ryema22

DrummerDude is the Fender marketing department's dream child... A standard american fender strat/tele will cost you about a grand... deluxe and special models even more A top-of-the-line squier (deluxe or vintage series) will cost about $250 (and those do include the string-thru bridge design) There's simply no way that you're getting $750 worth of "improvements" with a Fender. What you get is some name-brand hardware, a closer examination of the setup at the factory, and a boost to your ego. You're getting hung up on a whole lot of voodoo and marketing hype. Fact is, the higher end Squier's come damn close to matching their Fender siblings. If someone was that hung up on the difference, they could always go out and buy genuine fender pickups, tuners, and bridge and replace the stock equipment on the Squier for less than the difference in price between the Squier and Fender.

If the mic doesn't require phantom power then you don't need a mixer or a DI box. 2 quick thoughts you might have missed: Open volume control (double click speaker icon in the lower right hand tray) Click "options" click "properties" make sure adjust volume for recording is selected and click ok now make sure the mic input isn't muted and the volume is at a good level what software are you using to record with? Make sure that you've selected the proper sound card input (ie Mic L, Mic Stereo, Line in, etc.) on the track you're attempting to record to.

As far as Squier's having different routing or pickguard mounting holes, I just bought a used Squier Affinity P-Bass to mess around with (i hadn't played bass before) and replaced the scratched up single ply pickguard with a Fender w/b/w one. Everything lined up fine, the only problem was the Squier pickups were slightly larger than the hole in the fender pickguard. 2 minutes with a file and some sandpaper and it was fine. As for the body woods and overall quality, i believe it ranges from bullet to affinity and then to standard/deluxe models (the latter being of highest quality). The standard models are closest in quality to actual fender, using ~3 piece bodies with nice grain and good hardware. The affinity models as far as I know only come in solid colors and I have to think that's probably because they used uglier pieces of wood. But as long as you want a solid finish I see no problem with mating the neck you have to the P-bass body

22, with 3 years of law school still to come It seems like many here are in engineering or related fields. Personally, I’ve never studied ME or artistic design – woodworking and luthiery have become a hobby to get away from straight book learning and do something with my hands that exercises the other half of my brain. I’d like to be something of a Renaissance man someday

I think they exceeded my expectations considering what I paid. The bridge pickup has some nice twang and gets nice and dirty with a little bit of overdrive. The neck pickup gives some pretty standard strat/tele neck tone. They seem comparable to the stuff put in Squier Tele models. It depends on what you want it for... replacing them would yield improvement, but for what the guitar is they're fine. I'll try to post clips in the next week or so when I get a chance.

I went about things a bit backwards.. after building my first guitar from scratch my second was built from a Saga kit as a gift for a friend who previously only owned an acoustic. I was originally worried about things like the quality of the pickups and the fretwork but I have to say that I'm thoroughly impressed with what a $90 kit delivered. As I noted in a previous topic, the screws with this kit were subpar, so after torquing the head off of a neck screw I replaced all of them except for the pickguard screws. Other upgrades when I get a chance will include new tuners (the ones that are included are OK but i'd like to put a nicer set of schallers on), and replacing the plastic nut with bone. The paint is Duplicolor Mirage Red-Blue... I'm not the best photographer so the pictures don't really show the color change in it's full glory but you can sort of see the beginnings of the transition in a few pictures. All in all my friend is very happy. Pictures: Here

I have to respectfully disagree with most of what Dino is saying. I recently had very good results using duplicolor brand metallic spray paint (you can find this at any automotive chain) and Deft nitrocellulose-based clear gloss lacquer (available at lowes, home depot, etc.) Total cost was about $30. There are definately some rattle-can clear sprays that will take a long time to cure and won't hold up, but if you do your research, a decent (read: attractive but not "straight out of the Gibson factory" attractive) finish can be achieved. That's all most beginners are looking for on their first project. I've also heard the ReRanch products work quite well. They have plenty of completed project pictures on their site if you want to get an idea of what can be achieved with their rattle cans For direct comparison's sake, I sprayed a guitar with McFadden's using a friend's HVLP spray rig over the summer and the Deft I used most recently seems to have cured just as well as the guitar sprayed with the expensive equipment. Just my .02, ymmv

After staining... Then clear coat, sanding between coats until the logo is level and the lines dissapear in the lacquer As a side note, find the thinnest transparent printing stock you can get your hands on. I just finished a logo this week and it took an unbearable amount of time to get the raised lines of the logo to dissapear.

Okay, so I did some testing on scrap and answered my own question, for anyone interested: Spraying the 2nd stage without the primer did not create the effect I hoped it would so I went ahead and just sprayed normally. The color change is sweet - it goes from a dark burnt red to royal purple to a bright navy blue. It did a beautiful job of self-leveling and will require minimal wet-sanding and buffing when it's done curing. Great stuff for anyone desiring a cheaper rattle can finish. ~ $28 for the kit and a few cans of deft clear lacquer.

