my modified squier strats

omari · Post by **omari** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 8:12 am

being a noob here i thought i'd introduce my project guitars. i've done mods to guitars before but these two are by far my most extensive to date. cosmetically they're not exactly finished but electronically they're fully functional.

only the electronics have been modified on both of these. except of course for the pickguard add-ons which are crudely cut trem covers from the back of the guitars. i hate where fender puts the volume knob and i don't like the jacks either so that's why i added the other part. i always meant to get custom one-piece tortoise guards made for both of these but i got lazy and haven't done it yet. they also took some routing to fit all the extra guts inside.

this cream colored one, as you can see, has five strat pick ups with mustang covers. the 5-way blade switch controls the three middle pickups in the regular strat 5-way switch style. the first "tone" knob is actually a three way rotary knob and it controls the two bridge and neck pickups. the second "tone" knob is the volume for the 5-way switch and the volume knob is the volume for the three way switch. the pick ups and parts were just left over stuff from other projects, the guitar itself was a beater found at a pawn shop for $80 and cleaned up. this one is great for trashy garage rock and surprisingly can get some super sludgy thick stoner tones. clean, it's jazzy sounding, great for slow ballads or country style pickin'.

this blue one has GFS lipstick tube pickups. the two middles being RWRP. i always meant to move the center one closer to the bridge but as i said before i got lazy so it's been like this for a while. i replaced the 5-way blade switch with two mini 3 way switches. the first controls the two neck PUs and the second the middle and bridge PUs. the first "tone" knob is actually a pan knob that blends the two mini switches. turning it clock-wise you get the neck, counter you get the middle/bridge, and the middle is both. the remaining are master tone and volume controls. on this guitar i bought the pickups, mini switches, good 250 pots and tone cap. the guitar was given to me from a friend who didn't play it anymore. this guitar is my fave of the two as far as tone. the PUs sound more strat than dano but there's some dano tone in there. with some tweaking i can get close to ric and gretsch type tones as well.

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 8:15 am

A.) do you find any real benefit to extra pickups?
B.) is your user name from the Basketball player?

omari · Post by **omari** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 8:41 am

a.) i initially made the cream color one with so many pickups cause i thought it would look cool but be really stupid and redundant. i figured people would either be wowed or annoyed by it. but, since the pickups are mix matched from two different sets, it actually does have a wide range of tones, hence, no real tone knob.

i think if i ever get around to moving the middle PU on the blue one it would actually be a sensible guitar. the way it is now though, the two middle PUs basically sound the same and only provide slightly different sounding phase issues with the neck and bridge.

b.) omari is my actual first name, and no, i'm not a basketball player.

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 8:51 am

cool and cool!

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:05 am

these are awesome.

TheBurbz · Post by **TheBurbz** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:31 am

mage wrote:these are awesome.

They really are! They remind me of those crazy old Japanese guitars, I think if you got a custom pickguard made they would be excellent. I prefer the knob positions on the white one rather than the blue, even though they are only slightly different.

pumpkin · Post by **pumpkin** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 10:01 am

Really original design. It would be cool if you could work a way to have a volume and tone control for each.

This will be an awesom design once you work out the kinks. Rad!

willlin · Post by **willlin** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 11:47 am

The blue one with the lipstick pups is the absolute sex.

Want it.

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 5:27 pm

Excellent. I love these.

Thom · Post by **Thom** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 6:52 pm

Really interesting - nice to see someone do something different.
I like the look of the lipstick one a lot - how does it sound?
I have limited experience with lipsticks - my only guitar with them I don't think sounds *that* great, but may be just poor pups.

omari · Post by **omari** » Thu Jan 14, 2010 1:11 am

thanks for all the feedback! i'll try to post some sound samples soon.

DGNR8 · Post by **DGNR8** » Thu Jan 14, 2010 2:40 am

Sweet! The wiring would drive me insane. You could fit three more in I bet.

paul_ · Post by **paul_** » Thu Jan 14, 2010 7:37 am

They're like punkier Coodercasters.

johnniespring · Post by **johnniespring** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:19 am

i don't like them.

omari · Post by **omari** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 4:27 am

i have, for the first time ever, made a demo video. i used the camera on my laptop (also a first) synced to ableton and my guitar plugged into a line 6 ux2. click the video link for more info on the settings and whatnot.

[youtube][/youtube]

LorteMidget · Post by **LorteMidget** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:19 pm

wow, it actually sounds pretty good with the clean sound.. but i don't like the distorted sound :b does anyone think that a squier strat would do good with EMG pickups?

EDIT: just saw the prices on EMG, or fender pickups with a pick guard, which i need, and WTF why are they so expensive!??

matocaster · Post by **matocaster** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 10:17 pm

These are too cool! Kudos to you!