GregP

I believe the online shop sells the Dragon IIs for $120... or was it $125? with nickel covers, or $130 with gold. Just follow the links....

Mastering is even touchier than mixing. Nobody in their right mind should be MASTERING in a car or on a home stereo. Frankly, although I'm part of the 'trust your ears' school of thought for the most part, you CAN'T always trust your ears when there are such varieties in equipment. I'd dread doing a proper master in the first place, and if I DID decide to try to do an amateur master, I'd not do it without a decent set of visual references such as a Spectral EQ analyzer and a timeline of the stereo levels. Greg

Good job with the coin sound effects.

It couldn't be easier than using spray adhesive and a piece of aluminum foil from the kitchen. If your copper tape from the pickup cavities is overlapping atop the body the way it should, just give one of them an extra fold on the outside part (closer to the edge of the pickguard) for thickness and when you bolt down the pickguard, there should be enough positive contact to connect it all together. Greg.

I know you said "experienced" builder, but I'll give'er a shot-- 1. Nah. If you plan everything out beforehand so that you know where the cuts are all going to be, it's probably easier to do it the other way around. Rout the truss rod channel while you still have a flat hunk of lumber and it hasn't been shaped or profiled in any way yet. Again, this takes planning I'd imagine, but you'll end up having an easier time routing when your board can lie flat AND against some guide rails. [EDIT: It occurs to me that unless the headstock is done FIRST, the way the rout 'exits' from underneath the fingerboard may not be as elegant, and you could screw up the wood for the scarf joint. Oops. Glad I stated my disclaimer. Don't believe a damn thing I say.] 2. Not familiar enough with Gibson to answer this one, and any guesses I could hazard would be as good as what you could come up with. 3. You don't need Stew-Mac's router bit... just use a narrow enough bit, then manually compensate and do the rout in 2 passes, moving the router (ie. the guide rails, really) whatever fraction of an inch you need to move it in order to get the right width. Alternatively: LMI Truss Rod, though it's more expensive and doesn't (to my eyes) look as 'finished' a product. That's a COMPLETELY uneducated opinion, though, and I've heard people speak very favourably of them, so I doubt you can really go "wrong" with it. Greg.

Jeez... Too bad my dad already indicated he wants a red guitar. There's a show called the Red Green show in which the main dude uses duct tape to fix EVERYTHING. My dad is a dead ringer for Red Green, and people tell him so all the time. He's a Red Green fan, too. So, a duct tape guitar would have been SO appropriate for him!! I say do it!! Greg

Like the P-Bass! Too bad about the chiropractor bills.

Unless you find a great deal because it's a 'combo' deal, I wouldn't get a pre-wired one. It sounds like you have some relatively complicated (nothing you couldn't handle with the help of some drawings and forum members) wiring needs, and you'll get more flexibility doing it yourself. You have all kinds of options-- if you're already happy with your two single-coils, I don't see the need to replace them 'just because' you already have your guitar apart. Put your money into a humbucker that meets your needs. Recommending a pickup is like recommending a car-- since each has its distinct personality, it's hard to recommend them, and besides that we each have our own experiences and biases. That said... why not just get a classic PAF-style? Sure, it's not an overdrive monster, but it'll produce more output than the single-coil you're already using, but will be more useful for clean applications. Most companies makes a 'classic PAF' humbucker, so just get one with 4 wires rather than the equally classic 'braid', and you'll be able to do coil-splitting if that's what you want. As for the coil split... a single coil from a humbucker won't really replace a true single-coil pickup sound, but since it's the 'in-between' sound you like anyhow, you should be able to get a fair approximation. I would add a push-pull pot to split your humbucker, which will require the least amount of modification and no cosmetic changes. If I can dig it up, I can also post the coil-split modification I've done on my tele (with a Little 59), which doesn't even require you to swap into a new pot. It's a fairly elegant solution, but has its drawbacks-- it's a humbucker with tone control up until about '8/9' on the tone knob, and then when you hit '9/10' (I say 9 because it occurs before you're at the very end) the coil is split. That means your tone control isn't useful in single-coil mode, and a bit of the range is taken out of the humbucker, but it's a pretty nifty mod. Cheers, Greg

I don't know what makes a guitar specifically 'Pensa-like', but I know that those are some clean-looking, meticulously done drawings. Awesome work.

Not having read all pages in this thread-- It is bacon that has almost all the qualities of ham. Even as a Canadian, I voted "Ham" because the only two choices weren't accurate enough. Really, it IS Peameal, which is a bacon, not a ham... dammit, I can't go change my vote now, can I? In case it hasn't already been said-- when Canadians order Bacon and Eggs, we really want the thin crispy sliced stuff. Although in France, you won't likely be able to order French Fries (however that translates literally), in Canada you WILL be able to order "Canadian Bacon". Strange, methinks.

PDF is bomb-diggity. (Whatever the hell that means)

Heh! Well there you have it. I was trying to avoid sourcing parts from multiple suppliers, but if it means getting what I want rather than just 'making do' then I don't mind. Now that I've seen the ones with no holes, I'm wondering if it will look unique or horrible. I love mini-hums with no holes, but I'm not sure about full-sized hums. I know that ultimately it's a decision I'll have to make on my lonesome, but as usual, opinions are welcome. As for the pots, I used the wrong term ... 'long threaded'... what the hell is that? I meant long-shafted, and I can reasonably assume that your recommendation is to just shell out for the longer shaft. Fair enough. I just wish I knew why on earth they were 3X as expensive.

