My Strat (pics)

[gtrwrks]

This is my main instrument - a 1983 MIJ '62 RI. I've only owned it for about 6 or 7 yrs; killer guitar, very light (6.5 lbs) and extremely resonant.

Changes to it include:

*Seymour Duncan pickups (hot rails; classic stack plus; lil 59)
*Dunlop Flush Mount strap locks
*GT Fat Finger
*DiMarzio pots and switch
*Callaham tremolo inertia block
*Tortishell pickguard
*Mini-toggle switch is a low-pass filter set pretty high for faux midrange boost.

[marnold***]

Interesting pup selection. What kind of music do you mainly play? What are your favorite pup switch positions?

[Adrian30]

A killer look! Really sweet. The sunburst is done very nicely. The fingerboard looks like it's ebony. Is it polyU finish on the body?

[sunvalleylaw]

Very nice looking! I also am interested in the pup selection. I have heard good things about some of those pups and remember really liking a clips of all three of those I listened to while looking at pups recently. Would be fun to hear how they are together. I like that PG too!

[stingx]

It's a really good looking guitar. I hesitate to say Strat because with those pups you really deviated from the classic Strat sound. I would like to hear clips of all three pups in action.

[Robert****]

Nice, Todd! Those Japs strats are nice. Looks like it goes well with that Super Reverb?

[gtrwrks]

Thanks for the nice comments, guys. The pickup selection was out of need. I like the warm/round, yet present tone the front pickup provides - still 'singlecoil-ish', but far more of a PAF tone than a std Strat p'up would be. The rear pickup was chosen for two things: 1) high-gain rock/fusion solo tones and 2) when clean with a compressor, yields a nicely convincing pedal steel tone (especially with the low pass filter engaged) - I don't play pedal steel licks (but I do play C&W sometimes) and LOVE the midrange-heavy sweet, steely, bright-yet-round tone that this combo gives.

The midrange pickup was by far the hardest to choose - what was needed was something that would blend with the sonic fingerprint of the bridge and neck models to yield tones (positions 2 and 4) that were most like a regular Strat. I realize that this is not a 'regular' Strat, but I get plenty of quack and whatnot from positions 2 and 4.

I have worked in many different groups over the years and love to play straight ahead jazz, but mostly I work in the realm of 'pop' music (that would include just about anything you would hear on a commercial radio station - true pop, R&B, C&W, rock, blues, etc).

The lowpass filter is my version of a PRS Sweet Switch - in fact, this is exactly where I got the idea - many years ago, I was checking out a PRS and dug the switch. I came up with a combination that works well for my needs. When engaged, it removes all highs above a certain frequency, which gives the appearance of a small midrange boost - there is in fact zero boost, it's just that those mid-freqs are made more apparent by removing the highs, etc. Great for lots of uses - I can go from a spanky/bright funk/rhythm tone to a much fatter/warmer/punchier tone by the flick of this switch.

Robert - the amp is my '66 Bassman in a JD Newell cabinet - I had it built the size of a Fender Twin w/2 12" Reverend All-Tones - killer amp.

Thanks.

[Jampy]

Very nice, could we see a close up of the headstock...please

[Brian Krashpad]

Looks great. :

For me though, I like a Strat with 3 singles.

[Robert****]

I am mostly drooling over the amp! Gotta a love an old Bassman!

[gtrwrks]

Thanks, Robert - I feel like a rich man every time I plug into that Bassman - by far the best sounding and best performing amp I've ever played; loud as you could ever need and miles of headroom.