Lunch report 2/5/13
Thu May 02, 2013 10:15 am
Hello Everyone,
Time for another exciting day. Per usual, I have not eaten lunch yet, big surprise there. Today I am thinking some bacon and eggs would do it though, so that is what I will be eating, when I find myself hungry.
Space management is a big issue for me, living in an apartment, and consequently my studio is quite full. I am pretty much at the cusp right now, not much more can be held in this place. It just doesn't have the power. I have been creative through use of shelves, tool boxes, shelving brackets and the like, but without some severe revamp, it won't go any further. Here is a picture of my current room, with a messy desk of course (a sign of genius they say).
As you can see the cases standing are between the previously mentioned shelf brackets, there are shelves in the closet, you name it. Not to mention typical dog photobombing, he seems to pop up everywhere.
How do you deal with space? Or do you not have much in terms of confines?
As mentioned yesterday, some folks gut the MFD's right out of their G&L. I find that one to be really odd, given how it seems more and more brands of offering garbage for pickups. When I see a guitar I can buy without having to swap the pickups, it is much more appealing. Ideally I don't have to do a lot of work to get a guitar doing what I want. If it can do what I need and well off the hop, I will pay a premium for it, opposed to giving it hours upon hours at the bench. I did mod my ASAT for a 4 way switch, but that was about it.
To MFD , or not? It was the MFDs that sold this G&L.
Lastly, as someone mentioned sounds or something yesterday, I will tote the dreaded swiss army knife. A general beast bred of dissatisfaction in sound, which became a all around monster with a near Zappa level control scheme. My Carvin C66.
It doesn't get much for play nowadays, but before being outclassed by by EBMM and PRS it was my long practice axe, for the aforementioned long term comfort reasons with the ASAT, just not my jamming axe. Not a bad axe by any means, but it took me a very long time to get it where I was happy with how it was sounding. The pickups are BKP Rebel Yells, nice pickups, lots of upper mid presence, very ballsy. The sustain block is now made of tungsten, which reinforced the low end of the guitar some (the combined added mass / length + increased hardness seems likely to have lowered the frequency, extra 50g after all. Hardness is more important than mass though, in this case).
So the controls now, they are something. Step 1 is that big chrome 4P3T switch. Both pickups run into that and are toggled between series/split/parallel. Off the middle of that, the north and south finish wires are intercepted by the pot in the middle. This is a 'humbucker control pot' and what it does is rolls off the high frequency from ONE coil, not both, which stops the highs of the other from being cancelled out. A bit brighter, but just as far as humbucker, so closer to a P90. Which coil depends on whether you pull the pot of not. From there a standard 3 way blade -> vol -> tone. The tone pulls for a phase switch on the neck, and you can depress the volume pot for a kill switch (shadow kill pot).
Overall, a pretty cool setup that lets you coax everything imaginable out of those pickups.
Ever taken on some really ambitious modding?
Time for another exciting day. Per usual, I have not eaten lunch yet, big surprise there. Today I am thinking some bacon and eggs would do it though, so that is what I will be eating, when I find myself hungry.
Space management is a big issue for me, living in an apartment, and consequently my studio is quite full. I am pretty much at the cusp right now, not much more can be held in this place. It just doesn't have the power. I have been creative through use of shelves, tool boxes, shelving brackets and the like, but without some severe revamp, it won't go any further. Here is a picture of my current room, with a messy desk of course (a sign of genius they say).
As you can see the cases standing are between the previously mentioned shelf brackets, there are shelves in the closet, you name it. Not to mention typical dog photobombing, he seems to pop up everywhere.
How do you deal with space? Or do you not have much in terms of confines?
As mentioned yesterday, some folks gut the MFD's right out of their G&L. I find that one to be really odd, given how it seems more and more brands of offering garbage for pickups. When I see a guitar I can buy without having to swap the pickups, it is much more appealing. Ideally I don't have to do a lot of work to get a guitar doing what I want. If it can do what I need and well off the hop, I will pay a premium for it, opposed to giving it hours upon hours at the bench. I did mod my ASAT for a 4 way switch, but that was about it.
To MFD , or not? It was the MFDs that sold this G&L.
Lastly, as someone mentioned sounds or something yesterday, I will tote the dreaded swiss army knife. A general beast bred of dissatisfaction in sound, which became a all around monster with a near Zappa level control scheme. My Carvin C66.
It doesn't get much for play nowadays, but before being outclassed by by EBMM and PRS it was my long practice axe, for the aforementioned long term comfort reasons with the ASAT, just not my jamming axe. Not a bad axe by any means, but it took me a very long time to get it where I was happy with how it was sounding. The pickups are BKP Rebel Yells, nice pickups, lots of upper mid presence, very ballsy. The sustain block is now made of tungsten, which reinforced the low end of the guitar some (the combined added mass / length + increased hardness seems likely to have lowered the frequency, extra 50g after all. Hardness is more important than mass though, in this case).
