Prewired replacement electronics provide access to many popular wiring mods, minus the soldering. Larry Santellan of Santellan Sounds, maker of the Elec-Trix tone modules, sent me some samples to check out. These pre-wired circuits offer quick access to some of the “greatest hits” of alternate wiring, with an emphasis on Strats and Teles. […] 
Is it just me, or do many guitarists these days find themselves alternating between separate analog and digital setups? I’m posting some pics of my current pedalboards (bearing in mind that, for reasons I’ll get into in a sec, my pedalboards only tend to stay “current” for a few days at a time). Both were […] 
My amp has a sad. Thank heaven I became a guitar geek shortly before my 12th birthday. If I hadn’t, I probably would have requested a minibike for my bar mitzvah present a year later, instead of my first electric guitar. And today I’d be an over-the-hill biker instead of an over-the-hill guitarist. […] 
These funky homemade pedals represent all the leading octave-fuzz circuits. I had no idea I had so many octave fuzz pedals! I had no idea they sounded so different! And after spending way too much time auditioning and recording them, I have no idea when I’m ever going to be able to stand […] 
They’re fuzzy eight balls, okay? Eight as in octave. Fuzzy as in fuzz. Get it? GET IT? Oh, never mind. Anyone have any strong feelings about octave fuzz? I’m guessing so, because not many effects produce stronger feelings. It’s not a path for the faint-hearted. Or control freaks. Or frankly, most guitar players. […] 
This photo was digitally altered to make the guitar look even dirtier than it was — but not by much. Sometimes only the threat of public exposure can inspire a proper clean-up job. Case in point: I hadn’t groomed my battered ’63 Strat in years, and when I pupped it from the wall […] 
A sad, desolate place — but not for long! One cool thing about going indie with tonefiend is that fact that I can finally host my own geek forum! It’s already up and running — but it’s a sad, vacant space that desperately needs to be populated by cool people and cool ideas. […] 
Now with more secrets — and less secrecy. Last winter I tried an odd experiment: a website where players were encouraged to post their best tone secrets — the kinds of tricks and techniques that are almost too good to share. But in order to get, you had to give: The site was […] 
“I always forget — which end gets hot?” Somewhat embarrassingly, I never got around to changing one of my own pickups until I was knocking on senility’s door recently. I owe part of the inspiration to that fabulous DIY Fest known as the Maker Fair, where each year hundreds of little kids learn […] 
Sounds like MONEY! I’ve said it so many times, I feel like the parrot of pickups, but here goes again: These days the weakest links on inexpensive Asian and Mexican guitars are invariably the pickups. Upgrading them often yields a princely axe at a pauperly price. A perfect example is the Ibanez Art […] |
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