The Stratocaster,a personal history.

[SayN]

^ I just had one of those moments for me when the 'Like' button just doesn't really cut it.

 

that was so cool!

[Sallubrious]

It seems like I've been infected by Fender envy/cheap copy acquisition syndrome.

 

I picked up another Chinacaster last night for $40 that is basically brand new and my old man heard I was interested and he got one off ebay for me. So in less than a week I've gone from not having an electric guitar to having 3 Strat knockoffs. Why have just one when 3 will do ?

 

The one I got last night sounded like shit even when it was in tune but after good once over it seems like it will be a good entry level guitar for my boy to learn on. I think the bloke who owned it before sold it because of how it sounded, open strings were fine but the intonation was so far out that any fretted notes or chords sounded wrong.  After tweaking the intonation and fixing the nut, string trees and the action it can be played without sounding offensive - even by myself. It's the best $40 I've ever spent.

[Horus]

Good one Sall.......see Strats are magic.... as soon as you start intentioning them they manifest.

Unfortunately your contemplation was for Chinese cheapos, and thats what you got !

Sucks, you should have cast your spell onto that mad Cardboard Custom !! LOL

 

Sounds like this is the start of your stock of parts, to start Hot Rodding guitars for your kids.

Sounds like your picking up this as a nice little hobby, its great when you can make a successful transformation,

and make that Ugly Duckling a Golden Goose !

And hear and feel the results, turn a 40 bucker into a 4 hungee.....sweet.

[Sallubrious]

Yeah that's the go. I'll start focusing on limited edition Strats from now on. One definition of psychedelic means manifest with the mind, so maybe I need some acid to help channel my intentions.

 

I might have to manifest a neck for the first one I got, it seems to have a bit of a twist in it that I didn't notice before I pulled it off and measured it properly. The body is almost finished being painted so if I slap a ridgy didge Fender neck on it I'll have half Fender custom frankenstrat that should sound sweet after I rebuild the pickups.

[FancyPants]

 

Hey Fancy Pants, great you have chosen Fender to make cool sounds, get Santa to buy you a nice Echo unit to fill the vibrational space, where less can be more and noodling for newbies can be bliss.

 

 

 

I've got a little Fender G-Dec 15watt amp that has a whole range of tones I can play with :D I'm not really into playing along with a playing song yet, I just love tweaking the amp to get different tones out of the guitars. Pink Swirl is psychedelically awesome, fills the notes and sounds lovely from the strat to the tele and even with my old cheapie sx semi acoustic.

[Sallubrious]

Have you seen any of the smartphone guitar apps @FancyPants ?

 

I've never had guitar lessons from a teacher, so I can't compare an app to a real teacher but I've been using an app lately & it's helped me enormously.

 

I got one called Justin Guitar & in less than a week I've gone from making annoying noises to having sing alongs with the kids. It starts off really simple with just 2 chords where you only play the first note of each bar and then you move on to playing 4 notes per bar without strumming the actual rhythm of the song ( you just strum on the beat) but by the time you get to that stage it's like your subconscious mind takes over and starts playing the tune for real.

 

The early songs don't follow the full chord progressions like the real song would, they are a simplified cut down version that's packaged into a lesson to get beginners strumming and having fun. If I didn't have the phone in front of me I'd be lost but when it's running the app and giving me a beat and showing what chords to play I can really have a lot of fun. It also has exercises and lots of video lessons. Justin is enthusiastic and gets straight to the point, so it would be hard not to learn while using his material.

 

I saw another app called Guitar Tricks which seemed OK but they want about 250 bucks for the full version. I tried the free version and seemed to have a lot of content but the free stuff was like watching paint dry and didn't seem worth pursuing.

[Sallubrious]

Here I go spamming Horus' thread out with shit about Strat copies - sorry Horus.

 

I finished repainting the green Aria Strat copy & it turned out quite well considering how much blending I had to do to fudge in the different coloured pieces of wood it is made from.  It looks black around the edges under indoor light but when the sun hits it looks more like an opaque burgundy colour because of the way I built the layers up.

