperflux/biflux, J1 Magnum/ biflux and J2 Multiflux build 1977 these guitars where all build short after John Diggins left JBG in 1977.) He also used much finer copper wire than most other pickups because finer wire allows more wire to be wound on the bobbins, which results in a more powerful sound. Finer than normal wire also accentuates high frequencies, though fine wire can have a "thin" sound if not compensated for in other ways, such as higher resistance, shorter coils, or more metal in the magnetic field to raise inductance
. Also, he potted the pickups in black epoxy. (the 1977 pickups with the alnico magnets where all potted with a cream coloured epoxy.) to fight microphonic feedback
caused by unwanted vibrations of the copper wire. The epoxy keeps the wire from moving. The covers to the pickups were stainless steel, which is non-magnetic and therefore won't cause eddy currents, which oppose the magnetic field of a pickup, causing it to sound weaker. Finally, Birch used a row of 9 instead of 6 balance screws as polepieces to create a broader area for the pickup to sense the vibrating string. With Fender single coils or Gibson humbuckers, the strings each have an individual pole piece. However, if the player bends a string, that string can move over an area where there is no pole, and the sound will get weaker.
On request, John Birch would make combination Multiflux pickups, like a Hyperflux with a Biflux, (serial plus a parallel humbucker pickup) in the same housing, or a Magnum with a Hyperflux in the same housing.
Apart from the pickups, John Birch applied a single knob bass-cut/treble-cut tone control at all his instruments, equivalent to the controls at 1940/50 Epiphone Electar guitars and early 1950 Gretsch guitars with DeArmond Dynasonic pickups. This JB-tone control however did not effect the frequency response when set to neutral, unlike the Gretsch and the Epiphone dual tone-controls.
All standard guitars like he J1, J2 and SG models are switchable for mono, stereo and anti-phase-mono operation, wired to a stereo phono output connector. The guitars where standard supplied with a 25 ft. stereo split cable(1977).
Here is a list of the pickups from the John Birch catalog in the late 1970s:
The guitars also featured unique switching options, having up to seven control knobs for a single neck guitar. With two Multiflux pickups, there are 22 switching options available, including stereo, in and out of phase, mono, and each pickup acting as a single unit.
The Multiflux pickups were the first commercially available pickups to use two humbucking pickups in one case. Dimarzio's Multibucker is a more recent take on this idea. The Multibucker has four side by side coils, as opposed to the Multiflux's two stacked coils. The Multiflux is a rather rare pickup, with not too many people having ordered it. It carried a higher price tag than the other pickups in the range and the switching options could become rather confusing.
If the Multiflux pickups did not offer enough flexibility, one could pay an extra £600 and get a guitar with removable pickups to offer an even greater range of tonal options. This was originally designed in collaboration with Tony Iommi for studio use.
John Diggins recalls the beginning of the interchangeable pickup system, "The interchangeable pick-up idea came from Tony [Iommi]. The pick-up routes went all the way through the body, with copper contact points along one edge of the pick-up route situated near the back of the instrument. The pick-ups were assembled on a plinth, pre adjusted for height. The pick-up surrounds were fitted to the front of the instrument so that when the modules were slotted in from the back they engaged into the surround at the correct height. The pick-ups were held in place with sprung loaded clips that located into a vee slot routed into the side of the pick-up cavity. When in place, the pick-up housing was flush with the back of the instrument. Contacts on the pick-ups were also sprung loaded and made contact with the adjacent copper points in the pick-up cavity."
In an interview, Tony Iommi was asked if he still had the patent to the interchangeable pickup system he helped to develop: "I did years ago, but I probably lost it now. That was about 28 years ago. I had just done it for my own interest. If it was successful I knew people would rip it off."
Several guitar manufacturers now make guitars with interchangeable pickup systems, such as Mercurio Guitars and Ramtrak Guitars.
There are only two John Birch interchangeable pickup guitars known to exist. One is the guitar originally built for Tony Iommi, the other is now owned by Nicky Panicci of David Bowie and USA Band S'cool Girls. The one in possession of Nicky Panicci is the one featured in the original John Birch catalog and is the rarest one to exist.
