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Dreaming up a Garcia-inspired Build

Hodgo

Hodgo

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IMG_9466.pngLet’s call it “crouching Tiger, hidden Gator”. For those of you familiar with Jerry’s guitars, you know he liked to experiment. Coil splits? Sure. Boost? Yep. Onboard Effects Loops? He did it.

So I’m thinking about something that pays homage, without going full replica. How would you do it?

I think a roasted ash Strat body, rosewood top, and light wood laminate line would have some Alembic flavor. Maybe with an inlaid wooden pickguard, three humbuckers? Gold hardware? 🤔
 
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Hodgo said:
View attachment 64615Let’s call it “crouching Tiger, hidden Gator”. For those of you familiar with Jerry’s guitars, you know he liked to experiment. Coil splits? Sure. Boost? Yep. Onboard Effects Loops? He did it.

So I’m thinking about something that pays homage, without going full replica. How would you do it?

I think a roasted ash Strat body, rosewood top, and light wood laminate line would have some Alembic flavor. Maybe with an inlaid wooden pickguard, three humbuckers? Gold hardware? 🤔
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Maybe let's call it "Crouching Tiger Hidden Wiener?"
 
Not really inspired by Garcia, but pickup config is the same as Tiger.

Interesting thing about Tiger is the external effects loop that is placed between pickup selector and the volume control. One of the toggle switches allows the effects loop to be switched IN / OUT. The effects loop is driven by a buffer amp inside the guitar. I didn't include this feature in my guitar as I don't have the need for it.
 

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Hello - I really like the idea of an inspired by homage not a replica. Medium to Dark wood top, gold hardware, and hardtail would be a great combo. Among Warmoth choices I might go with Figured Walnut over Rosewood if available. It's a little more interesting to look at. A dark wood top will naturally contrast and show a thin border all around with normal Strat edge radius. I don't think a laminate line is needed unless you want light in between a dark top and dark back like Rosewod top / light lam / Mahogany back.

I can see the advantage of getting it routed for unversal / 3 humbuckers. You can always swap pickguard if you want a different config. I think the control layout in the mockup would need a larger than normal cavity under the pickguard to fit all those controls and a preamp, and probably a separate battery cavity on back would be easiest. I personally have never been able to execute a stable pickguard the size of a Strat that didn't warp into oblivion :LOL: even with thin laminate layers

I do also think the pickup layout depends if you're trying to cop a specific era of tones directly or not. I had a housemate back in the day who listened to almost nothing but Dead and Jerry. We'd do basement jams of their stuff. American Beauty to Europe 1972 era the tones are pretty rootsy. You can get there with just a standard Strat and Twin Reverb. Even the first custom guitar Wolf was just a high end riff on a hardtail Strat it literally started out with 3 Fender pickups. It was later 70's when he started morphing to the heavy Cocobolo custom guitars with onboard buffer to drive the effects laden sound. Then onto heavily processed 80's rack tone and MIDI spaced out sound. I love those Tiger and Rosebud guitars they're gorgeous but as the guitars got more complicated the tone got worse IMO😬

We never did it, but we talked about building a guitar with that same single-humbucker-humbucker layout. It probably would have been DiMarzio Super Distortions with mini-toggles to split. Those give you a grinding single coil tone you can't clean up when split. Maybe there are better options now.
 
Spud said:
Maybe let's call it "Crouching Tiger Hidden Wiener?"
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Jokes aside I’m now dreaming of a hybrid Garcia inspired guitar called Crouching Tiger Hidden Gator… a Strat made of exotic woods with a hybrid of Tiger pickups and Gator controls… mmmmm. I don’t even like the Dead that much, but I love unnecessarily complex guitars.
 
This is a really cool idea, and I think you have a shot at building a 10+ pounder. To achieve full complexity though I think you need the effects loop. If one cable jack is good, then two is better right?
 
sdeeg said:
This is a really cool idea, and I think you have a shot at building a 10+ pounder. To achieve full complexity though I think you need the effects loop. If one cable jack is good, then two is better right?
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Oh man, the OBEL. I forgot about that.

Let us not forget that Jerry was into some experimental stuff that we need attempt to replicate ;)
 
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