talk to me about two things

Well I commend you for taking the time to research and discover what you want. I did the same thing. I read this forum for about 11 months before joining, and before placing my orders with Warmoth and USACG. Like you, I wanted to do it right the first time, and I wanted something custom to my specs as opposed to a production line guitar, which I already had several of.

The end result was very satisfactory.
 
I spent 3 months just asking questions before I attempted my first build
and I am really glad I waited, I learned so much
I see a lot of stuff on ebay that is just projects gone wrong and wonder if the guys who did it even ever considered research.
I mean I ask a lot of dumb questions, but I have not totally screwed the pooch yet. I have made mistakes but they done on practice material.
I advice anyone to go do research first, then practice on no project wood, then do it for real. I sometimes wonder what some of these guys were thinking when II see some of the stuff being passed off on ebay, remember a few months back the guy with the totally batched routing job who was selling it as "have done all the routing for you, routing will be covered by pickguard." Sheesh, he needs to be shot.
 
B3Guy said:
1. Is it good or bad for a guitar body to vibrate when played (considering my desire for a singing guitar)? does this help or hurt sustain, etc?

The body has no choice but to vibrate when the strings are struck, since they're attached to each other. Has to do with those pesky laws of physics. Inertia and F=MA and all that. How much it vibrates depends on how dense and stiff the wood is, how tight the neck-to-body joint is, how firmly attached the strings are (tuners/nut/bridge) and the string-to-body weight ratio, among other things. How's that for a pile of widely variable variables?

I know that's not what you're asking, though <grin>

Generally speaking, a guitar whose body is vibrating a lot is absorbing a lot of energy from the strings, so you're going to lose sustain. If string vibration gets absorbed, there's less for the pickups to hear, which is death on an electric, while being highly desirable on an acoustic. Of course, the inverse is also true. That's why your heavier electrics such as Les Pauls and Telecasters sing so well. There's a lot of mass in the body, so inertia dictates that it's going to tend to stand still without some serious energy input. Standing still means less absorption, so the strings vibrate longer. Of course, there's a limit - you don't want to make a guitar out of granite or cast iron. It would be unmanageable.

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Not gun doit. Wouldn't be prudent.

On the other end of the scale, something too light or with too many joints is going to absorb too much vibration and sound dead, even though the body will be vibrating like a couple hot & bothered teenagers after the Homecoming Dance. Here again, good for acoustics, death for electrics. That's why you'll see spruce and cedar used to build acoustics, but never electrics.

As far as tone goes, given any suitable wood species, the density, stiffness and grain orientation translates into woods that will absorb some frequencies more than others. That's where you find preferences for Mahogany vs. Alder or Swamp Ash vs. Poplar or Korina vs. Maple, and so on. The difference aren't outstanding, but they are audible and to some degree, measurable. But, what's the scale? Sometimes, saying one wood is brighter than another is sorta like saying jumping off the 34th floor of a building is more damaging to your skull than jumping off the 28th floor. From a practical point of view, there's no difference, regardless of what physicists might say.

So, the bad news is that no matter how much you know about a particular species you can't predict with much accuracy what it's going to do. For instance, Swamp Ash is a popular choice for solid body guitars, but how it responds depends a great deal on the age of the tree, what part of the tree you've used, how it's been cut, etc. That's why you've heard all the stories about "The One That Got Away". Between the variability of the wood and what used to be the variability of pickups, you could play 10 seemingly identical guitars and get 10 different sounds. One of them might be magic to your ears. Or none of them. Who knows? Nowadays, pickups are pretty predictable, but trees still do pretty much whatever the hell they want when they're growing.

Fortunately, using the wood species most builders do, the body/neck plays a lot less of a role in the sound of an electric guitar than the pickups do, so you can play retrofit games quite a bit to get where you need to go. It's like most problems - you just have to throw money at it.

B3Guy said:
2. Single coil Pickups: Hot or not? Will hot pickups or normal pickups be better for what I'm wanting? I want to make sure that the neck and middle pickups really sing. What about the bridge pickup? most starts I play have a lot of bite in the bridge, which is fine (as long as the other pickups can give me the juice). Would it be better to take the "bite" sound and run with it in the bridge, and what pickup type will be good for this?

