Re: Design the world's most versatile guitar
I made a guitar that's for me the most versatile I can get. I may tweak this design later but more on that later in this post. First... the pic and specs.
OK, what we have here is a LP shaped guitar. single piece brazilian rosewood neck, ebony compound radius board (might go for a 25.5'' in a new iteration, this is my fav, though, 24.75''). single piece Limba back, bookmatched maple top.
pickups: stacked p90's of my own design. I can put them in split, series or parallel, each with a unique voice. Split = true p90. Like, for real. The second coil is UNDER the entire mag+baseplate assembly. It's just there for the ride. Parallel: stratty tones. Series: humbucker-ish tones with a bit more sizzle in the top end.
The humbucker is a weird beast. it's a fullshred black winter hybrid triple ceramic. It feels so fluid, tight, agressive and is just a great lead pickup which doesn't hate rhythm either. Think, Steve Vai, Satch, Neil Zaza, etc. Add the middle p90 and it's very classic aerosmith (which wasn't by design, just a happy coincidence). BUT.... I added a blackout modular preamp that I made switchable, for the humbucker alone. Now, with the BMP, it sounds like instant Zakk Wylde and Slayer.
I can go with this guitar from John Mayer/Mark Knopfler to Slayer, in an instant.
Can't get more versatile than this, without compromise, imho.
I might chamber the second version of this guitar, but that will compromise some tones. I MIGHT choose an ash back, that will improve many tones. Small F-Holes and tiny chambers will work visually very well and not inhibit this guitar's ability to handle super-superhigh gain tones.
Oh well... having a workshop of my own is really a chore
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Edit: I modded this guitar since this pic was taken (at Jimi's grave, no less
). I ditched the steel saddles and tried out my hand at graphtech: not my thing. I added brass tele saddles and BAM, what a sound. More bite, more sustain and just more tone. THe graphtech really sounds muffled and muddy in comparison. Gone was the teflon nut (what a bi-atch to work with) and hello bone nut. Better tone, better tuning stability.
Other than that, this guitar faded from a purpleish hue to dark blue (like the forum blue here, I've gotta say) and that's about it. I am thinking of sanding this guitar down, recarving the top, adding a tummy cut and doing an other finish down the line, just to make it work better visually. I simply don't like this color and I think I can do a better job with the finish now than three years ago.