 

The tremolo bridge was stuck on the slot that was routed for it & the neck needed to be shimmed, so after after a few tweaks it's a better guitar now than it ever was.

 

Edited May 24, 2017 by Sallubrious

[Horus]

Hey Sall, 

Keep up the good work with the restorations and spamming my thread.

Until I can bomb it with some video clips.

Ive put a call out thru my arty associates to enlist somebody to film some archival pieces.

Some acoustic and electric, document my antique instruments. A garden tour, and the definitive Utube piece on Tibetan skulls.

Make a day of it, I love first take improvisation.

 

The tail end of this thread has inspired me into some next level guitar tweeking. 

Going thru all my pieces and giving them a good go over. 

"Stay tuned"  pun intended.

 

Aria looks great Sall, I will get around one day to put it thru its paces.

[FancyPants]

On 10/05/2017 at 10:26 AM, Sallubrious said:

Have you seen any of the smartphone guitar apps @FancyPants ?

 

I've never had guitar lessons from a teacher, so I can't compare an app to a real teacher but I've been using an app lately & it's helped me enormously.

 

I got one called Justin Guitar & in less than a week I've gone from making annoying noises to having sing alongs with the kids. It starts off really simple with just 2 chords where you only play the first note of each bar and then you move on to playing 4 notes per bar without strumming the actual rhythm of the song ( you just strum on the beat) but by the time you get to that stage it's like your subconscious mind takes over and starts playing the tune for real.

 

The early songs don't follow the full chord progressions like the real song would, they are a simplified cut down version that's packaged into a lesson to get beginners strumming and having fun. If I didn't have the phone in front of me I'd be lost but when it's running the app and giving me a beat and showing what chords to play I can really have a lot of fun. It also has exercises and lots of video lessons. Justin is enthusiastic and gets straight to the point, so it would be hard not to learn while using his material.

 

I saw another app called Guitar Tricks which seemed OK but they want about 250 bucks for the full version. I tried the free version and seemed to have a lot of content but the free stuff was like watching paint dry and didn't seem worth pursuing.

 

I got a Line6 sonic port which you line in the guitar lead and out to the iPad or phone which works great, and have GuitarTuna but haven't played around with many effects cos the GDec amp has so much on it. I've heard of Justin Guitar and a lot of people swear by it! I used to watch a lot of YouTube vids to help too. Lately I've just been noodling with both guitars and the bass (squier jag short scale with amp... cos I'm a girl lol), but I'm swapping that bass with my partner (while he's back in sydney) for our Ibanez fretless 5 string for something different. Love the sound of fretless. Need to get his bass effects unit fixed so I can make funky alien sounds.

 

Sick strat, too :D

 

This is are my toys :D The strat has been upgraded by a luthier and the orange fluoro strings look tacky but I love it :D

 

    

Oh my partner's selling his Hagstrom swede Ultralux...

 

 

 

Waiting for Horus!

 

 

[Sallubrious]

Yeah I'm sure it will be worth the wait. Horus is a wizard with any stringed instrument.

 

I've been checking out mandolins lately myself @FancyPants , I've wanted one for years. I was planning on doing my guitar in a sunburst style like your Squire but the colour of the wood it's made from wasn't conducive to that, so I had to go a lot darker.  Nice geode in the background too, I have a bookend pair that look remarkably similar to that

 

I don't have a Unicorn yet though.

[FancyPants]

^^ lol the unicorn was superfunhappymushtime. I really like the traditional tobacco burst colour, but I like variety moreso so while I've given my partner the squier bass to use while I use the ibanez, he's going to change out the pickups to Fender J and P bass ones and I'll get his friend to respray that one, probably with a design I've drawn  over the years, have yet to pick one out though. The mind goes crazy thinking of the possibilities! I'm going to ask him to build me a guitar from scratch and design the whole thing myself, with the bottom cutaway fitting my legs perfectly because it's hard for me to balance most guitars on my lap properly which makes it hard to use my left hand properly. 

