February Update

 I've been trying to blog roughly once a week since I rediscovered it, but I've been quite busy over the past month and things have slid a little. Nevertheless I've done things.

Aborted sale

After the success of the pedal sales I thought about moving a few more things on. The first thing that went up for sale was my Epiphone archtop (see blog entry). It's not been used much at all int he last couple of years so I thought the time was right to move it on an realise the cash tied up in it.

I got it down from the loft, cleaned it up and put new strings on it, also reattaching the pickguard. Once I was happy it was presentable again, I listed it on Reverb - local pickup only. I t got quite a lot of views and I was even negotiating with one potential buyer over price.

It sat in my music room for a few days reacclimatising and knowing that someone would eventually come to look at it, I adjusted the set up to make it play well and... oh dear. Turns out that I actually really enjoy playing this guitar! After thinking about it for another day, I delisted it. I'll give it another chance. Soon I will have finished Rob Swifts excellent One Man Jam course on Truefire, and as I'll be dismantling my Strat, I will do his One Man Jam acoustic course as an excuse to give it another thorough bit of use before deciding once and for all whether to keep it.

Nord Drum 3P is gone

I made a rather snap decision to sell the rather excellent Nord Drum 3P. It's a great piece of kit, feels great to play, sounds fantastic and is totally inappropriate for the music I'm making at the moment. I've tried very hard to integrate it into my set up but it's time to face the fact that I'll just never learn how to play something like that properly, and I don't really have the talent, experience or expertise to make the most of it. I listed it on Reverb about a week ago, and I've just said goodbye to it at the post office.

YN Strat Journey

I ordered a new bridge/trem and tuners for the Strat. In the end, I opted for a Wilkinson Bridge with a steel block, it was somewhat less expensive than the Callaham units I was looking at. Some research showed that all but the most enthusiastic trem users were happy with this unit, and as I'm not a big fan of using the Strat trem anyway I was happy enough with it.

I ordered Gotoh tuners for the Strat, but when I tried to fit them it seems that their screw holes wouldn't conveniently avoid the existing holes or be able to use them either. But the Schallers that are on the single humber Strat were much better - so I ended up using them instead. Shame that I ordered them really but I couldn't have known, I've decided I may as well keep them for any future project.

The Strat wasn't out of action for long. Despite some forum posters enthusiastically claiming it would really change the sound, I didn't notice any difference. It does feel and look nicer, and that what I'm going for here.

Paints have now arrived from Rothko and Frost, as well as decals. I'm aiming for a tribute to John Lennon and George Harrison's Sonic Blue 61 Strats used in the Beatles mid period, and I'll be getting pickups to match. I also got some new decals made as I will sand the existing ones off the neck. The temptation is to get Fender decals but I wouldn't have felt right doing it. I'm quite proud of my YN Strat so I've had them done with 'Squier' on them, but in the appropriate pre CBS style.

I'll be dismantling the Strat in the next week or so and will begin the stripping process before gertting ready for painting. I've watched an extremely good video series from Stewmac where they show exactly how to get fantastic results with aerosols, so I've decided to really take my time - it might take all year to get this guitar done!

Good Times

 I've been quite busy with work in the last week, but I've still been able to make some time for playing. The old idiom of practice making perfect always seems to apply, and the two pieces I've been working on from the Truefire course are getting better every session. I've continued to work hard on my technique, and things are getting smoother. Today I moved onto the next piece, called Good Times. It's in 6/8 which is a welcome change of pace.

The Squier strat still continues to delight, and now I've backed off the gain on the amp I really feel like I'm getting the best out of it that I can. Come the first week of February I'll be ordering the new tuners (I've decided on Schallers), and a new bridge/tremelo, although I'm still not decided on which one to get. I'll possibly splash the cash on a Callaham unit, it doesn't really seem much more money than some of the other choices although paying top whack for a trem that I won't actually use does rankle a bit. I've got a couple more weeks to chew it over.

Vinyl word

Since I got my amplifier serviced about a month ago I've been hitting the vinyl pretty hard. This week I've been getting the Herbie Hancock albums out, in particular 1968's Speak Like a Child and from the following year The Prisoner. I also got The Best Of John Lee Hooker out, which I inherited from my late uncle recently, and I have to say that I like this very much. There's always some Grant Green in the mix and I know I played Feelin' The Spirit this week - I got this last month, it's the recently reissued Tone Poet release - it sounds noticeably better than the DOL pressing I had before (and cost four times as much, so it should!).