's SG2000. Since the average person could have just about any guitar style he could want, the small shop's sales had begun to drop by the early 1980s. Also changes in music trends from classic 70s rock to punk required a less demanding style of playing and demand for quaility top end models dropped. John Birch decided to leave the Birmingham workshop and John Diggins set up on his own in 1977, taking Arthur Baker with him.
In 1993, John Carling approached John Birch with intentions to buy Birch's last remaining J1 which he did. John also offered to help John Birch to restart the guitar business as business manager and technician in Nottingham. John Birch accepted and they released new products, such as the Full Range pickups and the MIDI guitar controllers, new versions of the old pickups in standard humbucker size, and a range of guitars that used the most popular body styles of the 1970s and 1980s. It was in this period the new Magnum 2 pickup was developed after many hours of testing they finally hit the right spot. It has turned out to be one of the finest pickups ever made and is used on the new range of John Birch Guitars.
John Birch died on November 6, 2000 at the age of 78. John Carling decided to continue with the company with the help of master guitar builder Laz Gajic.
, that include Les Paul and Telecaster styles.
Several models are available with LED lights in the fingerboard inlays. The LED system as used in the SY2 and SG 2002 runs from fibre optic feeds from a single light source in the base of the neck.
In 2011 a new product range is to be introduced, John Birch Custom, these will offer a range of high grade top finish and a wider range of pickups and fittings for todays market.
Right now, Diggins is making a new copy of Tony Iommi's "Old Boy," the original SG made for Iommi in the mid seventies. This will be an exact copy for Tony, including the P-90 sized humbuckers made by John Birch until the 1990s, when the new standard humbucker sized line was released.
Luthier
A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...
mainly known for his electric guitars
Electric Guitars
Electric Guitars were formed early in 1980 by Neil Davenport and Richard Hall who were both studying English at Bristol University. The band soon increased to a five-man line-up, with Andy Saunders , Matt Salt and Dick Truscott , they also later added two backing singers: Sara and Wendy...
. His customers included Tony Iommi
Tony Iommi
Anthony Frank "Tony" Iommi is an English guitarist and songwriter best known as the founding member of pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and its sole continual member through multiple personnel changes.Iommi is widely recognised as one of the most important and influential guitarists in...
and Geezer Butler
Geezer Butler
Geezer Butler is an English musician and songwriter. Butler is best known as the bassist and lyricist of heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He was also involved in Heaven & Hell from 2006 to 2010.-Career:Butler formed his first band, Rare Breed, with old friend John "Ozzy" Osbourne in the autumn of...
of Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
, Brian May
Brian May
Brian Harold May, CBE is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen...
of Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
, Dave Hill
Dave Hill
Dave Hill is an English musician, who is the lead guitarist and backing vocalist in the English glam rock group, Slade. The music journalist, Stuart Maconie, commented "he usually wore a jumpsuit made of the foil that you baste your turkeys in and platforms of oil-rig-derrick height...
and Jim Lea
Jim Lea
Jim Lea , is an English musician, most notable for playing bass guitar, keyboards, violin, guitar, and singing backing vocals in Slade.-Career:...
of Slade
Slade
Slade are an English rock band from Wolverhampton, who rose to prominence during the glam rock era of the early 1970s. With 17 consecutive Top 20 hits and six number ones, the British Hit Singles & Albums names them as the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles...
, Gerry Shephard of The Glitter Band
The Glitter Band
The Glitter Band are a glam rock band from England, who initially worked as Gary Glitter's backing band under that name from 1973, when they then began releasing records of their own. They were unofficially known as the Glittermen on the first four hit singles by Gary Glitter from 1972 to 1973. The...
, and Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
.
Early life and career
John Birch was born in West BridgfordWest Bridgford
West Bridgford is a town in the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire, England. It lies immediately south of the city of Nottingham, delimited by the River Trent; this proximity means that it forms a continuous urban area with Nottingham, effectively makes West Bridgford a suburb of the city, and...
, Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1922. He became involved in guitar building as a young RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
officer based in the South Pacific Islands in WW2. Returning to England at the end of the war his interest musically was in collecting Hawaiian Records.
In 1963 he met Basil and Pat Henriques of the "Waikiki Islanders" group, a Hawaiian group formed by Pat's father Bill Cox and his brother Archie in 1937. Birch was, during the 60's, living at 33 Innage Road Northfield and working as a field service engineer for Ampex VTR's.
After a series of experiments with a few joint designs Basil Henriques and Birch (using Henriques' Fender 1000 pedal steel guitar as a test bed) came up with a new pickup design using multiple polepieces and a coil potted in baked epoxy resin. On subsequent BBC "Night Ride" broadcasts and later EMI Abbey Road recordings, the pickups on Basil's guitar proved to be a revolutionary design in both sustain and fidelity. EMI were so impressed with the Stereo sound of Basil's guitar that they offered Basil and the Waikiki Islanders a 10 year contract on their premier STEREO Label "Studio Two Stereo".
At Basil's instigation John gave up his "Day Job" and started making pickups for the guitarists in the local Birmingham beat group scene. Much later on in the late 80's John was again to use a pedal steel guitar as a "Test Bed", this time for a midi pickup system.
Biography
After the war was over, he came back to Nottingham and started a business modifying existing guitars. Beginning in the 1960s, he mostly worked with Gibsons, an example of which is the white GibsonGibson Guitar Corporation
The Gibson Guitar Corporation, formerly of Kalamazoo, Michigan and currently of Nashville, Tennessee, manufactures guitars and other instruments which sell under a variety of brand names...
SG Junior Leslie West
Leslie West
Leslie West is an American rock guitarist, singer and songwriter.-Biography:Originally named Leslie Weinstein, West was born in New York City, grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, and in East Meadow, Forest Hills and Lawrence. After his parents divorced, he changed his surname to West...
of Mountain
Mountain (band)
Mountain is an American hard rock band that formed in Long Island, New York in 1969. Originally comprising vocalist and guitarist Leslie West, bassist Felix Pappalardi and drummer N. D. Smart, the band broke up in 1972 before reuniting in 1974 and remaining active until today...
gave to Tony Iommi (the guitar is currently owned by Greg Dorsett of Rock Stars Guitars). He eventually started building his own guitars. Later he moved his shop / factory to a large house at 106 New Road in Rubery, Nr. Birmingham GB.
Birch started to advertise his parts, pickups, and guitar customization in a magazine called Beat International in the late 1960s. John Diggins saw one of these ads and showed one of his custom guitars to John Birch. Diggins was offered a job and became part of Birch's workshop. Arthur Baker came in as a production manager, breaking down the various jobs around the shop to create an assembly line like process. Birch was mainly in charge of electronics and pickup making while Diggins mostly took care of woodworking. There were many other employees through the years, though the roles stayed largely the same.
The very first guitars that were made completely in shop were SG or Les Paul shaped, featured 24 fret fingerboards, and a black or white finish. At first, the fingerboards were Brazilian rosewood, but eventually the expenisive and rare Brazilian Rosewood was replaced with more plentiful and cheap maple
Maple
Acer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...
fingerboards.
The majority of the shop's guitars, like those of most small outfits meeting the demands of players during the British Invasion, were built quickly and on the cheap. John Diggins, however, was a master craftsman and always built top notch instruments at the shop.
