I'm in the MOOD to upgrade my guitar and more importantly my tone choices, which any guitar player will tell you...the more choices you have with a guitar...the fewer you need to get the job done!
I recently saved my lead singer's guitar from a certain trip to the junkyard! He had purchased an Indonesian made Squire Telecaster for $200 (the new sale price) a while back. He loves a Tele and although we have other guitars available to him that are lots better...he insists on playing his Tele. So I installed a new set of Seymore Duncan STK's in it and rewired the whole thing and installed all new electronics. It sounded so good when I got done that it made me decide to go ahead with plans I'd been thinking about to redo my own guitar.
We have a busy week coming up for RiverGard, so I will be making enough money to have some extra to throw into my equipment. I will be purchasing a new set of Seymore Duncan pickups for my Ibanez S470DXQM(HSH) consisting of a SH-2n Jazz for the neck, an APS-2 Alnico II Pro for the middle and an SH-5 Custom for the bridge.
These pickups represent a conscious choice to try to make my guitar sound tighter, with a more intelligible and smoother distorted sound, and a bluesier blues tone, while focusing on a tight clean sound suitable for country music.
I've also decided to incorporate a push-pull tone pot so that I can split the coils in the neck humbucker. I will also be adding a 3 position mini toggle that will be wired to control the bridge pickup and allow me to either split the coils or run the pickup in series or parallel. All of this will be adding a LOT of tone choices. Currently my guitar has a 5 position pickup selector...that is my tone choices. After the upgrade I'll have 25 choices and will be able to emulate many common pickup configurations.
I'm really looking forward to completing this upgrade and when I do I will be posting another blog entry with up-close before and after pictures for anyone who's interested.
Oh...Happy Valentines Day to you all this week! Be safe, healthy, wealthy, and wise.
Paul Valenti -
Guitar/Vocals - RiverGard
www.rivergard.com
