Partscaster! A Little Buying, Selling, And Rearranging For the Perfect Stratocaster

I know, I know.  I need another guitar like I need a hole in my head.  But I had been wanting to put together another Stratocaster for a while.  It all started when Fender's Mexican line of Stratocasters started being built with two point tremolos.  This, of course, had been reserved for their U.S. made instruments.

I wanted one of the new Strats, but I couldn't justify buying another guitar.  Especially a new one at full price.  I already had a good number of parts in my parts bin, so it's not like I needed to buy a complete guitar.

I happened to come across this deal on Facebook Marketplace.  A seller had a Partscaster type Strat up for sale for the low price of $80.  I contacted them, and while they had many people making offers, those people were lowballing them or wanted them to drive over to their place.

I said I wouldn't jerk them around for that price.  I also said I would drive over, pick up the guitar, and be out of their hair.  Since they could see I was serious, they said I could come over.  I did, bought the guitar, and got out of their hair.

Here's what I bought.  Note:  It was assembled.  I only remembered to take photos of it after I had disassembled it.

So here's what was going on with the guitar.  The good news, is that, the neck was a Mighty Mite brand.  It was in great shape, and very straight.  The pickups were GFS Lil' Killers.  Even better was that they were the three different types: 6K, 10K, 15K.  I'll end up using them for a project down the road.

The wiring was horrific, and the pots were 500K ohms.  So that was disappointing.  There was also a Black Ice Overdrive module.  The knobs were UFO style.  It also had a pearloid pickguard that was really nice.

So I had to decide what parts to keep, and which to sell off.  The one thing I knew I could sell was the body.  I didn't care for it, so I listed it on Craigslist.  I ended up selling it for $40, so I made half my money back just selling the body.

Next, I ordered a blue body from Guitar Fetish.  Their XGP line is awesome.  I would put it up against any other guitar bodies out there.

And while I liked it, there appeared to be something off with it.  To me, it looked purple.  I asked family members what they thought, and to some it appeared Cobalt Blue, like it was listed, and to others it was purple.  So I sent it back.

As I was looking over GFS's offerings a thought occurred to me.  Why didn't I choose the silver colored body?  If I ordered it, I could put together a Stratocaster that resembled Eric Clapton's 1989 Strat.  For reference, here is a photo of Fender's Eric Clapton 1989 Stratocaster.

Here's the link to Fender's website:

https://shop.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/stratocaster/eric-clapton-stratocaster/0117602843.html

I always liked that Strat.  So it was settled.  I returned the blue body, and ordered the silver body.

Remember what I said earlier about wanting a two point tremolo?  Well, I've always like the Wilkinson style tremolos, so I ordered one.  Here's a photo of it lying in the tremolo cavity.

While I was waiting for the silver body to ship, I started on the electronics.  I had bought a number of Strat pickups over the years, but had never gotten to try them out.  This was the perfect opportunity to install them in an instrument.

I started over with all new (correct) 250K pots, 5 way switch, and a Mallory capacitor.  I kept the pearloid pickguard to use on the silver body.  Let's fast forward to where I put it all together.

I decided to use the following pickups:

Neck: Dimarzio True Velvet
Middle: Dimarzio SDS-1
Bridge: Seymour Duncan SSL-5

On a sidenote, I finally ordered a soldering station.  There's one company in China that manufacturers this model under a dozen names.  You can find them all over the internet.  I was extremely happy with the quality and usefulness of it.  If you do purchase one here's a bit of advice.  For guitar work don't use the super fine tip.  Use the wider, duller tip.  It works a lot better for applying solder to the back of the pots.

So now it was time to put it together.  The hardest part was to make sure I had the holes drilled correctly for the tremolo.

I have to say, I nailed it.  The alignment was perfect.  But, I've done this a time or two.  Once again, I'll fast-forward past all the usual work.  I do want to note that I kept the tuners that were on it.  They weren't name brand tuners, but they have been working great.  I don't see a need to replace them.

Once I set the guitar up she played beautifully.  Now that I think about it, there is one other thing I should note.  While I was waiting for the body to ship I fret dressed the neck.  It came out perfectly.  But then again, once you've done about 500 fret dressings, you tend to get pretty good at it.

Now the big question, what does she sound like?  The Dimarzio True Velvet pickup is a bit clearer than it's predecessor the Blue Velvet.  I know, everyone likes the original/vintage equipment better, but I have to stand my ground on this one.  I liked the sound of the Blue Velvet over the True Velvet.

Although, the True Velvet is a great vintage pickup.  To be honest, once a player's volume is turned up, most players won't be able to hear the difference between the two pickups.  The True Velvet is a bit crisper and doesn't have as much bass as the Blue Velvet.