Mixtape

If you're under 35 the chances are you've never had the experience of making a mixtape for someone. Indeed, cassette decks have all but disappeared from use since the late 90s as CDs and then digital services took over as being the main medium of music distribution. I was without a deck for many years, but after falling down a rabbit hole of watching Techmoan's youtube videos I got myself a deck. I've made a couple of mixtapes for people, and when I friend of mine said they'd recently discovered a deck I knew what I had to do.

I was decided that all songs on the tape would be from my vinyl collection to maintain an all-analogue signal path (well as close as possible - inevitably some modern LPs are mastered from digital sources). I'm sure there's a much larger piece for me to write about mixtapes, but briefly it was a lot of fun to flit through my vinyl song by song instead of the album experience, and a few things got played that don't normally come out.

Snatching Minutes

 Working on Technique

I thought at the start of this week I would have plenty have time to practice and had whole days scheduled to write and play. In the end, I managed four practice sessions of around an hour each. That's just the way things go sometimes, but I have to do my best and plough on.

I continued to work through the Truefire course I mentioned before. I've been paying alot of attention to my technique which I'm constantly trying to improve. A few years ago I managed to relax the death grip I often had on the fretboard, but its the right hand that I'm concentrating on now.

I think it was a Rhett Schull video I watched a few years ago that got me thinking about how I anchor my right hand on the bridge when I'm playing lead. I'm not sure when or why I started to do this, but I think it was in the mistaken belief that pivoting my hand on it would be easier, but I suppose the friction of it is quite limiting. Now I'm working on having my hand floating, which is how everyone else seems to have been doing it all along. It's been hard at first, but the more a practice it, the better I become. 

At the same time I'm working on playing with the plectrum with less force. I've just been hammering guitars for years, I think in the belief that the harder I physically played them the better they sounded. But it's not true, the attack on the notes hasn't sounded right and the over-use of force makes it harder to play fluently.

Finally, one thing that I always suffered when playing Strats was striking the pickguarg when playing lead/single note work. I think this is because every other guitar I've played has had a raised bridge and the height has meant this doesn't happen very often. Once again, this is inefficient movement - I'm moving the pick too much and wasting energy. With more work and concentration I'm making progress with this too.

I've moved onto the next piece in the Truefire course, Funkified Blues. I'll continue to practice the one I was doing before too. There are five in the course in total and it would be good to have them all memorised and able to be performed (to whom I don't know!).

Bringing down the gain

Only a small point, but I've been running the Deluxe Reverb at 7-8 the last few weeks and rolling off the volume on whichever guitar I've been playing. With both the Strat and the Jaguar it gives a great driven sound, but backing off the vloume isn't completely satisfying - I perhaps need to think about treble bleed to preserve the top end.

I've now backed off the gain to 5, which is giving a very nice just-on-the-edge-of-breakup clean sound to the lead playing, and with my softer right hand technique is giving a more rounded sound than I was used to.

Pedal sales

I've used Reverb before, and this last week I've sold my Boss RC-1, RV-6 and DD-8 pedals. I'd assembled an eight pedal board, but the reality is that I'd never be playing live and for recording at home I can get very good delay and reverb sounds with my Universal Audio OX. The RV-6 was purchased before I had the Deluxe Reverb and needed some delay to use with the Tiny Terror. Meanwhile the DD-8 is a nice pedal but I get my digital delay sounds with the OX, and I don't have use for the more trick algorithms it has. The RC-1 I never really got on with, I'm not really interested in looping.

YN Journey

The sale of the pedals will fund some upgrades for the YN Strat, and February should see the purchase of new tuners and a new bridge.

I'm starting to get a feel for this instrument. Playing it and the Jaguar back to back this evening, it's clear that the pickups on the Strat are not of the same quality and don't have a very pleasing bottom end at all. Replacement pickups will be the last thing I'll buy, after all the other upgrades and possible refinish have been done, but I think they will have a significant effect.

I'll also need to have another look at the setup as I think the neck might have moved a little over the last week. Not surprising now it's finally had some strings on it for the first time in three years.

I hope I'll get more chance to play this next week although I think it could be tricky - I have a very busy week ahead.

Hold on a minute...

 The YN Strat has been reassembled, and becuase it's the new year I've resolved to do more learning. After signing up for Truefire last month I've begun doing Rob Swift's One Man Jam course; I figured this would be good since it can be played at my own speed, won't need any accopaniment and would be a gentle way back into guitar study (it's been about 2 years since I last did any).