Customers
Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath came to Birch's shop after having his ideas rejected by the major guitar manufacturers of the time, such as Gibson and Fender. Iommi was looking for someone to make him a guitar with a 24 fret fingerboard and high power/low noise pickups. Iommi's red Gibson SG Special received some modification in the form of a re-covered Gibson P-90P-90
The P-90 is a single coil electric guitar pickup produced by Gibson since 1946. Having a more complex architecture and larger dimensions than Fender's single coils, it is occasionally mistaken for a humbucker.- History :...
in the bridge position and John Birch's own Superflux in the neck position. This guitar is in the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe. In 1975, Birch built Iommi his black 24-fret, cross inlay SG Special. This was the main guitar used on the albums Technical Ecstasy, Never Say Die, Heaven and Hell, and Mob Rules. This guitar is now in the Miami Hard Rock Cafe. Around the same time Birch's SG was built, John Diggins also built Iommi's Jaydee SG, which features a custom wound pickup by Diggins in the bridge position and a standard Biflux in the neck position. The guitar also has peeled and cracked paint due to a rushed finish job. During the Cross Purposes tour, the guitar was left in a hot car on a date in Brazil, and the finish bubbled and cracked due to the heat. This guitar was first used for some overdubbing on Heaven and Hell, but quickly became Iommi's main guitar. The Birch shop also built a guitar for Tony that featured the ability to remove and replace pickups. The pickups plugged through the back into slots which had quick connectors that allowed them to be pulled and replaced easily, and didn't require any soldering. This allowed for more tonal options than any standard guitar, no matter how complex its wiring. Geezer Butler also had some basses made by Birch, one of which can be seen in the music video for Black Sabbath's "A Hard Road."
Another of Birch's famous customers was Brian May of Queen. Brian wanted a copy of his Red Special to use as a backup guitar, so he asked John to make him what would come to be referred to as the "Yellow Special." This is the guitar that was used on several videos from the album News of the World and the video for "We Will Rock You." May never liked the Yellow Special's sound or feel. The construction of the Birch guitar and his original Red Special are very different. May's Red Special is constructed of mahogany and oak with a frictionless roller bridge, whereas the Birch guitar used all maple construction with an ebony fingerboard, as well as a non-roller bridge which meant tuning was unstable. At a Chicago gig in the early eighties, he broke some strings on the Red Special. After using the Birch guitar for a few minutes, he tossed it offstage out of frustration, but no one was there to catch it. The guitar was smashed to pieces. Fortunately, all the pieces were saved, and the remains can be seen at Brian May's site (link at bottom). Until a few years ago, John Birch still offered a copy of the guitar featuring Dimarzio's
DiMarzio
DiMarzio, Inc. is an United States manufacturer best known for its revolutionary direct-replacement guitar pickups. The company also produces miscellaneous guitar accessories, such as cables, straps and hardware.DiMarzio became known for its Super Distortion model, which was the first after...
Brian May pickups, but the model has been discontinued.
Roy Orbison also ordered a guitar from Birch. In 1975, Orbison's guitarist, Allen Panter was having problems with his Les Paul. Orbison was also having difficulty with his Ovation, and needed it to be repaired. Orbison was satisfied with the work done, and decided to have a custom guitar built. Orbison, Birch, and Birch employee John Diggins all had discussions on what Roy would like to have built. The Eagle guitar was born, and it can be seen at Jaydee's website (link at bottom) while the actual guitar hung on the wall at Birmingham Hard Rock Cafe until its closure in 2006.
Dave Hill of Slade has used John Birch guitars since the mid seventies. Among the many modified Gibsons and John Birch originals Hill used throughout the 1970s and 1980s were a J1 style maple guitar featuring Hyperflux pickups and, of course, the famous Super Yob guitar, which is styled after a Sci-Fi ray gun. Hill has said he didn't really like using the Super Yob due to its neck heavy nature, its poor sound, and terribly high action. Hill then had a copy built for him by Framus
Framus
Framus is a German guitar, bass, lap steel guitars and banjo manufacturing company, that existed from 1946 until going bankrupt in 1975. The Framus brand was revived in 1995 as part of Warwick GmbH & Co Music Equipment KG in Markneukirchen ....
. Recently, the new John Birch company released a 50 guitar run of the new version that features LED lights in the neck inlays.
