Archive for October, 2009
Magerey Strat Comes Home To Roost
Well, it’s finally here. I’ve been meaning to put this post up for a few weeks now but not actually got my act togther enough to take the photos and document it. Last year for my Birthday my partner Laura was stuck for something to get me, we talked about guitars and their offensive price tags (well the ones I like any way). I’m a fan of not only Jimi Hendrix, but of one of his guitars also.
- Monterey Hendrix
The famous Monterey Straocastert, Jimi played and set fire to this at the Monterey music festival in 1967. I loved the individaual style of the guitar and the modern “child like” graphics painted on it. I’m a big fan of graffiti art and this guitar to me was in the same style. I’m not a fan of tribute or copy guitars, nor am I a fan of paying between £8000 – £14000 for one of the limited Fender Custom shop versions of this guitar. I am however a proud player of the Fender strat…..a plan was formed. Without £8000 to flush on a guitar for me, Laura was stuck, however she is a very skilled artist ( see her website http://www.orangemagpie.co.uk) so she sat down with me and decided to design me an interperatation of the famous Monterey Strat. a few weeks of talking, drawing and playing around with ideas and the concept was finished. Taking colours I liked, shapes and forms I like, Laura came up with my own Monterey Strat design. I had Fender USA 1962 re-issue guitar that I liked but was in a tacky graffiti yellow colour, and had pickups that where just too hot for 62 Strat. I took this as an oppertunity to fix that. I sent the guitar away with Laura’s design to have it stripped and re-sealed. I then had the new design applied to the unfinished body, had the neck taken back to a no-finish wood , just how I like it and had Tim at Bare Knuckle Pickups (www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk) send me a set of my custom wound pickups. A quick setup from my guitar tech Andy Manners and it’s ready.
- Magerey Stratocaster
I’ve called the guitar the “Magerey” Stratocaster in tribute to her artists name of “Orange Magpie”, so Monterey becomes “Mag-e-ray” The guitar plays great now, it sounds great too and I now have a personal tribute to one of my favourite guitars and guitarists as well as a great birthday gift that will provide many happy memories. It’s not been gigged yet, I’ll let you know when it’s been road tested.
Gear Slut’s ahoy – pedals
I’ve recently picked up some new bits of kit.
The first interesting purchase are 3 new guitar effects pedals.
Boss CE2 1982
My first is the Boss CE2. This is a chorus effects pedal, mass production – nothing special at al. The fact is this is a good pedal even now, however this one is special. This is one of the orignial made pedals from Japan. The Japanese pedals have much high quality components than the current production models, this makes it a little more expensive than the current production models but well worth it. Yes it’s a little battered but the look of it doesn’t really matter, it’s a great bit of kit. I’ve not been a chorus fan for a long time, but as I’ve been playing with sounds for a while now I’ve manged to find a few bits of music I’m writing. I don’t think I’ll ever be a real chorus fan but I am enjoying playing with a few more modern sounds than the classic clean sounds I’ve been using (I’m also enjoying a few of the driven sounds).
Metatone Howie
I’ve also taken ownership of a Metatone “Howie” pedal. This pedal is fantastic, it is a Dumble amp simulator. I’f you don’t know what a Dumble amp is, it’s a very hard to get hold of guitar amplifier made by a famous amp builder called Dr Alexander “Howard” Dumble (hence the name of the pedal is “Howie”. Alexander Dumble puts very strict rules in place about people owning his amps and there are supposed to be only 300 amplifiers made. For mortals like me, this is a great alternative. It simulates the clean sound and light break up of a Dumble amp while also providing a second foot switch which activates the second channel of the virtual Dumble amp making the overdrive channel active. This pedal provides a great approxmiation of the Dumble sound and really blends in well with my amps natural sound. Very pleased with it. I’ve also noticed this pedal is also quite hard to find, so I think I’ll be keeping hold of it. It’s not made it onto my pedal board yet for live use.
- T-Rex Dr Swamp, version 2
My last pedal purchase is the T-Rex Dr Swamp pedal. I’ve loved T-Rex pedals for ages, they are a boutique brand from Denmark and make some fantastic pedals. I’ve always like the Dr Swamp model too. T-Rex have recently released a version 2 of the Dr Swamp pedal, so with news of this I’ve opened my wallet and purchased. The Dr Swamp pedal is yet another over drive pedal, it’s got two totally seperate channels though almost like an amp with 2 drive channels, you can have two very distinctive driven sounds, one mild crunch and one heavey distortion for example and switch between the two with one foot switch. Press the right foot switch and the left disengages while the right engages and the reverse it true also. This is a big plus unless you’re using a looper or midi effects controller as normally you have to turn off the other pedal as the new one comes on, this is seemless and smooth. Other pedals do this and it’s not a massive unique selling point (look at the Howie above) however the drive tones out of the Dr Swamp are great, and the big plus is the two channels have seperate tone and driver and volume controls. This allows you to not only set different drive levels per channel, but colour the sound with tone control or even give yourself a volume boost. This pedal is great, I’ve not stopped playing with it all day. It works really well with my Fender amps too. Very happy with this.
Birthday Pause
Well, today is my birthrday and although I’ve not posted a new blog entry for a few weeks a few good and interesting things have been going on, all mixed in with the dry 9-5 routine. I’ll make this a quick post as I’m off away on a secret adventure (genuinly I have no idea), so I’m syncing my ipod with some new tracks (Perl Jam Back Spacer/David Gray - Draw The Line) from my birthday gifts, and I’m away however I will put some more worth while updates on tommorow and during the week to catch up and get back in sync.
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