The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

[J Moose]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

as for hacked to bits...never did that. i stuck some stripes with electrical tape on a white strat i had back in the day but that's about as bad as it gets. oh wait, i did start a refin on my first bass (Jazz bass) but never finished it. i have no idea where the body is now but the neck is on a parts mutt bass i built.

Really?

You never bought a Kramer or Washburn or something and used it as the "experiment" platform? Thankfully I never hacked anything up too badly but my best friend in high school had some horrible Kramer that we did anything & everything you could imagine too!

So then... how'd you get into building the Clones? And get good at it too?!

[B2D]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

Dammit Mike.... all this time i thought you were a hawt blonde...

[JustWendell]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

I thought there was a rule that all bathroom self portraits needed to have all the shadows underexposed and all the highlights overexposed, with the obligatory visible flash from the camera.

on to the questions...

favorite character?

favorite lens to shoot with?

Do you only shoot still life/studio kinda things? Got any abstracts or anything that's a little 'out there'?

Through a series of events, you find yourself being cast for season 3 heroes. What kind of part do you play and what power do you have?

[XSSIVE]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

J Moose: nope, never owned a kramer or a washburn (to be specific) and i never hacked into a guitar more than routing out under a strat guard for a hum...that i've done a few times but i don't consider that hacking. i started with parts guitars from all over. schecter parts, mighty mite, warmoth, fender, allparts and threw together a few parts guitars here and there learning little tricks as i went along and learning a LOT from my friend Cris Mirabella who is an amazing local luthier and has been a real help whenever i get over my head, he shows me how to do it and i take it from there. he just taught me how to do refrets the other day which was very cool. anyway, then i started realizing i love the tone of a strat with a hum in the bridge which pretty much equals a charvel. so i got into charvels but the prices were too high to buy all the ones i wanted and at this point i was very confident that i could make a charvel copy from parts with the help of a few people (i'm no painter, i go to the pros for that!). so i got in touch with Jim, the owner of musikraft and bounced ideas off him and he hooked me up with some great wood choices and off i went and Clones were born. i see no point in doing it from scratch when everyone else in the industry does bodies and necks via CNC. plus doing it from licensed parts lets me use the strat headstock. as things went on i have my own custom neck shape, which i further shape by hand before i finish the neck and i've picked up loads of tricks along the way from fret leveling and dressing, to neck finishing, wiring, soldering, set ups, heck even drilling holes and the drill bits that work best. picked up losts of stuff from trial and error. anyone who just throws parts together and says...ta da, a guitar, has a mess of a guitar. anyone who thinks you can't get a good guitar from parts has skipped all the key steps. i spend more time on neck shaping, fingerboard rolling, fret leveling and dressing and neck finishing than you could imagine which is the key to a good guitar.

B2D: lol

JustWendell: sorry man, i can't take that bad picture for you hahaha.

favorite character? from what? cartoon? tv? comic? movie? or other?

favorite lens...honestly don't have one, i'm still using the crap that came with my rebel XT. one of these days i'll upgrade but i seem to make do with this one for now.

i did all that other artsy crap when i was in school...i took many photo classes in highschool and college. lots of black and white film stuff and many hours spent in a dark room and all i have to say is...thank god for digital color and photoshop! i actually like doing guitar shots and catalog style stuff now and decline every time someone wants me to take pics of people or kids or pretty much anything living aside from my dog hahaha.

cast for season 3 of heroes...you had to see this answer coming...anything having to do with Kristen Bell, and i'm in! i think her character Elle could use a guy who can take the shocks . as for a power all the classics are taken on the show so i wouldn't have one that overlaps, however being 100% invincible would be cool. not regenerating like Claire, but actually receiving no damage at all after jumping off a building or being shot or shocked hehehe. although that would overlap with others a bit, i just can't think of anything else right now that would be fun.

-Mike

[tone4days]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

first guitar was a hand me down from my older brother. it's a 1979 Guild S60-D. ... here it is...

-Mike

very cool - my first electric was a Guild s60-D too .. mine was wine red with black guard ... i traded a buddy the dimarzio super distortion in the bridge for a dimarzio HS-1 ... sliced my right hand on that pointy tailpiece more than once .. never understood the funky roller bridge on a fixed tail guitar .. the jack on the pickguard was pretty fragile too

no question, just a quick post to say that i think you are clearly a talented guy and i dig that you hang out here ...
peace,
t4d

[kdaviper]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

What exactly is a trapdoor guitar?

[XSSIVE]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

t4d: i remember you mentioning having an S60-D as a first guitar...very cool to find another person that had one since it's a bit of an oddball guitar it seems. i always liked mine and thought it had a great neck shape. it's a bit odd looking but it works. thanks for the kind words too, always nice to hear!

kdaviper: the trapdoor is an acoustic Jazz box built by my friend Cris Mirabella of Mirabella Guitars. it's the guitar in the ad i posted earlier and this flash animation i did of it shows how the 3 trap doors close....

http://1320designcompany.com/trapdoor.html

each door can be slid fully or partially closed in any combo of the 3 doors and they drastically change the tone of the guitar. it's quite amazing that you can get it to sound like a flat top acoustic with some doors closed. the guitar is a flat out jaw dropping work of art in person too. it's like the jack of all trades cover all bases acoustic.

i'm real picky about guitars and that's why i'm so lucky to have Cris as a friend and a mentor in a way since he's even more picky with a great eye for detail and an even better ear for good tone. i really am learning from one of the best and i'm happy each time i get to play all his creations and take pics of them. it's also great to have him help me out with my Clone Guitars too!

