Five More Gone

Yesterday I took five more guitars to Guitar Center to sell. They were this beautiful Peavey T-60, a less photogenic and slightly older T-60 with an oil-finished ash body and rosewood fretboard, a Peavey Limited VT with a tiger's eye flame maple top, my Firenza with Duncan P-90 pickups, and my Ovation 1778T Elite with the purple, orange, yellow and green "Tribal Flame" finish.

I also sold my Boss DD-20 digital delay and my old Digitech Talker. I tried to unload a couple of Grunge distortion pedals but they didn't want to give me more than $5 or so each for them, so I kept them. I might have use for them eventually. Guitar Center didn't want my Radial JS-3 microphone splitter, although it's a nice piece of gear, because they just don't move items like that. I also sold my matched pair of Rode NT-5 microphones.

It's hard to get excited about selling off gear. The things gone are a load off my mind -- I don't have to store them, don't have to worry about keeping them in the proper temperature and humidity, or getting stolen, or getting broken. But some I will miss. The Limited VT is a very scarce guitar with incredible tone -- made in the Peavey custom shop in Leakesville, Mississippi, with 3 hand-wound single-coil pickups. And yet these guitars get very little respect. But the flame finish isn't my style -- it's too flashy for my taste. The T-60s are starting to become vintage and arousing interest from collectors, but although I wanted one very badly when I was about sixteen, and they are beautifully crafted guitars, built like tanks, with classic looks, I have to acknowledge that I no longer really like the way the skinny necks actually feel in my hands. The Firenza (C profile) and Ovation (soft V) and Limited (C-ish, asymmetrical, flat fingerboard) feel a lot better. The Ovation is actually kind of garish -- the finish doesn't really fit my personality all that well, especially as I get older. And while the Talker is cool, I just wasn't using it, because I haven't been performing live. All this stuff was made to be used, and it should be used more than it has been.

Oh, I've used it all some. The Synapse fretless bass provided the bass line for several of my songs: "Polly," "I.O.U.," and "Falling." The Firenza and one of the Venus guitars were on my parody of Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains," called "Re: Your Grains." The Firenza also provided the main guitar riff for "I.O.U." The Parker Fly was the lead guitar tone for a couple of songs, most notably "War Criminal" and my cover of "Today's the Day." The Limiteds have been on various tracks going back to my early collaborations with Joe "Covenant" Lamb. The Ovation acoustic is in several of my covers and instrumentals and it always gets comments because of its flashy finish.

Of course, it wasn't strictly necessary to have all those different instruments to chose from, to make those songs. Honestly, I had too many, and the guitar-collection-as-investment idea wasn't actually going to fly, at least not the way I put it into practice. It also fed into some of my less wholesome personality traits; it felt uncomfortably close to hoarding, and maybe a little compulsive. But it was a lot of fun, and I really liked being able to pick up a few guitars and try them out while recording a song, and let the particular feel and tone of a specific instrument tell me what to play.

While I was waiting for the staff at Guitar Center to process all this stuff, I toyed with a few modern instruments. It mostly served to remind me of what I liked about my older instruments. While modern USA-made Stratocasters have decent fit and finish, the wood hasn't aged to that point where they resonate beautifully -- they just don't have as much tone or as much mojo as the old T-60s from 1979, or even the Limited VT, which isn't yet truly "vintage."

What's sad about all this is that this load of gear, re-sold, won't even pay for one month's expenses. It'll cover a mortgage payment and part of a heating bill. I got out of this gear well under half of what I put into it. I might have been able to get a little more on eBay, but I just don't have that kind of time to put in. And it's just hard to get excited about being able to pay Consumer's Energy for another month.

There are a few pieces left. I'm not guitar-less yet. There are a few more in salable condition, and then some "fixer-uppers" that might be harder to unload, which I might have to list on eBay as "project" or "parts" guitars. There's even one ukulele.

If I have to sell almost everything -- if I only can keep one -- I'll (sadly) sell the Babicz acoustic (made in Indonesia), the USA-made Steinberger XP and the American/Canadian Godin nylon-string SA, the sparkle blue Super-Sonic, and the flame-top Peavey Limited, and keep the American flag Limited.

I don't want to let that one go, because all the American flag guitars you see these days are made overseas, and I could never bring myself to buy one. I'll keep it in memory of a time when people like me were paid to make things here in America.

And if I can't keep even one -- if I still don't have an income again, and we're selling off everything we possibly can just to get through the winter -- well, then God help us.

I leave you with this.

