Customising an acoustic guitar

We've all done it, or know someone who has done it.
At the very least we've all played a guitar that's been customized.
Most common customization on an electric guitar is the pick ups or the bridge.
Then there's the finish, the scratchplate, the nut, machine heads, you can go on and on with an electric, to the point where you have the old " this is my great granfathers original axe, my granfather replaced the handle and my father replaced the head" style of thing.
But what about acoustic guitars?
There's not really a lot you can do with an acoustic. There's no pick ups to replace, the bridge is bolted and glued onto the body, if you mess with the finish you can mess with the tone.

I've been sort of customizing my acoustic over the years without realising, and indeed without intending to.

I have a Crafter FSG 250E.

Nice little guitar and suitable for the purpose. I've had it 11 years now and have been happy with it all this time.
Not long after I got it I made the first change. Purely for aesthetic reasons I replaced the machine heads. The stock Crafter machine heads were fine, kept tune and were relativley stable, but they were chrome, I wanted gold. So I bought a set of gold grovers and fitted them, like I say it was purely aesthetic reasons.

 

I never intended to make any other changes, but circumstances sometimes take over. I mainly used the guitar for home use and home recording. Then I started going to various open mic nights with the guys I was in a band with.

This particular model came fitted with a passive pick up. This was fine in itself, but meant if I wanted to amplify the guitar it would have to through an amp. At most of the open mics I went to, although amps were provided and I could take my own if neccesary, I thought it would be better if I could just plug into the PA directly, meaning all I had to take with me would be the guitar. So a few years ago I looked for an active pick up. I trawled guitar forums to find the best one......turns out it was about £300!!, so I read up as much as I could to find a more reasonable priced one, I'm not tight, just skint, but I wasn't going to buy the cheapest one I could find, just the most expensive I could afford.

As most people are aware it's not the price that matters at the end of the day, it's all about the actual quality. Now I'm not saying a £300 Fishman won't be good, but by the same token a £10 chinese piezo might not be crap.

The eventual pick up I bought cost about £30, I got it on eBay. It's RRP was £60, but I was patient enough to trawl ebay until I found what I wanted at the price I wanted. That's the beauty of eBay, if there's something you want, as long as you're patient, you don't have to pay full price for it.

So after a while I managed to get it. Cos it was active, and had a battery compartment as well as more than just volume and tone, it was a bit bigger than the original. So I had to enlarge the hole where the control unit fitted. Not a major job and didn't cause and damage to the guitar or affect the overall tone.

The operation was a roaring success.

( there should be a photo here, but I've tried and tried but can't get any of the photos to load, sorry )

So anyway that was that.

 

Then one day I was bored and trawling through eBay...............

I was actually looking for a soundhole cover when I came across an "O" port.

What was this strange device? I googled it, read the company blurb ( obviously they said is was the greatest thing since sliced bread, so I read through a few guitar forums. To be honest they didn't help one little bit. There was a definate 50/ 50 split between it being amzing to being a waste of money. So all that was left for me to do was buy one and decide for myself. After all it wasn't expensive.

A couple of days later it was delivered. I wanted to know what sort of real difference it made, so I recorded a short piece on the guitar, then fitted the "O" port and recorded the same piece.

When I played the two pieces back.....I couldn't tell a blind bit of difference!

I've sort of convinced myself that the mid range tones are a bit better, but to be honest I'm not entirely convinced. In fairness it doesn't detract anything either, so it's a lesson learned.

 

 

The story doesn't end there either.

 

Away back in the 80's there was a device made by a company called Asprii, it was a mechanical device for producing acoustic reverb. I was intrigued, but at £80 a go it was beyond my reach ( my weekly wage at the time was £90, the Asprii's were so hard to find as well).

I always had Asprii on my saved search list on good old eBay and sure enough it popped up one day. Brand new, loads of them, around £50 each ( compared with £80 25 years ago!!)

But I still didn't pay full price, got a used one for £16!

Sure enough it's as easy to fit as the manufacturers say, only takes seconds.

And with this you can hear the difference immediatley. Has an excellent full reverb tone. Wish I had got one away back in the eighties. I would recommend them, the only downside is the reverb isn't noticable in a gigging situation, so it's really for using at home, or if you have a microphone in front of your guitar, but still a nice item to have.

 

 

 

So you can customise an acoustic guitar, even if you don't mean to.

 

 

The Guitar That Hated Me!

So it doesn't look that bad.
This guitar hated me.
I mentioned it in an earlier post, it's an Epiphone Les Paul. The photo's really don't do it justice, it was a beautiful looking guitar, the grain was a beautiful tiger stripe and I loved the look.
But playing it was like wrestling an alligator.

