Stalefish

Hi guys.. A friend of mine came to me with this Cort acoustic.. Whether through someone's incompetence or just poor workmanship, the neck managed to crack quite cleanly (picture below).. Again, the crack seems very clean and the truss-rod is just about visible.. The fretboard is intact.. So, I was wondering how I might go about getting it back into working condition.. I was thinking of gluing it, and then clamping it while it dries.. Would that be a good idea? If so, what sort of glue should I be using? Thanks in advance for the help!! Here's a closer look at it..

Bear in mind, though, that the feel of a real set and an electronic one is worlds apart.. Personally, I'd never even consider an electronic set.. It's either a real one or none.. For one thing, I find that all the electronic sets I've tried don't seem to bounce right, especially the snare.. But I suppose that does depend on your (or your grandson, in this case) style of playing.. Just something consider..

Erm.. Cumbersome comes to mind? Good grief.. Imagine chording on the lower neck(s)..

'03 Fender SRV Signature Strat... She gets a lot of flak from a lot of people saying that the sounds isn't like SRV, that it's not right playing someone else's ax, blah blah blah but to me, she sounds and feels just the way I like.. I thought she'd take a back seat to the new one I just built but as much as I like that one, I still find myself back to the SRV..

That's incredible, man... And I thought you were Canadian? Oh well.. Whatever the nationality, that's still some jaw dropping work..

Ok, Photobucket seems to be having problems so I only saw your photo once when I first replied.. Bother.. Stupid Internet.. Anyway, from what I can remember of the photo, the connections you mentioned sound a little funny.. I think you've gotta see which of the lugs are connected when the switch is one way, then the other.. Normally (and I think your switch should be the regular ones) the center 2 lugs will each connect to the corresponding lug on either side depending on the direction of the switch throw.. For example, when the switch is thrown up, it should connect as shown in the crappy diagram below.. (Like I mentioned, Photobucket is being a pain.. And I use it too..) The 'O's are lugs.. | show the connection.. 1 O O 2 | | 3 O O 4 5 O O 6 Basically, what you've gotta do is to figure which lug connects to which (using your trusty multimeter), then make sure that the pickup live goes to the jack.. Assuming a normal switch, I'd put the pickup live at lug 3, then put the jack output at 1, leaving the rest empty.. Hope that helped.. Sorry if it's a little confusing.. I realise I'm a bit of a nerd..

Erm, I actually feel that having a ton of combinations often isn't really worth the effort of worming your way through all the electronics.. A lot of the time, the combinations sound very much similar anyway.. Either that or aren't very usable.. Then you get the problem of finding the sound you want when you want it on stage.. I used to try to get as many combinations out of the pickups but I decided that I'll just stick to series/parallel humbuckers.. Easy to put together and is sonically versatile.. My 2 cents!!

Microphonic feedback was the first thing I thought of too but on a Seymour Duncan pickup? In my own experience, they're all pretty well made and microphonics don't seem to be an issue.. Is it an old pickup or something?

Hi.. I think you gotta tell us what you want the switch to do first..

Peter Tosh covered that??? Whoa.. Rasta B. Goode..

Ok, I voted blues but I'd have had a hard time if reggae was there.. And punk.. Yeah, I realise blues, reggae and punk aren't really the sort of genres you see all lumped together (more so for blues and punk) but hey, to each his own, eh?

The basic idea's are there, I can hear that and I kinda like it.. Couple things to work on, though.. Firstly, your rhythm needs a little bit of tweaking.. Not as tight as it could be in certain areas.. Secondly, would be your phrasing (don't we all ).. Pardon me if I'm wrong but it sounded to me like you were playing as fast as you could for sake of playing fast.. Try getting a little direction and flow into the melody.. As for the recording, I've discovered a little trick you can do when in need of a mic.. Apparently, you can use a pair of headphone and plug 'em into the mic jack of your PC.. Sounds a little crazy but that's what I've been doing when I need an ok mic in a hurry.. The eq of the recorded sound would probably depend on your headphones (I think), but I found mine to be a little bit lacking in bass response.. I'm talking whole band sort of thing here so I must say that for recording an electric from an amp, the range of frequencies I got more or less encompassed the entire spectrum of the guitar (i.e. it sounded ok.. ), though a little post eq-ing wouldn't hurt.. Hope that helped some!!