Re: Your Grains

I've put together a new song: this one is a simple parody of Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains." This was a "one-afternoon wonder" since I wanted to finish the song in one afternoon while my wife and kids were out of the house. So: not a lot of retakes; get one that sounds reasonably good, even if it has a few little glitches, and move on, no second-guessing.

Currently it is only on YouTube. When I get a chance I will put it up on Bandcamp as well, possibly after re-recording some parts. It's a very silly little parody and a little sloppy, but overall I'm pretty happy with the way it came out. It is encouraging to realize that this is evidence that I'm getting gradually better at this sort of thing!

I'm mentioning it here because it features some interesting guitars. The main "jazzy" accompaniment part is a Peavey Firenza, a version equipped with P-90 pickups, and set up with 11s.

These guitars don't have fancy flame maple tops, but they sound great, aren't too heavy, the necks are really nicely playable, they are built like tanks -- and, most importantly, you can sometimes find them used for bargain prices. Most of my guitars like the Squier Super-Sonics work best with 10s, but this one seems to work best with 11s. Also, if you practice on 11s and get used to them, when you go back to playing a guitar with 10s, it will feel effortless.

For the solo, I'm playing the black Squier Venus. I've written about these guitars before. I think I recorded that solo line with the very bright-sounding bridge humbucker. It's going into some kind of Auto-Wah Logic guitar rig. The tone reminds me a little bit of Jerry Garcia's live sound with the Grateful Dead, circa a couple of concerts I saw around 1990.

Both of these guitars were recorded going directly into the Edirol FA-66, which is an inexpensive FireWire interface that I got used on, you guessed it, eBay. They go for a pretty low price used. The plan had been to use it for live streaming. My expectations for the preamp quality weren't very high, but it actually sounds pretty good, even recording vocals, and I've been using it both for singing and spoken voice. It isn't perfect: it's hard to set levels on knobs that aren't calibrated to anything; the phono plug inputs clip really easily; sometimes when it has sat for a while the audio stream is garbled, and I have to mess with the sample rate to get it to work right again. But in general, it works pretty flawlessly, and I think this would make anyone a fine starter audio interface for a basic home studio.

I bought the Edirol box intending to make it part of a more portable rig, and it is velcroed down next to a Mac Mini on a shelf in a 6U rack case.

It's very awkward to get cables in and out; I have to use a flashlight. It really could use a patch bay. And it is currently on the floor, which is murder on my spine. But this rack setup has one other great advantage for recording vocals, and that is that the Mac Mini is extremely quiet. I don't feel the need to ever run my vocal tracks through Izotope RX to take out background fan noise.

I'm just guessing here, since I haven't used one, but I suspect that it probably even sounds, quality-wise, somewhere in the ballpark as the Digi002 rig that Jonathan Coulton uses. That setup has been good enough for him to record some amazing tracks. He does work extensively with an outboard channel strip, the dbx 376, and his Pod Pro and Behringer rack unit for guitar and bass. I've considered more outboard hardware, especially an outboard channel strip for vocals, but I'm not so big on the idea of rack hardware for guitar tracking. I don't think I'd ever be willing to give up Logic's amazing range of tools for guitar and bass for the simplicity of outboard hardware. I especially like the ability to change the effects setting after recording the track (the channel strip settings are not "printed" on the track, which is recorded on the hard drive entirely dry). I did put some money into the Radial JDV, but that is by way of trying to get cleaner and clearer pictures of the original instrument than the Hi-Z setting on either of these boxes can give me alone, not to color the sound.

In fact, the Edirol box sounds good enough that it is making me wonder whether I should just sell off the Apogee Ensemble and just work only with the Edirol box. But it does seem to be a help to have a second, more powerful rig for mixing and editing, especially when I want to do something CPU-intensive like noise reduction or bouncing tracks, and the Mac Mini just can't compete with the Mac Pro with 8 cores and several extra built-in hard drives.

Finally, there is a third guitar part: I recorded a bass line using my Steinberger Synapse 5-string fretless.

This bass is fun to play but it is a little problematic. I have some difficulty getting good tone out of it when I record it. It is driving my Radial JDV direct box, and from there running into the Ensemble. I was getting hardly any signal out of it, for some reason, despite trying the special impedance setting for piezo pickups. I had to add a lot of digital gain even after considerable gain on the Ensemble's input, and it came out sounding strange. Is the battery dead? It shouldn't be; I changed it only a few months ago -- to a Lithium 9-volt -- it should only be "on" when plugged in, and I rarely use it.

