wahwah
GumbyLoveologist
Some of you may be familiar with my 1968 Strat, known to many as the Old Dear. I wanted to share with you the story of her recent visit to an excellent local guitar repairer who has managed to breathe new life into what was already an excellent, long serving guitar. It began with me noticing an annoying electrical ‘clicking’ sound under the pickguard, and since she is the only guitar I take out on my weekly interstate gigs, I knew I needed to get it seen to immediately. I had heard of a guitar tech I had never used, and he came highly recommended. I called him and he was very familiar with my work and the guitar, admitting that he had been coming to see bands I was in dating back as far as 1989, so we were off to a good start. He told me that he was busy, but that he had a policy of prioritising professional player’s emergencies, so I could take the guitar to him immediately.
As soon as he heard the guitar, he asked how many different techs had worked on it over the years. Well, it’s probably been about a dozen different guys who have poked around in there. He obviously had very good ears, and he could tell that there was all kinds of ‘fixes’ and attempts to curb noise and provide treble bleed, etc. At this point, he gave me a couple of options. The first was to trace and locate the source of the clicking and eliminate it. The second was more radical. He asked if I would trust him to get rid of all of the stuff that was stifling the guitar’s natural tone. In short, he wanted to rip out her electrical guts and start again, simply and cleanly. I had a good vibe about this guy. I chose the latter.
The first thing to go was the shielding under the scratch plate. There he found two layers of the stuff, and set about removing every bit of it. As he was doing that, we discussed noisy venues with crap power, those soundchecks that have you freaking out about the noise levels in your rig, and the inherent noise of single coils. Soon all of the shielding was gone. I was experiencing a leap of faith.
He saw what the pickups were, mid 80s Duncans, SSL1, SSL1 RW/RP and SSL5. He agreed that we should stick with them. Everything else went, including a custom made, patent applied for noise reduction system and a treble bleed circuit. None of the circuitry was original to the guitar, so I had no qualms about watching it go. This was an overhaul, an overdue update, a fresh start. All new CTS pots and a Switchcraft pickup selector, selected, balanced and lubricated. He was meticulous with his soldering and wiring, explaining his choices as he went. The only modification to the original circuit was to include the bridge pickup under the second tone pot’s control. Other than that, he had a stunning collection of paper in oil caps for the tone circuit, ancient looking things from old Australian made radio sets. Eventually we would hand pick one, with the rest of the guitar put back together and two wires dangling from under the scratchplate with alligator clips so we could hear the differences in the circuit. As part of this process, we also tried the cap that was previously in there. It was like throwing a blanket over the amp. We stuck with our chosen PIO cap, the guitar was opened back up and it was wired into the circuit.
The results have been stunning. The tone of the guitar is wide open and potent. Punchy. I have done half a dozen gigs in the past couple of weeks and noise has not been a problem, at all. The guitar sounds better than it has for years, and it was already very good. Now it’s stunning. Here’s to all the good guitar techs, who put tone ahead of everything and challenge some accepted but debatable notions about functionality.
Cheers……………………….. wahwah
