Your opinion on my custom-offset plans would be appreciated

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anionnkirky
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Your opinion on my custom-offset plans would be appreciated

Post by anionnkirky » Wed Apr 26, 2017 11:35 am

Hi there,

I recently got my Tele stolen and I'm now looking to replace that loss. I decided to go for an offset guitar (Jaguar body) with a Tele-Neck, which will be built by a local luthier, here in Switzerland.
The guitar will be mostly used in my studio for producing pop/rock music for customers. I'd love to have a guitar around, that plays like a standard guitar (so customers can play on it easily as well) but offers far more tonal flexibility in one instrument. My workflow is based very much on having 1 instrument, that covers a lot of sonical ground, instead of having 3-4 instruments hanging on the wall, collecting dust and getting used once every few months.
So naturally a lot of my planing goes into figuring out which pickups I wanna put in that custom guitar, and how I wanna wire them. At this point I'd just like to have opinions and comments from other guitar-enthusiasts on my current plans and ideas. Thank you very much for your inputs and comments!

The basic idea of the guitar is to have two separate outputs. I had great success with creating guitar tones for my recordings, by mixing two miced amps together, phase aligning them with some DSP-magic and sometimes panning them slightly. This guitar should support this workflow by offering two outputs, with different tones coming out of them. The guitar will have 4 pickups, that each have a dedicated volume knob and a dedicated switch, to assign the pickup to either of the two outputs. There are no tone-knobs (never use them anyways) and no Master-Volume knob (I'd rather work with volume pedals). The 4 pickups are always in parallel and selecting which pickup you wanna hear, has to be controlled by the 4 dedicated volume knobs. These 4 volume knobs will also act as push-pull-knobs, which will switch the phase of the corresponding pickup. Again, this guitar doesn't have to work as a live instrument, where quick pickup-switching by means of switch-blades are necessary (although I'm open to other wiring options, which integrate the convenience of quick switching with the tonal flexibility of 4 dedicated volume knobs).

Now I'm still not quite sure with the pickup-choice. I used the bridge-setting on my Telecaster a lot and loved it. My bridge pickup will definitely be a tele-style (Lollar '52 is my current favorite). The neck pickup is gonna be a Lollar Gold Foil pickup. Played a guitar with the Gold Foils once and absolutely loved it. The two middle pickups are still up for debate and I'd love to hear your ideas! I played with the idea of putting Seymour Duncan P-Rails with the Triple Shot in there, for ultimate tonal flexibility. Or maybe another Lollar Goldfoil and a conventional Humbucker with the Triple Shots? Do you have any ideas of pickups, that would offer a useful tonal possibilty?

I really do appreciate your feedback and your comments!
Thanks and cheers,
kirky

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Re: Your opinion on my custom-offset plans would be apprecia

Post by marqueemoon » Wed Apr 26, 2017 2:38 pm

Hardtail Strat body with a swimming pool rout.

P90 in the neck
lipstick next
Splittable humbucker
Tele bridge

Install another jack in the pickguard and use the stock location for the other. P90 and HB to one jack and the rest to the other.

That's how I'd do it anyway. Then I'd get a nice guitar for myself with the leftover funds.

I guess you can't get Strat quack this way, but no big loss in my book.

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Re: Your opinion on my custom-offset plans would be apprecia

Post by anionnkirky » Wed Apr 26, 2017 3:12 pm

Thanks for your input! I like the lipstick pickup in the middle. Heard one in the reverb.com pickup-comparison and it sounded awesome in the middle position. I just really want one of those gold foil pickups in the neck area, they sound so clear and defined but also mellow and totally not harsh. But a P90 in the neck position is never wrong, to get that dirty sustain sound in there as well. Hmmm decisions, decisions...
Do you think the sound of the P90 would still be "Les Paul-like" if I moved it one position closer to the bridge? So something like:

Gold Foil in the neck position
P90
Lipstick (or splittable humbucker)
Tele Bridge

Although the Lipstick and Tele Bridge next to each other are maybe not the best solution either...



marqueemoon wrote: I guess you can't get Strat quack this way, but no big loss in my book.
Haha, I share that sentiment!

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Re: Your opinion on my custom-offset plans would be apprecia

Post by hpr_hpr » Wed Apr 26, 2017 4:25 pm

I currently have a JM body with the original P-rails switched as triple shots (in the upper bout) & neck, series, parallel, bridge as well as a phase switch in the lower bout and am quite happy with that . . . lots of different tones from 2 single coils out of phase shrill to 2 series humbuckers in series in phase warm.

. . . . I'm not sure I would use a P-rails for 2 middle pickups, that's a LOT of weight, then again it may not matter that much for a studio guitar.
When thinking about any advice given always ask yourself "why would (s)he know more than I do".

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Re: Your opinion on my custom-offset plans would be apprecia

Post by marqueemoon » Wed Apr 26, 2017 10:45 pm

anionnkirky wrote:Thanks for your input! I like the lipstick pickup in the middle. Heard one in the reverb.com pickup-comparison and it sounded awesome in the middle position. I just really want one of those gold foil pickups in the neck area, they sound so clear and defined but also mellow and totally not harsh. But a P90 in the neck position is never wrong, to get that dirty sustain sound in there as well. Hmmm decisions, decisions...
Do you think the sound of the P90 would still be "Les Paul-like" if I moved it one position closer to the bridge? So something like:

Gold Foil in the neck position
P90
Lipstick (or splittable humbucker)
Tele Bridge

Although the Lipstick and Tele Bridge next to each other are maybe not the best solution either...



marqueemoon wrote: I guess you can't get Strat quack this way, but no big loss in my book.
Haha, I share that sentiment!
I really like the sound of gold foils when other people play them, but my own experiences have been mixed. I also feel that while they have different responses to transients gold foils and P90s are similar in a lot of ways. Gold foil doesn't make the cut for me.

I think the lipstick would make a reasonable stand-in for a tele neck pickup and would not suffer too much being a little closer to the bridge from standard neck position. I'm not a purist though. I actually don't mind the overwound lipsticks provided they're not too crazy hot,

I tend not to like humbuckers alone in the bridge position, but I really do like single pickup guitars with the one pickup in the middle position (Dano U1, Kay Vanguard, etc...), so that's why I suggested that order.

I guess my point was in order to function as intended this is going to be kind of ugly and cobbled together. It's a cool idea though.

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Re: Your opinion on my custom-offset plans would be apprecia

Post by crankheart » Thu Apr 27, 2017 1:07 am

If you definitely want the goldfoil in the neck and it needs to be a jack of all trades guitar, I'd go:
- Goldfoil
- P90/Lipstick
- Humbucker
- Telecaster

I'd be more inclined to move the goldfoil to the middle and have a humbucker and telecaster single coil in the neck and bridge positions, because these would be more typical/familiar sounds for studio clients, especially in rock and pop genres.

Personally I'd do:
- Humbucker
- Lipstick/ P90
- Gold Foil
- Telecaster

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Re: Your opinion on my custom-offset plans would be apprecia

Post by Embenny » Thu Apr 27, 2017 4:58 am

crankheart wrote:If you definitely want the goldfoil in the neck and it needs to be a jack of all trades guitar, I'd go:
- Goldfoil
- P90/Lipstick
- Humbucker
- Telecaster

I'd be more inclined to move the goldfoil to the middle and have a humbucker and telecaster single coil in the neck and bridge positions, because these would be more typical/familiar sounds for studio clients, especially in rock and pop genres.

Personally I'd do:
- Humbucker
- Lipstick/ P90
- Gold Foil
- Telecaster
I think you make some good points.

If you want to really be versatile, maybe consider a humbucker like the Rio Grande Tallboy with alnico rod magnets. The humbucker tone is good, if not slightly different from a PAF, but the split tone is a true, proper strat pickup, and a good one at that. Put that in the neck, and you'll easily get strat neck tones (which are one of the greatest and most familiar tones for recording IMHO), plus a great humbucker tone.

If you're willing to think a bit more outside the box for the bridge pickup, there's even a Tallboy Slant Six, which is an alnico-pole
humbucker whose coils are slanted at the strat angle, so you can get a true single coil bridge tone with more of a strat/tele vibe than a straight/jaguar style single coil, but also get a decently hot bridge humbucker tone (which I would consider essential in a jack-of-all-trades studio guitar - a distorted bridge humbucker is needed for many styles).

I know it sounds less exotic than mixing and matching 4 different kinds of pickups, but rod-pole humbuckers are really the kings of versatility in my books. You can even ask for asymmetrical windings (one coil hotter than the other), which will give you a true, overwound single-coil tone when split (I'd consider this for the bridge pickup, but prefer vintage output neck pickups, YMMV).
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Re: Your opinion on my custom-offset plans would be apprecia

Post by anionnkirky » Thu Apr 27, 2017 10:29 am

marqueemoon wrote: I guess my point was in order to function as intended this is going to be kind of ugly and cobbled together. It's a cool idea though.
Yeah I fear that a bit honestly. It's gonna look so random with all these different pickup looks... but hey whatever

crankheart wrote: I'd be more inclined to move the goldfoil to the middle and have a humbucker and telecaster single coil in the neck and bridge positions, because these would be more typical/familiar sounds for studio clients, especially in rock and pop genres.

