The few of You who's still around after the board change probably remembers
Emmit's (also known as mr 4 Bolt or Deuce) boat anchor.
For You who don't. At this time Emmit liked to try out a lot of different
guitars so he was frequently buying and selling, most guitars probably
didn't stay with him for very long. At this time he also had a back problem
so he was very particular about a guitars weight.
Anyway he bought this one off mahogany ASAT one off which supposedly had
been to NAMM 2000. When he got it the seller appearently had underestimated
the weight, so to say the least he was p----d off. There was quite some
discussion aroud this subject, and the "legend" of Emmit's boat anchor
was born.
Around this time I had posted that I had GAS for a mahogany ASAT. I
have always had a weakness for the ASAT shape, I believe this is one
of Leo's most precious gifts to the world. Emmit contacted me and offered
me to sell it. He actually offered me to buy either this or an ASAT jr
he owned at the time. I do love the ASAT body shape but I am no huge
fan of really bright tones, so I ended up buying the boat anchor based
on the fact it had mini buckers and warmer tone then a Jr, I tell You
I'm not even gonna get close to Jr.
So it arrives, and turns out to be a buatiful piece. First class
build, gourgous high quality wood and in a beautiful shape, You
could barely tell it's used.
So more exited than in a looong time, I plug it in and.. Gaaaaaaahhh.
Out comes the most harsh glass breaking ice picking tone You can
possible imagine. No matter what I do I can not get a decent tone.
It was good for flesh finger picking, not much else so it goes
into the closet, and I am very very dissapointed.
Back to my Mahogany S500, which is a very very good peice, but I
was looking soaring lead tones and the S500 doesn't really have them.
Because of that I started to use my Les paul and 339 more and more
and eventually my G&L's didn't see much play time at all. I was
lost to the dark side...
A few months go by and I decide to give the boat anchor another go.
I didn't want to get rid of it (thank God) because it was such a
magnificent piece. This time around I am not so heart breakingly
dissapointed so I take my time and anylyze the situation. Acoustically
I can tell there are great tones in there, so something isn't right.
It came equipped with Seymour Duncan mini's and since I know nothing
about minis I assume that's were the problem is.
I decide to try different pickups. Whe I want to experiment I often
turn to GFS since they are inexpensive. I and order a set of
"Fat minis". They arrive safe and but when I try to install them
THEY DON'T &%¤#! FIT .
It turns out the Duncans have shorter legs and the route isn't
deep enough for the Fat minis grrrrr. What to do now, changing the
route is out of the question, so I have to shorten the legs. I
succeed but it was a pain in the a-- and took the best part of a
whole weekend.
Ok time to plug it in and.... no difference really, A little more
output but it's still an ice pick... back to the closet.
Two Years go by, and it just sits in the dog house without pickups,
(now I feel ashamed about it) while I'm wailing away on my Gibsons.
Come this fall we have the annual Swedish guitar show and there
I run into the owner of Lundgren pickups (http://www.lundgren.se).
I find out he started to build mini's so I tell him about my ASAT.
He let me buy a set of his mini's and promise me I can return
them for a full refund if I'm not happy. What do I have to loose,
I end up buying a set.
The same night I installed them, The legs were a little bit longer
than the Duncans, but they fit in the route, so no problem there.
Time to plug it in... again no difrerence, the only thing I got
compared to the Duncans was lower output...
In the morning as I get ready to pack up the Lundgren mini's and
send them back it, strikes me that I should investigate the electric
curquitry. The ASAT has a little 3 way switch which I never really
knew what it did. So I took my time to figured the switch out and
made a curqiut drawing. It turned out that there was 3 extra capacitors
installed in SERIES with the neck pick up. The swicth controlled
how many of them that were engaged. Anybody that has basic electronic
knowlege knows that this becomes high pass filter, VIOLA! thats
where my yummy tones went.
Now I am really exited so I change the curquit to bypass the switch.
and plug it in... YESSSS, finally it sounds like I think it should.
I rip those caps out and maul them to peices feeling like I just von
WW3.
So now the Gibsons go into the closet and the ASAT one gets all the
action. It's still a bit on the bright side and the lead tones need
a bit more body. So I'm thinking I have switch to use for something,
but what to do with it...
I read somewhere that connecting to pickups in series fattens up the
tone big time. I also read that this too much for humbuckers, but
what the heck, minis are not as fat as fullsize buckers so I'll have
a go at that.
So I turn the switch into a series/paralell and I go straight to tone
heaven. In series it has the fattest juciest bright lead tone You can
possibly imagine, and it works great for chords too. So the ASAT is
currently my no:1. I use the neck pickup for cleaner, and for lead
lead I just add the bridge in series. Utterly perfect for me.
The guitar is bright to start with, and it has mini buckers which
further accentuates this so I can not imagine why anyone would
want to make it even brighter. I do not know if it came like this
from the factory or not. I am pretty sure Emmit didn't do this,
he would have told me about it.
Anway it took a few Years but the story now has a very happy ending,
and i ended up learning a lot in the process.
My apologies for the poor picture quality.
Cheers
L-zr
