Demonstrating my latest project; My telecaster/stratocaster hybrid hand built by a gentleman named Doug in Surrey who no longer builds guitars due to health reasons (diabetes has robbed him of his sight).. This is what he built; A stratocaster shaped telecaster (I love this) with an acoustic style neck / fretboard profile, with quality wood (I don't know wood, but my guitar guy who knows the guy who built this guitar knows his wood and assures me it's quality wood all over) - which makes sense since this guitar records better to microphone unplugged than my cheap Yamaha/Encore or Tanglewood acoustics ever could.. I bought this guitar used for something like £45 from Cash Converters/UK chain pawn shop, I spent £12 on replacing missing parts with parts that I like; I took it across town to my guitar guy straight from the shop this guitar had been sitting for years and years); took it to my guitar guy where he immediately identified it, told me where it was built and who built it, and this guitar when I purchased it in 2007, needed new strap buttons (because it was sold one 1 missing); so I just had the Jim Dunlop Straplok System strap buttons and; and it needed a refret but, that wasn't urgent/urgent for me given my collection of other guitars at the time).. I asked him how much he thought it was worth in it's current condition, he said, as is, in it's condition at that time; £450 - £650 range.. I had it refretted in 2009 for £110, this guitar owed me that + £45 + £12 straplock system. In 2014 / 2015 I decided to go back into doing guitar projects after taking a break from 2011 after finishing my Gibson Les Paul's pickup change (I bought that guitar and a previous owner of it must have had that same straplock system I use because, I was told by my guitar guy that Gibson didn't do that; So that was cool, a nice neat little cherry on top of an already love at first play guitar).. and I decided to have a telecaster, because at the time, I didn't know what pickups Doug put in... I liked them, but I wanted a more rhythm guitar to record with. So I had set of Fender Custom Shop Telecaster Texas Special Pickups put in. 2015 I went for Fender Telecaster Pickups and a red tortoiseshell scratchplate, all in all for about £250 parts and labour. Hated it, I mean, I liked it, for what it was, had even considered saving it for a rhythm guitar role, but, 'NAH MAN, THAT GUITAR'S MY BABY'. So here's what happened. This guitar may be a telecaster / stratocaster hybrid, but it's also in fact; an acoustic - the neck profile is that of an acoustic guitar.. Unplugged, to record with, sounds better than a Yamaha or Encore acoustic guitar.. Mother of pearl fret inlays, and a nut made out of bone. As well as having the Kent Armstrong pickups put back into the guitar so it'll sound like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2UZkvm6-Q4 again, and not like a Telecaster... I done away with that red tortoise shell scratchplate and took it back to wood, a blonde wood, like the one it had on it when I first got the guitar. I didn't want to roll back the guitar to a time before I had the Fender Custom Shop Texas Special Telecaster pickups since it is an electric guitar with an acoustic guitar D shaped neck profile.. I found Fishman made a Powerbridge for my guitar (which is I didn't know I could get before) and so had one installed; (I had heard of them/read about Fishman from one of Slash's Signature Gibson Les Pauls).. But here's what I found in 2015. The difference between the VT and the AST is about £10.00 in price and where the holes for the strings go on your guitar, VT for Vintage Telecaster I believe and AST for American Standard Telecaster.. now as it is/was, my guitar, the strings don't go through my guitar... They will now... Am having holes to fit the bridge so the strings will now go through the back of this guitar. Having this will mean having not 1 but 2 circuits in this guitar... The Kent Armstrong pickups for electric guitar / The Fishman Power Bridge for acoustic... As you can see, so far on my guitar has been a tele selector switch... I am a fan of toggle switches, got 2 volume pots, 1 master tone pot 'for the electric guitar components/the Hot Rail Tele Kent Armstrong set that came with it - the tone pot is what I call the 'master tone' (and there's only so much room to fit this stuff in); in that controls both the acoustic guitar and electric guitar's tone - My preference for having at least 2 volume pots for bridge/pickup and neck pickup volumes and a 3 way toggle switch (oppose to selector switches which I've tried and every time I've tried them; have ran towards a toggle switch - so; I live, hopefully I learn); is quite simply to do a thing called 'Kill Switching' which I like/think is cool and; is also on some records etc... 