The Chetboard

Hey Fellars, What kind'a tremelo / vibrato are yall using these days? I think most of Chet's amps didn't have it onboard so he had to get it somewhere. A coulpe'a tunes that really stand out for me with tremelo are "Tammy" (capo the 5th fret and play it in "C" up there) and "Theme From The Dark At the Top of the Stairs". Be sure and check out that last one. Chet uses a very different sounding tremelo, maybe two kinds or settings, on that tune. All tastefully done as usual! Any kind of "secret weapon" Chet used he really got the most out of it and could match them to a specific tune. He was the greatest allrighty! Thanks, Steve

Good question, He probablyy used a Fender stand alone tremelo. I read one time that he altered on on a Fender amp. He experimented with all kinds of things with volume controls and capacitors. He probably invented the Flux Capacitor! Al

I actually found an interview... the one he did for that Radio Electronics magazine in 1966 where he talks about that very thing...

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On amplifier vibrato
I had a good engineer friend of mine in Illinois (probably Ray Butts who lived in Cairo, Illinois for years) build me an amplitude and frequency vibrato—A thing that will do both. We used it on some recordings. (probably with the Everly Brothers (Dream) and, in my mind, “Slinkey” on CA Workshop album) It’s a high quality thing. Has high and low impedance inputs in it and you can put a voice on it…get vibrato in the singer’s voice. Or you can put it on a sax or trumpet. It’s a phase shift thing. It actually raises and lowers the frequency slightly. It’s not anything new. Some companies have had it in their guitar amps

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I had an old Gibson GA-20 amp that had one of the best built in tremeolos. So did my old '63 Standel Custom. I wished I had never sold my Standel to the Standel president Danny McKinney, worst mistake I ever made. It was the best amp I ever owned, it had a JBL D-130 speaker in it.