|  Author | Topic: DawksFan email (Read 1,053 times) |
JerryFJA
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|  | DawksFan email
« Thread Started on Dec 13, 2007, 6:25pm » | |
Here is part of the email I got today. It is dated sometime in November and it was sent to a forum member who forwarded it to me. I won't say where I got it from unless the person that sent it to me wants that to be known. The email was sent to him by Dawksfan AKA Jon Clark from MIJFenders.com.
Notice how at the begining this clown admits he couldn't get it wired up because he was trying to use it differently than Dawk had designed it. You can't wire up the MTC yet you claim to have designed your own circuit from the ground up???? BULLSHIT!
Step 1 - If you want it to sound like it did for Ritchie you need to wire it up like Dawk did it for Ritchie!
Then he makes claims the unit isn't what Dawk installed in Ritchie's guitar. Wrong again smart guy! How would he know, he wasn't there!
He goes on with all this hokey shit about how Dawk designed it for RB and how the MTC doesn't work right with your pickups, BULLSHIT! He is just trying to use the fact that his has an adjustment to his advantage so you'll buy his unit.
He states his will be for sale which totally contradicts what he told me in a 30 minute phone conversation which I had with him. He said he would never take the MTC apart because he liked it and would continue to use it.
Oh yeah, I recorded the phone call!  I may post that soon too. He called me 8 or 9 times the other day till I finally was able to grab the phone. He asked me to remove the negative things I said about him in my original Show Some Respect thread. I told him if he proved to me he didn't take apart the MTC I would do so. He emailed me pictures of the MTC in the guitar still and I honored my word
Today I got this email and all of that changed, we now have proof of what he did.
Jerry
Hi XXXX,
Thanks for your email.
Dawks Forum is a fun place !!
To give you the history !!! There has been a lot of discussion about the MTC with a good number of people being really unhappy about the product both in terms of it's cost and it's functionality. It's not the cheapest product at $ 325/£157 but of course it is built by Dawk who was/may have been(I'll get back to that bit later!) Ritchie Blackmore's tech which for some people gives it value beyond measure!! . When I bought my MTC I had quite a number of problems getting mine to work in a meaningful way. After a lot of trial and error and experimentation I finally got mine to work in a way that made a difference, that difference is very subtle though and in some cases it will not sound especially different at all. It works well with the Lace pickups and less well with the Seymour Duncan's, not that Dawk will tell you this. It required significant effort on my part to make it work and Dawk wasn't the greatest help really. He sends a wiring diagram with the MTC BUT it's for a 3 pickup/5 way Switch Strat, mine is a 2 pickup/3way switch Strat. When I asked for wiring to suit mine, which is after all like Ritchie's, Dawk couldn't / wouldn't provide it. So after various different wirings I finally arrived at the current way I have it wired. For a lot of players this approach would cause instant problems, loss of interest and general disappointment. You've waited weeks for the unit to arrive, you've bought it untried/untested and it's cost you $325 / £ 157 and when it arrives ......................it doesn't seem to do anything very much.....you can imagine, nightmares! So it's actually not surprising there have been some less than subtle complaints.
All of this got me thinking and two weeks ago I had my technician "investigate" the MTC in great detail. So I now know exactly what is in the MTC , exactly what it is supposed to do( and not do !) and exactly what components are in the product!! Its an interesting idea and technique however unfortunately what Dawk doesn't tell you about the MTC is that when he designed it for Ritchie, he took exact measurements from the actual pickups Ritchie was using at the time and tuned the MTC to exactly match these pickups. This is very important. The MTC that you and I might buy is just NOT the same device as used by Ritchie at all. We get a generic version of the device, which cannot be adjusted in any way to match your pickups and this is key to making it sound good and as is this will not happen for many people it won't sound good. I have a few people from the Forum who correspond with me about how to wire the MTC to get the same sound I get and even copying my wiring they still don't get the sound, so it seems I got lucky!! Anyway following on from this "investigation" I have had my tech develop the concept further and we will be releasing our own version of the product the RBTC in the next couple of weeks. To make sure the product actually will work for different pickups we have included an adjuster so you can match it exactly to your pickups and to your perception of a good sound. This combined with some internal modifications to the components means we now have a unit which delivers a silky smooth tone which is very "Blackmore". It is fully adjustable on the unit, so you can make it as subtle or as "in your face" as you want. At least you can tell right away that it is doing something, which is not the case with the MTC I'm afraid. I spent today from 10am-6:30pm in the studios testing the production prototypes on 3 guitars fitted with Lace Sensors, Texas Specials and Seymour Duncan's. These results were A/B'd against my MTC equipped Strat and frankly because we can accurately match to the pickups our RBTC delivers much more than the MTC. It really is a great unit and like the MTC is entirely passive, so no batteries, no noise.
The RBTC will be selling at £ 65 GBP which more accurately reflects the value of the unit and makes it more accessible to more players than the $325/£157 MTC. If you are interested to buy one the they will be available in around 10 days or so. Also we will be offering a 7 day return service, so if you don't like the product then you can return it for a refund,no problem. Finally if you are like me and have loads of Strats then at $325/£157 a unit you might well think twice about fitting one to every guitar, at £ 65 it's a different proposition, apart from which we will offer a small quantity discount.