One of the very few guitars I never got on with, and I do mean few. This honestly was hard work. I bought it in 2000, it was made in 1998. I bought it purely on looks, I was in a shop my mate worked in and as I was leaving I saw it on a stand and bought it there and then, it was only £90!
Didn't try it out or anything, total impulse buy.
From day one it just never felt right. Even the way it hung on the strap didn't feel right. When I played it, it felt like it was constantly wriggling out of my grip.
I'm not superstitious or any of that crap, but looking back, this guitar didn't want me to play it. I couldn't get a decent tone out of it, everything sounded clunky. But because of the look, I persevered with it.
Now I'm not putting down Epiphones, this was an excellent guitar. Well made, excellent set up, I just couldn't get to grips with this one, I've played various other Epiphones since, and even own another Epiphone Les Paul, the only problem was this particular guitar.
I looked after it, I polished it regularly, put lemon oil on the fretboard everytime I changed strings. But it was destined not to be.
Eventually, in 2009 I sold it. For 9 years I persevered with it, but realised I wasn't gonna get anything out of it. So it went on Ebay. I'm just glad there were no kids to worry about :-)
I made a decent profit out of it, and used the money to buy my Gretsch.
Not long after I sold it I got an email from the buyer, he loved it, it was his perfect guitar. Which just shows the vagaries of guitar buying.

For the eagle eyed among you, it IS left handed. I'm naturally left handed, but can play guitar either right handed or left handed, I've played both ways at gigs, just to show off. Cos I'm like that.

The Most Beautiful Guitar Ever Made...........? The Tao Phaeton

Came across this in my wanderings, a truly unnatainable object of desire.

Here's the official blurb, goes into enough detail for everyone. Check out www.taoguitars.com

This project started out as a cure for a friend & customer who was diagnosed with a very acute form of the G.A.S (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome).
We offered to make him a unique masterpiece that would both calm his illness and at the same time bring us the opportunity to build our dream guitar with a “carte blanche”. The whole idea was to build a hollow jazz – guitar that could handle high volume feedback in a more compact rounded ergonomic body with a solid body style sustain…

With its anthropomorphic visual and its experimental crafting method made it the most exotic vintage guitar in our eyes – some kind of mythical piece of craft, a milestone in Guitar History. This gave us the guiding conceptual direction for our “Phaeton”.
As explained by Lewis Williams in the first 1903 catalog “front and back made in swelled shape by being carved, leaving the layer grain of the wood in the same position as in its natural growth, thus insuring strength, free vibration, and unusual sympathetic resonance” or “special relatedness and agreements of parts”.

In all its forms, car styling aesthetics are obvious here, from the two tone color scheme to the sound – holes bearing air intake visual reference, the whole thing breathing our love for the golden years of American Car Design.
The “Phaeton” name has always been synonymous with class and luxury in the automobile history.
The models from the 30’s & 40’s are the most striking examples with the likes of Cadillac, Chrysler, Cord, Packard…
After several brainstorming sessions, and the drawings that resulted, we could finally take to our workbenches with heart. As mentioned earlier, we decided to build the guitar as were built Orville’s style 03 : hand carved out of two solid slabs of wood, spruce for the top & mahogany for the back ( most of Orville’s were in walnut ).
Here we are embarked on a long and exciting journey,carving the top in this nutshell fashion. The shape of the top’s face that was quite a challenge, as we couldn’t easily work around it with our caliper, we decided to bring the piece to correct thickness using the spotlight technique : reducing differences in color shades by checking the top over a light source. From scraping to the final sanding, this process took us almost 200 hours to complete and a thousand more to finish the whole instrument… putting our love & passion in the slightest details, from the custom made pot buttons, the handmade ebony carbon layered tailpiece to our magnet locked lexan back plates. Every single part was either custom made or at least customized to our standards ( see specs ).

A YEAR AND A HALF LATER

We were finally able to hear the thing ! This was the most emotional moment of all ! The Phaeton’s sound was as bold as was striking its looks, leaning toward Gretsch character but with a real voice of its own, smooth sparkling highs and super tight and rich basses, the tuning – fork – bar design giving amazing sustain. Although the Phaeton comes in a hot jazz drapings, this guitar could also unleash a more rockin’ attitude when pushed, which was really pleasant to us!

One piece Spanish cedar with ebony fingerboard & headstock cap featuring Tao custom fretting : we start with medium jumbo to the twelfth fret, and finish with smaller ones, giving your fingers more space to play up the neck ; our single bar double action “carbon flex” truss rod ensuring neck stability and superior playing comfort.

One piece Honduran mahogany back with 2 pieces alpine spruce top

Gotoh “Stealth” tuners with matching color buttons and custom short brass bushings ; Compton solid brass compensated bridge with custom made height adjustment wheels

Polished “vintage style” CTS pots, WCR push – push pots (client request), 3 way Switchcraft with custom made button & ring, Russian paper in oil caps, polished electro – socket output jack, custom wound Bare Knuckle Pickups featuring our trademark hand made covers

Automotive DuPont colors (Rover, Bolero Red /sandalwood beige), clear

nitro lacquer top coat.

.....................sigh.....................one day, one. day.................

