Verne Bunsen
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- 2,472
Re-ressurecting this thread yet again. I'm going to have to name this guitar Remo Williams, because The Adventure Continues.....
Looking through this thread, it occurs to me that I never followed up on that 3-Saddle Strat trem/bridge I got from Rutters. Which is weird, I totally thought I did. Took pictures and everything. It isn't what I came here to post about, but lemme rectify that first.
Firstly, the thing is gorgeous! (Agent Smith for scale)
What I found when I installed it was that, while it looked awesome and the action felt great, the arm was floppy. There was no arm tension whatsoever, it just hung. Not acceptable. So, "in for a dollar in for a dime", I contacted Callaham and bought a suitable replacement block. I have a Callaham trem in my Strat and already knew I like the arm tension provided by his design.
And now it is dang near perfect.....
Now, on to what I actually came to post about. This guitar has been wired with a standard 3-Way switch since I put the WRHBs in, and I've been wanting to try something "different" with it. Put in a 5-Way and add some new sounds. I've got series/parallel and in-phase/out-of-phase covered on other guitars, and these pickups have single conductor leads anyway which precludes that sort of thing. I've always been intrigued by Esquire wiring variations but have never been able to bring myself to stick to a single pickup guitar design, so I decided this would be a perfect time to explore some of that. I settled on the "Arlo mod" (3.3k resistor and 0.01uf capacitor in series with the pickup, 0.005uf capacitor in parallel) and the "Eldred Mod" (0.0047uf capacitor in parallel with the pickup). They are both described as "cocked wah" sounds, but the Arlo is reportedly more "honky" with the Eldred mod described as a dark jazzy sort of sound. I decided to put Arlo on the bridge pickup in position 2 on the switch, and Eldred on the neck pickup in switch position 4, like so:
1: Bridge
2: Bridge + Arlo
3: Bridge + Neck
4: Neck + Eldred
5: Neck
I rounded up a Super Switch and all the components and dove into this thing yesterday. It is really, REALLY cool, I couldn't be happier with the results. I did not take a picture of this thing because, well, it is U-G-L-Y UUUUUUGLY! Probably the ugliest wiring I've ever done. I had to cut unused lugs off the switch to make room, everything is heat shrink and electrical tape because all of those components are all in such close proximity. Truly an abomination. BUT! Everything works flawlessly and sounds great. The bridge with the Arlo mod has a nice honk to it but is rather dark in contrast with the nasally sort of honk you get with out-of-phase. The neck with Eldred is really tasty: dark, similar to the upper circuit on a Jazzmaster, but with a very subtle peaky resonsance. I'll get some audio recorded in the near future :icon_thumright:
Looking through this thread, it occurs to me that I never followed up on that 3-Saddle Strat trem/bridge I got from Rutters. Which is weird, I totally thought I did. Took pictures and everything. It isn't what I came here to post about, but lemme rectify that first.
Firstly, the thing is gorgeous! (Agent Smith for scale)
What I found when I installed it was that, while it looked awesome and the action felt great, the arm was floppy. There was no arm tension whatsoever, it just hung. Not acceptable. So, "in for a dollar in for a dime", I contacted Callaham and bought a suitable replacement block. I have a Callaham trem in my Strat and already knew I like the arm tension provided by his design.
And now it is dang near perfect.....
Now, on to what I actually came to post about. This guitar has been wired with a standard 3-Way switch since I put the WRHBs in, and I've been wanting to try something "different" with it. Put in a 5-Way and add some new sounds. I've got series/parallel and in-phase/out-of-phase covered on other guitars, and these pickups have single conductor leads anyway which precludes that sort of thing. I've always been intrigued by Esquire wiring variations but have never been able to bring myself to stick to a single pickup guitar design, so I decided this would be a perfect time to explore some of that. I settled on the "Arlo mod" (3.3k resistor and 0.01uf capacitor in series with the pickup, 0.005uf capacitor in parallel) and the "Eldred Mod" (0.0047uf capacitor in parallel with the pickup). They are both described as "cocked wah" sounds, but the Arlo is reportedly more "honky" with the Eldred mod described as a dark jazzy sort of sound. I decided to put Arlo on the bridge pickup in position 2 on the switch, and Eldred on the neck pickup in switch position 4, like so:
1: Bridge
2: Bridge + Arlo
3: Bridge + Neck
4: Neck + Eldred
5: Neck
I rounded up a Super Switch and all the components and dove into this thing yesterday. It is really, REALLY cool, I couldn't be happier with the results. I did not take a picture of this thing because, well, it is U-G-L-Y UUUUUUGLY! Probably the ugliest wiring I've ever done. I had to cut unused lugs off the switch to make room, everything is heat shrink and electrical tape because all of those components are all in such close proximity. Truly an abomination. BUT! Everything works flawlessly and sounds great. The bridge with the Arlo mod has a nice honk to it but is rather dark in contrast with the nasally sort of honk you get with out-of-phase. The neck with Eldred is really tasty: dark, similar to the upper circuit on a Jazzmaster, but with a very subtle peaky resonsance. I'll get some audio recorded in the near future :icon_thumright:
