Guitar Nerds Anonymous

So I've been gradually reassembling the three guitars I took to pieces a couple of months ago.

After several attempts at shimming the neck on the Scoungeocaster, I gave up and went back to no shim. It means that the saddles are quite low with fair bit of screw protruding, but i just couldn't find a shim that got the balance right so I've reverted, and it's FINE. Also got round to rotating the pickup selector which has always worked backwards for some reason. @RonAsheton - do you recall why that was? I did briefly entertain the idea of repacing all of the electronics but it's not a priority right now.

Next is the Tele. It's been dangling without strings since I decided that I hated the neck (after 20 years of playing it as my main guitar). Still undecided as to whether to try a replacement neck or have a go levelling and dressing the frets myself. I have fret files, i'd just need a levelling beam which isn't an expensive item. So the debate is ~£40 on tools and 50/50 chance of improving and making worse or ~£400 on a neck and it being fully reversable/swapable. Decision needed.

Go for it. Tinker. If you fuck it up, then get a new neck.

Looking at this... https://www.thomann.co.uk/fender_vintera_ii_60s_tele_neck_rw.htm?glp=1&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_9u5BhCUARIsABbMSPvmfSxqMwRdugdA8pEO90Eb94Br8cyI7xFGdXLV4B_bI0Vt6doSnAQaAlJgEALw_wcB

i do kinda fancy trying a vintage radius and smaller frets.

Allparts and save a few quid? They are Fender licensed?

I spent last night trying to get my head around the whole fingerboard radius, neck profile thing. I've never really given it much time before but I know I really like my 70s mustang for left-hand feel. I'm now vaguely in the market for something similar to keep in a different tuning, so trying to figure out what qualifies. I fear i will have to go and waste a nice guitar shops time for several hours

I hadn't really thought much about it until I accrued a few guitars and started regulalry switching between them. Until then, I just had what I had. I don't have any hard and fast rules about what I like and don't like but certain chatacteristics to help/hinder certain things.

For acoustics, a decently wide nut and string spacing helps massively with fingerpicking, otherwise I feel cramped and trip over myself.

On electrics i'm more open to different things. They just nudge you to play in differnet ways. My SG has a wide and flat neck whereas my Riviera has a really narrow nut width and a tighter radius. I dig them both for different things.

My Tele has a modern 9" inch radius and super-jumbo frets, that I decided I like less than any of myother guitars. Will have a crack at the level and crown I reckon, and maybe bring a new neck home next weekend as i'm in Cologne so can pop into Thomann and see what they have in person. And maybe do a bit of haggling.

. ignore me doing this

They just nudge you to play in differnet ways

I definitely agree with this, I'd been playing my LP for a bit instead of the mustang and while I think I play technically better on the LP, I think I make more interesting choices with the mustang. I have a reverend for my other tuning, which is fairly gibson feeling - so basically my goal now is to have my gibson pair and a fender pair, and ill use whichever i fancy on the day. but possibly I'm just talking myself into buying a jazzmaster

Cool - which Captor do you have?

It's the standard one (not the X), mine is the 16ohm one as both my AC30 and AC4 have 16ohm speaker outs and the two amps I hope to be building in the coming months will have switchable impedance.

If I was playing live and wanted to go down the straight to desk route I'd have shelled out for the X, but for home use I see no downside in going through Logic (or you could use Genome as a standalone app anyway) and actually like that I can tweak the cab after recording.

I'm not sure how much better it is compared to the Harley Benton box in all honesty, will need to test them side by side to see how that goes, but definitely feed a higher signal to my audio interface and has a few more options in terms of output.

The HB is much better as an attenuator though as you have a dial to choose anything from no attenuation to silent/dummy load, while the Captor is either no attenuation or -20dB which is a HUGE reduction in level, so if attenuating is something you're interested in that's definitely something to keep in mind.

Genome comes with Captor right?

So the debate is ~£40 on tools

I'm terrible at fret dressing, and usually go to the Boatyard guitar workshop to use their skills / equipment when I do do it. However, Dave there put me onto the Stewmac fret Kisser to use when doing this, which is great to use after minimal levelling with a beam.

It's a bit pricey, but much easy to use. If you find yourself doing this often it might be worth a look.

Correct, it's included. If you buy second hand (as I did) make sure the previous owner de-registers it from their account and you can use the serial number to register it to yourself and get access to Genome.

I would say though, if you do go down a cheaper path (like the HB box) a free IR loader goes a long way and there are good free IRs out there, as well as cheap packs that sound great (York Audio I'd say are the pick of the bunch and only $15), so it can all be done on a much tighter budget too if you're just dipping your toes.

Tinkering ahoy!
Trem blocked properly and started faffing around with a zvex super hard on clone.
Hopefully I’ve got the guitar side of the wiring correct, single master tone so boost can go in place of tone2. Assume a 9v will fit in the trem cavity just fine.

3 Attachments

Looks great! I'm sure you're already on it but make sure to use a stereo jack to break the ground of the SHO so it stops draining batteries when unplugged, just like a pedal input would do!

I’m on the case ;)
Just realised I don’t have a 9v snap terminal which is annoying. Where’s a broken 1990s electronic toy when you need one?

1 Attachment

If you are around the New Cross area I’ve got a few lying around. Fuzzdog seem to give you one with every kit so I’ve collected a bunch at this point.

Thanks but bit of a trek for me, I’m sure my colleague will have some at his workstation. Using his soldering iron but don’t want to disrupt his organised chaos looking for stuff without his say so ;)

Sounds like a trem cavity is 15mm deep and the average 9v is 17.3mm so guess I’ll need to rout a tiny bit out. Bit annoying.

Also got round to rotating the pickup selector which has always worked backwards for some reason. @RonAsheton - do you recall why that was?

Hey mate! I had no idea it was like that, it came in a box as an extra with the loaded body I got. It came from a young kid, no doubt he'd been fucking around with it and put it back in the wrong way around.

Awesome thanks. Pretty keen to try my amps thru pc but the Bias FX also sounds pretty spot on hard to justify spending too much cash.

Deffo want to try the Marshall tho.

Have bought a levelling beam, notched straight edge, rolls of 320 and 400 grit, a neck rest and load of masking tape. I already have fret crowning files and triangle files plus a dremmel for polishing polishing polishing. Remembered I have two junk necks I can sacrifice as practice as well. Wish me luck!

monel strings

I just got mine fitted on my acoustic and I double the thanks for the recommendation - they're much closer to what I want an acoustic guitar to sound like from restringing. I can't stand that shimmery phosphorous three dimensionality that comes with the shinier strings. They're great.

Rather you than me, break a leg! 🙏

Have fun, just be methodical and it’ll work out. There are some good Crimson Guitars YT video tutorials for this sort of thing.

Thanks dudes!