Add to this the fact that you can't get strings that fit the bridge properly and this is another gear I'm thinking of getting rid of. It looks damned cool but as far as being able to drop a track effortlessly into a mix, it is a far cry from the XP bass or XQ basses, even the Nashville one that my son plays. (With those basses I have the opposite problem -- they put out a lot of voltage!) But neither of those are fretless. If I had the money available I'd try to find a 5-string Pedulla fretless. I watch them go by on eBay, and they are gorgeous, but quite expensive. I'd also consider a Godin.

There's another piece of new gear; I tracked this song with a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-M50 headphones that I picked up on the Labor Day sale at Guitar Center, along with the aforementioned Reflexion filter. These are great headphones, and work better for tracking than the Sony MDR-V700 or Pioneer HDJ-1000 cans I've been using -- more natural-sounding bass, and better isolation. Again, recommended. In retrospect I should have spent the money on these earlier. I still do prefer the DJ headphones for general music listening, especially if I'm listening to the built-in amp on my laptop, where the EQ can use a little emphasis, and actual DJing.

If it isn't obvious yet, we've moved, and into a house that provides us with much more space than our cramped apartment in Ann Arbor. I have a separate studio room now, as well as an office. However, there are lots of logistical challenges left. The rooms don't have any acoustic treatment yet, and they are all wood.

I added a Reflexion filter to my mic for recording vocals, and that helps some:

The Reflexion is basically a curved wall of audio-absorbing material behind your mic. It comes with a very elaborate rig of clamps and blocks to secure it to a microphone stand along with a mic. It's quite fiddly and takes forever to set up, and it's kind of cantilevered, with a center of gravity that's hard to center on your mic stand -- that's why it is clamped to the extension arm and not the stand itself. And although I have a pretty heavy-duty tripod stand (and I wouldn't recommend trying to set it up on one of those round-based mic stands), and it probably won't come crashing down, doing some major damage on the way, I keep having the feeling that it might. I think a separate, purpose-designed tripod-style mic stand for it would have been a better idea. Also, as it is, I don't have any place left to clamp my pop filter, so that's on yet another mic stand in front. And if I want to read a lyric sheet or a story or something with the whole rig in place, that's a little problematic. So, my feelings on this thing are a little mixed. It does definitely dry up my vocals, though, and that's a big help.

And finally, I have no furniture to speak of in here yet, besides a couple of garage-sale chairs. The general plan had been to have desks custom-built by one of two carpenter friends of the family, but various moving-related projects, like replacing the damaged flooring in the family room, went so far over budget that there isn't really any extra money available for that in the short term. So, for now, the gear is set up kind of unceremoniously on the floor. I'll probably be cobbling something together out of sawhorses and scrap wood but the odd shape of these attic spaces really needs something custom, and I'm not a carpenter. Right now everything is awkwardly placed and very hard on my spine and hips to work with. In related news: I am getting old. But I'm trying not to let that serve as an excuse not to keep playing and recording.

So what's the future of the Potts House studio? Well, after I get myself set up with something resembling desks where I can actually sit to work, and get the gear off the floor, I want to address the acoustics of the room. I don't really want to go whole hog here, but a few panels on the walls, and maybe a few diffusers on the curved ceiling, would probably give me noticeable improvement.

As far as gear, there isn't that much I'm still burning for. I'd like to consider an outboard mic preamp, like a Grace Design unit. I could use that with either audio interface. I've got my eye on USA-made Ovation mandolins. I want to have some of my guitars fixed up and fine-tune the collection, getting rid of some and adding some. I haven't quite figured out the best way to do that yet. I'm always interested in trying out some different microphones, although for now I think I'm interested in sticking with relatively cheap Oktava models, particularly if I can get them modded. I'm contemplating putting a little more effort into a decent pedalboard and PA for live playing.

Does anyone know any carpenters in the mid-Michigan area who would be willing to trade their labor for a guitar or two?

Squier Venus Single Coil Demo

Here are a couple of recordings I made using the the black Squier Venus. If this experiment works you'll be able to hear what I consider so appealing about the tone of these guitars and why I just picked up two of them.

I ran the Venus running directly into my Peavey Mini Colossal 5-watt tube amp, with the power soak (output volume) turned all the way down so it doesn't drive the speaker at all (it's late, after all). I'm feeding my Apogee Ensemble with the XLR recording output of the Mini Colossal. It's going into Logic 9, into a virtual channel strip with a noise gate (the single coil pickup needs it), a pedalboard containing a compressor and chorus set relatively low, and then through a channel EQ and channel compressor. The whole track is then run through Ozone 4 using a 3-band tube saturation mastering preset, which isn't really doing that much except applying the multi-band compressor with the overall gain rolled down a bit.