Personally I'd do:
- Humbucker
- Lipstick/ P90
- Gold Foil
- Telecaster
Good point. Maybe I have to give up my personal preference of the GF to achieve the goal of a versataille studio guitar...
mbene085 wrote:
I think you make some good points.

If you want to really be versatile, maybe consider a humbucker like the Rio Grande Tallboy with alnico rod magnets. The humbucker tone is good, if not slightly different from a PAF, but the split tone is a true, proper strat pickup, and a good one at that. Put that in the neck, and you'll easily get strat neck tones (which are one of the greatest and most familiar tones for recording IMHO), plus a great humbucker tone.

If you're willing to think a bit more outside the box for the bridge pickup, there's even a Tallboy Slant Six, which is an alnico-pole
humbucker whose coils are slanted at the strat angle, so you can get a true single coil bridge tone with more of a strat/tele vibe than a straight/jaguar style single coil, but also get a decently hot bridge humbucker tone (which I would consider essential in a jack-of-all-trades studio guitar - a distorted bridge humbucker is needed for many styles).

I know it sounds less exotic than mixing and matching 4 different kinds of pickups, but rod-pole humbuckers are really the kings of versatility in my books. You can even ask for asymmetrical windings (one coil hotter than the other), which will give you a true, overwound single-coil tone when split (I'd consider this for the bridge pickup, but prefer vintage output neck pickups, YMMV).
Interesting. Didn't know about the Rio Grande pickups. That indeed seems like a good choice. I saw they also have a bridge pickup called the Twangbucker, that when split, should sound like a tele bridge. Has anybody had any experience with these or read about them? How close does the split sound come to a classic tele bridge?

My current preference looks something like this:

Rio Grande Tallboy in neck (splitable Humbucker)
Lipstick (I think this makes more sense than a P90, since the humbucker in the neck position could take care of most of these P90-neck duties, am I right?)
Gold Foil
Rio Grande Twangbucker

Opinions?

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Re: Your opinion on my custom-offset plans would be apprecia

Post by crankheart » Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:31 am

anionnkirky wrote: My current preference looks something like this:

Rio Grande Tallboy in neck (splitable Humbucker)
Lipstick (I think this makes more sense than a P90, since the humbucker in the neck position could take care of most of these P90-neck duties, am I right?)
Gold Foil
Rio Grande Twangbucker

Opinions?
Sounds good to me! I don't have any experience with Rio Grande pickups, so can't comment. But the lipstick definitely makes sense, the middle position is my favourite place for a lipstick and It'll be good to have a brighter/thinner sound with a looser bass response near the neck, too.

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Re: Your opinion on my custom-offset plans would be apprecia

Post by Embenny » Mon May 01, 2017 6:14 am

anionnkirky wrote: Interesting. Didn't know about the Rio Grande pickups. That indeed seems like a good choice. I saw they also have a bridge pickup called the Twangbucker, that when split, should sound like a tele bridge. Has anybody had any experience with these or read about them? How close does the split sound come to a classic tele bridge?

My current preference looks something like this:

Rio Grande Tallboy in neck (splitable Humbucker)
Lipstick (I think this makes more sense than a P90, since the humbucker in the neck position could take care of most of these P90-neck duties, am I right?)
Gold Foil
Rio Grande Twangbucker

Opinions?
Good call on the Twangbucker. I don't have one, but I've heard good things. Rio Grande is well-regarded and has been around a long time - for this type of project, I'd be very surprised if they didn't meet your expectations. As far as "real" Tele tone goes, just head to TDPRI and watch the vehement debates on whether a Tele with a "cut" bridge or strat bridge or any other type of bridge "truly" sounds like a Tele. Things get feisty. I think, especially in a mix, the Twangbucker would do a good job. The TDPRI club are the types to A/B guitars through identical amp settings and pick things apart so just keep that in mind if you venture over there.

A Lipstick and Gold Foil will definitely provide some very different tones. Are you thinking of adding parallel wiring to the humbuckers as well as split? Sounds thinner than series but a bit different from single coil, so just keep that in mind if you want more "free" tones out of one guitar.

And if that wasn't enough...have you considered "spin-a-split" or "dial-a-tap" wiring, where the second coil of each humbucker has its own volume pot? At 10, you have the full humbucker, and at 0 you have the pure single coil, but you can also select any shade in-between! "Asymmetrical humbucker" would be the term, where you have one full strength coil and one partial-strength coil. A "dial-a-tap" with the second coil turned down roughly halfway would probably be the closest those pickups could come to a P90, though of course there will always be a difference between alnico polepieces and bar magnet pickups.
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