Brandon Richie
I have GAS.
Jun 5, 2008
All guitarist eventually have it. Some never get rid of it. I’m constantly struggling with it. Not the gas that Maylox is for--I’m talking about Gear Acquisition Syndrome. In the elusive search for “the tone”, it is all too easy to get GAS. Buying every new gadget to hit the cover of the Musician’s Friend catalog, thinking the holy grail of tone is sitting on page 15, waiting for me to nab. The stacked shelves and topped-off Rubbermaid bins in my basement are the proof. Sure, sometimes I just want to try something new. But most of the time I’m sure that this new shiny box is just what I need to get that Holy Grail tone. Surprisingly, I was only right once. Only a few years ago, when my long time rack died, I decided to try to get the tone that I had in my rack, old school. [Why I wanted to recreate my thin, crap tone from 1989 is beyond me.] So my quest had began again. Tried to replace my preamp with a POD/Poweramp option. Not bad, but too digital when cranked up. So I once again dusted off my old Marshall JCM900 (which I just learned was released as a reissue-WooHoo for me to have an “original”, LOL!). I bought everything you are “supposed” to have with a Marshall, from a DS-1, to a SD-1, to some more processors in the loop, to delay pedals, some crybaby wahs, a Rat, some old chorus pedals…and yet, I’m not happy. The ONE piece that I stumbled on that I absolutely can not live without is my Guytone compressor. Hot crap, this pedal is the shiznits. But outside of that, there are no real “keepers” in my chain. So on my boughts of boredom or weekend lunch breaks, I’m back on the internet looking for more gear. Which is silly—my guitar through the cranked compressor into the Marshall with NOTHING in the loop is probably the best tone I have ever heard. But I’m just *positive* that there is something better. The best/suckiest thing is, when I listen to recordings of my old rack, or my stripped Marshall, or my Marshall with 87 effect boxes, or my Flextone, or even my friggen POD, they all sound almost exactly the same…they all sound like me. I should just buy that bottle of Maylox and call it a day.
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Jesus Built my Hotrod (I built my guitar).
Apr 15, 2008
As I hit my page to check some comments, I see that my self-indulgent blogging of my guitar remodeling took up way too much space! So, please check my blogs to get the full scoop on my axe renovations. And check back for some fresh tracks coming soon...
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Customization, Part 4: plug in…gut it…repeat.
Apr 15, 2008
After spending some time setting up the guitar and shredding quasi-acoustically in my living room, figured it was high time to head to the basement studio and plug this Bad Larry in. So I flipped to the bridge pickup and dialed up the dirt. I must have checked my amp at least 3 times to make sure I had the gain up all the way…the stock pickups were anything but “hot”. There was no chunk, no bite, no magic. I raised the pickups way up to the strings until they were almost touching. That helped, but it still wasn’t even close to the Dimarzios in my other guitars. The stock pickup was really bassy too, not in a good way either. Real muddy. The neck pickup single coil was better, but was a typical stock single coil—noisy as hell. It actually had some more balls to it that I was expecting, but was just way too noisy. So I order up some new pickups.
I do believe that (actives aside), you are either a Seymour fan, or a Dimarzio fan. I’m the latter. After days of reading specs, and comparing to my Steve’s Special in one of my other ESP’s, I decided on an Evolution for the bridge. As you can tell from my recordings, I am a huge fan of harmonics (pinch), being a huge fan of Lynch, et al. This specs had this as a real hot pickup, with enhanced highs and mids. Sounds perfect to me. For the neck, I chose a Pro Track. I wanted a humbucking single coil, but one that could be split. Again, from the hotness and eq settings of the specs for the Pro Track, I couldn’t wait to throw that sucker in there. For the middle pickup…I said screw it, and left the stock one in. I NEVER use that middle one alone—I only use it in conjunction with a split from the neck or the bridge, and even then, I don’t really dig that boxy, honky tone. It also always interferes with my playing style, both in picking and fingerpicking. So I screwed the pickup as far down to the body as I could get it.
