These are pictures of my current stock of electric guitars:
(eventually, I'll put some sound samples here for comparison purposes)
On the left is my 1966 Fender Jazzmaster. I think I paid about $185 for it in 1985 (back before Curt Cobain started using them, thus sending prices through the roof.) I re-fretted it myself, which was woefully stupid. Hey, at that time $185 didn't seem like very much for an old guitar, so I figured they'd always be cheap and plentiful. Oh well. It plays pretty well (although Jazzmasters play differently than anything else in my experience), and has that cool thin, clanky tone that turned out to be perfect for surf music. The pickups are just too cool for words - weak but rich (and pretty damn noisy). The tremolo bar is very light to the touch, probably because of the long lever arm. This makes it very subtle and pleasant to whammy with. Notice the long string run behind the bridge. It produces a really shallow break across the saddles, thus sucking down sustain like crazy. I've seen little add-on bar arrangements that bolt to the neck end of the tremolo plate, theoretically improving the angle. I wonder how the whammy action would be affected though. The body shape makes it much more comfortable to play when seated than any other electric I've ever owned. If I could build the ultimate retro guitar, it would have a body something like this one. I'm dying to know how these pickups would sound with a Strat single coil in between them.
Next over is my Fender Flame. I bought it in about '87 for $300 or so, but it had been in the shop for probably a year or two. I don't think Fender made a lot of them, I guess because people just don't want Fenders that are too much like Gibsons. When I got it home, I took the pickups out to figure out how to make their trim rings quit rattling. I found some coil taps underneath that had not been connected in any way. My friend Chris then added a switch arrangement that allows either pickup to run as a humbucker or as a single coil, and also phase and series/parallel switches. Years later, I found out that Robben Ford uses a more expensive version of this same guitar, with a similar switching setup. B.B. King's "Lucilles" are wired similarly as well. It's a very flexible arrangement. Just listen to a recent Robben Ford album if you're interested in the tones available. The Flame sounds great, and plays well too. Unlike a Les Paul, the neck heel is rounded off and the back is dressed away something like a Strat. These mods make it very comfortable to play, and I like the pickup selector down where I find it on my other Fenders too.
Number three is the guitar I play the most. I bought a Korean-built Squire (Squier?) Strat in about '88, I think for around $225. I kept finding things I didn't like and replacing them. The only original parts left are the tremolo, the body and the pickguard, and the last two aren't long for this world either. The first change I made was the tuners. I wanted the vintage look, so I got these cool "Bowen Machine" jobs that look vintage, but lock the strings with an allen wrench. The original Squire neck was thin and flat for my tastes, so I put a Warmoth compound radius one on it. It's substantially wider than a typical Fender neck, and has the outlandishly high frets that I prefer. I had a guy I knew stain the bare neck so it would look vintage, and he made up the "Flounder Baitocaster" decal for me as well. It looked and played much better, but still sounded thin. So I got a set of Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro Strat pickups (with vintage stagger). That was a massive improvement, but still not exactly as clanky as I wanted. Then I stopped making changes about the time I got married in '89. Actually, I pretty much stopped playing then. About '91 or so, I had Wayne Charvel do a setup job on it for me. Yes, the same Wayne Charvel who built Van Halen's guitars, and founded the "Charvel Jackson" company. Wayne was a great guy to work with, and just as interested in dealing with a crappy guitar player like me as he was in handling the stars. It played fantastically then, but still sounded a little dead.
Last summer, my friend Harry took me to a local guitar shop (which I'll feature here later) in Fussa City, just outside the main gate at Yokota. I picked up the sunburst Strat there for the equivalent of about $180. It sounded so great unplugged and missing one string that I decided to buy it before I even cranked it up. Harry nabbed a terrific Yamaha 12-string acoustic for some ridiculous price too. When we got them home and plugged them in, I had finally found the sound I was looking for. Now this is no high-class rig; it's just a Japan-built '57 reissue Strat, assembled about '92 according to the serial number. It has a lousy sunburst job, including obvious spray problems on the back. It was kind of rusty and dirty when I got it, and has numerous dings and gouges all over the body. The neck is OK, although the frets are pretty small. The width and radius are in keeping with the '57 genre. I think the key to its great sound is the body. It is extremely light, probably basswood or alder. The Baitocaster is made of laminated plywood, and weighs probably twice as much as this one. So I bought a nice alder body for the Baitocaster last month. Finishing it will be my next project. I want to make it the color of the background of this page: the infamous Fender custom color "Surf Green." (Check out this link for one fantastic web page on Fender custom colors). I also discovered that the wiring I had done to the Bait' when I switched pickups was a little strange. When I changed it to the standard Strat setup, the guitar immediately started sounding more vintage, although the deadness of the body is still annoying as hell (and hard on the back). Anyhow, all this just goes to prove that you have to play a lot of guitars before you really understand what parts contribute what to the overall sound and character of them.
Next update: amps.
