Tom Hoelle: Instruments!

Hoelle Harp Guitar - Hand crafted by Tom in 2011 - This custom 20 string instrument combines 6 regular guitar strings with 6 sub-bass and 8 super-treble harp strings.  It's based on a Sullivan-Elliott instrument built in 1986 for John Doan.  To check out all the details of the build "in-progress", click here."  To see and hear this guitar being played, check it out on YouTube by clicking here.

Taylor 614CE - This beautiful guitar has a bright sound, typical of maple bodied guitars.  The neck is incredibly comfortable and just look at that quilting!  This guitar can be heard as the lead guitar in Tom's "Sweet Little Mina" and the acoustic guitar part in the classic Jimmy Page/Robert Plant tune "Ramble On".  And here's a video of Tom using this guitar for his fingerstyle song Odyssey.

Martin D-41 - A standard dreadnaught with solid spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides.  Abalone shell surrounds the perimeter of the body as well as the soundhole.  This guitar has that big Martin sound!  This guitar can be heard as the "strummed" rhythm guitar in Tom's song "Mark and Carol" and as the lead guitar in the Strawb's song "Midnight Sun".

The "Hoelle" Mandolin - Hand made by Tom in the early 1990's, this one of a kind instrument features flame maple back and sides, Sitka spruce top, ebony fretboard, bridge, headstock veneer and pickguard, and mother-of-pearl inlays.  All woods are solid, the top and back are hand carved to contour.  It has a very "bell" like ringing quality in it's tone and can be heard featured on the song "On Our Wedding Day".  To read more about how Tom constructed this instrument, please visit this link.

Tacoma Papoose - This diminutive instrument from Tacoma is the instrument that put the Tacoma company on the map.  It's unique construction coupled with a satin-finished, cedar topped mahogany body provides a wonderful, unique ringing tone.  About the size of a baritone ukelele, it's got 6 strings and is tuned like a guitar that's capo'd at the 5th fret.  You can hear it strumming the rhythm part in Tom's song "Sweet Little Mina".

Giannini Craviola - The first thing you notice about this nylon string guitar is it's unique shape.  Made in Brazil, it features some beautiful Brazilian rosewood for the back and sides.  There's a picture on the "Bio" page of Tom playing this guitar in the late 70's... the day he bought it! To see a video of Tom using this guitar to play Grieg's Anitra's Dance - click here.

19th Century Early Romantic Era Guitar - This little guitar features a solid spruce top and Brazilian back and sides... the interior is lined with spruce.  It still resides in it's original "coffin" case.  It's now strung with nylon strings, but found in the case was a small bag containing some old "gut" strings.  With a slim neck, an "ice cream cone" heal and fancy pearl inlay around the sound hole, it now makes a nice "lap" guitar with a warm "aged" tone.  Believed to be made in the 1850's, if anyone has any information about it... please contact this site.

1953 Gibson L-4 - This acoustic archtop guitar features a carved spruce top and maple back and sides.  This style of guitar was popular in the 1930's and 1940's with "Big Bands" for it's "percussive" sound and "mid-rangy" tone.  This made it a natural addition to the rhythm section as it could cut through the big sounds generated by the horn and reed sections.  Their popularity began to wane in the 1950's as electric guitars came into vogue.  This one still resides in it's original plush pink lined case.

Fender Stratocaster - These two Stratocasters look similar, but are from two different eras and do have some subtle differences.  The red one on the left is a Strat Plus model.  It was made in the early 1990's and has three Gold Lace Sensor pickups, locking tuners and a tremelo system fitted with a "Trem-Lock" feature to help keep it in tune.  This guitar can be heard playing the lead solos in the song "Cast a Little Spell".  The one on the right is a natural finished "hard-tail" (no tremelo) made in 1975.  It features standard Fender single coil pick-ups and a "bullet" shaped neck tension adjustment at the headstock.  When this one was made, Fender was transitioning from all white pickguards and controls to all black.  During the transition, they commonly mixed and matched them until their old stock was used up.  This one has the black pickguard with the older white pickups and knobs.  Of course, the "natural" look was very popular in the 70's and is reflected in the finish on this guitar.

Guild D25-12 - This 12 string guitar from the Guild company has a spruce top and mahogany back and sides.  The Guild company is known for their wonderful 12 strings and this one is a fine example.  The strings are set in pairs and are fretted 2 at a time giving the effect of 2 guitars playing at once.  The lower 4 pairs are tuned in octaves to each other which results in a full, bright, sometimes "jangly" sound.  Listen to this 12 string doing the rhythm guitar on the classic Strawbs tune "Midnight Sun". 

