3
Mar
2010
YAFP : Yet Another Frankenstrat Project
I’m about to embark down a road that many have gone before by putting together a Frankenstrat.
EVH Frankenstrat
I thought briefly about doing the standard relic version, but I’ve decided that is too much time and money, so the end result should be more based on the paint job being similar to EVH’s guitar than anything else 
There should be a few similarities to the original Frankie. Things such as a red/white/black stripe paint job, one volume control (with a tone knob, ’cause when you turn it up you get more tone man), Floyd Rose trem, bridge humbucker, cut-down pickguard. Differences will be that it won’t look like it’s been dragged behind a truck, only a 21 fret neck (for now…), and I’m probably going to have a working neck pickup with a selector switch of some kind to switch between pickups.
I was thinking of putting a single coil sized pickup in the neck position, for mostly stylistic reasons (i.e. that’s what was in Ed’s guitar), but the body I am using is routed as H/S/H (humbucker/single/humbucker) so it may look like it is swimming in there 
I have a Seymour Duncan single coil of some description, but would prefer a stacked humbucker in there, but that will all come later. Most likely I’ll end up with a full humbucker in the neck position as well.
The 'before' shot
The guitar I’ll be using is a 1993 Japanese Fender Strat. It already has a black base coat on it, so that’s a third of the painting done already As all previous attempts at painting guitars have been complete failures for me, I’m outsourcing that to a professional! Adrian at Ash Customworks is doing the painting for me. Check out this recent example of his work made for my friend Raf here.
The body is routed for a Floyd Rose trem, so I’ll be putting in a block or, more likely a Tremol-no, to make it dive-only and help with tuning stability.
For the bridge pickup I considered a few options, and the main contenders were: EVH Frankenstein Humbucker, Bareknuckle VHII, Seymour Duncan Custom Custom, the super secret Seymour Duncan Custom Shop EVH replica pickup or a custom made pickup. In the end I’ve settled for a custom made pickup by ASH Customworks built to the ‘78 specs.
The guitar is getting dropped off tomorrow for painting, so updates will follow after that (although it might be a while, as Adrian is an incredibly busy man!).
16
Feb
2010
My New Gear Month
I’ve had one of those months where new stuff seems to keep turning up. Don’t you love those months?
It started with the purchase of a new (to me) Ibanez JS1200
Ibanez JS1200
I bought this guitar off a friend of mine who was selling a few things from his collection. I played this guitar back in 2006, and instantly fell in love with it! It’s still as good as I remember it being. Sounds and plays amazingly well.
I also got a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power ISO-5 power supply for my pedals. The ISO-5 has five outputs, with three being 9V, one being 18V and the other being a choice between a 9V or a 12V. I needed the 12V for my T.C. Electronic Nova Drive, as I was running a separate power adaptor for that, and it was just getting messy! The 9V outputs are each 100mA, so you can safely chain a few pedals off that (as long as they don’t get too noisy).
Voodoo Lab Pedal Power ISO-5
Next up was a Pedaltrain JR-SC and Lava Solder-Free Pedal Board Kit, both of which I got from Custom Audio Boutique.
Pedaltrain JR board all loaded up
Sorry about the photo, I’m technologically behind the times with cellphone cameras (and no, I won’t get an iPhone 
).
The Pedaltrain JR is a great piece of kit. Small enough to be manageable and big enough to hold all the pedals I need. That’s pedals I need, not pedals I want… That would require a much bigger board, but sometimes you have to think more rationally; 6 overdrives, a delay, a phase, a vibe, a booster, a chorus and a tuner are much more than I really needed (yes, I was running all that on my board in the past 
).
The Lava cabling kit is a fantastic thing as well. You can make patch cables of any length (you get 10′ of cable to cut up as required), and the kit I got had 10 right angle connectors. The connectors are very small, so getting pedals in nice and close to each other is a breeze.
Out of interest, my current effects setup is (top left to bottom right): Love Pedal Pickle Vibe, MXR EVH Phase 90, Korg DT-10 tuner, G2D Custom Overdrive, Vox Time Machine, Cusack Screamer and T.C. Electronic Nova Drive (the signal chain goes: tuner > Nova Drive > Cusack > G2D > phase > vibe > delay, all into the front of the amp). I’m pretty happy with this setup, but I really would like a T.C. Electronic Polytune, if I could find one in this country. Not sure I need the vibe and the phaser, as they are similar, but it can’t hurt to have options.
My other recent acquisition is a Mesa Boogie Recto 2×12 cabinet with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers.
Peavey JSX with Mesa 2x12 Recto cabinet
What a cabinet this is! I’ve heard a lot of people rave about these cabs over the years, and now I can understand why they do. It’s a great match for the JSX, I think.
The other thing that I tried recently (on a visit to Custom Audio Boutique) that has me seriously looking under the sofa for money is a Splawn Quick Rod amp. It took about 2 seconds of playing through it to realise that it has everything in it that is the sound in my head, so imagine how great it was after playing it for 15 minutes But that’s one to be saved up for methinks!
2
Feb
2010
25
Jan
2010
Somewhere Over The Rainbow (tapping)
A nice version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow played using 8-finger tapping. I wish I could convince my brain to be able to play chords and lead at the same time like this!
15
Jan
2010
Ibanez Introducing the JS2400 Joe Satriani
The new JS Ibanez looks pretty nice to me. Interesting choice of the Fast Track pickup in the neck, but makes sense with the extra couple of frets taking up the space where a humbucker would be 
21
Dec
2009
18
Dec
2009
Guitar player, IT guy, web designer, Photoshop hack