The Glitter Band's glitter covered star shaped guitar was built, according to Gerry Shephard, by John Birch in mid-1975 for the release of Gary Glitter's "Love in the Sun. He also repaired Shephard's old gold colored star guitar, which had been damaged at a show by some overzealous fans. The cost of the new guitar was £400. The guitar received more damage over the years, but was fully repaired in 1996 by Ray Cooper. The guitar was used mostly by Gerry Shephard, and retired with him in 2002.
He build a reversed Stratocaster model with two JB pickups and hollow fret caveties for Ritchie Blackmore.
Birch also built the Rook guitar for Rook Music, which can be seen, along with Framus's copy of the Super Yob, in Tony Bacon's The Ultimate Guitar Book. The Rook guitar was designed to emulate a rook chesspiece, complete with a simulated brick texture made of cork and a front gate made of fretwire.
The last guitar that John Birch himself worked on was a replica of the Birch bass used by Jim Lea of Slade
Slade
Slade are an English rock band from Wolverhampton, who rose to prominence during the glam rock era of the early 1970s. With 17 consecutive Top 20 hits and six number ones, the British Hit Singles & Albums names them as the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles...
, owned by Stu Rutter.
Colin Gibb, from ‘Black Lace’ who had been a great lover of ‘custom’ guitars, and a great admirer of John Birch guitars (having borrowed one for the ‘Superman’ video) commissioned the company to build an 8-String bass, in 2001. The instrument was based on what Fender ‘may’ have produced, if they ever made an 8-String, in the 60’s, Having a ‘Hockey stick’ headstock (similar to the Fender electric 12 string), and chrome control plate (as on the bass V1) but being mainly designed around the Fender Precision Bass.
Guitars
John Birch built many styles such as Flying V's, SG's, J1's and J2's, Strats and Les Pauls. He even built RickenbackerRickenbacker
Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker, is an electric and bass guitar manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California...
4000 style basses and doublenecks. Also available was a teardrop shaped guitar, much like the Vox teardrop guitar. Also available, of course, were custom shapes that could go as wild as the customer's imagination.
The guitars also had features that were uncommon for the time, but are now used by many guitar companies, such as 24 fret necks, neck-through construction, as well as his high gain, low noise pickups and stainless steel bridges. His truss rods went into a tube-like channel, and steel rods went down to the seventh fret for extra security from headstock breakage, though this made them somewhat neck heavy. The guitars were also made of solid rock maple, which gave the guitars great sustain and durability.
Pickups
John Birch's guitar pickups had a unique construction compared to other pickups of the time. Normally, pickups use AlnicoAlnico
Alnico is an acronym referring to iron alloys which in addition to iron are composed primarily of aluminium , nickel and cobalt , hence al-ni-co, with the addition of copper, and sometimes titanium. Alnico alloys are ferromagnetic, with a high coercivity and are used to make permanent magnets...
or Ceramic
Ferrite (magnet)
Ferrites are chemical compounds consisting of ceramic materials with iron oxide as their principal component. Many of them are magnetic materials and they are used to make permanent magnets, ferrite cores for transformers, and in various other applications.Many ferrites are spinels with the...
magnets, occasionally Samarium-Cobalt
Samarium-cobalt magnet
A samarium–cobalt magnet, a type of rare earth magnet, is a strong permanent magnet made of an alloy of samarium and cobalt. They were developed in the early 1970s. They are generally the second-strongest type of magnet made, less strong than neodymium magnets, but have higher temperature ratings...
, as in Bill Lawrence's
Bill Lawrence (guitar maker)
Bill Lawrence is a recording musician and an electric guitar pickup designer/maker and guitar designer/maker in the musical instrument industry, designing pickups and guitars for Fender, Gibson, Peavey and other companies from the 1950s to the present.MusicianThe Bill Lawrence story began...
Fender SCN pickups, or even Neodymium
Neodymium magnet
A neodymium magnet , the most widely-used type of rare-earth magnet, is a permanent magnet made from an alloy of neodymium, iron, and boron to form the Nd2Fe14B tetragonal crystalline structure. Developed in 1982 by General Motors and Sumitomo Special Metals, neodymium magnets are the strongest...