As I mentioned last time, I want to use the YN Strat to do this course so that I can become familiar with the way it plays and appreciated the changes I make as it's modified. The new nut of two weeks ago seems to have one the trick as I can't really fault the way the guitar plays. In fact I am quite enamoured with just how good this guitar is... so much so, I'm wondering whether I really will do all the upgrades I detailed in my last post. 

Certainly a new bridge will be required, and some newer and better quality tuners will be must haves, even though the existing ones seem to be doing just fine. But the pickups? I've mentioned previously that I've never got on with Strats, but I am really enjoying this one. In the case of the first one, I think I was just too inexperienced to appreciates what I'd got, and the second one was usually being played though either amp simulators or my Tiny Terror, and whatever was wrong there it was quite unsatisfying.

But this one - this bottom of the range cheapo Squier... well I love it. I'd been playing it in the bridge position initially so that I could get an ear for that pickup for when it's changed, but I've moved around more in the last few days.

My current thinking is to implement the tuner and bridge change as planned, but I might abandon my plans to fit a single humbucker. If the other discovery of the week turns out to be successful.

Self Built H Strat revival

Of my various attempts at DIY luthiery, the Jazz Bass copy is the only viable instrument to have been completed. But that's not the only instrument I've set out to build.

Back in 2015, alongside the Jazz Bass I also built a semi hollow strat with P90 pickups. The neck was fairly good, but I wasn't happy with the body. We moved house that year, and for many years afterwards all attempts at luthiery were put aside, and the P90s eventually ended up in my Les Paul.

Then in 2021, I returned from a job in Australia and had to spent 10 days isolating at home because of pandemic regulations. With time on my hands, began to build a single humbucker stratocaster from the templates I had saved from six years prior. I mostly completed this, but made a mess of the neck (not properly radiussed, plus the router tore out a big chunk of the headstock). Life once again got in the way and I never returned to it.

After finding that the YN Strat neck wasn't a write off, and reassembling that guitar, I wondered - could the 2015 neck be put on the 2021 body? There would be some work to do - the channel for the nut is far bigger than it should be, but I could fill that with a rosewood blank and then put another Tusq nut in the space. It would eventually need to be remade, but it will do for now.

This evening I've got around to mating the body to the neck. There's a problem. It seems that the holes I drilled in the body weren't quite as they should be - the 2015 neck just wouldn't screw on properly. I know that the 2015 neck is correct because that neck had been on the YN strat for a period.

The solution appears to be filling the existing holes with dowels and then redrilling in the correct configuration. I may as well see if I can do this, otherwise the body is junk!

Truefire Progress

It's been good to get back to practicing. Although it is also frustrating! Getting out of my comfort zone is always difficult for me, but I've been here before and there are not easy answers, just time and practice. 

In the last week I've gone through the first piece in Rob Swift's One Man Jam course, the first piece is called A Bit Country. Reading tab, applying music theory and basic finger calisthenics are all slowly cominmg back to me, the latter of which is always a challenge, and disheartening when my fingers don't move as quickly or as precisely as I'd like.

I've printed out the score and marked out some theory on there, so I can understand what I'm playing. I'll keep in this piece for another day then start another while continuing to practice this one.

Squier YN Strat upgrade: Part 01 - Resurrection

 While completing my Guitar Diaries earlier this month, I discovered that my Squier Stratocaster - which has been in pieces for at least 2 years - was in actual fact a serviceable instrument. Previously I'd thought that the allen bolt in the truss rod had been rounded off and that the neck could not be adjusted, but directly as a result of wanting to write a post about it I found that it was actually fine. Thank goodness for blogging!

For 2023 I was thinking about having another stab at scratch building a guitar, but this revelation has prompted a rethink. It turns out that the YN serial number Statocaster made by Squier in the 90s (1997 in my case) is not only a full depth body, but uses the correct alder construction. It's completely suitable for upgrading and becoming what is known as a partscaster.

I've spent a week or so weighing up my options and finding out more about the guitar. Having never really got along with the traditional Strat configuration, and having attempted a scratch build of a single humbucker S Type a couple of years ago, I've decided this is the way I'll be going.

I'll detail my journey here. The vision is for a single humbucker strat, I'll refinish the guitar in Olympic White (it's currently Polar White), and I might refinish the neck IF I can obtain transfers the same as the current style. Although it has to be said the current neck actually feels quite good.

The upgrade will be phased for reasons of economy and not wanting to splurge on everything all at once. I also intend to play the guitar over a few months to better understand how the various upgrades affect the feel and sound. And, I've decided that I will only carry out upgrades that can be reversed, so no drilling or routing. The aim is to make it possible to put this guitar completely back to standard if required.

