Nostalgic Distortion
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It's a long one, fair warning....
It feels like it's been a year but it's actually only been a few months, my Fender San Dimas is finally finished! Not only is it finished but it's perfect and that doesn't happen to me much so this is cause for celebration! Especially because nothing about it makes sense on paper. What I mean is preconceived notions about certain tone woods and what pickups work best in what guitar didn't really apply?
This whole thing started with a L-1 blemish Strat I bought from M.F. I bought it with the intention to modify it into a Fender/Charvel hybrid. The first thing I did was lose the original guard, I had actually started building one for it before I even bought the guitar. I had bought the guts of a San Dimas, a JB & a Custom Stack, considering what I was trying to achieve it seemed like a reasonable thing to do? Boy was I wrong, I tried a 250k pot, a 300k pot & a 500k pot and all of them would help one pickup but dull the other so I soon came to the realization that I just hate JB's so I sold it & started looking for another bridge pickup. I had to try 6-7 different Trembuckers before I found exactly what I was looking for!
During all this I found a few other issues with the guitar, the action was a bit high, the intonation was off, normal for a new MIM Fender that came from M.F., but the two biggest problems were the nut & the bridge! This started as a minor nuisance but the more I played it the more it bothered me. The B string was the worst, it sounded muted so I took a small piece of 220 grit sandpaper & used it to re-cut the slot, it got a lot better but now I really started to notice the bridge, it just sucked? I said one thing at a time & continued looking for the right Trembucker. After trying everything from a Arcane Brownbucker & TB-59 to super hot pickups like a Dimebucker & Invader I finally found the sound I was looking for! Enter the Full Shred!!!!!
I've played Shred Sticks with Full Shred sets in them & loved the way they sounded but because of those "preconceived notions" I was talking about I didn't think they would do well in a Alder bodied Bolt so it never really even crossed my mind? So anyway, I'm trying all these pups out & I knew I wanted to run a 500k pot because of the Custom Stack, it just sounded best that way, so finding a humbucker should have been easy? 500k pots love humbuckers but nothing gave me the sound & balance I was looking for. I've got a bunch of Fenders, mostly Strat's, and all of them are loaded with Duncan's. I've got one setup with just about every pickup configuration you can imagine so I wanted a Bridge Bucker that I didn't already have for my H/S Strat. I was just about to toss in a TB-11 Custom Custom, they're kinda my "go to" pup when I don't know what I want? I guess I consider them "safe" humbuckers, they sound good in just about everything I.M.H.O, but I've got two other Fenders with Custom Custom's in the bridge & one of them is a Strat so I decided against it. I even started looking into other manufacturers! Sacrilege I know!!! Then I came across this listing for a custom shop TB-F.S., I tried to find out if anyone had any experience with one in a Stratocaster but I didn't get any bites. So I said "F-it" and bought it, if worse comes to worse I can sell it, or switch it out for something else? Eureka, that's what I wanted, exactly the sound I was looking for & it even works great with the neck pup, perfection!!!
So after taking the guitar apart dozens of times, swapping pots, pickups, and using enough solder for 10 guards I finally have the sound I wanted! Then I turned my attention to the guitar itself. I gave it a truss adjustment & intonated the stock bridge. This really helped the action a lot but I was hoping it would help with the sustain issue I was having, it didn't do a whole lot in that area. I was still super happy about the way it was playing & sounded, even if it was a little "Thuddy". It was acceptable, let's put it that way, but the more I played it the more the bridge and sustain thing bothered me. After a week I knew I was going to be changing the the tremolo or at the very least the saddles?
Back to eBay! I was looking at some upgrades, or replacements anyway, some of them were not upgraded at all & others were amazing but they had some hefty price tags! After a bit I found a listing for a Babicz Full Contact bridge. I've got a buddy who put one on his MIK & I personally really liked that guitar much better after it was installed. He paid $150 for his & that was about the most I was willing to pay, I've already got a bunch of money into this thing so every dollar I save counts! So this listing I found has the exact same one he bought for $90! I was a little skeptical @ first, it said they got a bunch of them for a discounted rate, they were passing the savings along & they were not blems or anything like that but I contacted the seller just to be sure. He assured me that they were exactly what you'd get if you spent $150-$200 through Babicz themselves, I had it in writing so I pulled the trigger and bought one.
Today I walked out on the porch and there was a package, I opened it up and there it was! I immediately ran in, took a few measurements to be sure the spacing was right, & installed it! Wow! What a great difference! It's almost like having a new guitar! The "Thuddy-ness" is gone & she rings out forever now, well she rings out better than any other Stratocaster I've got or played for any length of time anyway? I know the picture isn't the best & definitely doesn't do the guitar or the work I've put into it justice but if you could somehow reach through the screen and play with it you would be awestruck! I'm sure some of my amazement comes from how it is now compared to what it was like when I first got it but I'd safely put it up against any USA Fender or Charvel!!!
