Black guard

New guitar! Of course not. I'm barely employed, moving around looking wasted with hardly any cash in hand. That's how it is these days; tough times, tougher than what others perceived it to be. Anyway, I decided to mod the American Special Strat you see above:

• Pick guard: Black 3-ply with painted edges to make it look like a single ply
• Pickups: All Seymour Duncan affair - Psychedelic (n) / SSL-1 (m) / Red Devil (b)
• Electronics: A500K volume + 2x A250K tone, HOSCO .022uf capacitor + 5-way selector
• All plastic parts replaced with white version

Since I have a few Strats, I have assigned this one to sport an HSS config. The humbucking RD is not wired to any tone knob, it's giving off that raw, punchy tone which I really favour for aggressive music. The other single coils here are simply doing their job well; twang clarity under tremendous amount of gain / drive. This is my first experience with the Psychedelic (n), would give it a few rounds of tone rigour before a deserving appraisal. Initial impressions - positive.

Also, I have decided to black guard this guitar for a simple reason; the light background with a contrasting dark pick guard makes the instrument look a little bolder, especially with the edges blacked out.

Strat strutting Friday night

Spent Friday night with the Strat - was trying to hear the rosewood in action. There's an established dichotomy that you can / cannot hear the fretboard wood. Since I own both versions, I'll tell you that the maple counterpart sounds sharper in the top end which is quite apparent when you engage the neck pickup. The rosewood, well, there's a rounder midrange to be heard. This is why, in general, folks like to hear the rosewood in action (SRV/ John Mayer/ Thomas Blug); it sounds sweeter & less harsh.

I'm in the maple camp. I just enjoy hearing lots of clarity with single coils which can be subtracted through some EQ magic, especially so of you do high gain / drive. Then again, some of us can't hear the fretboard wood if it's made to explode in our faces. More importantly, we are able to appreciate the single coil voicing in some musical applications.