1979 Gibson "The Paul" - When this guitar was released, it was intended as a less expensive version of the venerable Gibson Les Paul.  Rather than the maple capped body and fancy trimmings of it's forebear, this guitar features a solid walnut body and an unbound ebony fretboard with pearl "dots" for position markers.  The pickups are humbucking "Dirty Fingers" with a strong "fat" output.  This guitar can be heard doing the main guitar line in "Cast a Little Spell" and doing the lead guitar parts to the classic Led Zeppelin tune "Ramble On".

1963 Gibson ES120T - This guitar is a thin hollowbody archtop guitar from Gibson.  It contains a single coil "Melodymaker" pickup mounted in the pickguard along with the electronics.  Hear this guitar doing both the lead and the rhythm guitar parts on the classic Bobby Troup song "Route 66".  (The amp used for this recording was the Fender Blues Jr. shown below).

Epiphone EA-250 - This early 70's guitar is among the first of Gibson's imported Epiphones.  It was made in Japan and features a striking transparent cherry finish with multiple body bindings, front and back, rosewood board and bound F holes.  It has 2 humbucking pickups and a Bigsby style vibrato.

Fender Prodigy Bass - This early 90's offering from Fender has a sleek "Jazz Bass" style neck and dual pick ups configured with one Jazz style pickup near the bridge and one Precision pickup closer to the neck.  This configuration, coupled with active electronics (including a pick up blend control) offers a wide range of tones and is used on most of Tom's recordings.

Dean Rhapsody HBF - This Fretless Bass from Dean is a semi-hollow body model with a single pickup and lines inlaid into an ebonal fretboard - indicating where the frets would be (if it had frets).  Since ebinol is such a dense material, the effect on the sound is pronounced... giving it a "Mwaaa" type sound with each note played.   Here's a brief bit of "noodling" to demonstrate it's tone... (click here).  Here it is being used in the Bobby Troup song "Route 66".

Olympia OB-3CE - This acoustic bass has mahogany back and sides and a spruce top and features a Fishman pickup system.  A relatively large instrument, it's design is derived from the Tacoma Thunderchief.  It measures a full 17" across it's lower bout and 5" deep...

Hughes and Kettner Studio 84 - This all tube amp from Germany has 2 EL84 power tubes to deliver 20 watts to a 12" Celestion speaker.  It features channel switching with a power soak in place of a master volume control to get that "overdriven tone" at lower volumes.  It also features a speaker emulator output for direct injection into a recorder or PA system.  This amp can be heard (with a Stratocaster) on the blues tune "This Too Will Pass".  The rhythm was done using channel one and the lead using channel two.  Thanks go to Doug at http://www.amp-head.com for tubes and helpful advise with this amp.  Here's the schematic.

Fender Blues Junior - This all tube amp is USA made.  With 2 EL84 power tubes it delivers 15 watts to a single 12" speaker.  It's simple design provides a great Fender tone that gets a bit of "attitude" as you turn it up.  The 15 watt configuration makes it an ideal recording amp.  Here's a sample of this amp with the Gibson ES-120t hollow body electric guitar, doing the classic Bobby Troup tune "Route 66".

Emu PK-6 - This general purpose keyboard contains extensive samples of real instruments.  Expansion slots allow additional sounds to be added.  In addition, front panel controls allows modification to those sounds with a memory for storing any sonic creations that you may come up with for later retrieval.  This is the "go to" keyboard for many of Tom's recordings.

Roland Juno 106 - This vintage synthesizer was one of the first to use midi.  Analog voices are controlled with digital filters to provide the best of both worlds.  Popular in the 80's, this keyboard is pretty archaic by today's standards, but still provides some pretty cool tones that can be easily shaped with it's very friendly user interface.

Korg Poly 800 Mk 2 - This early polyphonic synthesizer was another jewel from the 80's.  With it's 8 simultaneous voices, it was one of the 1st affordable polyphonic synths.  It makes extensive use of digital menus, making programming a bit tedious.  On the up-side, this interface allows a very extensive selection of filters and controls with minimal physical knobs and switches.  The joystick shown below was a new Korg feature that would be retained for subsequent successful keyboards.