crackle guitar sketches

Starting the crackle guitar process, Daniel S. and I exchange the first ideas...

Baritone project sketches

Making my 7-string project, I realized that the long lower horn is a problem, and since I planed a similar one for the baritone project, I have to modify its design. And it looses its balance with a shorter horn so everything must reajust... First new sketches.

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universal knob

For a long time, I've been dreaming of a universal guitar knob that would combine the volume pot, the pickups switch and a push-pull function to split humbuckers or even to go to a tone pot (this is probably too much to ask and who cares about tone knob?).

some more music

Happy me, I just got myself a brand new MXR blue box pedal.

It used to be a preponderant part of my sound some years ago, then I had to part with the vintage one I used, around the time I shifted to digital effects - so I never replaced it until now.

But I realize now that pedals are like guitars, versatility is useful but it's not enough, and it's more intuitive and also more fun to combine several analogic pedals. Lately I stored my Pandora and Zoom multi-effects and got old school fuzzbox, tremolo, wah-wah and now the Blue Box - in addition to my 20-year old first stomp boxes.

For those who wouldn't know the Blue Box, it's a kind of fuzzy double octaver that with some settings becomes extremely unstable, as you can hear on this track that I recorded back in the time as the title song of short movie Partie 0.1 (together with experimental junglist LTDB, who is not called like this anymore).

I really enjoy playing with this pinball sound!

Partie 0.1 by bertramD

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customable brand-less guitar

Ripped open this guitar, it's funny to see how a cheap guitar is made, I've been lucky enough so far to only deal with good stuff. The body is made of plywood, it should be OK with the crackle mod, it's even good that it's so light because there will be a lot of new embedded gear...

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Customable brand-less guitar

I got myself this cheap vintage brand-less strat copy, probably an early 70s Japanese guitar, a Crestline or something. I'm still making research, if you have any information about it (I've been told that this kind of guitars have been quite common at some point), you are welcome to leave a comment.

I'll wait until I know more about it, but I'll probably use it as a base to the crackle guitar project, I like the idea of using a vintage guitar to do an experimental custom.

I'll keep the trem and the pickups but most likely change the other gears. The crackle plate will cover most of the body and the electronics will be deeply modified.

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sketch

Another model that starts to look like something... For a while now I've been busy with the lower horn - that should be curved enough to allow playing sitting with a high neck (this position usual in classical guitar is now more en more used by electric players, under the influence of some metalheads) but breaks the line if it stays in backward position. I've tried a double horn before, this is another proposal.
I like the 'penguin' finish - white body and black pickguard and gears -, like my Rickenbacker 620 white.

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work in progress

As I started cutting the pickup cavity, I decided to get another pickup and left the thing unfinished. I then ordered a dual-rail single humbucker that has the big advantage to be splitable (it's a 6-string one but in the neck position it should fit a 7-string). The aluminium plate will hide the wrong cut once it's properly modified...

Also the model that I made out of cardboard was thin and didn't reveal that the back of the lower horn is somehow a little bit bothering to access the high notes, so I will modify it too... But I don't shred so it's not a big issue - this part of the neck I use mostly with a bottleneck.

work in progress

7-string headstock

Today, I've been working on the aluminium plated headstock of my 7-string project. Since I modified the Ibanez copy design of the headstock by making it narrower, I decided to reinforce and rigidify it with aluminium - like the front of the guitar. I was not sure about the all thing and really not about the black tuners on the alu plate but I do like the result. Will make the trussrod cover out of alu too, and will glue the alu plate on the wood, but I don't know what kind of glue I should use.

Also started to file the body in shape but I should cut soon the neck socket - it's the main challenge, if I make a mistake I can throw what I did so far and start again from zero. But I've been reading some good things about glued birchwood for guitars that make me thing that I made the right choice.

new Kawai Aquarius blog

I just started a side blog about the Kawai Aquarius - that is not only my first guitar but a very honorable and underrated one, about which it is quite difficult to find any information since Kawai stopped guitar production in the late 80s.

I managed to put on this blog scans of old Kawai catalogues of the late 70s / early 80s - I think that they were not accessible online before and hope that this will be useful for someone.

So you are welcome to visit this blog of course, but also to contribute if you've been or are a Kawai Aquarius owner or player and have pictures, stories, recordings, videos, etc. that you can share with the web.

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