Monte Montgomery at The Curtain, 06/12/05 Okay, he's a damned GREAT guitarist and I'm a fanboy, so I had to put up a few of the 100+ pics I took.

BUTCHERED STRATS
This indulgent set of articles is kinda like showing off pictures of your kids or your pet squids. These have all been butchered or stolen though, which doesn't usually happen to kids or pet squids. There's probably a few scraps of useful information in 'em however...


• STRAT 1 My very first abused '71 Strat
• STRAT 4 Gosh, this was once a Stratocaster Plus Deluxe
• STRAT 5 It's FrankenStrat!
• STRAT 7 A YJM Strat, reconfigured

   

  GK-2A EXTERNAL-TO-INTERNAL CONVERSION NOTES
  Some preliminary thoughts about installing Roland's GK-2A external ("wart") hex pickup gizmo inside a Stratocaster. I didn't end up doing it, and in retrospect I'm glad I didn't.

   

  GRAPHTECH GHOST/HEXPANDER SYSTEM - STRATOCASTER INSTALLATION
  This documents my installation of Graphtech's 13-pin ("Roland-Ready") piezo system in a Stratocaster.
  

• PART 1 Initial assessments and thoughts
• PART 2 The woodwork
• PART 3 Patching it up and the verdict
• PART 4 Addendum and final thoughts

   

  SHOEHORNING A STRAT
  

• PART 1 Adding stompbox circuits inside a Stratocaster, thus ensuring that you destroy the collector's value of both the guitar and the precious stompbox.
• PART 2 Folding a Boss SD-1 circuit board, with a little bit of info about ProCo's Rat 2.

   

  SCALLOPED NECK GUITARS
  The 2007 Yngwie J. Malmsteen Strat (Strat #7) sparks interest in this oddball area of guitar mods. The article concludes with "Quickie Homebrew Neck Scallop Job", using Strat #5 as the victim.

   

  LES PAUL PERSONAL (PROFESSIONAL & RECORDING)
  Ack, it's a Gibson!!! Also, a well-kept secret, lucky for me
  

• PART 1 What it is
• PART 2 Exploring the circuitry
• PART 3 Desecrating the circuitry

   

  JONESIN' FOR A LESLIE: THE QUEST FOR THAT LESLIE GUITAR SOUND
  After many bucks and many simulators, I find The One.

   

  SOUND SAMPLES

• Les Paul Personal Decade Switch (572kb) A demonstration of the different tones the mysterious Decade switch produces
• GR33 Synth riffs/bloozrock (798kb) A few standard riffs played in different voices on the Roland Guitar Synthesizer... along with some indulgent bloozrock noodling.
• Generic Rockbopshuffle (1.62mb) Recorded sometime around 1977(78?) on a 3-track (4-track minus 1), dubbed to cassette, maybe dubbed again and finally digitized. Yup, it's kinda muddy.
• Ancient Homebrew Nostalgia (3.38mb) This one's from 1974 after leaving Bangkok, using really homebrew stuff. Since my Deluxe Reverb disappeared during shipping, I'm playing through a reel-to-reel recorder amplifier that's been converted into an echoplex; the "bass" is a guitar "tuned" an octave lower (no one used tuners back then anyway), and I'm playing to a drum track recorded by a friend before I left Bangkok. I think I'd just done my first onboard stompbox install (an MXR Distortion+), and it's going through my Schaller Wow-wow/yoy-yoy pedal. The recording's a faux 4-track- what was called "Sound-on-Sound"- and it's kinda quavery-- probably because of the original equipment, but also because working consumer grade reel-to-reel recorders became scarce a long time ago.