barefootcyborg5000 said:
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Yes. The pickguard was sprayed by a previous owner and honestly could be done better. It looks right though. And the neck is *almost* too big for my hands but it is so good.
That's amusing to me... my Explorer came with a white pick guard, but it bothered me for years until I finally bought a black one for it a few years ago. I suppose the white is a better contrast to the Silver Fox (black over white "pickle" finish) color, but I still prefer it black.
In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :
This is one of my favorite guitars, insanely hard to find though. Not a tele though
Haven't really been a fender guy but these humbucker teles are making me want one.
Sometimes all you need it to relax a bit. Loosen the truss rod a bit, let things settle, then retorque. Problem seems to be solved, and the pawn shop Gretsch lives to endure further neglect and abuse. Great success.
As I sit in "exile" while our house is being renovated, I've been thinking about my guitars. In our temporary housing, I can only have a few, so I took my Jazz Bass and my Les Paul for now. Before we moved out, I had been playing my modded Squier SE Strat a lot. 
After I brought this home, I decided I didn't like the sound or the crappy bridge and tuners, so I replaced them all. I went with cheap-but-good tuners, a Wilkinson "hot" PU set, and a Wilkinson vintage-style bridge with a massive trem block. While it plays a ton better, I have never really been happy with the tone.
I've always been a humbucker guy, but I figured I'd warm up to the single coil Strat sound. Well, I haven't, and I'm looking at options. The neck and center pickups sound fine, but that bridge pickup and its 60 cycle hum isn't doing it for me. This has the swimming pool routing, so I could do HSH if I really wanted to, but I do like the aesthetic of the classic Strat SSS look, so I've been thinking about one of those minibuckers or a "hot rail" to swap into the bridge position. All of the pots and the switch are stock, so it might be time to upgrade those. Looking for some cheap-but-good options.
To follow-up on my last post, I tried playing the thing a few days back, and the guitar was driving me nuts. I love the look and feel of the guitar, but hate the way it plays and sounds!
One problem is the strings. The last time I restrung it, I used some cheapo Musicians Gear 9's I got during all the lockdowns a few years ago, and let me tell you, they are AWFUL. They feel like crap and sound completely dead. I stopped by a local shop and they recommended trying a set of these:
Since I play bass as well, I'm used to heavier strings, and I've played with 10's most of my life on 6-stringed things. The guy at the shop swears by these on Strats, so I'll give them a shot.
I also have one of these little guys on the way:
It's a cheap "Amazon special" 13-14K ceramic humbucker, and seems to have decent reviews. The other annoying part of this guitar, and yes, I know it's supposed to be that way because it's a Strat, is the hum out of the bridge pickup. I weighed back and forth whether I was going to do a full loaded HSS pickguard or this, and ended up settling on this. To correct my last post, the Squier SE Strats DO NOT have the swimming pool routing, so it's HSS or SSS on these. Changing the bridge pickup is the easiest thing to do here. Hoping these changes help me like the thing more.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
I've had a hard time with strats since the beginning. The stupid volume knob is stupid and in the wrong stupid place. Curious to see how you like the rail. I've never owned one in a bridge position, but didn't care for them in the neck at all. At least not the couple SDs I bought 20 years ago. Keep us posted.
Speaking of cheap Fender Squiers - brought to you by Musician's Friend deal of the day:
I'll go rip on it for a bit and get back to you all ;)
I had some time last night to install that rail humbucker in my Strat.
This is what's going on under the pickguard. A while back (and I covered it in this thread years ago) I swapped the stock single coils for some "hot" Wilkinson single coils I snagged cheap in Ebay. The pots and switch are all stock Squier stuff, and I believe all the pots are 250K.
A quick look at the routing. I could probably jam a full-sized humbucker in the neck position here as well if I wanted. I copper foiled this the last time I was in there.
And here's the rail humbucker in there. I was skeptical on how it was going to look, but I love it. It's a 13-14k flavor, so lots of output. I wired it like the single coil for simplicity, but you can actually split the coils and do a bunch of cool stuff with it.
Yeah, this thing really does look great now. I'm a sucker for black with the white pearl guard on a guitar (my Jazz Bass has the same setup) and that rail bucker gives it a real hot-rodded look.
But how does it play?
To put it bluntly, I should have done this back when I got the thing. It has transformed the guitar into something completely different, and completely awesome! With the switch on the bridge position, you get volume-only just like a regular Strat, but instead of a twangy, humming mess, it has smooth, meaty tone for days. The volume knob does a way better job modulating the pickup over the single coil, and you can get anything from mostly clean to shredtastic out of it. I kinda want to jam one of these in the neck position now to make a poor man's Dave Murray Strat out of it. I played the thing for 2 hours last night and didn't want to put it down. Best $15 I've spent on a guitar yet.