 

That's actually an Oud on the lounge there, my partner always wanted one so he bought that one but never got around to playing it much, so while we've been selling our stuff to get money he sold that. He'll buy another one when we're in a better position. I've been fascinated with mandolins since I saw one on the movie Return To Oz lol. 

 

Also, I bought a zoom B1on today (yay credit cards...) to make funky sounds on the bass. It's freaking rad. 

 

I don't think I've heard anything Horus has played yet, I'll have to go looking through the forums to see :D

[Sallubrious]

I've never even heard of an Oud before, I've seen a few instruments on ebay a lot like that listed as Russian or European mandolins. Maybe it's so the listings get more attention, I can't see too many people doing a search for an Oud.

 

I like the f style mandolin shape more myself, I've wanted one ever since I saw the band do a version of Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City one night on a light night TV talk show back in the "90's. The mandolin snapped me out of my drug induced stupor and the tone has stuck in my head ever since. The song was mediocre but the tone of the mandolin has stuck with me forever. 

 

If the Universe ever slips a cog and gives me a break financially, I'll build myself a hand rubbed sunburst F style mandolin. I could buy a Chinese painted burst F style but it just wouldn't be the same.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2017 by Sallubrious

[Horus]

You will just have to use your imagination.

Some pics from my current lounge room set up.

I will challenge that some of the most psychedelic aya events on the planet happen here.

With mother's full guidance of course.

 

I have found someone to shoot some video.  Stay tuned

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2017 by Horus
deleted advertisement for photographer

[Sallubrious]

I was looking on youtube for one of your older vids the other day and I couldn't find it Horus. I kept getting hits for a video game - Colonel Hawk and none of you.

 

It was you in your kitchen doing a version of Who do you love. Do you know if it's still on youtube for public view or if it's gone or been made private ect ?

Edited June 3, 2017 by Sallubrious

[ThunderIdeal]

4 hours ago, Sallubrious said:

Colonel Hawk

 

New nickname?

 

New nickname.

[FancyPants]

Jesus Christ, Horus. That room gets me wet. And is why I will never ever ever sell any of my books - someday I may actually be able to unpack them all and have them all out in the one big room with a comfy lounge and guitars/bass within hands reach of the lounge. It's amazing what fun can be had with even just an ipad too, I've got a iKaossilator pad, iMoog, and a few others to have fun with on it. Have yet to setup with the sonicport to play the guitars and zoom bass doodad through the ipad though. 

 

 

[Horus]

Hey Sall,

I locked all my utube vids, I think I can do much better now.

"who do you love" was on a cheap Yamaha. Got a Gibson Jumbo now.

Also, dont really want my face on the forum.

When I do a vid for this thread it will be from the neck down, you all understand.

 

Yeah books are lovely Fancy pants, may have to start a 

"Show off your rarest occult book" thread.

Jolly ! my mind just went into a gridlock trying to think which book that might be.

 

[Horus]

Was only a matter of time I suppose,before somebody made an ayahuasca Stratocaster. Despite some people thinking it disrespectful to play really psychedelic electronic music during a session, I find my vine loves to have a play on a Strat when its in me. And the improvisations are so interesting.
So this is just natural evolution of "stuff".
Made with Ayahuasca vine, Ayahuasca and chacruna leaf grout complete with 24k gold fittings. 
On the Christmas wish list.

Edited October 5, 2017 by Horus

[FancyPants]

Oh wow! That is a very interesting guitar! What does it sound like? 
 

i know you’ve had a LOT more interaction with Mother than I have, but I’ve never got the feeling that plants care about such things. Since there is nothing new under the sun and that vibrations are vibrations. I’d assume they care more for the how pleasing the sound is rather than what made it. And also how it makes us feel when we take the plant into us.