While I'm a bit iffy on the amount of body-to-neck contact on the upper part, it's eye-catching because of its uniqueness. The 'swung' back with the current lower cutaway is a winner, for sure! Cheers, Greg.

Ace tutorials, Derek. Hadn't stumbled across those yet.

Thanks for the replies. Ed Roman guy seems like a bit of a nutter. <grin> He's right about the heel, but I'm not so sure about the science behind the direct mount. One thing that occurs to me is that the pickup will be vibrating along with the rest of the guitar and neck (assuming it's nice and resonant!); wouldn't that jiggle the coils around and produce microphonic feedback more easily? I'm not totally dissing direct mounting in general-- It seems to work well on EVH's guitars, and one of my future projects will be an EVH-MM / Axis-inspired guitar (OK, OK... a ripoff). I'm just not so sure about Mr. Roman's rabid fanaticism and propagandist techniques. Also, none of the pictures seems to show what his 'lip' IS or does... is it just a little bit of an indentation for the screws on the bottom of the humbucker to fit into? Since for me, it's partially about the 'look' of the guitar and I LIKE mounting rings, I may still end up doing a direct mount in the neck, but with the ring acting more as a 'frame' than a functional design element. [EDIT: on closer inspection, and giving my head a shake, I realize that I don't have an appropriately-dimensioned piece of wood for a bolt-in right now. Since I'm not a HUGE guy for upper-fret access anyhow, I'm going to stick with regular bolt-on style; but this information will definitely come in handy for another project that I'm cogitating over, so the info and links are much appreciated!] Cheers, Greg

I definitely hear you about the plentitude of chrome hardware. However, I now have nickel tuners. <grin> Seems pretty hard to source nickel covers, though there are some nickel TOMs around. Cheers for the reply! Greg

Shameful bump. I could still use opinions on questions 1, 5, and 6 if anybody has anything to share. Thanks a bunch, Greg

For the bolt-in design, MUST the pickup be direct mounted, or is that just how you had done it? With only about an extra 1/16th" of depth in the rout, I 'm wondering if I could get away with doing a traditional mounting ring style mount? In my favour for the bolt-in design, I will have a slightly thicker body than most designs, with a 1 3/4" body and another 5/8" thick maple top on top of that.

Right then. Well, you could probably make do with a 4-input card, but I think if you really want to record 'live', you're setting yourself up for disappointment that way. As mentioned, drums need a bunch of mics. SO, you could always get your drummer to program the drum parts in a drum machine plugin so that at least he/she feels involved in the process.... Your main option, really, is to spend a lot of money. Even a minimal set up of 3 mics for the drums (one snare, one kick, and one overhead) with a reasonable quality set of mics and cables is running you $350+ already, which won't leave enough scratch for a 4-input soundcard and mixer. Beyond that, I'll hold off on any advice, because creativity breeds invention, and I'm the last guy who would want to give you the impression that it "can't" be done... with enough searching, planning, and foresight, you might have enough imagination to pull it off! Greg.

Goddamnit, I always seem to only be reading half the posts I reply to. I should have known right away that it was a guitar with a locking nut.... GR! Ah well, if you're not hearing any sort of buzzing on that string when you play it open, you can rule out frets, which only really leaves the bridge and the nut as the culprits, I would think. Then again, I've already proven that I don't think... thoroughly...

It's not the drumming so much as the melancholy vocals. I enjoyed a lot of the guitar playing, and although the 'sound' of the drums wasn't great (production values are tough to contend with on home recordings), I found the syncopation pretty groovy. A bit of prog-rock song structure and changes going on in there. That's a good thing for prog rock fans. Ultimately, not entirely to my tastes, but I can appreciate that you put some serious thought and work into this piece, and I can tell that it must have been a rewarding endeavour. Good on ya, mate! Greg

I'm guessing that the nut slot is cut too wide and/or there's not enough downward pressure (via an angle) over the nut. If the string isn't making nice solid contact with the nut, it'll die like that. Even on my Pacifica, which was by no means 'dying', I noticed that my G string was a bit weaker because it wasn't getting enough angle over the nut. Installed a second string retainer, and I was off to the races. Of course, that's just a complete guess.

I can't believe I'm defending (ugh) Nickelback-- Although there's no denying that the 'pattern' for songwriting is very similar, this is really just an auditory illusion. It could theoretically be done with almost any band that has consistency in their sound. If you take any song that's in the same key with the other, match beats so that they're the exact same tempo, and play them back together, they'll sound fine, and the person who's already willing to be convinced and therefore isn't listening TOO critically in the first place will just notice how 'good' they sound together, and will jump to the conclusion that they're carbon copies! If anything, with careful listening you'll notice that Nickelback has changed the formula at least 10% between those two songs... there aren't enough perfect matches for the verse and chorus changes. For it to be more frightening in similarity, and convince a more critically-thinking listener, the melodies would have to overlap rather than simply harmonize, and the cadence of the words would have to match, too, rather than sounding like one melody over top of a syncopated backup singer. The words between these two songs almost never match up. I know you're just 'taking the piss' though (as the Brits would say), so I didn't intend to sound too serious in my rebuttal. Nickelback are ass.

True enough, true enough. The way I usually do it is one instrument at a time. I pan that instrument either hard left or hard right, and then in my sequencer (Tracktion), I have the input split into 2 inputs, too, instead of as one stereo input. Plug the appropriate one into my track, and record it as a mono signal.