16
Jul
2010
The Frankenstrat is finished!
Adrian at ASH Custom Works finished the paint job on the Frankenstrat last week and I received the completed body earlier this week 
It was all wired up, ready for final re-assembly. The paint has turned out great!
Quite possibly, the best part though is the custom-made pickup he made for the guitar. It’s based on the specs of Ed’s original pickup, and boy does it sound good. Very clear and defined, loves tons of gain, but cleans up really well with the volume backed off.
Anyway, here’s the photos:
I’ll get round to making a video of it in action soon!
18
Jun
2010
A new amp is coming…
This week I ordered a new Splawn amp from Custom Audio Boutique. I have wanted a Splawn amp for a while now, and decided that the time was right to order it now
I managed to get my choice down to either a Quick Rod or a Street Rod head. There are other great options, but I need a clean channel, and several of the Splawn models are single channel only.
Splawn Quick Rod
- 100 watts – w/ half power switch
- Channel 1 (clean) – independent EQ and gain controls
- Channel 2 (overdrive) – solo boost, OD1 (rhythm) /OD2 (lead) mode, 3 gear modes
- Gears – 1st – Hot Rod Plexi, 2nd – Hot Rod 800, 3rd – Super Hot Rod 800
- 3 Button Footswitch – #1 Clean/Overdrive – #2 OD1/OD2 – #3 Solo Boost
- Transformer – Heyboer
- Series Effects Loop – w/ true-bypass and adjustable +4db/-10db switch
- Impedance Selector – 4/8/16 ohms
- Main Voltage Selector – 100, 120, 220, 230V
- Tubes – EL34B
Splawn Street Rod (head)
- 40 watt – w/ half power switch
- Channel 1 (clean) – independent EQ
- Channel 2 (overdrive) – solo boost, OD1 (rhythm) /OD2 (lead) mode, 3 gear modes
- Gears – 1st – Hot Rod Plexi, 2nd – Hot Rod 800, 3rd – Super Hot Rod 800
- 3 Button Footswitch – #1 Clean/Overdrive – #2 OD1/OD2 – #3 Solo Boost
- Transformers – Heyboer
- Series Effects Loop – w/ true-bypass and adjustable +4db/-10db switch
- Impedance Selector – 4/8/16 ohms
- Main Voltage Selector – 100, 120, 220, 230V
- Tubes – EL34B
So, the big (only?) difference between the two amps is that the Quick Rod is 100 Watts and the Street Rod is 40 Watts. Currently I’m using a 120 Watt head, running at 60 Watts, and it is very loud! Even on-stage I’m only running the master volume at around 2-3 and it’s loud enough to hear over the band. So I decided that 40 Watts is more than enough for me, and ordered a Street Rod head.
As it is a custom made amp, the build and delivery time is anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks. The great thing about it being a custom amp, is that things like the colour scheme are very customisable. I’ve decided on a basic black/silver layout. Black Levant, silver control panel, black chickenhead knobs, silver piping and black grill cloth on the front. It should all look very nice matched up with my Mesa Recto cab 
I’m really hanging out to play through it with some sweet Plexi settings! Once my EVH guitar is all put together, I may go back into my Van Halen phase again 
30
May
2010
Guitarnoize.com Anti-shred
Jon at Guitarnoize.com is having an ‘Anti-shred’ competition, it’s more about melody than flash, so I thought I’d give it a crack! The backing track is a short, but very tasty, slow ballad-type progression and lends itself really well to big bends and sustained notes.
Here’s what I came up with:
The hat was a last minute addition to the outfit, but judging by the comments on the video, it was a popular move 
Oh, and it was pretty dark in the room, so the video quality is abysmal!
13
May
2010
Ninja Monkey’s first gig
My band Ninja Monkey had our first public outing on the 13th of May at The Cabana in Napier. The gig was part of the monthly muso nights that The Cabana runs, organised by the good lads at The Music Machine in Napier.
We played four songs; one cover and three of our originals. All the songs were really well received, which is always a worry when you play your own songs in front of people for the first time! We had lots of positive feedback afterwards, with several other bands asking if we would want to play gigs with them in the future
Here’s the videos of our originals:
Coming Home
Hold On
Gone
12
Apr
2010
The Frankenstrat gets some paint
Here’s a few ‘in progress’ photos of the painting for my Frankenstrat project guitar. I’m not doing any of the painting by the way, I’ve been there, failed at that before, so Adrian at ASH Custom Works is handling the painting for me.
All photos from ASH Custom Works
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!
Guitar player, IT guy, web designer, Photoshop hack