Crafty - It twisted off with manual torque only. I probably should have reamed out the neck pocket holes a little wider before trying to test fit everything. I'll try the bar soap trick in the future, thanks for the tip. Regardless, they were crappy screws and I picked up new ones for the neck joint and mounting the bridge. The rest of the kit seems to have far exceeded my expectations for what I could expect in a $100 kit. I'd recommend it as a fun project to try out a new finish on or for a beginner instead of a cheap factory guitar. (my brother was saving up to by a cheap Epi and now wants to try assembling one of their LP kits instead)

This might have just been a freak accident, but I thought I'd throw this out there as a warning for anyone who tries one of the Saga kits. Obviously the hardware that comes with them isn't the greatest but I bought this one just to be a reasonably priced gift for a beginning guitarist so I replaced the tuners but I didn't want to spend the money to replace the bridge, control plate, screws etc. When I was test fitting everything before I started the finish, the head of one of the neck mounting screws completely torqued off while i was removing it and left the screw shaft inside the body holding the neck on. Fortunately I was able to slowly pry the neck free without doing too much damage and repaired the stripped out hole. Examining the screws now, they're definately a weaker (very maliable) metal and not well suited for the body joint. The bridge seems like it's okay, but I plan to replace the screws used to mount that as well. Just thought I'd pass the warning along - I was fortunate that it only caused minimal damage. If it's within your budget I'd recommend upgrading all of the major hardware on one of these kits. But other than that I'm very happy with what I got for the money and it's been a quick, fun project for build #2

I'm intending to spray a tele in the next few weeks and Duplicolor mirage paint intrigues me. I think i'm going to try the red/blue mix and it seems the consensus is to use Deft or another clear lacquer other than the one duplicolor supplies in the kit. Has anyone experimented with spraying the 2nd stage mirage color coat with and without the 1st stage black primer? I know that the mirage effect requires the black primer to maintain its color changing properties, but has anyone tried laying it down on its own? My idea is that by taping off, say racing stripes prior to spraying the first stage primer, you could create a subtle but noticeable effect in the paint. I'm thinking that at some light angles the whole guitar might appear to be a uniform color while at other angles the taped off area would stand out. OR my idea could be crap and it wouldn't work very well at all. What do you think? 2nd question - Can I get good coverage of the guitar with just one kit's worth or will i need to buy a few Thanks for the help

Thanks for the fast responses guys. I thought that might be the case, but I wanted to make sure that the buffing compounds would in fact do the trick. Cheers! Ryan

Hi, I'm in the process of the final wet sanding and polishing of my guitar. This is my first time using laquer or wet-sanding so I'm not exactly sure how it should go and I can't seem to find much detailed description. I've wet sanding from 600 up to 1500 and the finish is still lacking a gloss or shine (I was under the impression that 1200 grit and above would be polishing and bringing out the shine) Can someone explain what I might have done wrong and how to bring out the really glossy look? Thanks!

Thanks for the responses guys. I'm going to go without the grain filler and if I have to shoot a few extra coats of laqueur that's fine. Pictures of the finished project to come next week

Hi, I've read in a couple of places (Stewart-MacDonald for one) that Alder has a fairly closed pore structure and I don't need to fill them prior to spraying laquer. Can anyone confirm this through their own experience? I'm considering using a grain filler anyways just to be safe but if I really don't need to then I'll save myself the extra time and effort and go straight to spraying. Thanks!

Just thought I'd weigh in... I don't know how many of you have picked up a Squier recently but the Standard series has improved greatly in quality over the past few years and oftentimes equals a Mexican Fender from what I've seen. (The Affinity series is still a junker, yes) I picked up a Standard Series Strat a few years ago and the quality is excellent. The action and intonation were nearly perfect out of the box and I've seen nothing wrong with the fret dressing compared to other more expensive guitars. The body is ash and the rosewood fretboard has a very attractive grain. There is very little discernable (if any) tonal difference between the pickups on that guitar and my brother's Mex Strat. The one disclaimer I'd give you is that the consistency from guitar to guitar IS a little lower on a Squier than a Fender due to Squier cutting quality control costs so you definately want to sit down in a guitar shop and play a few of them to find one you like. (Don't order one from MusiciansFriend.com or the like without playing first) Good Luck, Ryan

Thanks Crafty, that was really helpful. I'm not sure whether I want to go with the 2 independent tones or the 2 independent volumes. I want to preserve the traditional 3-knob look on my strat. I'm starting to think having the 2 independent volumes would be more useful for creating different blends of the neck and bridge. Any thoughts? If I did go with 2 independent volumes instead of 2 tones would it basically be the same procedure? (wiring the volume controls to the pickup outputs before they went to the switch?) Thanks for your help

Okay, please bear with what limited knowledge I have when it comes to this. I can follow a schematic but troubleshooting and figuring out the correct lug combinations on the switch has proved a problem so far. The stew-mac diagram is for a 2 pickup tele with a single volume and tone. Could you explain how to modify that to either add 2 independent volumes and a master tone or 2 independent tones and a master volume? is it possible the lugs on the T switch are just ordered differently than the lugs in the diagram i posted above? Thanks for the help

It's the 8-lug T Megaswitch sold at Stew-Mac for 3 way switching applications.

Hi, I'm in the process of building my first guitar. I wired up the electronics yesterday and i've hit a snag I have 2 two-wire humbuckers with a 3 way selector switch, 1 master volume, and 2 tone controls. When i tested it out I'm not getting any signal from the middle position. The neck and bridge positions seem to be working fine, however. I followed the double fat strat schematic here: http://squierguitars.com/pdf/diagrams/Squi...rdDoubleE2F.pdf I've checked it over repeatedly and I think i've connected everything right. Can anyone look at the schematic and tell me where I might have goofed to cause the problem I described? Is the schematic simply wrong? Thanks for your help, Ryan