Today's task was to get the Strat working again. A new nut was required, and as I've had no success making my own before I ordered a Tusq nut from ebay. I ordered a flat bottomed one as I mistakenly thought that would fit the rout in the fretboard, but it turns out this was curved. I was able to file it to fit.

I found the original neck plate with the YN serial number, reassembled the guitar and restrung the guitar. With Haynes excellent Stratocaster manual as a reference I set about adjusting the guitar to it's original specification using the given measurements. Surprisingly this didn't require much adjustment - perhaps I'd done it few years ago?

Minus two lost control knobs, the guitar was reassembled, so I plugged it in and spent about 30 mins playing it. My initial impressions are that its a fine feeling instrument to play, which I will continue to adjust to make it a slinky feeling as possible. The sound left a little to be desired - the pickups sounds harsh and trashy, which is to be expected, I suppose. Positions 2 and 4 sound great for the Strat out-of-phase sound and I momentariliy reconsidered my upgrade path in favour of the traditional configuration. However, I've had two of those previously and haven't taken to them, so I will proceed along my single humbucker path.

My best-laid-plan is to play the Strat as it is for a month. I'm simultaneously planning to do a Truefire course so this is a great excuse. Shortly I will order some new tuning keys and a replacement bridge, which will go on at the start of February. If all goes to schedule I'll dismantle the guitar at the start of March, strip the poly finish and refinish, order all remaining parts for a hopeful reassembling at the start of May. Let's see how well I'm able to stick to that!

The Guitar Diaries Part 19: Ibanez M340BS Acoustic (March 2021 - Present)

 On 3rd November 2020 my much loved Uncle Antony sadly passed away. I inherited his acoustic guitar just over a year later.

This might actually be the first guitar I ever got my hands on - I have a vague memory of being about 6 or 7 years old and being around at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Leek and this being in the lounge. I remember plucking the strings above the nut and the sound they made, but at that age it would have just been too big for me to attempt to play properly.

Years later I remember staying over at my Aunt and Uncle's when they'd moved to Cheddleton. I was probably about 14, so before I started playing guitar - but he'd made a cover to put over the nut to raise the strings and begun playing slide. Indeed, this nut was still on it when I came into possession of the guitar.

While Ant could play the guitar and no doubt enjoyed doing so on the occasions he did, I don't remember it being a big part of his life (at least not in the obsessive way it's part of mine) so I don't think he played it much, and when I was given the guitar it clearly hadn't been played for years and I think had been hung on the back of the door to his study.

I gave it a clean up, removed the raised nut which fortunately still had the original beneath and replaced the strings. The guitar still played really well and had a quality feel. It was made in Japan in 1980 and my aunt had given it to my uncle for Christmas either that year or 1981. I'm not a great aficionado of acoustic guitars but I really enjoy this one - it sounds and feels great and the sentimental attachment means I will never sell it.

The Guitar Diaries part 18: Gretsch G5440 Bass (March 2021 - Present)

 It was February 2020, I was working in London and had a day to kill so went to Denmark Street to pass some time. We were beginning to hear about a virus that was coming to the UK from China and so the streets were already beginning to feel a bit quieter... either that or it was just because it was a miserable grey Sunday. I found myself in the bass section of one of the shops and saw this beautiful full hollow bass and asked the shop if I could give it a try. On closer inspection it was even more lovely and felt great. However, at £899 it was a considerable amount of wedge and I was unlikely to be spending that on something that wasn't my main instrument.

A year later I was in Melbourne Australia again for work. Near to where I was staying was a shop called The Bass and Acoustic centre, which unsurprisingly concentrated on these two types of instruments. Actually, it's a really great shop - without the need to mostly stock electric guitars they have a wide range of the more niche instruments. In there they had another on of these basses. I began to think about getting a new bass when I got home and although there were a few contenders, this was the one I ordered when I returned - and I have to say it's one of the best things I've ever bought.

Again, I must reiterate, this is an absolutely beautiful instrument, the nicest to look at out of all I own. It also feels better than any of the other basses I've owned or played, and I've really worked to improve my technique. As guitarists we can all fumble out way around on a bass when we need to but to do it properly requires some dedication.

I've used this on quite a few recordings at home over the past 18 or so months, but perhaps most importantly it's opened up the door to playing with other people. I've played with one of my mates on his demos (I used to be the lead guitarist in our old band), while I've joined another friend and some of his mates as bass player and I really enjoy that too. I'll probably expand on my thoughts about being a bass player in another post, but this is a really great instrument that I'm very glad I bought and wont be letting go.