Check out Gabe's custom built "Legsat"! Gabe states, "I spent a lot of time optimizing the pickup positions along with the control circuit itself.
I've built all sorts of different pickguards for it as well...finally settling on a "basic-black" 4-ply jobbie for now. I think I'm going to fabricate an
aluminum/exotic wood veneer pickguard sometime in the future. For now...I'm pleased with the vinyl. The control circuit on this particular guitar is quite slick...
The treble pot is a push/pull DPDT switch and the 5-way is an Oak-Grigsby 4-pole unit. I have the circuit wired in such a way to provide 10 unique switching
options including both parallel and serial connections. By the way, no G&L ever produced ever left the factory with the ability to connect the pickups in a serial
fashion. If you like the sound of MFD's alone or connected in parallel...you'll go nuts over the serial connections...they are searing hot, yet tastefully bright and
cutting. While I was at it I tossed the crappy stock ceramic capacitor on the volume pot and replaced it with a more tone-friendly silver-mica unit. I bump up the
value from 200pf to 560pf and bridge the terminals with a 300K resistor which eliminates the high frequency loss you normally get when you back off the volume
knob. While I was at it I removed all ground connections to the potentiometer cans and relocated them to a "star ground"...this all by itself is a great way to reduce
60 cycle hum. Each pickup is individually shielded as is every cavity of the instrument...this is an extremely quiet guitar even at ridiculously high volumes. Anyway,
a couple of months ago I was putting the finishing touches on a fret-dressing using my high speed buffer when the neck got caught in the wheel and launched at
high speed into a steel beam in my basement! Of course, the beam won...the neck lost. Fortunately, a quick call to Dave McLaren and several weeks later I managed
to get a replacement 3-bolt out of the factory for a modest fee. I've always found little use for fingerboard position markers so I had them leave them off... Personally,
I'm quite pleased with the end result. This is the type of instrument that G&L really needs to seriously pursue. The large MFD's are among the finest sounding and most
versatile single coils ever devised. The Z-Coil in between is the perfect choice because the lower output coupled with the oddball stagger makes for some extremely
tasty sounding parallel connections (quack) plus it doesn't interfere with your picking unlike the old ASAT S-3. Many players (like me) prefer the ergonomics of a
Strat-styled body over the Tele/ASAT and you just cannot beat the performance of the Dual Fulcrum and the Sperzel locking tuners. You add in the true 10-way switching
which provides some extra meaty and midrange boosted tones and you have yourself an axe that is so versatile that you can cover Strat, Tele and Gibson tones quite convincingly.