It's a long one, fair warning....
It feels like it's been a year but it's actually only been a few months, my Fender San Dimas is finally finished! Not only is it finished but it's perfect and that doesn't happen to me much so this is cause for celebration! Especially because nothing about it makes sense on paper. What I mean is preconceived notions about certain tone woods and what pickups work best in what guitar didn't really apply?
This whole thing started with a L-1 blemish Strat I bought from M.F. I bought it with the intention to modify it into a Fender/Charvel hybrid. The first thing I did was lose the original guard, I had actually started building one for it before I even bought the guitar. I had bought the guts of a San Dimas, a JB & a Custom Stack, considering what I was trying to achieve it seemed like a reasonable thing to do? Boy was I wrong, I tried a 250k pot, a 300k pot & a 500k pot and all of them would help one pickup but dull the other so I soon came to the realization that I just hate JB's so I sold it & started looking for another bridge pickup. I had to try 6-7 different Trembuckers before I found exactly what I was looking for!
During all this I found a few other issues with the guitar, the action was a bit high, the intonation was off, normal for a new MIM Fender that came from M.F., but the two biggest problems were the nut & the bridge! This started as a minor nuisance but the more I played it the more it bothered me. The B string was the worst, it sounded muted so I took a small piece of 220 grit sandpaper & used it to re-cut the slot, it got a lot better but now I really started to notice the bridge, it just sucked? I said one thing at a time & continued looking for the right Trembucker. After trying everything from a Arcane Brownbucker & TB-59 to super hot pickups like a Dimebucker & Invader I finally found the sound I was looking for! Enter the Full Shred!!!!!
I've played Shred Sticks with Full Shred sets in them & loved the way they sounded but because of those "preconceived notions" I was talking about I didn't think they would do well in a Alder bodied Bolt so it never really even crossed my mind? So anyway, I'm trying all these pups out & I knew I wanted to run a 500k pot because of the Custom Stack, it just sounded best that way, so finding a humbucker should have been easy? 500k pots love humbuckers but nothing gave me the sound & balance I was looking for. I've got a bunch of Fenders, mostly Strat's, and all of them are loaded with Duncan's. I've got one setup with just about every pickup configuration you can imagine so I wanted a Bridge Bucker that I didn't already have for my H/S Strat. I was just about to toss in a TB-11 Custom Custom, they're kinda my "go to" pup when I don't know what I want? I guess I consider them "safe" humbuckers, they sound good in just about everything I.M.H.O, but I've got two other Fenders with Custom Custom's in the bridge & one of them is a Strat so I decided against it. I even started looking into other manufacturers! Sacrilege I know!!! Then I came across this listing for a custom shop TB-F.S., I tried to find out if anyone had any experience with one in a Stratocaster but I didn't get any bites. So I said "F-it" and bought it, if worse comes to worse I can sell it, or switch it out for something else? Eureka, that's what I wanted, exactly the sound I was looking for & it even works great with the neck pup, perfection!!!
So after taking the guitar apart dozens of times, swapping pots, pickups, and using enough solder for 10 guards I finally have the sound I wanted! Then I turned my attention to the guitar itself. I gave it a truss adjustment & intonated the stock bridge. This really helped the action a lot but I was hoping it would help with the sustain issue I was having, it didn't do a whole lot in that area. I was still super happy about the way it was playing & sounded, even if it was a little "Thuddy". It was acceptable, let's put it that way, but the more I played it the more the bridge and sustain thing bothered me. After a week I knew I was going to be changing the the tremolo or at the very least the saddles?
Back to eBay! I was looking at some upgrades, or replacements anyway, some of them were not upgraded at all & others were amazing but they had some hefty price tags! After a bit I found a listing for a Babicz Full Contact bridge. I've got a buddy who put one on his MIK & I personally really liked that guitar much better after it was installed. He paid $150 for his & that was about the most I was willing to pay, I've already got a bunch of money into this thing so every dollar I save counts! So this listing I found has the exact same one he bought for $90! I was a little skeptical @ first, it said they got a bunch of them for a discounted rate, they were passing the savings along & they were not blems or anything like that but I contacted the seller just to be sure. He assured me that they were exactly what you'd get if you spent $150-$200 through Babicz themselves, I had it in writing so I pulled the trigger and bought one.
Today I walked out on the porch and there was a package, I opened it up and there it was! I immediately ran in, took a few measurements to be sure the spacing was right, & installed it! Wow! What a great difference! It's almost like having a new guitar! The "Thuddy-ness" is gone & she rings out forever now, well she rings out better than any other Stratocaster I've got or played for any length of time anyway? I know the picture isn't the best & definitely doesn't do the guitar or the work I've put into it justice but if you could somehow reach through the screen and play with it you would be awestruck! I'm sure some of my amazement comes from how it is now compared to what it was like when I first got it but I'd safely put it up against any USA Fender or Charvel!!!
