“Only they who believeth in their guitar quest shall be granted passage”

Category: Electric

  • Fender Stratocaster Highway One, is it the ONE?

    last week i got lucky. my friend lent me his Fender Stratocaster Highway One and it was my valuable moment of learning guitar characteristics. stratocaster has my respect because of its tone originality and how many songs made with this guitar, also how far the guitar players has become legends with this guitar existence. you can easily find names, let’s say yngwie malmsteen, richie sambora, eric clapton and many more use the stratocaster as their main guitar, or using stratocaster as their tool of exploration (see a Frankenstrat)you might be one of them. a stratocaster lover. i can’t say I’m in it, but actually right now I’m still trying to get which series that suits me. and i got a milestone to start with, a Fender Stratocaster Highway One USA made, year 2002 i guess. here are the pics (it’s relic!) :

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    what i got from this guitar so far? well, i can’t say i’m in love with this one. it was about againsts my guitar playing style. the volume knob is TOO close so everytime i pick the strings, i accidentally touched it and made the volume knob turned the level down often. it happened to the switch too. for me it’s just made my playing become so unnatural. i need sometimes to get used to this guitar, the neck radius, the super jumbo frets, yes.. i need more time to get the best of it.

    i read some articles on guitar blogs and find out that there isn’t so much love for Fender Stratocaster Highway One (this is the earlier products. the latest has big headstock and some users said that the new one is the upgraded one and it rocks with comfortable handling). one thing that doesn’t change is its tone, a glassy tone is stratocaster and i think Fender Stratocaster Highway One has a lot of it.

    surely some real stratocaster can define this guitar in big details and i had my time. now it’s the time to take this guitar back to its owner. 😀 it was a great time in exploring and learning though. still wondering which stratocaster is best for my playing.. what do you think?

  • Still Halloween and even scarier, the Frankenstrat

    Still Halloween and even scarier, the Frankenstrat

    while famous frankentele is Steve Morse‘s, the Frankenstrat is Eddie Van Halen’s creation. The name itself comes from the combination of Frankenstein name and Stratocaster, a famous Fender guitar model. for your information it is a american national treasure, “Frankenstrat” copy can be found at Washington D.C.’s American History Museum.

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    The Frankenstrat is Van Halen’s effort in combining the Fender appearance with classic Gibson guitar tonality. It was Gibson PAF humbucking bridge pickup, Floyd Rose tremolo and chrome hardware installed on ash Stratocaster body, maple neck and fretboard. Eddie painted it several times, and the now famous color combination is red body with white and black stripes.

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    what he did is a heavy-modification. The Frankenstrat neck was continually being changed over times. and The first bridge was ’58 Fender tremolo then he changed it to Floyd Rose bridges. The placement of the 1971 quarter was a spontaneous addition when it was recruited to keep the Floyd Rose bridge flush on the body. even he took truck reflectors and put them at the rear of the body just for his fun moments, so is an eye hook to secure the straps.

    now, is this scary enough for your Halloween?

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    go here for fender stratocaster highway one review

  • it’s Halloween, and it is Frankentele

    you know what time it is and there’s nothing more interesting than a Frankentele. as you knew that telecaster gained incredible fans all over the world because its sound and its simplicity. there are lots of people want to have their own telecaster based on their personal ideas. simply taking telecasters into new genre without disrespecting its history. it’s an amazing story, seeing what telecasters had been through. and i really want to start with the famous one, Steve Morse’s  Frankenstein telecaster. we know who Frankenstein is as well as we know what a telecaster is.

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    from what i got from musicradar’s article about frankentele, it is really a constant revision and improvement guitar. Stratocaster neck attached into a Fender Telecaster body, installed Gibson Tune-o-matic bridge, a set of Gibson frets and a 12-string tailpiece, also a group of pickups were Steve Morse’s ideas on how to build a frankentele. you can also get info from Steve Morse’s site about his frankenstein telecaster.

    well, are frankenteles scary enough for your Halloween? you should have one actually. telecaster inspires lots of musicians and i think I’ll build one of my own frankentele, although my spalted maple tele is a branded franken tele, too with great sound and craftsmanship. there are best guitar parts around and i REALLY want to put them on telecaster model and see what happen.. is an annoying curiosity though..

  • Les Paul Gibson, got any words of it?

    Gibson Guitar is a worldwide guitar brand and i guess that every human in this world has met with its design. an American maker of guitars which successfully put their products into every guitarists’ dream in tasting the great sound and experiencing its magnificent craftsmanship through guitar playing. and other instruments, now based in Nashville, Tennessee. in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Orville Gibson founded The Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co., Ltd. in 1902 as mandolin-family instruments company. best part of Gibson invention is arch-top guitars model by constructing violin-like guitar models. their flattop acoustic guitars is a legendary legacy through time known as hollow-body electric guitars.And Yes, Gibson has it. one of the world’s most collectible and iconic guitars, the Gibson Les Paul. And since then, Gibson built famous guitar models which are imitated by lot of guitar brands, I’ll say it,”Gibson guitar is an inspiration”. Gibson company has legal copies of its famous guitar models which are cheaper than guitars with Gibson name on them. For example, the Les Paul model is sold under the Epiphone brand, while they have their own model such like the Sheraton and Casino, and i have a Les Paul style guitar, the gorgeous Gretsch Electromatic Pro Jet. there are so many variant in designs for Les Paul model itself. too many? i guess it’s not, since these models built modern music through time. here are few pictures of them:

    Gibson Les Paul Baritone
    Gibson Les Paul Baritone
    Gibson Les Paul Baritone
    Gibson Les Paul Junior
    Gibson Les Paul Junior
    Gibson Les Paul Junior
    Gibson Les Paul Recording
    Gibson Les Paul Recording
    Gibson Les Paul Recording
    Gibson Les Paul Standard
    Gibson Les Paul Standard
    Gibson Les Paul Standard
    Gibson Les Paul Special
    Gibson Les Paul Special
    Gibson Les Paul Special
    Gibson Les Paul Studio Gothic
    Gibson Les Paul Studio Gothic
    Gibson Les Paul Studio Gothic
    Gibson Les Paul Studio Swamp Ash
    Gibson Les Paul Studio Swamp Ash
    Gibson Les Paul Studio Swamp Ash

    the Les Paul Gibson.. beautiful, aren’t they?