Not much to say lately

I admit I haven't been posting much lately. Not good for the hit count, I'm sure, but there hasn't been much to say. Not a lot going on in the guitar department these days. Sure, I'm still playing, but it's been typical practice stuff. Plus, I had to give back my Linux machine (it was borrowed after all) so all recording experiments have stopped.

I do have some things on the horizon, though. I'll be putting together a few more prog album reviews. I finished up the Hal Leonard book, so I'll be updating that. I'm going to a few concerts this summer - Iron Maiden and Rush (bows head in reverence) - that I'll be reviewing, too. I also want to share some of my custom settings on my Line 6 amp - they sound pretty good, much better than stock.

In the long term, I'll eventually be getting my own Mac, so I can start recording again. Once I have a recording platform I'll start writing my own stuff. I want to upgrade the pickups on my Strat. I also have my eye on a few effects processors, one of which would make a great Christmas present (is it too early to drop Christmas gift hints?).

So I have some things that hopefully you can look forward to. That is, if you haven't completely abandoned my blog by now.

Exercises in futility

I have a new mission: I want to win a guitar.

I found a site called GuitarSweepstakes.com, which basically scours the 'Net for any guitar contests and posts them. So over the past few days I've been entering pretty much every contest there is with the hopes of getting that elusive free guitar.

Well, almost every contest.

I didn't enter a contest to win a Daisy Rock guitar, and it's not the guitar that's the problem. Despite being "girl guitars," Daisy Rock actually makes some nifty guitars. They're pretty androgynous, too, as long as you stick to the standard colors and not get something like Rainbow Sparkle with pink and white zebra humbuckers (I'm not kidding). In fact, the guitar being given away is a pretty fair copy of a Gibson dual-cutaway Melody Maker, complete with a Duncan Designed P-90. No, the reason I didn't enter that contest is that it's being put on by a magazine that caters to pre-teen and teenage girls, and the winner will be featured in the magazine. A 37-year-old man with no children is probably not the kind of image the magazine wants to promote itself. In fact, I'm sure that if I won, after I picked up my new guitar there would be a few nice men from the local police department waiting to ask me questions about my lifestyle and confiscate my hard drives.

I also refused to enter the giveaway sponsored by Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel as it's one of the most annoying things ever devised by man.

Maybe someday I'll be the proud owner of an Epiphone Les Paul signed by Slash, or a Jackson V signed by Bullet for my Valentine (who I've never heard of), or an ESP 7-String signed by Deftones, or even an M&M's guitar.

Wish me luck!

Am I a glutton for punishment, or what?

I successfully modded my Strat last week. I think it awakened a sleeping giant inside of me - the Mad Tinkerer. I want to do more, and do it now. There's just one thing I'm missing:

Money. Dinero. The long green.

So I needed to find something good and free to satiate the craving to completely screw up my guitar. I decided, after almost no deliberation, to de-hardtail it. I saw a video on YouTube recently from Rob Chappers explaining how he set up his tremolo and I wanted to try some of his techniques. And that's how it was that on Saturday morning, I grabbed my trusty Phillips head and got to work re-tremoloizing (that's a real word) my Strat.

How to move the tone control from the middle pickup to the bridge pickup on a Stratocaster

Stratocasters are great guitars. Legendary. But they have one fatal flaw - they have no tone control on the bright, trebly bridge pickup. This was done on purpose by Leo Fender to reflect the musical styles of the time, but since then, music has changed and most players want to be able to roll off tone on the bridge pickup. The easiest way to accomplish this is to move the tone control from the middle pickup, where it's not needed as much, to the bridge pickup. I've done this recently to my Mexican Standard Stratocaster and it's worked wonders. This modification will work with any S/S/S (three single-coil) Stratocaster style guitar with two tone controls, including Squier brand Stratocasters. However, this won't work with American Stratocasters equipped with S-Switches, and the new American Special series guitars are already wired this way. Also, I don't guarantee this will work with Strat copies, as they might have different wiring, but you can try it and see.

Moving the control is easy, just follow these steps:

A little courage and a borrowed soldering iron makes me a happy boy

Well folks, I did it. I rewired my beloved Strat. I moved the tone control from the middle pickup to the bridge pickup, and it's all I thought it would be, and so much more.

It all started Friday afternoon while I was at work. I needed a screwdriver so I grabbed one out of a toolkit that belongs to one of my coworkers. While borrowing said screwdriver, I couldn't help but notice the soldering iron staring at me from inside the case. I shouldn't have been too surprised, as I had the exact same kit at a previous job, but since the idea of rewiring my Strat had been bouncing around my brain for a few weeks, it took on extra significance. After mulling it over for the next few hours, I decided to bring it home. I got the OK from the boss to borrow it for the weekend and waited for the right time and the right amount of courage to start the job.

I didn't have to wait long. Right after work, I figured that I probably wouldn't have as much courage or motivation as I did right then, so I bit the bullet and dove in, head first. I know I've said this before, but I have the type of personality where I don't like to mess with things for fear of completely hosing them up. This is especially true with my Strat, as it's my #1 guitar. I'd hate to be without it if I screwed it up too much and needed to send it off to an expert to get fixed. But I really wanted to do this, so motivation trumped fear and that evening I began the process of moving the tone control.