Oh, and another thing:
I finally got around to trying out the M-Audio Fast Track guitar interface I've had kicking around for a long time. Even though I have a multi-effects processor you can put headphones in, I wanted to see if a PC software solution would be better. I tried it out with IK Multimedia's Amplitube, but either I'm doing something terribly wrong, or this thing is awful. I was able to get it to make sounds, but the clean tone sits on top of the "amp" tone and the amp tones sound quiet and delayed. It's hard to explain, but that's how it sounds. I'd be willing to try out a different app with the interface, but I don't see a lot of free ones out there and dropping money on something like this that might not work seems like a bad idea.
On the Squier Mustang: it's fun. The short scale combined with punchy humbuckers is a riot and a different vibe than anything else I have. It's a "limited edition" in the Bullet line, whatever that means. The fretboard isn't rosewood, something else that feels kinda cheap. Definitely built to a price point. It could use some setup, filing of fret ends, and the pickups are loud but not for much in the way of tone. But - for $130 shipped, it's awesome.
It will be a fun guitar to try some different pickups and mods. Plus with the 24" scale, this one will be good to let the kid play around with as she's getting more interested in playing.
Circling back to my Apartment Rig post a couple pages back...
So, I have three things at my disposal:
-Digitech RP360 multi-effects box
-OG Line 6 Bass POD
-M-Audio Fast Track and Amplitube on my Windows laptop
So far, the RP360 has been working the best for playing guitar. It's easy, it's got an aux port to hook up external audio to play along with, it has metronomes and built-in drum tracks, and I can customize settings either on the device or on the Nexus PC app. What it's not good at is playing bass. It's a guitar processor, so that's a given.
The POD still sounds good out of an amp and through headphones, but it doesn't have an aux input, so I can't play along to things. And since I can't have an amp here (bylaws prevent this) I can't really use it for much.
I've tried Amplitube, and I can't get it to work well at all. It does this weird thing where it puts the clean tone up front and loud and whatever settings I have it set on delayed in the background. That plus most of the settings that would probably fix this are behind a paywall and not finding bass tones available for it make it a nonstarter for me. Am I doing something wrong? Probably. If I could figure out how to make it work, I wouldn't mind buying some of the plug-ins, but it's been a real pain to make it work.
So, what I'm trying to figure out is what my options are for bass playing. One option I found is this little guy:
This one is a Hotone Thunder Bass mini head. I can use it as a desktop headphone amp, and even loop the POD in on the effects loop if I want. It also has the ability to play with headphones and has an aux-in. They are about $100, but it looks like one of the more affordable ways out of this. I'm also keeping an eye out at the local shops for a similar mini head that can do what I need it to.
Ideally, I'd like to make that PC interface do what it's supposed to with some sort of software, but I'm exploring all options at this point.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
I really like my Hotone Heart Attack, it's a great little amp
Ignore the crap pic and puppy relic'd carpet but I'm helping the parents of my wife's piano student by setting up and restringing their various basses and guitars.
This somehow is the nicest acoustic bass I've ever played. It's made by Galveston and is officially the first of that brand that I've ever liked
I was in the local NH guitar shop looking for anything interesting. Spotted this, which is a German made pedal that is essentially two Tube Screamers in one housing, with a few extra switches for tone modifications. After some quick Googling confirmed the price was good, I added it to my pedal collection.
Then upon some further digging, i found out the Lockdown version was a limited edition, although I suspect the circuit is the same.
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
I'll tell anyone who will listen and most people who won't that I'm not a pedal guy at all. But I love a good OD. I rarely plug in without mine in chain.
In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :
I don't really use pedals either, but still have an absurd number of pedals. But my friend has at least 3x as many as I do and the only pedal he uses when playing live is a tuner. He loves them for recording, though.
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
Too much hassle live for sure. Sound guys always seemed surprised when I'd load in with a JCM800 and nothing but an OD. "That's a single channel amp? What, no cleans?" "I get by."
In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :
It also depends on the style of music. For what my friend plays (raw, heavily influenced by DC and NY hardcore), there is no need for a clean channel beyond backing off the volume knob. His guitar player plugs straight into a 100W Orange tube amp and a beat-up Marshall 4x12 with only a tuner.
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
That's my kind of guy.
barefootcyborg5000 said:
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
That's my kind of guy.
Check them out: Black Friday Death Count
I'm in a spot to treat myself, and what I think I want to do is buy a not-crap guitar. The real question here is do I buy a custom built piece for around $1500 or save some $$ and buy a decently high-end Fender... decisions decisions. And it should be noted that the savings would likely go to fixing up my S10 a bit.
barefootcyborg5000 said:
I'm in a spot to treat myself, and what I think I want to do is buy a not-crap guitar. The real question here is do I buy a custom built piece for around $1500 or save some $$ and buy a decently high-end Fender... decisions decisions. And it should be noted that the savings would likely go to fixing up my S10 a bit.
What do you want custom built?
In reply to Antihero :
Basically a tele with a couple tweaks. The big thing I can't find without having it built is a neck with an unmarked maple fretboard.
barefootcyborg5000 said:
In reply to Antihero :
Basically a tele with a couple tweaks. The big thing I can't find without having it built is a beck with an unmarked fretboard.
Totally unmarked or something on the 12th fret like the Scorpion models?
What other tweaks?