The Dimarzio SDS-1 is a totally different type of animal.  It is supposed to be more of a bridge pickup, but I love it in the middle position.  Most middle pickups are kind of useless so I like to put something musically different in the middle slot.  The SDS-1 is without a doubt different.

The Dimarzio website says it's their take on a P-90 pickup for the Strat.  But what makes it different is it is much, much darker sounding than a Strat or P-90.  It's really chunky and thick.  Again, I love having it in the middle since it's so sonically different than a vintage Strat pickup.

I have the Seymour Duncan SSL-5 pickup in the bridge.  This pickup is well known and used by many players.  Most vintage bridge Strat pickups are crazy bright.  This pickup aims to balance out the EQ.  There are still plenty of highs, but the mids and bass are brought up what I would call a good middle ground.  Not too much, not too little.  I can see why players dig this pickup.

I've had great luck with the Wilkinson tremolo.  I wish the bar would screw in rather than slide in, but it had an extremely smooth movement.  There are more expensive tremolos, but I wouldn't say they are any better.  If you are looking for a tremolo, I whole heartedly endorse giving Wilkinson Tremolos a shot.

I've had so much fun jamming with this guitar.  It's been fun playing it through different amps.  It's a bit bright through my Genz Benz El Diablo 100, but I expected it to be.  I have a Mega (brand) Amp that has a Fender sound through the first channel.  That's where this guitar really shined.  I'm going to break out a few of my other amps to see what this guitar can do sonically.

Again, I know I need another guitar like I need six fingers on each hand.  However, this guitar just blows me away.  I was thinking of using it to try out different pickups, but the ones I have in it are awesome.  So I don't think I'll be making any modifications to it in the foreseeable future.  Everything just worked out perfectly on it.  Now, I have a great new guitar.  Sweet.

A Guitar Pedal Idea: Singing Crystal Bowl Pedal?

In the world of guitar pedals it seems it's all been done.  When I first started playing I had ideas of what would make a great "new" sound.  Then I would find out someone had created it years ago in the form of rack gear or guitar pedals.  The best you can hope to find these days is a better quality/better sounding brand of guitar pedal.  A brand that does one what you want better than another brand.

A few weeks ago I had an amazing experience.  I was able to sit in a room with not one, but two women playing dueling singing crystal bowls.  It was wonderful.  Here is a YouTube video of one of the women, Dru Ann playing her set of bowls.

Here is Dru Ann and Ashley playing dual singing bowls.  This is what I was able to experience for forty minutes.  Make sure to turn up your volume to really hear/feel/experience the sounds of the singing bowls.

For those who don't know, a set of bowls look like this:

Here's a photo of them with lights in them.  The lights correspond to a person's Chakras.

The two musicians, Dru Ann and Ashley, gifted me with sounds I had never heard before.  What really surprised me was just how loud the singing bowls were.  It was rather loud and intense.  Since the ladies set their bowls facing across from each other the sound was split like a stereo (versus mono.)  It also set up a dynamic rotary speaker type of effect.

As I was meditating/thinking/plotting, a thought came to me.  I don't think a sound like this exists in the guitar world.  If it did, you would need lots of pedals.  But what if there were an all in one guitar pedal that could make this sound?  What if there was a "Singing Bowl Guitar Pedal?"  How would it be done?  Well, I got to thinking about that.

First up, it would need to be a long pedal.  One that would have a number of foot-stomping switches on it.  Kind of like this:

The first switch would be a delay switch.  In fact, now that I think about it, it could be a delay with a looper.  At first the pedal would delay the signal, and then loop it four times.

Next in line would be a feedbacker with distortion.  You could set the level of feedback, and the delay would carry the signal.  I know distortion makes people think of metal, but this would be a subtle distortion.  Just enough to fuzz up the signal.  And now that I said fuzz, maybe a fuzz pedal would be a better choice than a distortion.

But what really sells this pedal is the next effect in line.  Next would be a rotary speaker/tremolo effect.  This is what would give you a dual/stereo type of sound.  The rotary setting gives it that "heartbeat pulsing" effect that the singing bowls are known for.    

So this is how the pedal would work.  You would have a clean signal go into the pedal.  The delay acts like a sustainer when the delay time is extended.  

Next, the looper would have a setting for how many loops you would want it to perform.  My first choice would be for the note to loop four times.  But I think an option for it to loop between two and ten times would be usable.  Of course, you could set your loops via a knob.  

Next would be the feedbacker.  The settings could range from subtle singing to intense Nirvana type feedback.  The distortion or fuzz knob would change the setting from clean as glass to angry bees.  

Next up would be the rotary speaker.  Since all the other settings are controlling tone and distortion, I would have only two knobs for this pedal, speed and depth.  

So now we can all start working on this pedal right?  Except with all the technology built into one pedal it would probably have a store cost of $800.  Mmm?  Yeah, that's not really feasible is it?  Now I know why they never built one.