Hey yall...Ive been here bout a month now, I really enjoy this forum, its pretty broad with lots of different guitar info. I guess Im so used to and comfortable using forums that I usually neglect to take the time to introduce myself...Hi, my name is Neal.

When I was a kid I was all into the 80s metal, I wasnt listening for long till I had to have a guitar...saved up bout $100 and bought a Palmer with one humbucker, that thing was pretty sweet! But I wasnt satisfied and a year later my parents saw how well I was taken to it and they purchased me an Ibenez Roadstar Deluxe and a Peavey Bandit 65...it wasnt long before I missed that humbucker...I was never happy with the tone out of that amp or that Ibenez, maybe it was the basswood, I dunno. I played till I graduated and pretty much dropped it, only picking it up ocassionally here and there over the last 15 years or so....BUT when I did play regularly, I had learned several finger and picking exercises as well as arpegios and some scales...so when ever I did pick it up I went right back to those exersizes, so even though I havent been playing Ive still got good habits as well as dexterity and havve pretty much mastered alternate picking.

Well being single, for my birthday I decided to buy myself a Squier Standard Telecaster(walnut stain)...Id always wanted a Tele ever since I learned who Jimmy Page was!!! I always drooled at the site of the "brown bomber". Id scored a Crate solid state model for $50 from a buddy I worked with about 5 years ago and a RP250 Digitech...the Tele sounded cool, but I found Im diggin more clean tones now days as opposed to the crunch and sustain of my childhood metal days...now favoring more blues tones.

With the Tele, I find myself wanting to do fingerpicking styles to draw out more TWANG, but all Ive ever practiced was alternate picking with Tortex picks...so Ive been online searching for help, instruction or even dirrection in learning fingerstyles...but now Im finding if I wanna learn fingerstyles or to draw out more twang that I kinda gotta learn country....and Im soooo not a country boy. And its so hard finding country tunes to learn if you dont listen to country....but I dig Chet! Tdpri has been helpful in my search for more twang.

Christmas was approaching and in anticipation of my Christmas bonus, I bought myself a Vox AD30VT after seeing ROBERTs video of him playing a Squier Standard...and saying to myself "thats the tone Ive been after!" I love this amp...Ive never had a tube before...or this many options. My bonus came and to my surprise it was more than twice what I had expected...but Im totally content with the AD30, I dont need anything bigger.

THEN, everybodys been modding those 51's and someone pointed out Overstocks deals and I spotted a Squier Strat HSS that I figured would make for a little better platform for me to start modding than the 51 and the price was compairable...so I told my Dad thats what I wanted this year(BTW Im 34) and he hooked me up. To my surprise the Strat needed some work, the humbucker wasnt wired right...and you guys here were very helpful in helping me figure it out. I fixed the minor issue, but now notice some hum...so next I plan on shielding and rewiring the Strat. Ive got several questions about doing this, and yall have been helpful, but I guess being a forum junkie, I keep posting under the same HSS topic I started(you know, toy follow through instead of starting multiple threads about pretty much the same thing)...but I guess I just figured out that the Squier section here isnt all that popular to frequent...but to my surprise alot of yall have Squiers too...which is cool, cause most people I know turn thier nose up at em cause they arent "Fender"s...whatever.

If you could help me with some wiring mods and questions about doing so...please check out my HSS topic

Oh yeah...and I still cant get a really great Strat tone out of this Vox...I got twang but no quack...any help there would be appreciated.

Thanks yall...and sorry for the long winded "hello" and for taking so long to introduce myself...thanks, yall rule!