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It has been long said that American Stratocasters dominate Mexican Stratocasters largely in part through wiring. I have slowly been working on getting all the pieces together to bring her up to par with ANY stratocaster, be it American, Mexican, or Japanese.

I present to you:

What you see is a set of Lace Sensor Hot Gold Pickups, Toneshaper SSS-1 Control Knobs and Switch, and a Graphtech Supercharger Kit for Strats (kit C actually), oh and some strings since I have to tear everything apart to do the changes.

Here is how it looked before:

I love my Fender saddles, but let see if the Graphtech saddles work nicer, I’ll do a write on them in a few weeks and give my worthless opinion.

Well the strings are off and the pickguard is off, there are the Mexican Pickups I am replacing and the pots and wiring:

Here is the Toneshaper system in place. It slips right into standard Fender pickguards, nothing to do but tighten it up:

Next, to wire up the Lace Hot Golds, I try to keep it neat and the Toneshaper is cool because you don’t have to solder any wires, just slip them into their retainers:

Now you see all these little dip switches, they let you configure the wiring, Vintage Wiring, Modern Wiring, Volume mod, Blender Effect, choosing capacitor values and so much more. The instructions pretty much tell you where to set them for each value you want to change:

Now that all that was done, it was time to take off the Fender saddles, I really enjoyed that because it is impossible to clean under the saddles and several years of filth had accumulated underneath them:

Here is how the Graphtech saddles turned out, I like how it looks but only becuase my guitar is black, any other color guitar and I would hate it:

You can barely tell the difference now, except for the obvious pickup change, but the graphite Graphtech nut and string tree doesn’t jump out and grab your eyes and well thats good:

I hope you enjoyed this pictorial, I will have to do a lot of tweaking here and there for a few days to get the intonation and action right and other little things. All in all it took about 3 hours to complete, but only because I was taking it nice and slow to make sure I did everything right. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go play it, because with so many new parts it’s lost a bit of Mojo and I have to build it back up!

So as you guys know I have been working in this cover band project for a while, and well, it is slowly moving along. It’s kinda weird I must say to be in a cover band as most of the band is intent on writing and doing originals, but as a defense to covers, it keeps you in practice on your talent and you get to learn some licks here and there that may intrigue you.

We look to be gigging VERY soon. Here is our cover of Stone Temple Pilots’s Sex Type Thing, enjoy it.

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You guys know I switch my setup a lot. So for the month of January this will be my setup. (The band thought it sounded pretty good.)

Vox V847 Wah >> Korg AX10G (for chorus and flange, volume only) >> Electro-Harmonix Russian Big Muff Pi (distortion/fuzz) >> Proco Rat2 (Overdrive/Distortion) >> Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail (Reverb) >> ART MP Studio Pre (tube preamp for some chime) >> Fender Pro 185 160watt Solid State amp.

Not bad sounding at all!

So on to the ghost. You know I have said this house was haunted before. Did anybody notice the orb in the picture up top? Yeah, some people don’t believe orbs are ghost (like me) but it was a cool pic. Here is the pic a took a few seconds later. The orb has moved to the corner of the house speaker near the bottom. Kinda cool.

See ya next time.

You know, lately I have been noticing how rude people have gotten over time, even in the subtle things. Small things like lowering your high beams when driving at night, or the tone of your order takers voice at restaurant drive thru lines. I brush it off, and laugh at how I considered myself an asshole back in my youth. But I want to share a series of emails with you that ended in typical rudeness.

I recently decided to post my Randall 4×12 speaker cab on Craigslist for $125 or trade for effects pedals, but please no distortion pedals, the following is an email communication that followed.

(I have removed the headers and copied only the communication)

Him:

I’ve got a dunlop Jimi Hendrix Cry Baby wah that is brand new, it was given to me on my bday, and a Morley Steve Vai Bad Horsie wah that i’ve used about 10 times that I’ll trade. Let me know, I’ve got a lot of pedals we might could trade. -Brian-

Me:

Wow, sadly, wah is the last thing I need. I’ve got that covered, it’s volume and modulation (i.e. Flanger, Phaser, Chorus), Tuner Stompbox, EQ (I.E. Boss GE-7) thats is highest on my list. I’ve got distortions and wahs already so I was selling the speakers to try to get the missing effects.

Him:

I’ve got a BOSS flanger and chorus, and a New inbanez tube screamer

Me:

How would you feel about giving up that flanger and chorus?

Him:

I’ll have to get back with you, its getting late, and all my stuff is at my shop. I’ll email you after I get to the shop and figure out what I’ve got and how we might trade. -Brian

Me:

No problem. Take your time.

Him:

I’ll trade you a new BOSS Metal Core and a Washburn A14 Flanger for the cab. The Metal Core has been used 2 times, once by me, once by my friend. It is Brand New, my girlfriend bought it for me. The Washburn has been played, but works fine, no problems at all. I bought a 350 watt Marshall Mode 4, and don’t use pedals much anymore. I live in Lavonia, about 40-50 miles from athens. Do have an amp, so I could check the cab out? -Brian-

Me:

I just don’t know what to say. I really really don’t need anymore distortions/overdrives, I already have a Proco Rat and a Russian Big Muff Pi and my amp has a gain channel. Your halfway there. Flanger and ?

I do have an amp to test the speakers on, though it doesn’t have enough strength to push it really well, It’s a ZT lunchboz, 200watts SS, but it’s external speaker line out was really meant for a 1×12 or 2×12, not really a 4×12, that’s why I don’t even use the cab anymore. But it will drive the speakers in a pinch.

Him:

Fuck you

Lol. I don’t even know what to say. People these days. The only thing I could figure is he took where I said “Your halfway there.” as an assault to his personal frame of mind. He may have proved it being true by his response. Oh well, on to the next!

Wow, didn’t see that coming. She pissed me off in 8mile, but she was alright in my book. Too young, sad.