So the controls now, they are something. Step 1 is that big chrome 4P3T switch. Both pickups run into that and are toggled between series/split/parallel. Off the middle of that, the north and south finish wires are intercepted by the pot in the middle. This is a 'humbucker control pot' and what it does is rolls off the high frequency from ONE coil, not both, which stops the highs of the other from being cancelled out. A bit brighter, but just as far as humbucker, so closer to a P90. Which coil depends on whether you pull the pot of not. From there a standard 3 way blade -> vol -> tone. The tone pulls for a phase switch on the neck, and you can depress the volume pot for a kill switch (shadow kill pot).
Overall, a pretty cool setup that lets you coax everything imaginable out of those pickups.
Ever taken on some really ambitious modding?
Re: Lunch report 2/5/13
Thu May 02, 2013 11:10 am
Kyle, I just had some corn chips and salsa for lunch. I may have my chicken noodle soup a bit later.
Space management is always a cocern, but space procurement has been more of a concern for me. I now have a living room wall and the ends of the adjoining walls for guitars. I t took a long time to convince the space procurement controller (Ginny) that we had to do that. I had about 15 guitars in stands on the floor. She informed me that I could have the whole wall and that I should use it wisely. Was that ever an invitation! I then procured the 2 adjoining wall ends and I thought I was getting pretty smooth. I then proposed that we start hanging them in her salon. I literally ran into the wall on that idea. I do have a 5 rack and a 7 rack on the floor that are both full in addition to the walls. I had kind of been shut down on numbers but I am detecting some forgiveness in that area. I don't have any that I want to part with. I built an overhead rack in the garage where I store about 35 cases and a rack on the floor where I store about 9 cases. The cases take up a lot of space. In addition, I have to store all the PA gear and my bass gear in the garage. This all gets to be a mess if one is not organized. It looks like you have you space under control for the moment.
I agree with you on not changing the MFD'. If I were limited to only one or two guitars, It would be more difficult but I don't change any of them and haven't had any that I have totally disliked. I find that I like the Alnicos in the Asats a lot. I am into clean so that probably works well. It looks like you have put a lot of work into your Carvin. I one were out to mod a guitar, a used Carvin would be a great candidate as they can be found used very reasonably and the build quality and finish work is very good. I think that the finish work and the woods used by Carvin are very nice, much like G&L.
I remember when you got you Asat and how beautiful it was. You then had your pickguard custom built and it is very nice. A very unique looking rig and definately a keeper!
My modding is generally physical rather than electronics. I have done a major mod by installing an F Bigsby on a BLuesboy. It turned out to be a great guitar but it was Alder body that was heavy. It really had wow factor and I traded it and it sold very easily as did my Bigsby Teles that I had done. I may do that to another G&L, but I would like to do it to a Bluesboy although I have a few Classics I could pick from. Probably a good future project but I have others to complete. Great reports this week Kyle.-- Darwin
Space management is always a cocern, but space procurement has been more of a concern for me. I now have a living room wall and the ends of the adjoining walls for guitars. I t took a long time to convince the space procurement controller (Ginny) that we had to do that. I had about 15 guitars in stands on the floor. She informed me that I could have the whole wall and that I should use it wisely. Was that ever an invitation! I then procured the 2 adjoining wall ends and I thought I was getting pretty smooth. I then proposed that we start hanging them in her salon. I literally ran into the wall on that idea. I do have a 5 rack and a 7 rack on the floor that are both full in addition to the walls. I had kind of been shut down on numbers but I am detecting some forgiveness in that area. I don't have any that I want to part with. I built an overhead rack in the garage where I store about 35 cases and a rack on the floor where I store about 9 cases. The cases take up a lot of space. In addition, I have to store all the PA gear and my bass gear in the garage. This all gets to be a mess if one is not organized. It looks like you have you space under control for the moment.
I agree with you on not changing the MFD'. If I were limited to only one or two guitars, It would be more difficult but I don't change any of them and haven't had any that I have totally disliked. I find that I like the Alnicos in the Asats a lot. I am into clean so that probably works well. It looks like you have put a lot of work into your Carvin. I one were out to mod a guitar, a used Carvin would be a great candidate as they can be found used very reasonably and the build quality and finish work is very good. I think that the finish work and the woods used by Carvin are very nice, much like G&L.
I remember when you got you Asat and how beautiful it was. You then had your pickguard custom built and it is very nice. A very unique looking rig and definately a keeper!
My modding is generally physical rather than electronics. I have done a major mod by installing an F Bigsby on a BLuesboy. It turned out to be a great guitar but it was Alder body that was heavy. It really had wow factor and I traded it and it sold very easily as did my Bigsby Teles that I had done. I may do that to another G&L, but I would like to do it to a Bluesboy although I have a few Classics I could pick from. Probably a good future project but I have others to complete. Great reports this week Kyle.-- Darwin
Re: Lunch report 2/5/13
Thu May 02, 2013 2:57 pm
I dig the Swiss Army Knife. Looks good, and bet it sounds great. I haven't modded guitars so much as bought them modded and tweeked the mods. As mentioned yesterday, I swap pickups, but often swap back and forth. I routinely upgrade the circuitry components, one of the highest benefit-to-cost improvements. All my guitars are improved from stock and/or when I got them and they sound wonderful. I am going to swap back to my MFD's in my Leo Signature S-500 this weekend after reading the forum posts this week. Thanks.