For my fellow Axe-ophiles, here's the guitars
I'm using at the moment.
I have now let my Highway One Strat go, after refinishing it last year. I like these models, but the fact is they are not a patch on the quality of my Mel (see below), which gives me all the Strat sounds I need. The next guitar I buy will probably be a Telecaster of some kind, into which will go my spare JB humbucker, in the neck position. Tele's are an acquired taste, I suppose, but now I've got the taste, I can't get enough of them, especially the bite you get from the bridge pickup.
My custom-made Melancon (Melansawn) Classic Artist has arrived from the factory in Louisiana, after a 6-month wait. It's a standard Strat-shaped model, but I have custom-specified the wood, body, colour, finish, neck, frets, bridge, pickups, headstock and tuners.
It's
got a green AAAAA grade quilted maple top, (what they call 'museum quality')
with birds-eye maple neck and headstock, locking
Grover tuners,
22 medium jumbo frets, 2 Seymour Duncan humbuckers and a
SD single coil in the centre. Tone
chambers in the swamp ash body give it a more open, resonant sound, with
a kind of 335-ish quality on the humbuckers.
A 'studio-switching' option allows you to move between humbuckers (Jeff Beck trembucker in the bridge, '59 in the neck) or split single coils, giving a total of 10 possible selections. The humbuckers seem to be the best option, though the 2 and 4 'out of phase' positions mixed with the central single coil are also pretty tasty. Mixing the two outside split coils also gives a fair Telecaster simulation.
The two piece maple neck is a kind of narrow C profile, not so much of a handful as an American Series strat, and the heel joint is much smaller allowing better upper-fret access. The action and intonation are superb.
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My choice of humbuckered guitar is a Gibson ES-335 Studio. This is a very plain, stripped-down semi, with dot markers and and an ebody neck with no binding. The main difference though is no f-holes, like the BB King model, which means far less feedback. I used to have an Epiphone semi, which was great, but standing next to a cranked up amplifier on a small stage and the accoustic feedback would just howl.
The original pickups were Gibson '57 Classics, which are pretty good, if rather rough-sounding. I've replaced them with a pair of Seymours ('59 in
neck, Custom in bridge, both coil-tapped), giving a much smoother sound.
My other Stratocaster guitar is an 'eBay Special', I bought all the parts separately online: body, neck, bridge, pickups; the lot. It all fitted together surprisingly well and I was especially pleased at how tightly the neck sqeezed into the body pocket.
It's a very traditional looking Strat, except the neck has a modern flat 12" profile.
The pickups are Seymour Duncan Alnico IIs, a very warm and musical-
sounding single-coil to my ear.
It is pictured here with my Marshall JTM 45 Reissue Head and 4x10 cabinet. Not being
an out-and-out rawk guitarist, I have
a
love-hate relationship with Marshall amps; they can be very unsubtle and for sure lack versatility.
The JTM45 is still their best in line, IMHO,
and the common denominator in all my
favourite
bluesrock guitar tones.
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This is my natural-finish Gibson Hummingbird acoustic (c.1973), which I recently picked up on a part-exchange deal. Very Rolling Stones sound. I just had a
Fishman Matrix active pickup put in, which gives a great sound through a
Fender Acoustasonic amp.
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MY OWN DIY PEDALBOARD
Like all guitarists, I had my fantasy of a posh pedalboard; professional, portable, and all made to measure. Sadly, like most guitarists, I struggled to afford a higher-end model, a la Tone-Bone, Trailer-Trash or whatever. So even though I'm nobody's idea of a handyman, I set about making my own.
There is premium for a pedalboard fitted in a flight case: even the 'name' custom models seem to regard this as an extra. But what's the point of having a pro-spec., made-to-measure board, if your pedals are left flapping about in a flimsy gig-bag? Sound is the top priority, but convenience and security are up there. So the first thing was to find a standard flight-case. I settled for a foam-padded mixing-desk case, approx 16" x 21" x 3.5", which I got from a second-hand shop for about forty quid - my biggest single expense on the construction side. (I paid over the odds, you can get old flightcases for less than this).
The next thing was to knock out the pins on the flight-case hinges, so that the lid lifted off, but remained replaceable. Now I just align the hinges, and swing the case shut. I left the foam padding in the case, which adds extra impact protection. At first, I cut circular holes in each side of the base section of the flight-case, using a borrowed tank-cutter. I believe there are appliances (ie, blades) that fit on to power-drills that you can use for this purpose. I cut the holes to allow jack-leads to plug into pedals on either side. Subsequently, I have abandoned this model and now place my board on the slimmer lid section of the case, and use the deeper half as the 'top', putting gaffer-tape over the holes. The latches still fasten, the case is now just effectively upside-down.
The local timber yard cut me a board of MDF, 21" x 16". They also did me some narrow strips of wood to go underneath, approximately 1cm high, to lift the board and allow patch nd power leads to travel underneath. I glued the strips under the edges of the main board. The MDF board was very thin, because the pedals' height must obviously allow the flight-case lid to shut. Total cost of the wood, next to nothing. About £3.
Then I drilled a series of holes in the MDF base. This took longer than I thought, because the holes have to be pretty big. I had ready-made Whirlwind patch leads, not George L's make-your-own, and a right-angled jack needs a large hole to poke through. The holes ended up being about the size of tenpence pieces, drilled with a huge 12mm bit. The board is thin, but it stood up to it.
I sent off to Stompin'-Ground (www.stompin-ground.com) for a Velcro carpet to cover the baseboard, which came promptly, for about 12 quid on Pay-Pal, inc. postage. Very professional people, highly recommended. Once I was happy with the layout of my eight pedals, I glued the Velcro carpet over the board. Each hole where a lead comes through, either jack or power, I cut a cross in the Velcro with a Stanley-knife.
I power my pedals with a Diago Powerstation, (www.diago.co.uk) a very nifty piece of kit indeed. Half the price and size of most of its rivals, it still puts out a maximum of 3000ma. Plenty to power all my pedals, including a Boss DD-20, for something about the size of a cigarette packet. Fifty quid, excellent value. It sits on top of the board, in the centre, but does not get in the way, unlike some other half-brick sized units you can get.
Right-angled power leads are also useful. I don't have that many pedals to worry about, but they still save a lot of space: regular power-leads stick out about an inch. You can get Visual-Sound right-angled daisy-chains direct from Charlie Chandler's Guitar Experience.
My pedal-chain goes: Boss TU-2 tuner, Boss CS-3 compressor, Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive, Marshall Bluesbreaker II overdrive, Ernie Ball Jr. Volume Pedal, Boss TR-2 tremolo, MXR Smart-Gate, Boss DD-20 (double) delay. No ubiquitous chorus-pedal, you notice. I have weaned myself off this dated, detuned and diluted-sounding device, and in any case the -20 gives you a sweet modulated chorus/delay effect. Saves space and sounds better than my old analog CE-3.
