ICTGoober
New member
I've been catching up on my setups and so on - Mom had heart surgery which occupied me a couple days. It's all good now.
First - one of my jazz clients needed a setup on his Gretsch. It's a couple years old, and he'd had a Gibson Classic 57 wired into the neck position. The stock BroadTron just wasn't getting a good jazz tone for him. He still wasn't happy with the sound, and I suggested a set of D'Addario Half-rounds to get a mellower tone than his normal choice. I also lowered the action at the nut a bit, and straightened out the truss rod. He has a light touch and didn't need as much relief. Anyway - he loves the Wes Montgomery vibes that resulted. He installed the Roland synth pickup himself. It's stacked cardboard. Looks funny, but it sounds great.
The other has an odd story. One of my long time clients brought this late 60's/early 70's Electra Tele copy that has had an interesting life. It's been sitting about 20 years. The guy just walked offstage one night and left everything. He called a couple months later and was on the road with AC/DC in Texas somewhere. He wasn't coming back, he had to "find himself".
Anyway, it had several home made parts on it, loaded with 1st gen EMG pickups, and a fake Kahler whammy. The mahogany body & neck tipped the scales right at 12 pounds with the fake Kahler. I'll bet the Kahler was all steel - it weighed 2 pounds by itself. The whole rig was encrusted with finger funk / sweaty spooge and had no strings. I scraped off the solid parts and gave it a bath with Roland Guitar Detailer. The tuners were shot, so I rooted around and found a used set of Grover Mini's to install. Reamed the holes out a bit, and drilled new holes. Sweet! Polished the frets out a bit, and got them looking usable. Installed a new 9V battery and a fresh set of D'Addario XL's. The neck was straight as a string, and required little adjustment once strung up to pitch. The Kahler had been modded underneath to be a hardtail, and the fine tuners were worn out so I put them in a little bag. This thing sounds fantastic and plays great. I hope it still has music left inside, it should be ready to go after that long nap.
First - one of my jazz clients needed a setup on his Gretsch. It's a couple years old, and he'd had a Gibson Classic 57 wired into the neck position. The stock BroadTron just wasn't getting a good jazz tone for him. He still wasn't happy with the sound, and I suggested a set of D'Addario Half-rounds to get a mellower tone than his normal choice. I also lowered the action at the nut a bit, and straightened out the truss rod. He has a light touch and didn't need as much relief. Anyway - he loves the Wes Montgomery vibes that resulted. He installed the Roland synth pickup himself. It's stacked cardboard. Looks funny, but it sounds great.
The other has an odd story. One of my long time clients brought this late 60's/early 70's Electra Tele copy that has had an interesting life. It's been sitting about 20 years. The guy just walked offstage one night and left everything. He called a couple months later and was on the road with AC/DC in Texas somewhere. He wasn't coming back, he had to "find himself".
Anyway, it had several home made parts on it, loaded with 1st gen EMG pickups, and a fake Kahler whammy. The mahogany body & neck tipped the scales right at 12 pounds with the fake Kahler. I'll bet the Kahler was all steel - it weighed 2 pounds by itself. The whole rig was encrusted with finger funk / sweaty spooge and had no strings. I scraped off the solid parts and gave it a bath with Roland Guitar Detailer. The tuners were shot, so I rooted around and found a used set of Grover Mini's to install. Reamed the holes out a bit, and drilled new holes. Sweet! Polished the frets out a bit, and got them looking usable. Installed a new 9V battery and a fresh set of D'Addario XL's. The neck was straight as a string, and required little adjustment once strung up to pitch. The Kahler had been modded underneath to be a hardtail, and the fine tuners were worn out so I put them in a little bag. This thing sounds fantastic and plays great. I hope it still has music left inside, it should be ready to go after that long nap.