'Rage of the Machine off the top of my head to name 1 band that does this' - So having a guitar being able to do that is; a preference of mine. The knobs... Kept me up at night. - The configuration was a little tricky what with getting the electric guitar part right, it was going to have a new volume knob for the Fishman Powerbridge as well a 2nd new switch too (as well as that new toggle switch I wanted) - the 2nd new switch switches between the 2 circuits in the guitar; Acoustic & Electric. I had a parts guitar already from a previous project of mine, with a set of EMG pickups on a 250k Shadow Kill Pot and flat 9volt battery box with door; This tele/strat had a smart chip installed.. The smart ship is going to automatically go from mono to stereo if I use a stereo lead through a splitter on 2 amps (1 electric, 1 acoustic); the smart chip automatically'll go from one amp to the other when I switch from electric to acoustic... Will give this guitar a whole new jack input in doing that, I'm reusing the flat battery box from that parts guitar I have. I still care about the knobs and he switches, everything else this guitar project threw at me; the holes, the battery box, the smart chip... It's those knobs that took a little thought to get what I wanted done right. To wrap it up, let's see... I've covered the guitar, I've covered the wooden scratchplate I've covered the old pickups going back in I've covered the new acoustic piezo Tele Power Bridge from Fishman I've covered the new holes that had to be drilled to make the strings go through the body for that Power Bridge I've covered the battery box being installed to power the smart chip I've covered the smart chip... (The smart chip lets me switch amps from the guitar itself! if I run it through a splitter feeding both an electric amp and an acoustic amp; the way this guitar is, the smart chip does that from the toggle switch for the Fishman Power Bridge). .. Last Monday... I guess I got this guitar back around December or January.. But last Monday night was THE FIRST TIME I believe where I've heard it recorded, all of it; plugged in, acoustic bridge and Kent Armstrong pickups; In it's current state when this guitar came back to me, I asked the guy who worked on this guitar from my guitar guy's workshop how much it was worth for insurance purposes etc... and he said something along the lines of; "It's a custom guitar in every sense of the word and they go from £2, 000 given the materials used." Recorded last Monday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glWaewMJ7j0 Not bad; I suck, lol, I even edited it a like a cut and shut / whatever, point is, I don't believe I've ever heard what it all sounds like recorded before. The battery was dieing in my guitar, the tone was fuzzy for it, but... I love this guitar.
Who is your favourite guitarist, Ben? Mine would be William (Bill) Nelson, Be Bop Deluxe. Probably because I'm a honky cracker... I don't go into - What are u listening to- thread anymore. My computer has a hippy shit any time i try to go there.
ive no idea exactly what that photo contains, it's far to small. If I had to guess it looks like a shirtless man serenading a very life like Japanese sex doll.
Slash, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana Tom Morello, Daron Malakian, Eric Clapton, James Hetfield, Joe Perry Last Saturday I bought a used 1999 American Fender Deluxe Stratocaster ... The first transparent teal Fender Stratocaster I've seen since I was 15 years old. It reminds me of my first guitar, a teal (or aqua or even 'blue' as the manufacturer may have called it) Tanglewood Nevada FST 32K/Strat' copy. I even purchased the same nylon strap (but a new one) that day too and the shop I bought it from (Wunjo Guitars, Denmark Street, Soho, London) even installed my prefered strap lock system and fixed an issue I raised whilst I was trying it (loose jack). When that guitar came down and I saw it with the same strap I had on my first guitar; It was a real blast from the past visually for me, all be it my Fender's got a blonde neck; which I love, because; 'It's a Fender' and Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton both used ones with blonde necks too - which just added to the visual experience, also, the pearl in the fret inlays reflect green in the right light - against a blonde 1 piece guitar neck (no extra wood used for a fretboard, just 1 piece bolt on neck); looks (and feels) cool. So that was cool. Sounds like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsAcRzVEmaA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bJmIPiH080
Went to Open B tuning this week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5glXBE0-7uw before ditching it for Bb tuning in the pusruit of Slipknot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAsZefxcNpY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWDzdUUJfyQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-7oqzsLe5o