, as in Q-Tuner's bass pickups. Birch used Cobalt Steel magnets, oversized to make up for their relative weakness as compared to Alnico. However there are Magnum, Hyperflux, multiflux and Biflux pickups with smaller Alnico magnets. (J1 Hyperflux/biflux, J1 Magnum/ biflux and J2 Multiflux build 1977 these guitars where all build short after John Diggins left JBG in 1977.) He also used much finer copper wire than most other pickups because finer wire allows more wire to be wound on the bobbins, which results in a more powerful sound. Finer than normal wire also accentuates high frequencies, though fine wire can have a "thin" sound if not compensated for in other ways, such as higher resistance, shorter coils, or more metal in the magnetic field to raise inductance
Inductance
In electromagnetism and electronics, inductance is the ability of an inductor to store energy in a magnetic field. Inductors generate an opposing voltage proportional to the rate of change in current in a circuit...
. Also, he potted the pickups in black epoxy. (the 1977 pickups with the alnico magnets where all potted with a cream coloured epoxy.) to fight microphonic feedback
Microphonics
Microphonics describes the phenomenon where certain components in electronic devices transform mechanical vibrations into an undesired electrical signal...
caused by unwanted vibrations of the copper wire. The epoxy keeps the wire from moving. The covers to the pickups were stainless steel, which is non-magnetic and therefore won't cause eddy currents, which oppose the magnetic field of a pickup, causing it to sound weaker. Finally, Birch used a row of 9 instead of 6 balance screws as polepieces to create a broader area for the pickup to sense the vibrating string. With Fender single coils or Gibson humbuckers, the strings each have an individual pole piece. However, if the player bends a string, that string can move over an area where there is no pole, and the sound will get weaker.
On request, John Birch would make combination Multiflux pickups, like a Hyperflux with a Biflux, (serial plus a parallel humbucker pickup) in the same housing, or a Magnum with a Hyperflux in the same housing.
Apart from the pickups, John Birch applied a single knob bass-cut/treble-cut tone control at all his instruments, equivalent to the controls at 1940/50 Epiphone Electar guitars and early 1950 Gretsch guitars with DeArmond Dynasonic pickups. This JB-tone control however did not effect the frequency response when set to neutral, unlike the Gretsch and the Epiphone dual tone-controls.
All standard guitars like he J1, J2 and SG models are switchable for mono, stereo and anti-phase-mono operation, wired to a stereo phono output connector. The guitars where standard supplied with a 25 ft. stereo split cable(1977).
Here is a list of the pickups from the John Birch catalog in the late 1970s:
- SIMPLUX-Single coil intended to replace the old black covered Gibson P90 type fitted to Juniors and some SG’s, but having the continuous row of balance screws centrally. 30 Hz-14,000 Hz. Standard Impedance.
- HYPERFLUX-Double row of balance screws to accept impulses from string vibration over a wider area. 30 Hz-13,500 Hz. Standard impedance and long sustain due to high sensitivity.
- SUPERFLUX “G”-Single row of balance screws to accept impulses from string vibration over a narrow area to emphasize either treble or bass depending on location. 30 Hz-13,500 Hz. Standard impedance with long sustain due to high sensitivity.
- SUPERFLUX “B”-Single row of balance screws to accept impulses from string vibration over a narrow area to emphasize either treble or bass depending on location. 30 Hz-25,000 Hz. Approximately half standard impedance with long sustain due to high sensitivity.
- SUPERFLUX “L”-Single row of balance screws to accept impulses from string vibration over a narrow area to emphasize either treble or bass depending on location. 30 Hz-15,000 Hz. Standard impedance with long sustain due to high sensitivity.
- SUPERFLUX “M”-Single row of balance screws to accept impulses from string vibration over a narrow area to emphasize either treble or bass depending on location. Double the number of turns compared with the Hyperflux and Superflux, therefore it has double the output and double the impedance frequency response is slightly lower, 30 Hz-8,000 Hz tailing off.
