I
play through a 1961 Fender Twin Amp which has been refurbished by the renowned
amplifier designer and manufacturer
John
McIntyre. For effects I use a
Dod
Overdrive Pedal, a Boss PW-10 wah pedal, an Ibanez UE405 multi-effects
rack and an Alesis Midiverb II. I've been using GHS
strings forever - GBCL-B Guitar Boomers -
009-011-016-026-036-046.
I have an Alesis SR16 drum machine, a
Yamaha DX7 synth and a Yamaha TX81Z tone module. Multi-track recording is done
on the PC with CoolEdit. The PC is equipped with a Creative
Labs Audigy 4 soundcard.
| I have come up with a pickup
configuration that
does not to my knowledge, and I've been looking, exist on any other
commercially produced guitar on this planet! So STAY
TUNED! |
1962
Fender Esquire.
When I bought it
(used - in '69) it had a P90 copy neck pickup installed which sounded horrible. I
replaced it with one of the mini humbuckers from a Gibson Firebird III I used to own which I
bought in 1964 from The Kingsmen's lead guitarist at the time,
Darrel Partlow, and also replaced the stock bridge with a brass Badass
unit. Somewhere along the line I installed a
Tele pickup in the middle and 2 micro-switches so that I could get all 7 combinations.
Then I moved the stock bridge pup
to the middle position and replaced it with a custom built Seymour Duncan unit
which had a coil tap adding a few more tone variations. I then replaced the
bridge and middle pickups with
Bill Lawrence
L-290TLE and L-290SL pups. I built a new pickguard to accommodate this configuration which
included a split-coil humbucker from a Series A
guitar in the neck position (the weak link in the chain but still not bad). With the four microswitches I
had installed there
were 27 different tone combinations available! In late 2006 I decided to put the
guitar back to as much of it's stock configuration that I could with the
original parts kicking around including the heads, single pickup, bridge and
wiring. I had to substitute a few components including the toggle switch. I have
the original but it's hooped. I never did have the original pickguard so I built
one myself. I'll update the picture soon. This axe has EDGE!
This
unit sings. A
1959
Les Paul SG Special.
I got this one around '67.
Originally with a cherry red finish, somewhere around 1968 I sawed off the 'horns' to give it a Vox
teardrop-like shape!!!! A few years later I had
Ed Rohner,
then with Fury Guitars in Saskatoon, re-attach the pieces and refinish it
with black lacquer. He added a nice personal touch in the red fret markers on new
wood binding. I added a microswitch to phase-reverse one of the pups to get that
gronky out-of -phase sound.
Almost totally modified
1952 Les Paul Model Gold Top!
Again, forgive me collectors!
However it is much more functional this way although I now realize it would be
worth a mint if it were stock. I traded a Mosrite Ventures model
guitar and some cash for it in 1970. I put it through several changes including
installing a pair of Yamaha SG1500 dual-sound humbuckers and one of the
mini-humbuckers from the Firebird III. The Firebird got the original P90's. This
has been a very versatile axe. Once while playing with Crowcuss at The Savoy in Vancouver, a
fellow approached me after a set and told me he couldn't believe my setup. The previous
night he had heard a live FM broadcast from the club and thought I was playing a
Stratocaster through a Marshall. I was in fact playing this Les Paul through a
Roland JC120! My intention at this point is to install the pair of
mini-humbuckers at the bridge and neck positions.
I recently finished assembling a replacement
for the modified Esquire, to get most of those sounds again. I bought the body (Charvel
Strat copy) and the neck (Peavey Predator) on Ebay and used the parts that I
pulled off the Esquire. Besides the Bill Lawrence pups I placed the Seymour
Duncan in the neck position. The pickups are all slightly staggered. I built a
custom pickguard to accomodate. The tone control is push-pull so I use it
to turn the coil tap on and off.
Gibson B-25 acoustic.
A lovely sounding little unit.
Gibson Epiphone FT79N Texan.
Very similar to the J50. This is the same model acoustic Paul McCartney used on The Beatles'
'Yesterday' recording. Hmmm!
with stock finish replaced by Swedish oil. Back pickup is a DiMarzio. I designed the pick guard. The strings are tuned as if it were a five or six string bass - without the 1st or 2nd strings - (low to high) B-E-A-D
