Tag: strat

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guitar Music

Meet the REAL Spiders from Mars!
Bartók on Electric Guitar

Bartók: Smarter than math-rock — and way more violent.
Bartók: Smarter than math-rock — and way more violent.

My Bowie fandom is second to none. Yet I’ve always felt a vague sense of disappointment that the Spiders from Mars didn’t really sound much like spiders from Mars.

On the other hand, the fourth movement from Béla Bartók‘s Fourth String Quartet really does sound like Martian spiders — assuming the critters in question had been force-fed a diet of chord clusters, mathematics, Hungarian folk music, and some of the most astonishing counterpoint this side of J.S. Bach.

And dig it: This white-hot blast of dissonant modernism was composed in 1928!

And how does this string quartet music sound on guitars? Awesome, IMHO — largely because the movement is played entirely pizzicato (plucked, not bowed). Very few modifications were needed to adopt it for four electric guitars.

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Bartók on Electric Guitar”
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guitar

A Very Vintage Strat

The ’80s were tough on guitars.

Last weekend I went to a memorial service for a music pal I hadn’t seen since the ’80s. Judging by the pictures I saw and the stories I heard, Brett remained the gentle, generous music lover I’d remembered till he died in his sleep a few weeks ago.

I ran into lots of old music friends and bandmates, and we alternately smiled and winced as our old photos and concert videos flashed on the big screen. Were we really that skinny? Did we actually wear that stuff without being coerced at gunpoint?

Like we tend to do at such moments, I left brimming with resolutions: Appreciate life. Cherish friends. Remember that music is a joy as well as a job. And do something nice for my sad old Strat, the guitar in all those old photos and videos.

See, back then I only had one guitar — an all-original ’63 Strat I’d picked up in 1980, when pre-CBS Fenders were still perched on the precipice between collectible and affordable. (I paid $450, a staggering investment for me at the time.) It remained my only serious guitar for a decade. It was in near-perfect condition when I bought it, and it was a battered ruin by decade’s end. (The ’80s were a tough time for guitars, what with all those studded belts.) I was a young player with a bad attitude and little concern for collectibility, as opposed to the middle-aged player with a bad attitude and little concern for collectibility that I am today.

I’ll some thoughts about Strats then and now. But first, have a listen:

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Categories
guitar Pickups

Mixing Magnets in One Pickup

This pickup is ferocious on the bottom and sweet on top.
Aggressive on the bass side, sweet on the top.

I was talking to Seymour the other day about the types of magnets used in vintage Fender pickups. I knew that Fender used strong, punchy alnico V magnets in most of their models, but I didn’t know that the earliest Teles used softer-sounding alnico IIs, or that the first Strats used even softer-sounding alnico IIIs, a detail confirmed by Fender’s page on the topic.

I recently had a chance to compare the sound of alnico II and alnico V while hacking together guitars for the Mongrel Strat Project. I’d tried an Alnico II Pro in the middle position of this mongrel, and liked it. But as I continued to experiment, I gravitated back to the more traditional alnico V sound — maybe because I play so much in lowered tunings, and in bands without bass, so I really like the strong, defined fundamental you get from an alnico V.

But until now I’d never tried literally splitting the difference via Duncan’s Five-Two, a hybrid that has three alnico V rods for the bass strings and three alnico II rods for the trebles. The idea behind this arrangement is to deliver a bold, snappy sound in the low resister, but with some softening and sweetness on top.

How does it sound? You tell me — here’s a demo video I made. Plus, there’s a micro-contest: The first person to name the tune I’m playing will have their name immortalized for the ages mentioned in an upcoming post. (That might be better than a poke in the eye, depending on whose eye it is.)

Have a listen:

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Categories
Amps guitar Pickups

Behold the Synyster Kitty!

Kitty power!!!

Okay, as promised: One more quick video featuring the Hello Kitty Strat, this time with one of those new Duncan Synyster Gates Invader pickups. I’m told the ceramic-magnet Invader is literally the hottest possible non-active pickup. I’m inclined to believe it.

Take this one with a grain of salt. As much as I love trying to make a pink $99 guitar and a Lunchbox amp sound as heavy as possible, this pickup just might sound a wee bit heavier with a big-ass mahogany guitar and a big-ass tube-dude amp. But still.

FYI, here’s the earlier post I did using a Duncan Phat Cat pickup, plus the same built-in fuzz.

Behold, mortals:

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Categories
DIY Effects guitar Pickups

Hello Kitty Strat: Not for Pussies!

Would this be anything less than awesome? I think not.
Would this be anything less than awesome? I think not.

As I gloated last week, Jane Wiedlin gave me her Hello Kitty Stratocaster  — the most bitchin’ $99 guitar ever conceived! I finally had a chance to destroy/customize it yesterday, in what will no doubt be the first of many desecrations/enhancements.

I’d ordered one of those Synyster Gates Duncan Invaders with the pretty white pole pieces for the guitar, but just couldn’t wait to experiment, so I browsed through the ol’ pickup collection, and found a nice Duncan Phat Cat I’d used in a Les Paul experiment some months ago.

I don’t generally recommend choosing pickups because of their names, but come on! Kitty + Cat? How could I resist?