I definitely would NOT consider my soldering skills exceptional…maybe “moderately adequate”. I’ll save you the details (shoot me an email or comment if you are dying for the details), but after come countess hours, I did manage to install the pickups myself, and wired them exactly how I wanted. The guitar came with a 5-way switch, but was wired with no splitting going on—pretty lazy if you ask me! So I did a typical H-S-H wiring (since the Pro Track single is actually a mini-hum): Bridge hum --bridge split/middle—middle--middle/neck split--neck hum. For a little more body contact, and mostly because I love the way it looks, I mounted the Evolution directly to the body. So now time to plug in again…
Holy crap. I think my “test” took 3 hours. I could not put it down. The Evolution just screamed, nice chunky high-mids, harmonics galore, and the tone was all there. No over the top nu-metal drown out, it was just balls-out, in your face, nice distorted tone. Perfect. So perfect that I am really considering putting in Evolutions in all of my guitars. Hot crap, what an excellent pickup.
The Pro Track sounded to my ears like a Les Paul’s PAF. It was really full without being muddy, had a real nice (unexpected) mid rangy spike, and was also super hot. Yet, when I spilt this with the middle single coil, the result is almost an acoustic quality on the clean. Friggen awesome. I'll take some more picts of my handy work and post when I get a chance.
I couldn’t be happier with this set up now. My new custom just friggen screams now, and is really shaping up to be my true dream guitar. Just a few more little things…
Next up, Part 5, conclusion: Bells and Whistles.
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Part 5: Bells and Wistles, more to do's, the end..?
Apr 15, 2008
Ok, so now I have a great looking axe, that sounds awesome, and plays awesome. So what next? Well, I got a couple more tricks up my sleeve. Call me shallow, but I had to get rid of the "LTD" on the headstock. I know, given my basement rock star status, it's stupid. But, I've even received cross looks when I show up with my REAL ESP from so called 'professionals', with their Relic American strats, or their Old Stock Les Pauls...until I wipe the stage with their years of 'training', but lackluster feel and overall lack of effective practice. Showing up with their thousands of dollars gear, looking cool, but sucking hard. But again, I digress. This blog is about me creating my perfect guitar, not bashing people who think they can buy talent. Anyway...
After the Goof Off didn't work, I took a nice black Sharpie, and blacked out the "LTD" on the headstock. I custom ordered my own headstock decal. I won't reveal here...stay tuned for the picks!
Cosmetic details aside, there is just one more thing that I MUST address...the trem. I love a Floyd. My very first guitar had an original Floyd Rose locking trem, so I grew into that style, and all of the idiosyncrasies that go with a floating trem. But as I grew as a musician, there are a few things that stand out as troublesome with these trems: breaking a string, and alternate tuning. Those with one know, if you break a string with a floating trem, you're done, and if you want alternate tuning on the fly...better have another guitar on deck. So my first "next up" purchase is the Tremel-no. I was wicked, WICKED skeptical about this hunk of metal, but after trying one out on my buddy's JP, I'm sold. I use the trem alot for some vibrato effects, but I also like to play alot in drop D. The Tremol-No seems like the perfect solution, with options to lock it down, or let it float on the fly. Time will tell on the stock Volume and Tone pots, as well as the 5-way pickup selector switch, but I consider those minor maintenance tasks at this point. Those pieces work, and are not scratchy, so I'm not going to fix something that ain't broken.
So there you have it. If you sum everything up, I really didn't do that much to this el cheapo...but that is kinda the point. There are some GREAT guitars out there for short coin, and if you know what you want and do some research, and have a little knowledge, no one has to settle for what is "off the shelf". The biggest thing I've learned here is to not be afraid. I've always had in the back of my mind, "if I screw it up, I'll just take it to the shop to have them fix it", and that mindset allowed me the freedom to actually try this customization thing, to look at my crisp new guitar not as something that I bought, but as something that I crafted. Sure, one day I would love to cut a tree down and widdle out a body and neck, but until then, I am going to rock out on my new ESP: Wicked Custom. I took a great looking guitar, added things that made it sound like I wanted, adjusted things to make it play like I wanted. I'm recording a new track with it now, and the tones I'm laying down with this sucker is just amazing. I can't wait to share, please check back soon to hear my creation (ore RE-creation) in action!
Rock on, and thanks for reading.
-Brandon
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