-Mike

[kdaviper]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

Yes, indeed those are the most beautiful acoustic guitars I have ever seen.

[XSSIVE]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

come on guys, that's all you've got? bring it on.

-Mike

[daemon barbeque]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

Hey Mike ,are you open for new ideas like 7/8 string guitars.
A clone with 8 strings could be amazing!
I truly loved the #3 ,and i still think of that beast..

[Gearjoneser]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

Any plans to put a band together?

If you sold your Dodge Nitro (not that you should), and bought another sports car, what would you get?

[JustWendell]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

Originally Posted by XSSIVE

favorite character? from what? cartoon? tv? comic? movie? or other?

Choose whatever you want to answer

i did all that other artsy crap when i was in school...i took many photo classes in highschool and college. lots of black and white film stuff and many hours spent in a dark room and all i have to say is...thank god for digital color and photoshop! i actually like doing guitar shots and catalog style stuff now and decline every time someone wants me to take pics of people or kids or pretty much anything living aside from my dog hahaha.

artsy crap you say--There is no way that you took that many classes and not have some cool 'artsy' pics. Got any to share?

After owning my own working b/w darkroom, I can totally see the advantages of going digital--I've been neglecting my photo hobby because it's expensive to keep running.

cast for season 3 of heroes...you had to see this answer coming...anything having to do with Kristen Bell, and i'm in! i think her character Elle could use a guy who can take the shocks . as for a power all the classics are taken on the show so i wouldn't have one that overlaps, however being 100% invincible would be cool. not regenerating like Claire, but actually receiving no damage at all after jumping off a building or being shot or shocked hehehe. although that would overlap with others a bit, i just can't think of anything else right now that would be fun.

High threshold of pain/armor thick skin/unbreakable bones. That would be a cool power

[XSSIVE]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

daemon: i wanted to do a 7 string a while back and talked Jim who does the CNC work for my necks and bodies into doing it for me but then i lost interest in the idea real fast. i'm just not a 7 string type of guy. 8 strings, that a whole other level of WTF do i do with all these strings for me hahahaha. never thought about that. i'd love to do a 7 string that looks like a typical strathead charvel but i'd honestly have no personal use for it.

GJ: man i'd love to have another band. my last one was so much fun but the drummer got a real job hahaha and we went through 6 singers and all of them sucked so it went nowhere. so for now i've hung up that idea and just started recording loads of riff ideas so i don't forget them. i'd do it again if i could but for now finding members just isn't happening and i'm burnt out on looking for them.

i already plan on selling the nitro and getting the new Camaro when it comes out...or a year after. i'm still loving the nitro, i just miss the fun on the manual 6spd and monster HP and TW of my 2002 SS that i want another one. plus, i've always had a love of first gen camaros and the new one is the perfect flash back to that with all the modern goodies!

JustWendell: favortie characters....cartoon would be hong kong phooey, although scooby and old school trasnformers also come to mind. tv character, that's tough i watch a LOT of TV (thanks tivo LOL) and at one point did a list of TV shows i've seen every episode of and it was quite long and scary. so picking that is tough. however the first one to come to mind is House...man i'd love to be that smart and that much of an ass and get away with it lol. favortie comic book character would be either the pair of Calvin and Hobbes or Ghost Rider if you want to go with a more classic comic book choice. favorite movie character...yet again hard to pick since i'm a movie junkie but i tend to lean towards bad ass ass kicking chicks...Selene from Underworld or River from Serenity/Firefly perhaps. Bruce Campbell as Ash is also a great ass kicking character but hardly as hot as the other two LOL.

i honestly have no digital "artsy" stuff. it's all black and white since i too had a darkroom...it's now the gun/hunting room that i mentioned before. the full pro size sink is still there converted to a bench to work on the guns with some wood on top of it and the enlarger is in pieces in the corner (one of them, the other is in the attic) along with the light box and red light and all that but nothing is hooked up anymore thanks to going digital. my brother and mother were also big into photography so the 3 of us would use it. my brother knows the technical stuff MUCH better than i do. all my stuff from high school and college photo classes is buried away in the attic or the back of a closet, i forget which, and would take some serious hunting to find then i'd have to scan it and...i'll just say this...i've gotten much better lol. that's also in part to my strong photoshop skills. i just have a good eye for angles and layouts and strong photoshop skills...the rest is trial and error and luck lol.

-Mike

[Jake]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

Spork: Fork with spoon qualities, or spoon with fork qualities?

[XSSIVE]

Re: The Well XVIII: What's that Lassie? XSSIVE's in the well?

friends and i have talked about this before i seem to remember. my vote is still that's it's just spoon with spikes cut into the end making it fork like so....

spoon with fork qualities.

-Mike