Anywhere that'll let us play and have free beers at the bar..

I'd still lay off the finer work, if I were you.. Get well soon!!

I like that shade of blue.. Looking forward to seeing the rest of it.. I must say, though, that I tried that particular combination of pickup before but never really liked it that much.. I prefer a more vintage tone, by the way, just to let you know where I'm coming from.. But then again, tone is a very subjective thing.. Also, the guitar I put it in may have been made of some PoS wood for all know.. Do tell how it turns out though!!

Thanks for the comments guys! Anyway, finally finished setting her up and all.. Got a very vintage sound.. I'll try to get around to post some sound clips when I've got the chance.. Oh, and God only knows what that door is made of..

Weelll, I ordered the body with a maple top, yes.. Wasn't really expecting it to be a very visually pleasing one.. Anyway, by the time Jeremy let me know about it, I was rather set on the design already.. He had another idea which would have let the maple top show but it would've been a little too costly for me.. I realise that it was a bit of waste of the flame, though.. The knobs are apparently from Hipshot, by the way.. Got 'em from the Guitar Parts Resource... Been getting my stuff from them thanks to the fixed world-wide shipping.. Most of the parts you get here in Singapore aren't of very good quality.. Except this jack I got which was just about the most well made jack I've ever seen.. But I digress..

Well, after almost a year and whole lot of delays, it's finally finished.. As you can see, I tried to go all out on this one.. Hampered a lot by the lack of proper tools, though.. Got by with a hand drill and that's about it besides my electronics stuff.. Big thank you to Jeremy at LGM Guitars for the spider and the rest of the body finishing.. Did an awesome job!! (Body and neck from Warmoth.. I'm still hiding behind the 'no-decent-tools' excuse.. ) Specs: Body: Mahogany with contoured neck heel Neck: Mahogany with Ebony f/b; 10" radius; 24-3/4" scale Pickups: Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates (Neck), SH-4 JB (Bridge) Hardware: TonePros locking TOM saddle & bridge; Planetwave Auto Trim tuners (surprisingly cheap here); TusQ nut (too lazy to cut a new one); Jim Dunlop strap locks Controls: (Tried a little something new here since I've actually got some semblence of skill with a soldering iron.. At the same time, I tried to keep it fairly simple 'cause I didn't really want to wade through a forest of wires..) Basically it's got 1 Vol, 1 Tone, 2 blend pots that blend the neck and bridge each from series to parallel.. I also matched up the tone cap to fit the pickups as much as I could.. Ended up with a 0.033uF.. And here she is... A bigger version.. The Spider... TonePros locking TOM... Hipshot knobs..

Any particular reason why you'd want to do that? (I'm asking sincerely, by the way.. Curious to know.. )

Someone mentioned putting your hands on auto.. I think that's about the way to go, at least with rythm guitaring.. As for lead, well, I'm still trying to figure out how Hendrix did it...

Strats, Strats, good for the heart, the more you eat the more you....wait.. That's beans... Always a Strat!!

Answering the post, I play in a band.. We call ourselves Drummer Girl Porn and if you click the name, you get our site.. We don't play metal.. Actually, we're still trying to figure out what we play..

Correct me if I'm wrong but the very high valued pots (eg 1meg +) tend to be a little noisy.. Again, I'm not 100% sure about this.. It's something I kinda remember hearing so if someone could verify this, it would be good..

Try Antique Electronics.. I got mine from there.. Well, push/push pots at least.. Hope that helps..

4 hours and 37 minutes into Christmas on this side of the globe!! Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year to all!!