Turns out it was a lucky choice. I hadn’t planned to install a pickup that was actually lower in output than the stock humbucker, but it lets me get nicer clean sounds, and coughs up more than enough crunch when goosed with distortion. Speaking of which: the other custom feature is a built-in-distortion circuit activated via push-pull pot (I took lots of pics of the process for a DIY built-in-effects tutorial I’ll be posting very soon.)

View the carnage in this little video. Thanks, Jane Weidlin! Sorry, Stevie Nicks!

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Categories
guitar

It Pays to Have Cool Rock Star Friends!

Sadly, it's ony Photoshop. Jane just WISHES she had a Hello Kitty triple-neck!

It was a perfect weekend here in SF: Unseasonably warm weather. BBQ in the garden. A fun recording session for a new project by Jane Wiedlin and Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Gos. And there was something else. . .

Oh yeah — Jane frickin’ gave me her Fender Hello Kitty Strat! Yes, the very same model played by Jimmy Page, John Lennon, Keith Richards, and Johnny Marr. (At least in my imagination.)

I love you, Jane!

So of course we started talking about how to customize it. Travis Kasperbauer, Jane’s engineer/husband, proposed installing an Seymour Duncan Invader pickup (maybe one of those white-capped Synyster Gates models…)

Jane suggested blinging it out with lots of beads and jewels and other eye-catching decor. And Jane know her eye-catching decor — her place is filled to bursting with mid-20th century kitsch, and her steampunk-themed studio could be the Addams Family basement where Wednesday and Pugsley rehearse with their punk band while Lurch runs Pro Tools. How often do you get to record 12-string overdubs while sitting next to a disembodied brain floating in a tank?

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Categories
DIY guitar Pickups

“Nashville” Tele Wiring . . . in a Strat?!

What do you get when you cross . . .
What do you get when you cross . . .

I’ve been coveting one of those “Nashville-Style” Telecasters — you know, the hot-rodded, three-pickup versions popularized by Nashville session superhero Brent Mason, and now a regular Fender production model.

Then it dawned on me: Since some of Mongrel Strats I’ve been playing with have strong Tele tendencies, why not flip the equation? Instead of a Tele that acts like a Strat, why not a Strat that thinks it’s a Tele?

The Fender version replaces the usual Tele 3-way switch with a 5-way, as shown in this wiring diagram, though many players prefer to keep the 3-way switch and add the middle pickup via a blend knob, as in this other wiring diagram.

I took the latter approach, and I am flipping out over all the new tones it unlocks. Check out this little video demo:

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Categories
DIY guitar Pickups

The Ultimate Mongrel Strat? (with Obsessive/Compulsive Tone Control!)

Not for everybody: The sickest mongrel strat yet.
Not for everybody: The sickest mongrel strat yet.

Okay, I lied.

In the previous installment of our ongoing mongrel strat series, I experimented with a version of Gibson’s oddball Vari-Tone circuit. I said it was too fussy and complex, and that I wanted to experiment with a simplified version.

So naturally, I built a “parts” Strat with a Vari-Tone twice as complicated as the original — a configuration I’ve dubbed the “Obsessive/Compulsive Tone Control.” I also deployed some of my favorite quirks and wiring tricks from previous strat experiments, plus a few new hardware discoveries. Result: a weird-ass guitar that only a geek could love a cool, one-of-a-kind instrument.

Check out the demo. Post-mortem after.

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Categories
DIY guitar Pickups

Twang Bangers, Vari-Tones & More Strat Strangeness

The latest Mongrel Strat (artist's conception).

Welcome to the second installment in the Mongrel Strat Series!

If I were a sensible person, I would have split this week’s experiments into several posts. But much like eating pistachios, it’s tough to know when to stop .

Anyway, this project tackles three topics:

1. Several readers dug the sound of the Telecaster-inspired Seymour Duncan Twang Banger pickup used in Mongrel #1, where I  paired it with a Duncan Lipstick Tube for Strat neck pickup and a Alnico II Pro middle. But I wanted to hear how the Twang Banger sounded in a more traditional Strat array, so this time I paired it was a couple of vintage-accurate SSL-1s, with a reverse-wound, reverse-polarity model in the middle position.

2. Over in The Secret Room, a participant brought up the subject of the Vari-Tone control used in the Gibson ES-345. I wanted to learn more about this often misunderstood circuit (well, I never understood it, anway) and explore whether it had relevance for Strats.

3. In response to another Secret Room topic, I wanted to resolve whether there’s any sonic benefit in bypassing the tone circuit completely.

And the results? You tell me — here’s the video:

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Categories
DIY guitar Pickups

Meet Mongrel Strat #1

Three "mismatched" Duncan pickups in an off-the-rack Mexican Strat. (Left to right: Lipstick Tube for Strat, Alnico 2 Pro, Twang Banger)
Three "mismatched" Duncan pickups in an off-the-rack Mexican Strat. (Left to right: Lipstick Tube for Strat, Alnico II Pro Staggered, Twang Banger)

As previously threatened, here’s the first installment in a series on unusual Strat pickup combinations, inspired by a big box of Duncan pickups and a couple of prewired “BYOP” pickguards. I tried a couple of meh combinations that I didn’t like enough to record, but this third experiment seemed worth sharing. Dig this odd combo: Lipstick Tube neck. Alnico II Pro middle. Twang Banger bridge. Comments and post mortem after the clip. Have a listen!

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