- BIFLUX-Double wound parallel connected coils to reduce impedance while retaining long sustain due to high sensitivity. 30 Hz-20,000 Hz. Approximately half standard impedance.
- MAGNUM-Double row of balance screws to accept impulses from string vibration over a wide area. Double the number of turns compared with the Hyperflux and Superflux, therefore it has double the output and double the impedance. Frequency response is slightly lower, 30 Hz-8,000 Hz tailing off. This is the most powerful pickup ever made to really clobber the amplifier.
- MAGNUM “L”-Approximately half the impedance of Magnum to extend the frequency range to 15,000 Hz.
- MULTIFLUX-The most revolutionary pickup ever devised. It contains FOUR coils forming a STEREO unit within a standard case, all four ends of the coils being brought out to provide the maximum combinations. Two of these pickups when linked with the complex switching will give up to TWENTY-SIX different tones in Stereo, Mono, Anti-phase or QUADRAPHONIC. Such a range of effects is of infinite benefit for studio work where tonal changes can be made without changing over instruments. The number of combinations can be limited by individual requirements to avoid over-complication.
The guitars also featured unique switching options, having up to seven control knobs for a single neck guitar. With two Multiflux pickups, there are 22 switching options available, including stereo, in and out of phase, mono, and each pickup acting as a single unit.
The Multiflux pickups were the first commercially available pickups to use two humbucking pickups in one case. Dimarzio's Multibucker is a more recent take on this idea. The Multibucker has four side by side coils, as opposed to the Multiflux's two stacked coils. The Multiflux is a rather rare pickup, with not too many people having ordered it. It carried a higher price tag than the other pickups in the range and the switching options could become rather confusing.
If the Multiflux pickups did not offer enough flexibility, one could pay an extra £600 and get a guitar with removable pickups to offer an even greater range of tonal options. This was originally designed in collaboration with Tony Iommi for studio use.
John Diggins recalls the beginning of the interchangeable pickup system, "The interchangeable pick-up idea came from Tony [Iommi]. The pick-up routes went all the way through the body, with copper contact points along one edge of the pick-up route situated near the back of the instrument. The pick-ups were assembled on a plinth, pre adjusted for height. The pick-up surrounds were fitted to the front of the instrument so that when the modules were slotted in from the back they engaged into the surround at the correct height. The pick-ups were held in place with sprung loaded clips that located into a vee slot routed into the side of the pick-up cavity. When in place, the pick-up housing was flush with the back of the instrument. Contacts on the pick-ups were also sprung loaded and made contact with the adjacent copper points in the pick-up cavity."
In an interview, Tony Iommi was asked if he still had the patent to the interchangeable pickup system he helped to develop: "I did years ago, but I probably lost it now. That was about 28 years ago. I had just done it for my own interest. If it was successful I knew people would rip it off."
Several guitar manufacturers now make guitars with interchangeable pickup systems, such as Mercurio Guitars and Ramtrak Guitars.
There are only two John Birch interchangeable pickup guitars known to exist. One is the guitar originally built for Tony Iommi, the other is now owned by Nicky Panicci of David Bowie and USA Band S'cool Girls. The one in possession of Nicky Panicci is the one featured in the original John Birch catalog and is the rarest one to exist.
End and rebirth of John Birch Guitars
In the late 1970s, copies from Japan and Korea began to sell well in Britain and America. Some were very high quality for a low price, such as YamahaYamaha
Yamaha may refer to:* Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services** Yamaha Motor Company, a Japanese motorized vehicle-producing company...
's SG2000. Since the average person could have just about any guitar style he could want, the small shop's sales had begun to drop by the early 1980s. Also changes in music trends from classic 70s rock to punk required a less demanding style of playing and demand for quaility top end models dropped. John Birch decided to leave the Birmingham workshop and John Diggins set up on his own in 1977, taking Arthur Baker with him.