My Pride and Joy

This is my Gretsch Electromatic Pro Jet. My pride and joy.
You know when you pick up a guitar and it just fits so perfectly? This does that. When I played it in the shop, I just knew this was my guitar. I 've had it 3 years, I've gigged it to death and I've never had a problem with it.
It keeps in tune no matter how I abuse it. The action is fantastic, and it has an amazing tone no matter wether I play it clean or dirty.
Not the most expensive guitar ever made, or even in the Gretsch range, but playing a guitar isn't about price, or even brand names, it's about the guitat itself, the vibe, the mojo.
I sold an Epiphone Les Paul to buy this. I had the Les Paul for years, but I could never bond with it. No idea why. The guitar looked fantastic, beautiful tiger stripe, cherry sunburst. But it just never felt right, I persevered for a long time, I really wanted the guitar to work, but it just never felt right. This isn't to say I don't like Epiphones, just that particular one.
But with the Gretsch, it felt right as soon as I picked it up. This is a guitar I'll never part with.

The only modification I've made, if you can call it a modification, is a Vibramate spoiler on the bigsby. I love bigsby's, on the right guitar it looks as cool a f***. But restringing a bigsby, especially mid gig, is a royal pain. The spoiler changed all that, takes seconds to change a string and I'd highly recomend them to bigsby users.

The above photo shows a wee bit of damage the guitar sustained at a gig. I'm still not sure what happened, no one saw it happen. The guitar was knocked of it's stand at a gig, just before we were due to start. A chunk was taken off the finish on the neck, at the third fret. I was so distraught! The guitar has a couple of dings here and there, but at the time I thought this was the worst thing ever. The first couple of songs we played were a bit rubbish cos I was so upset about this. I've got over it though, the way I look at it now is that I'll always be able to find the third fret without looking :-).

So anyway, the point is, you'll know when you find your perfect guitar, and the make and price are immateriel, but then.........it is a Gretsch

Guitar Project

I wanted to try building a guitar from parts bought on ebay, not exactly custom built, but as close as I could get. The photo above shows the ( almost ) finished version.
The body was an excellent hardwood body, I think the original guitar was made by Vantage or Vintage. Had a beautiful maple top in cherry sunburst. The neck was from an unknown brand. I fitted a wilkinson roller bridge and tailpiece as well as wilkinson tuners, all in gold.
The pick ups were GFS Dream 180's, described as a cross between a filtertron and a PAF. The electrics consisted of a single volume, single tone and an Artec 5 step distortion switch.

If you look closely at the photos above, you can see how high I had to set the bridge ( and bridge pick up ) to compensate for the angle of the neck. The angle was one thing I didn't check before I finished the guitar, consequently it remained very steep, not unplayable but felt weird when playing.
Anyway, I was pleased so far with how the guitar looked and wanted to make it a bit more personal. I came across a seller on ebay who custom made guitar headstock logo's. I didn't want to pretend this guitar was something it wasn't, so I had a personalised logo made.

Using as close a font as possible he put my band name as the logo in a Gibsonish style, and my name in a sort of Les Paul style font. This was a waterslide full face decal. I was very pleased with the result. I can't remember how many coats of laquer I put over it, but I would think at least ten.

The finished guitar was used for about a dozen gigs, as well as rehearsals. Although it had a great sound, very full and rounded with excellent sustain, I never really used the Artec 5 Step switch that often. Also it always felt to me to be a bit fragile, the steep neck angle had a lot to do with this.

The guitar looked good, a lot of people commented on it, even non guitarists liked it, but I never really bonded with it, mainly because of the neck angle, but also the small body.

So it was retired while I had a rethink.

I have decided to change the body, and am currently trying to source a Les Paul body that looks as good as the one I used. Obviously the wood would have to be as good quality to ensure I get as good a tone out of it.

One day the Spitfire guitar will return!!

Not exactly sure of how much I spent on it, but a ball park figure would be £150. Not too bad, wife didn't mind and it kept me quiet for a week or two :-)

My Mystery Guitar

I bought this guitar about 5 years ago. I've no idea what it is. It's obviously modelled in the style of PRS guitars.It has a gibson logo on the headstock, but it's not a Gibson. It's most certainly made in China, but it's a decent quality guitar. The wood on the top is quite thick and as far as I can tell it isn't ply, I've scraped a bit of paint off the bottom near the jack socket to see if I could see layers of wood, but it looks like it's fairly solid. The neck is quite hefty, but having said that, it's good to play. Powerfull pick ups. You can see screwholes where a bigsby type tremelo was fitted, but, as I use this for slide, I took the trem off and replaced the bridge with a Wilkinson roller bridge and tailpiece.

As you can see, it has a few battle scars, there's some buckle rash on the back too, this gives it a bit of mojo I think. All the marks have appeared since I've owned it, when I originally bought it, there wasn't a mark on it, but it's been gigged to death since then.

The pick ups have a good throaty sound, which is why I decided to use it for slide playing, I usually have it tuned to open E, and occasionally to open G.

Oh, and the cost? ..........£35!........bargain!

And here it is with the bigsby attached.