Happy New year to all!
New year demands new moves to the new projects.
So I have pushed myself to work on the new Tele project.
I have named it as “Blood Red” just because I was able to find the body of that color made by the local luthier.
As I stated in my previous post I decided to stop the “Red Tele” project. Just because the parts used in are too good to the be on that crappy box.
So this project is another “spare parts” project.
The first step is obviously the installation of the neck on the new body.
Few words about the neck.
I’ve purchased it a couple of years ago on eBay for $40. China.
Every went smoothly. I think it’s because all parts: body, neck and screws were respecting the known Tele standards.
Next step will be the drilling. I think.
Hi.
Some time ago I wanted to make a (friendly) joke on the Tele guitars.
I had TOO many leftovers from the Tele project.
So I decided to make the “RedNeck Tele” project.
Which meant some sort of mixture between the famous “Tele” thing and sort of the Cigar Box Guitar.
And it was almost accomplished when my family members started to beg: “It’s so many good parts! And you want to wast it on such infamous body?”
Well, I felt really ashamed. That’s why this project was stuck for a long time.
The only missing part in this project was the right body as I wanted to use some sort of the “cigar box”.
So I started to search on eBay for some kind of an affordable body.
And here it is coming!
The beautiful Blood Red Tele Replacement body!
I have found it on the eBay. But the seller appears to be in my close neighborhood!
So I’m going tomorrow to pick up the item.
I’ll keep you posted on this project update.
So stay in touch
I swear I did my best to make this travel guitar sound.
And it never worked out. It’s sad.
Because I was always wanting to have a small handy instrument which I can keep in the trunk of my car or in the travel.
The Amigo Travel Guitar was promising. I have purchased it on eBay.
And it truly has nice look, good materials and satisfactory sound.
But. Whatever I tried I could not tune it so it can be playable instrument.
First, the saddle was too high.
I’ve sanded it as much as I could. and it still was not low enough.
Next step could be modifying the lower bridge.
But before doing that I was trying to fix the nut on the neck.
It didn’t help neither.
When I was able to tune it on the first 3 frets it was a disaster on the 5-7 frets and vice versa.
And what was surprising the 12th fret harmonics were matching the 12 fret tone!
So after several desperate attempts to fix it I finally had to give up.
At least it looks nice on the wall.
So here’s the resume of this story:
Be extremely careful while buying unknown brands on the eBay!
Because technically this travel guitar was not damaged and fairly cheap (under $100), so I had not enough arguments to return it.
On the other hand you know what to expect when you buy on the eBay the well known brand. From this point you are more protected.
For example, my first purchase on the eBay was Regal RD40 resonator guitar. And I’m still loving it very much.
It is relatively cheap but very well done and sweet sounding instrument.
I did it!
In my previous article I was sharing my impression on the creativity of some guys who invented the way to use the P-Bass pickups as a sound transferring device in the foot drum stomp boxes.
I was so exited about this novelty instrument that decided to make my own thing.
1. The first thing I had to decide is where can I get a P-Bass pickups.
Believe it or not it was,,, Right it was an item on eBay.
$6.5 including shipping from China.
2. The box itself.
That was pretty easy. I always have few spare cigar boxes.
I collect them for some CBG projects like this one.
And again the most suitable box is a Cohiba cigar box.
Primarily I had a crazy idea to set up the full P-Bass wiring including the Volume and Tone controls.
But later I decided that it will be a bit of overhead for such a small box that I currently have.
Moreover, there is a lot of controls that I already have on my amp.
But probably I will do another one later when I’ll have suitable and big enough box for that.
So here you go. My very own Cigar P-Bass Stomp Box.
And again about stomp boxes AKA foot drums.
In my previous article I have shared my experience of making the stomp box.
The one in this article was made from the Cohiba small cigar box and the piezo transducer.
Of course, there is a lot of different types of the stomp boxes in the Universe.
They differ by the shape and size but the most important element which makes the amplification is usually about the same:
it’s either piezo transducer or microphone.
I don’t want to describe here the process of getting the better stomp sound.
I tried a mic and it didn’t work so well.
Therefore:
I had to put the piezo dumped with the packing foam.
But the main thing which did the trick was …. bass guitar amplifier! In my case it was SWR LA-10.
So with solving these two critical issues I’ve got quite satisfactory result.
But if you stick to piezo you always have to struggle with the feedback sound effect. More or less. More
This post is about some funny device.
Well, maybe not just funny but also useful in some extremal situations.
Guitar picks are just small pieces of plastic.
And let’s admit it, it’s very easy to lose them.
Moreover, it usually happens right at the moment when you really need it (impros, jams, parties).
Good news from ThinkGeek: if you have a
DIY Guitar Pick Punch, you’ll never be without a guitar pick again.
Insert the material you want a pick out of into the
DIY Guitar Pick Punch, and squeeze it.
Make them out of expired credit cards, those grocery store discount cards, packaging material etc.!
Keep a
DIY Guitar Pick Punch in your guitar case, and you’ll never be without a pick again.
Pick Dimensions: as a 351 style picks – 1.1875″ x 1.0625″
So many things are happening around.
The whole rock music industry is heavily relying on the computers.
Recording Studio Software gives very impressive and powerful tools in the hands of musicians no matter what level of skills they have.
The beginners ca just learn to mix the pre-recorded loops.
I personally keep trying to record all instruments except the drum loops. Still not that cool though.
I don’t think the current subject will gain a big popularity among professional guitar players.
But still, I’m amazed with the achievements in this industry:
The guitar that tunes itself!
And not only that!
It also helps to set up the intonation
I can only dream on how I’m sitting and drinking beer while my guitar gently… tunes.
Today I was pleasantly surprised to see my Blue JM working on the streets of the downtown of Montreal.
My good old friend and amazing street musician Serge (Papillon) was performing the legendary “Stairway to Heaven” at the corner of Ste.-Cathering and Stanley. .
Here’s a little piece of it that I was able to capture without getting the parking ticket.
This was an “accidental” project as I call it.
I had some spare parts from my tele project.
So I decided to recycle them with minimum of the investment.
Then another small miracle had happen to it when I put everything together. It started to play perfectly without the usual setting up.
No action and no intonation tuning! It just started to shine.
As I said I didn’t plan to make this guitar. It was just funny experience. So when I showed it to Papillon hi liked it so much.
As a result I made him a gift to his jublilee.
It had happened around 2 years ago. So you can emagine my feelings when I saw my baby making a good job.
Everybody have heard about such thing as “one-man-band”. Right?
It’s when one man plays few instruments simultaneously.
There are 2 most popular accompanying instruments when you play guitar: harmonica and drum.
Well, some sort of drum. It could be just an empty packing box or real foot drum depending on your budget.
Or an electronic stomp box.
First time I’ve heard about stomp boxes was during the concert of Harry Manx, Canadian blues singer and songwriter who uses Indian ragas in amazing mixture with American blues and traditional music.
It was a small wooden box tapped by performers foot. The brand is Australian Ellis Guitars
So, after some thorough research with Google I decided to try to make my own stomp box.
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