The first tune I'm playing is Jonathan Coulton's "Chiron Beta Prime." I dig how this guitar's single coil pickup puts out quite a bit of throaty bass and mids. The volume control is rolled down to about five, and the three-way switch is set on the single coil neck pickup only. Your taste may vary, but I like the slightly laid-back tube crunch together with the chorus. I'm doing some palm muting and there are a lot of seventh chords that would sound very dissonant if the tube distortion was cranked up to heavy metal levels, but as it is they seem (to me) to just give a spray of harmonics that are bright but not shrill. But then, I'm probably going deaf, so your mileage may differ.


Just to do a little comparison and contrast, I also recorded "The Future Soon" using pretty-much identical settings but with the pickup selector switched over to the humbucker. I brought the guitar's volume knob down just a little bit more to keep the volumes at least approximately comparable. Note that the Venus has no tone control. The humbucker is loud and jangly. I prefer the sound of the single coil when recording a lightly distorted guitar part like this, but I think both of them actually sound pretty good. The humbucker is probably better suited to either a clean tone with EQ rolling off the highs, or heavier distortion to smooth it out a bit. Clearly more experimentation is needed!

If anyone cares, I played both using a Herco Flex 50 pick, which gives quite a bit of "snap."

Working on the Venus Guitars

So, today I got some screws I ordered from Stewart-MacDonald, and it was time to see if I could get the sunburst-finish Squier Venus back together. It needs height-adjusting screws and springs for its bridge pickup, and the pickguard is currently off. I also need to solder the ground wire back onto the output jack, since it popped off when I removed the pickguard.


It will look something like this when finished (well, plus strings). You can see why I am eager to get it put back together; it is a gorgeous guitar!


Unfortunately, neither type of screw I ordered today will fit the hole in the pickguard. I've already taken one of the originals to Stadium hardware, and they couldn't match it. I have a set of "Metric Hum Ht. Screws" on order from Allparts, along with some pickguard screws and pots, and we'll see if they fit. If not I'm at a bit of a loss; I may have to take apart the black one to get a sample of the correct screw and see if I can get it measured precisely. Here is one of the Stewart-MacDonald screws, not fitting.


Meanwhile, I got the black one intonated for tens and it sounds fantastic. I've raised the bridge slightly to give it slightly higher action. I'll see if I can make a quick recording of this guitar. It's got a lot of gorgeous hollow "scooped" woody tone, especially from the single coil. Joshua prefers to use the bridge pickup, though.


He also likes to turn the volume all the way up.


Here's one more guitar porn shot of the unusual bridge and pickguard design.

Screwed by Screws

So, I'm trying to get back to a project that has been on hold -- finishing up the final tweaks and repairs on three Squier Super-Sonics.

Super-Sonic number 1 is in storage, and is about as mint as possible, showing only slight finish aging that actually makes it look very pretty.

Super-Sonic number 2 also has some small bridge issues, and I've been trying to fix them. It looks like a previous owner stripped out some bridge saddle height adjustment screws and replaced them with some screws that weren't hex, and so they were a fugly mix that clearly was not original.

To fix this, I ordered a Fender set of replacement saddles. But here's where the story gets stupid and becomes all about metric and American parts. The saddles on the Super-Sonic look like traditional stamped Strat saddles, and are even stamped "FENDER." But although the saddles themselves are nearly identical to the USA parts, the screws are not. Of course, this isn't immediately obvious -- they are very close. Close enough that you can screw the USA screws into the Japanese saddles, but they are a little too loose. And if you try to screw the Japanese screws into the USA-made saddles, they won't fit, and since the metal of the saddles is so soft, you can easily ruin the threading. And the Japanese intonation screws also wouldn't fit into the USA-made saddles.

Anyway, as usual when screwing around with these Japanese parts I wasted a lot of time. The upshot is that the Super-Sonic now has Fender USA saddles, height adjustment screws, and intonation screws. It's nearly identical except that the screws are American gauges now. Does that constitute some kind of crime against authenticity that will ruin its vintage value? I don't know. I just know that it is a huge pain to try to find matching parts.

The next thing wrong with Super-Sonic number 2 is that the pots are really corroded and crackle and cut out very badly. I think they may be beyond cleaning. I have some nice new CTS 250K split-shaft pots to replace them with. But, of course, the pots on the original are smaller. The replacements won't fit through the faceplate, and the shaft won't fit the Mustang-style knobs. Ugh. What's my alternative? Cracking the pots open somehow without removing the soldered-on wiring so I can get in there with some spray contact cleaner? Get non-matching knobs and find someone who can widen the holes in the faceplate?

