Archive for March, 2010
Pink1 and 002BA Progress
Project Pink1 and 002BA (details on oo1BA here ) are underway. If you are aware of what the “black1″ is then this will make more sense to you. I made a prototype strat a while ago out of an old (80′s) Fender USA strabody and 40′th aniversay strat neck, with some custom wound pickups from Bare Knuckle Pickups. The project was to make a less harsh strat and experiment a little with sounds, setups and playability on the strat. it was a big sucess to me, and my guitar tech really liked it too as a strat, different from the norm and very playable. Taking what I learnt from that, with a bit more thought I decided to make a next generation model which for reasons which will become clear in a minute is called “pink1″. A big part of the features of the prototype partsocaster nick named MDJM was based on a sound from John Mayer’s custom shop stratocaster “black1″, and some of the parts for pink one have been taken from a John Mayer signature strat, in this case the neck. I pickedup a John Mayer 2009 Fender signature stratocaster neck for a snippet of the price, which has a nice C shape profile which I like on it. It’s currently had the laquer removed from it which I now do as a matter of personal taste, despite the think satin laquer on it. This neck has a nice African Rosewood board on it and the longer string tree placement, so should suit me perfectly and fix a few of the issues I had with the MDJM. The body has been found from a another 1982 alder stratocaster body which is a great lump of wood, and I’ve found a 1972 USA Fender trem unit. That’s where that currently sits at the moment.
001BA was a telecater project I wanted to build, initially I wanted it to come direct from Fender, or even the custom shop, but from what I wanted (telecater with a minibucker neck pickup and rosewood board) didn’t exist from Fender, and the custom shop price for these minor alternations was crazy high. 002BA is another telecater project in the same style, I wanted a slightly different sounding telecater and found the La Cabronita telecaster from the Fender custom shop, however this is £5000, and for what it is, well, it’s a lot of money. Plus I wanted a two pickup version rather than their standard one, so 002BA will be my own take on a custom shop telecaster and it certainly won’t cost £5000. Wroking with a luthier we’ve selected body wood (alder) and working out some template patterns for shape and layout. It’s very early yet, but it is moving.
Vomit stops music
I was supposed to meet a bass player and a drummer this weekend and was really looking forward to it, however since Thursday evening I’ve been feeling progressivly worse/sick, with what started out as a very minor cold to feeling like utter crap over the weekend. I’ve not been able to get in contact with either the guys I was supposed to meet up with, so I’m hopeful they are not annoyed and still keen to meet up to talk about playing. I think I’m over the worse of it now and coming out the other side, but I won’t know until tomorrow, thankfully it’s a short week this weekend and I can hopefully make ammends and do some music next week.
Slow moving band mates
I’ve had a few people to contact in the last week or so, and had some really good and positive exchanges over email, it’s been a slow process but I’m starting to move towards meeting people (my working situation makes it slow). Quite excited about a drummer I’ve had really good communication from and a singer songwriter who I don’t think will do “my” thing, but seems worth meeting up with, chatting more about doing something different, he seems keen and well structured in his approach. Had contact from a bass player who seems like a really nice lad, however I’m a bit worried about this as on research he’s a young guy, really young and I’m a fair bit older so I don’t think he’ll either want to play with me, or want to play the sort of thing I want to play (looks very emo) but that said lets find out, don’t know to you ask and meet up. Had some other responses too, but they have either been no-go from the start or taking a really long time to progress. It’s shocking how few people will talk to you without you sending them at least three tracks (and by the way if you are asking for tracks to be emailed to you STOP using yahoo and hotmail address that can’t take big files, get a proper email account, you want me to take you seriously yet you have a limited free email account called metal_maniac_238472394@freemail.com – it’s a two way street you know). What happened to the good old days, of meeting up, seeing if you where on the same page personally, then jamming, rather than expecting people starting a new project to have amazing quality recordings up front before people will talk to you. Most of the people I’ve met who have asked for these sort of pre-requisits have sucks as musicians, it’s the ones that are just keen to talk/meet/play any way that I’ve had the best response from (few exceptions to the rule if you’re one of the guys I’m meeting who asked for tapes).
(note just realised I called them “tapes” – I’ll not change that, but just keep it for ammusment of how things have changed. That was a genuine typo though. )
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- Cracking first practice with new band mates 3 hrs ago
- phew, almost had to call of our first practice together, found practice space at the last minute. Thanks POM studios </plug> 10 hrs ago
- @ElgeeLovers please confirm both you and @bradders made it out alive. in reply to ElgeeLovers 12 hrs ago
- @VodafoneUK it's not odd, I've made many posts on your forum about my poor experiences this last year, with no resolution responses. in reply to VodafoneUK 16 hrs ago
- I've been worken up twice now to have my ticket checked. Stations have ticket barriers, so whats the point of conducters checking my ticket? 18 hrs ago
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