OK there we have it. This may all seem a bit odd, given that I'm a great supporter of Dawk and I've in the past offered to buy an MTC's. I now don't really want any MTC's now as I have my own RBTC product though I would honour the offer if asked to. Over the period there have been a lot of questions which I have asked Dawk both on the forum and privately and typically the general questions to which the answer is definitely easily public knowledge will be answered. The harder and more specific questions asked of Dawk are not answered at all, or the answer generally makes no sense in relation to the question! It's bizarre. Looking at these answers over a period I've concluded that there is a lot that Dawk actually doesn't know and I wondered why this might be. Ok it could be for "the book", but more likely it could be that Dawk actually doesn't know the answer anymore than we do. He knows Marshall Majors very well and is a expert, BUT I think Ritchie may well have kept Dawk at arms length regarding his complete set-up. Fergie may well have know more, EnglishRob knows nothing about anything technical and not much more about Dawk. It's clear Dawk was never at any of the CD recording sessions with either Purple or Rainbow and so knows nothing more than we do about gear they used for these, which is itself strange. I suspect Dawk was brought in when they toured, perhaps to service all the gear, or perhaps just to fly in and trouble shoot if there was a problem. I don't think he was permanent staff, as it were. Ritchie has never acknowledged Dawk or his work so far.
So let me know what you think about the RBTC an please keep this to yourself on the forum!!
Cheers
DF
ps if you are desperate for a Dawk MTC the I will be selling mine in a couple of weeks!!
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stevestrat
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| | Re: DawksFan email
« Reply #1 on Dec 13, 2007, 7:40pm » | |
Jerry, I wasn't going to comment on this but couldn't stop myself.
Makes me sick, trying to justify what he's done then resorts to what is little more than playground name calling.
What he says totally contradicts what he posted earlier this year when he got the MTC, raves about it:
"Again, Dawks MTC will set your sound apart from the pack and last night just demonstrated this clearly to me yet again !! I must call Dawk and order more MTC's for my other Strats."
Did he have more than one, in which case the photo he sent is worthless!
Even if he didn't get it from Dawk maybe somebody took up his offer to buy one?
As for the wiring:
"Dawk told me that Ritchie had the MTC only on the Neck Pickup, so I wired mine accordingly with 2xP/U and a 3 way switch:-".
Did he go on about wiring problems . . .did he fuck!!
Dawk doesn't know what he's talking about:
"I bought a Master Tone Control following a long telephone conversation with John "Dawk" Stillwell.
A pleasanter and more informed and more informative guy you really couldn't wish to meet.
Does he know his technical stuff ? Is the Pope a Catholic !!
Yes he does, oh yes how he does. This guy is a Goldmine of technical information about sound and tone.
He must have forgotten more than most of the current techs actually knew.
I'm aware that one day Dawk will write a book about all his amazing experiences with people like Ritchie and this will obviously be of financial value to him so I won't discuss or reveal any of the many of the things he told me, but suffice to say when the book arrives it'll be worth a buy.
Great guy, top technican."
Explain that DucksFart, oh you can't, you've been evicted from the forum because you are a two faced, back stabbing SOB who has shit on all the Dawk devotees you allegedly shared this interest with!
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manowarguyusa
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| | Re: DawksFan email
« Reply #2 on Dec 13, 2007, 7:42pm » | |
This is from Dawks info on working on Joey Demaio's Rickenbacker 4001. The last sentence says it all.
The first time I worked on the Rickenbacker 4001 was just days before DeMaio was scheduled to out on the road as the bassist and musical director for the Broadway musical Godspell's touring company.
He complained the bass had no balls.
I recommended changing the pickups because the bass's stock pickups are notorious for their lack of output.
When DeMaio returned to collect his bass I handed him a bill for $350.
He was furious. The bass only cost $500. I told him that my fee was the price for uniqueness.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
DAWK SAYS:
WELL,,, AGAIN THAT QUOTE WAS TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT AND DOES NOT REFECT WHAT REALLY HAPPEN...
PART OF THIS PRICE WAS FOR (2) ''GIBSON'' EB-3 PICKUPS...
BUT IF IT MAKE EVERYBODY HAPPY,,, SO BE IT... 
YOURS,,, JOHN''DAWK''STILLWELL
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kashmir
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| | Re: DawksFan email
« Reply #3 on Dec 15, 2007, 7:14am » | |
I think he just doesn't get who Dawk is...of course he will not give out all of his secrets, he's making a living with them!
I think just because of assholes like him Dawk doesn't tell to much, just enough that anyone can vaguely imagine how it did work.
I think that's already enough information for the public!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
DAWK SAYS:
THIS IS A OPEN LETTER TO ALL ...............
JUST BECAUSE,,, I NEVER TOLD OR BRAGGED TO ANYONE THAT I WORKED FOR
''RITCHIE BLACKMORE'',,, ''DEEP PURPLE'' AND ''RAINBOW''...
THAT MAKE ME OUT AS SOME KIND OF A LIAR OR ASSHOLE...
THAT ALL CHANGED WHEN I GOT A WEB-SITE...
THIS IS VERY SIMPLE...
IT'S MY NAME ON THEIR ALBUMS...
WHERE IS THEIRS...
THE OTHER REASON IS THAT SOME PEOPLE THINK THAT I'M ONLY GIVING OUT
SO CALLED ''GENERAL INFORMATION''...
BUT,,, I'M NOT GOING TO SEND SOMEONE A WIRING DIAGRAM ON HOW AND
WHY I DID MY MODS...
THEN ONLY TO HAVE THAT WIRING DIAGRAM SHOW UP ON THE INTERNET...
''THOSE ARE MY MODS THAT I WORKED HARD FOR AND IT'S MY WORK...
THAT'S HOW I MAKE A LIVING''...
MORE LATER................
YOURS,,, JOHN''DAWK''STILLWELL...
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