Super-Sonic number 2 also has some really poorly-behaving tuners. I have a set of locking vintage tuners that are supposed to be drop-in replacements for the Klusons... but I'm not optimistic that they will fit. For one thing, the holes in the headstock were drilled slightly too large, even for the tuners that are already in there. The bushings tend to fall out when you remove the strings. What's the repair that keeps the guitar as original as possible? I'm not quite sure.

The last thing wrong with Super-Sonic number 2 is that all the pickguard screws are corroded and need to be replaced. Pickguard screws ought to be as common as dirt, but I'm still looking for an exact match for the originals. They don't match the common Fender or Gibson sizes.

Super-Sonic number 3 has some more issues: the 3-way switch was cut down to a little stump by a previous owner. No 3-way switches I've been able to find will fit the very short body cavity, not even a special "short" Switchcraft switch. I think the answer is a switch from Allparts they call a Korean 3-way that looks like a match. If that fits then it's just a matter or careful soldering.

Super-Sonic number 3 also is missing its original string trees, so I'm trying to find string trees that match the Super-Sonics. They aren't quite the same screw size as any others I've been able to find, and use little white plastic spacers. If I want it to look original I have to find something that matches. Allparts has something that looks about right, but the Super-Sonic uses two different sizes of white plastic spacers. It's maddening.

I've also got a screw issue with one of my Squier Venus guitars -- it needs humbucker height adjustment screws that don't seem to match humbucker height adjustment screws from any other humbuckers I've seen. My local hardware gurus at Stadium hardware, which boasts a selection of thousands and thousands of screws, couldn't help me.

It would help if Allparts actually had measurements on all their parts, instead of blurry little photos.

This is not a hobby for the impatient!

Guitar Pron 10: Two Squier Venus Guitars

The Squier Venus is an interesting design. Like the Super-Sonic (see Guitar Pron 5: The Squier Super-Sonic), this one was made by Fender Japan in the 1997-1998 time frame. As one of the "Vista" series instruments, it is built considerably better than the "Squier" name might seem to imply. Also, although the Jagmaster gets more respect, these Venus guitars are better-built (although the workmanship is not what I'd call fantastic, only good; there are almost always minor fit-and-finish issues on these instruments that remind me that they didn't get a lot of attention in the build process).


It has an extremely flat body, and it is made of (I think) basswood, making it very light. The body has wide "hips," and a very, well, curvaceous pickguard design. It's definitely a feminine take on classic electric guitar design. The lighter body makes it kinder on someone a little smaller. This instrument may be made for a woman, but with that jangly tone it is also strong enough for a man! The scale length is 25.5 inches, the same as a Stratocaster. I wonder why Courtney Love didn't design a short-scale like the Jag-Stang?

Note also that it is a hardtail, which is unusual in a Fender or Squier instrument that isn't a telecaster. And not only that, but it has a tune-o-matic bridge and string ferrules running through the body. And yes, that neck is bound!


These instruments came with gig bags, not hard-shell cases, and so they are usually pretty dinged up. It's a bit tricky to find a case that fits this wider body design, although some generic cases will fit. With the very flat body, you may want to put some kind of extra pad inside so that it is not hanging by the neck (storing it this way long-term might tend to cause the neck to warp).


I recently came across someone selling two of them locally, and not through eBay, so decided to make an offer on both. Both of them are in good condition but needed a little work. The black one needed a good cleaning and setup, and the neck was misaligned a bit. That was easy to fix, though. It's now set up with 10s and the action is raised a bit, and it plays wonderfully. There's no tone control -- it's got very basic electronics, just a humbucker, a single-coil, and a 3-way switch. Courtney Love was allegedly fond of just the Seymour Duncan Little '59, which is interesting because that's one of the pickups I chose for my heavily modified Jag-Stang -- another project I need to complete someday.


I apologize for the quality of these photos -- it's hard to get a good view of a black instrument. I did not get a chance to set them up against a photogenic background like I did with the Super-Sonics. I'll try to get some better shots of these after I finish up the rest of the minor repairs.


There is also a sunburst model that is in even better condition, but for some reason is missing some screws and springs on the pickups. I also have to re-solder some wires, but that is not too difficult. I don't have a photo of the sunburst one put together yet. I'm sorry the color is so bad in these photos -- this classic burst paint job is actually very nicely done and not garish at all. I'll try to get some shots in natural daylight after I get it put back together and set up.



There is another color commonly seen, and that is sea-foam green. I'll give that one a miss, thanks. It may be a classic surf color, but it's just too ugly for me. There is also a relatively rare Venus 12-string that I'd like to try -- I've never played a 12-string electric. I'm also still looking for another Vista-series Jagmaster, preferably one with the truss rod adjustment at the headstock.