Featured here will be some postings I've written on product reviews and other music related topics. (At least, that's what I claimed when I started this page years ago.)
I have some scans of a photo of my custom Strat-style guitar. The photograph was taken by Douglas P. Gingerich, Professional Photographer and Geddy-worshipping Rickenbacker 4001 Player. The photo, while dramatically dark, looks good. Unfortunately my scanner can't pick up all the details, and I'm sick of trying. The scans are too dark and grainy, making it look like the guitar is black around the edges. In real life you can see the wood grain clearly all the way out to the edges. So you'll have to use your imagination a bit.
One is a colour photo in tiff format that's a bit too dark; another is a colour photo in gif format that's a bit grainy and also too dark.
The body is one-piece swamp ash from Warmoth (not "Warmouth"!) who also provided the maple neck with compound radius ebony fingerboard. The neck is finished in nitrocellulose lacquer, by the skilled professionals at The Twelfth Fret in Toronto. Local luthier Al Husband made the graphite nut. The beautiful transparent brown-burst body was painted by the very talented Brad Freiheit of Baden, purveyor of custom guitars for Phil X, among others.
The bridge is a Wilkinson VS100C . Three-ply bird's-eye maple is used for the custom-made pickguard. I selected the maple veneer, and Brad Freiheit made the pickguard. The pickups pictured are Seymour Duncan: two Classic Strat stacks plus a HotRails in the bridge. I eventually switched to a Duncan Lil '59 in the bridge position with Kinman AVn in neck and middle for a more traditional Strat tone. The volume and tone controls are pull-pots that let me cut the bridge pickup to single coil, and also allow the neck pickup to be added regardless of pickup selector position. Strings are Maxima Gold to complement the gold Gotoh machine heads, gold pickguard screws, and gold bridge -- I couldn't resist. I subsequently had the neck refretted with Jescar EVO frets which accentuate the gold hardware.
I have a couple of Les Pauls. They are often thought to be fairly heavy. Here's an amusing assessment of that.
Way back in 1994 I bought a Taylor 510e. That's a dreadnought with mahogany back and sides, Engelmann spruce top, ebony fingerboard, and Fishman Natural saddle pickup.
In more recent years I picked up a Taylor 356ce 12-string and a limited edition Taylor 514ce in walnut (so shouldn't it be a W14ce?).
I have a MESA/Boogie Studio .22 combo. I've written about some Studio .22 service items.
