As one who has a strange interest in vibratos, has messed about with pickups, and has been playing guitars for 30 years, and modding/building them for 25 - I'd like to think that I have some usable knowledge at least. That's what these pages are, my own personal expertise on the subjects of building, modding, setting up, and owning (mostly solidbody electric) guitars.
| How I setup my Acoustic Guitars - I don't usually play Acoustic, but when I do, this is how my stuff is typically setup to play it's best. Also includes my usual goofball humor and anecdotal opinions on acoustic construction and tweaking. Covers this often neglected because it's so terrifyingly irreversable in the eyes of most people maintenance task.
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| How I setup my Electric Guitars... - Basically anything not-offset with a hardtail or the GENERAL rules that apply to ALL Vibrato units. Also covers things such as changind strings, conditioning fretboards, setting intonation, and all the stupid mistakes I find on an average trip to a pawn shop where I start browsing the guitar rack.
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| How I Setup my Floyd Rose Axes - The worldwide famous double-locking trem system invented by Redmond WA engineer Floyd Rose in 1976 while playing in a Jimi Hendrix cover band, and popularlized through the 80's by Edward Van-Halen and Brad Gillis just to name two of the best known endorsers of Floyd's trem system. Literally, if a trem system could define a decade, the Floyd Rose would define the 1980's guitar sound.
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| How I Setup my Strats for Heavy Whammy Use - Love it or hate it, Strats can, and WILL Stay in tune, you just have to follow the same basic rules as any trem system, and then there are a handful of esoteric oddness you have to deal with. Also goes into Strat Trem construction, pivot types, advantages, disadvantages, et-al. The Stratocaster was my "first flame" so to speak so this is one of the trem units I have a LOT of experience with besides offsets and the Floyd Rose.
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| The Wonders of the Washburn Wonderbar/Shift 2001 - In 2005 I bought a $25 Washburn "Wonderbar" tremolo from a defunct thrift shop in Everett WA. Over the years I slowly discovered all the wacky secrets it has, including the ability to transpose tunings like a Trans-Trem (somewhat hackishly). So here I discuss the construction, workings, usage, and how to get a Washburn Wonderbar trem system to transpose.
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| De-Mystifying the Steinberger Trans-Trem - So discovering I could do Trans-Trem whammy type stuff with a Washburn Wonderbar and regular strings, I decided to dig into the mystical headless Ned Steinberger genius school of design, and figure out what makes these tick - with a big challenge in my way - how to do this without spending $3000 on a guitar from the 1980's that I don't really need or really want long term. People talk about this thing like it works on some kind of mystical voodoo, but it's really just an assemblage of parts like any other musical instrument, and it works on SCIENCE - like everything else on this page. And the science of it is kinda' cool, if a bit anti-climatic in some places.
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| Starting out Wiring Electric Guitars - Basically, a huge data dump of my 25-30+ years of knowledge on electric guitar electronics - with some pickup basics in there for good measure (we'll do a deep dive on pickups later on). Talks about pots, switches, jacks, wiring all that crap to a set of pickups to make something that sounds awesome. You don't need to spend Fort Knox on expensive pickups, or switchcraft pots - you can sometimes really do a lot with very little.
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| Mighty Mite S-80 Guitar Preamp - While watching a guitar shop's video on a custom Charvel once owned by Don Dokken, a mysterious preamp is found in the bottom of the guitar....uh....I found it! I might be using one in one of the builds below for some "character". I tried to deduct the pinout based on various photos on Reverb and e-bay. So yeah, use at your own risk.
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| Sustainer Systems - yet another manifesto on esoteric guitar electronics systems - Right up there with the Trans Trem, Strat Trem Setup, and the Washburn Wonderbar, is the six string sustainer system - such as those sold by Kramer/Schaller, Fernandez, and Sustainiac (as well as iSUSTAINER and VEYSZ in indonesia). There's a lot to cover here so expect another long long page of details on my own experiences with the systems and what works, and what won't. And in here I even go into designing my own sustainer system.
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| Bugera 333XL (Non-Infineum) Page - Talking tech about my first Tube Amp - 2008 Bugera 333XL I bought in 2008 right as Bugera was just starting out. I consider it one of the last living original Bugeras from the 2000's since you don't really see or hear of the pre-infineum versions much anymore. For all I know it IS the last one that did not get tossed when the HV clip burned up or someone tried biasing it with a dollar store multimeter and spoons for test leads! Yes, I still like this thing, yes I still use it, no I have not (and probably never will) upgrade, and while yes, I'm not playing live that much, I'd still rather keep this one alive so that it is a survivor. Things I talk about in this page are Wiring Mods, Biasing (the RIGHT way), Replacement Tubes - and generally, following my journey into working on tube amplifiers. Since half the fun in me writing things on this site, is writing things about what I'm currently teaching myself.
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