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...
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 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
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.