In 1993, John Carling approached John Birch with intentions to buy Birch's last remaining J1 which he did. John also offered to help John Birch to restart the guitar business as business manager and technician in Nottingham. John Birch accepted and they released new products, such as the Full Range pickups and the MIDI guitar controllers, new versions of the old pickups in standard humbucker size, and a range of guitars that used the most popular body styles of the 1970s and 1980s. It was in this period the new Magnum 2 pickup was developed after many hours of testing they finally hit the right spot. It has turned out to be one of the finest pickups ever made and is used on the new range of John Birch Guitars.
John Birch died on November 6, 2000 at the age of 78. John Carling decided to continue with the company with the help of master guitar builder Laz Gajic.
New John Birch Company
John Birch Guitars continues to make fine guitars under the direction of Birch's business partner, John Carling. Their new line line includes J1's, J2's, Strats, Les Pauls, and SG's. They also make a new version of the SG Special based on the original as played by Tony Iommi, complete with cross inlays and Magnum 2 pickups. This guitar is available with several options on inlays, finish and a vibrato version as well. It has been a global success with customers around the world. There is a range of basses as well, in SG and Rickenbacker 4000 styles. Eaton range of guitars was started after John Birch died and was designed, in John Carling's words, to "offer a wider range of products and retain the JB Professional line." There is also a metal front Eaton range, much like Tony Zemaitis' guitarsZemaitis Guitars
Zemaitis Guitars is a British guitar-manufacturing company based in Tokyo, Japan. The company's guitars are based on designs by the Lithuanian luthier Tony Zemaitis. The company is led by his son, Tony Zemaitis, Jr., and produces both electric and acoustic guitars.- History :Tony Zemaitis began...
, that include Les Paul and Telecaster styles.
Several models are available with LED lights in the fingerboard inlays. The LED system as used in the SY2 and SG 2002 runs from fibre optic feeds from a single light source in the base of the neck.
In 2011 a new product range is to be introduced, John Birch Custom, these will offer a range of high grade top finish and a wider range of pickups and fittings for todays market.
Jaydee
John Diggins also continues to make high quality custom guitars, aided in the shop by his son. He continued to make guitars for Tony Iommi throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including two seven string SG's. Diggins is also well known for his Supernatural basses as used by Mark King. He has a wide variety of styles, including his Iommi model SG, the Hooligan superstrat, several jazz guitars, multi-string basses, as well as custom work to the customer's specifications.Right now, Diggins is making a new copy of Tony Iommi's "Old Boy," the original SG made for Iommi in the mid seventies. This will be an exact copy for Tony, including the P-90 sized humbuckers made by John Birch until the 1990s, when the new standard humbucker sized line was released.
Sources and external links
- http://www.vintageguitar.com/artists/details.asp?ID=109
- http://www.glitterband.fsnet.co.uk/StarguitarstoryGerryShephard.htm
- http://www.johnbirchguitars.com/index2.html
- http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/seymours_q_and_a_3.shtml
- http://www.rockstarsguitars.com/product.php?c=1&cat=22&scat=148&x=0&y=105
- http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/matthewpickles/gmmar00.html&date=2009-10-26+02:24:19
- http://www.brianmay.com/brian/johnbirchguitar/johnbirchguitar.html
- http://www.whitewolfzone.co.uk/birch.htm
- http://store.bluebookinc.com/download/Category.aspx?product=ELECTRIC&id=497
- http://www.rare-guitars.co.uk/more-guitars.html
- http://www.iommi.com/iommi_frames.htm (go to Equipment tab, and look at Gibson Iommi signature pickup)
- http://www.jaydeeguitars.com/
- http://www.freewebs.com/stmoritzguitars/meandtonyiommi.htm
- http://www.bostonguitar.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=BGWI&Category_Code=EG-MERC
- The Ultimate Guitar Book by Tony Bacon
- http://thepaulforum.blogspot.com/2007/02/emails-about-john-birch.html
- http://thepaulforum.blogspot.com/2007/05/more-birch-related-email.html
- http://www.q-tuner.com/
- http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/SCN.htm
- http://www.waikiki-islanders.com/index.html
- http://music-electronics-forum.com/showthread.php?t=2131