Here again, we can only speak in generalities. Usually, the hotter the pickup, the worse the frequency response, and it's the high end that suffers. Or, it may be that the low end is augmented. I've never put it on a scope to see, because it doesn't really matter. The end result is the same.

But, a hot pickup will usually beat on your amp's preamp stage, which can sometimes translate into some pleasant distortion. There is some risk of character loss, though.

Lower output pickups usually have a more balanced and musical character, but if you wanna wank and crank Ted Nugent style, it ain't happening without some electronic help.

Pole design, magnet material, number of winds and gauge of wire, among other things are some of the variables involved there. Again, generally speaking, ceramic magnets tend to make for edgier sounding pickups, while alnicos are a little more refined. Some manufacturers are even using Neodymium now, although I'm not sure if it has a particular character associated with it. They just have incredibly strong fields for their size, so you can build some unusual configurations. Bill Lawrence and GFS both make Neodymium-based pickups, for instance.

So, you pays yer munny and you makes yer choice. It's mostly luck and voodoo.
 
Incidentally, as long as I'm on a rant... <grin>

Don't discount the amp. Can you imagine Joe Satriani or Robin Trower through Ampegs, or Buck Owens through Marshalls or Al DiMeola through a Fender Champ? They'd all lose something serious - like "their" sound. You could probably hand any of them any old guitar and they'd be magical on it, but the amp would kill them.
 
Cagey said:
Incidentally, as long as I'm on a rant... <grin>

Don't discount the amp. Can you imagine Joe Satriani or Robin Trower through Ampegs, or Buck Owens through Marshalls or Al DiMeola through a Fender Champ? They'd all lose something serious - like "their" sound. You could probably hand any of them any old guitar and they'd be magical on it, but the amp would kill them.

Currently using (and will for some time) my dad's Gibson Super Goldtone (the one with a 10" and a 12") . . . great 2-channel with treble-mid-bass-vol-revverb for each (along with drive for the dirty channel and a boost circuit and effects loop). With all those knobs, it seems capable of making most guitars sound pretty good. OF course I would die to have his Victoria, but I'd have to pry it from his cold dead hands at this point, and once I had it, I'd need a Fender Rhodes to go with it  :icon_thumright:
 
Neodymium is gonna become a thing of the past. The U.S. Government has declared that it is a precious metal, and therefore the price is gonna triple. Carvin just stopped using neodymium for their speaker magnets for that reason.
 
No kidding? Got any links? Because it's used heavily for very small speakers like you have in cell phones and portable computers of all stripes, and for voice coil motors in HDDs, both of which are produced by the 100s of millions annually. Although, the HDD application could fall by the wayside over the next 5-10 years as SSDs get larger and cheaper.
 
Super Turbo Jack Ace Deluxe Custom said:
Carvin doesn't make their speakers.  Their neo replacements and cabs with neos are still available at the same prices.

I just spoke with Carvin on the phone last week and once those Neo speakers are sold, they will not be offering them anymore. Of course those magnets are HUGE, so perhaps the cost increase won't be that much for pickups, cell phones, etc. I really don't know for sure...
 
Super Turbo Jack Ace Deluxe Custom said:
Is Carvin dropping the BRX line (Neo equipped)? 

I don't know, but I just bought two LS-series 18-inch Subs from them. The name will be the same except they are dropping the "N" from the model number.

(By the way, those subs thump pretty good)
 
When I was building my first strat, I considered the same things you are.

I don't own a chambered body, but I've done my share of research on them and it seems like just splitting hairs. So, I can't really speak much for that.

As far as pickups go, if you want a sweet blues tone, you can't go wrong with an over-wound set of single coil pickups. 95% of what I play is blues and my favorite set of pickups is the Fralin Vintage Hots. They're thick, chunky, but still retain that hollow, bell-like chime that only a set of single coils can give you.
 
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