mystery unveiled

Here is the mystery guitar project I posted about a couple of weeks ago: my idea was to make a guitar as quick as possible, without design (that's what slows me so much usually) and without the pro smooth finish that is so painful to me to reach considering my total absence of building skills...

Anyway I'm super happy about it - and it sounds much better in real than recorded with my computer's internal mike -, though I still have to set the bridge saddles to have a proper intonation, but just couldn't wait any longer to post about it!

I will make a detailed post tomorrow, and since I don't have a name for it yet, I welcome suggestions!

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Wrong Side of Uranus

It took a few months (out of stock, then holidays, then out of money, then address confusion...) but I finally received today my Wrong Side of Uranus, a wicked bit-crusher/LFO by Montreal Assembly and I'm really not disappointed. It's a complex little machine and I just tried random settings but it has terrific sounds (all the metalheads with ominous names for their distortion pedals should listen to its scary shrieks and have the genuine feeling of having their brains torn into pieces, then they'd learn about real ferocity).

It has so powerful outbursts that this afternoon I lost more neurons than in the last ten years (since I quit pepper vodka!) Anyway, I finally found a pedal after my heart, and I will try to record a demo of it next week!

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the Doppelcaster in the Guitarz calendar 2012

GL Wilson from the Guitar blog just released a guitars calendar for 2012, and he chose the Doppelcaster to put on the cover; you will also find my Musima Eterna (that I actually never showed on this blog now that I think of it) inside! 

Mystery project

No I'm not building my fuzz-box, I started instead a mystery project, you will know more about it very soon...

My first DIY pedal project

Another project to add to my (too long) to-do list, another domain I know nothing about and need to explore: I got myself a little fuzzbox from Das Musikding - apparently the best e-shop for this kind of things on continental Europe... 

Here again I feel so helpless when it comes to technology and making things, when I relay on this all the time, and I wish I'd learned all this in school... Not too late to start I guess - and I hope I will show the process in the coming days (already had to buy a smaller iron and realized that there are very different kinds of pots and knobs)...

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Ikea birch wood butcher block, an ur-telecaster...

Here it is! I hinted at it last week, and due to the generosity of a benefactor (a little bit surprise to be asked for her humble kitchen appliance), I managed to put my hands on a second hand (with vintage patina) Ikea butcher block (out of production) made of glued birch cubes (I still don't know why birch is not a common tonewood for electric guitars, when it is used for its resonance for drums and speaker cabinets...), with the perfect dimensions to cut a telecaster out of it, Zachary style! 

Now I used the sitar bridge on the Doppelcaster so it would be a more standard project (also I have a lot of tele gear leftovers from my previous projects) though with a slightly different design (time to try the double lower horn) and the new mini-humbucker I bought lately in neck position. Also I don't know if I will use my Micro-Frets neck with its shorter scale or get a tele neck, or even a baritone mod one... 

Sitar bridge and pickguard polishing

So I finally installed the sitar bridge on the doppelcaster, though until the last moment I thought that it would not work - the vintage bridge is really smaller, and I was about to give up when I decided to not use the string-through holes - it's not so important since the sitar saddles remove anyway most of the sustain (and I took the occasion to re-polish the pickguards). Anyway the sound is brilliant and I'm convinced now that this was the best move, a guitar + sitar makes more sense than a guitar + baritone, and I have already some songs ideas with this beastie.

I will try to make soon a video demo of it but I need to set precisely the sitar saddles, and it will take a while, then I'll have a pro setting to have the guitar at its best, also I'm curious (and a little bit anxious) to have a pro point of view on this instrument. Ah, and the P90 still doesn't work, if anybody knows where to find a wiring diagram for a P90 in neck position on a telly, it's welcome!

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a sitar bridge for the Doppelcaster

Ordered sitar-guitar saddles from Rockinger, and a vintage style telecaster bridge, but I overlooked the fact that the Squier teles I used to build the Doppelcaster had modern bridges... I will see if I can make things fit - and I still have the option of making another telecaster-inspired guitar, I'm on the tracks of an old-school Ikea Butcher Block.

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the slowest guitar project in the world

So here it comes again, I could put a couple of hours into the 7-string guitar project, I finally assembled everything and it works not so bad, but a buzzing problem that requires that I rework the neck pocket - I need to remove 2 mm of wood... The lower horn isn't a problem as I feared once, and I really like how the pickup rails follow the frets!

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