the Mod squad
so you’ve tweaked your axe, wired in some super-duper new pickups and set off for your gig, only to find your guitar doesn’t work. Dave Burrluck hopes you’ve brought a spare...
For the touring pro, or at least their techs, having spares for every conceivable situation is a given: all part of the job. But what about us weekend warriors? Of course, we’re professional so we always carry spares, don’t we?
Over a recent three-gig weekend I was frankly fed up with loading up, unloading, setting-up, breaking down, unloading, etc. Two gigs down, just under four hours of gig time, and all my gear was working just fine. But by the time of the third one, aside from being a tad fatigued, I had to load up not only my gear but also the PA, too. Normally I’d take my main guitar, another one for slide, or one that I’m Long Term Testing or just writing about, but for this third gig, a different band, I only use my Strat: my trusty well-gigged, never-let-me-down original-year Fender Road Worn, which I wedged onto the overcrowded back seat. With barely room to swing a budgerigar in my car I was about to head off when something made me think: “Hmmm, best I take a spare, just in case…”
A quick soundcheck later the band was sounding good. But then in the breakdown of the first number, silence. Now this is a three-piece band (guitar, bass, drums) that support our employer, the singer. Suddenly we were a two-piece and our singer wasn’t looking best pleased. I quickly pressed a few leads on my pedalboard and my sound came back. Next number the same thing happened. I did the same and again my sound returned. With another 10 songs to play, as the only guitarist, I wasn’t feeling too confident but everything seemed fine until, just on the climax of the last number of the first set: silence again. I was pretty pissed off and pulled out my lead from the pedalboard and plugged directly into my amp. Silence. It wasn’t my pedalboard, it was my trusty Strat! If that had happened a couple of weeks before at our last gig it would have been gig over as, as usual, I’d gone out without a spare. But, my spare home-made ‘No Logo’ Strat saved the day and sounded good even though I’d forgotten it had 0.011s on and by the end of the second set my left hand was hurting.
The following day I set about tracing the problem, working back from the Strat’s output jack. I tested everything with a multimeter and it all looked good – no dull solder joints, no short circuits. But then I noticed I was getting some random readings: sometimes I had a signal, sometimes not. Plugged in, however, the sound came back and although a bit bemused I reassembled my Strat and was met again with… silence. I eventually traced the problem to the volume pot. It didn’t crackle or make any odd noises but, effectively, it was muting the guitar occasionally, and with no notice. I can honestly say over all the years of playing, gigging and modding that’s something that’s never happened to me before.
“Ha, it was your useless soldering, I’ll bet,” quipped a mate as I relayed the story. But it wasn’t: I hadn’t touched it. Yes, I’d loaded in some Fender Custom Shop pickups about five or six years ago but that’s it: aside from some new saddles it was a mod-free zone.
The total failure of my Strat was a real wake-up call. Like many of us, I’m constantly swapping out parts, trying new circuits, not least to write this Mod Squad column. I’m not always thinking about longevity. And although this failure was nothing to do with my haste, it certainly could have been. That PRS S2 Not-SoSuper Eagle II that I’d recently had to put together in a hurry is case in point: the complex wiring was at best ‘experimental’. Before I gigged that again, I vowed I’d go back to the spaghetti nightmare and redo it all much more carefully and with roadworthiness in mind. But I still haven’t.
So, dear Modders, a word from the wise. If that had been a pro gig where my guitar stopped working and I didn’t have a spare, I’d have probably been sacked. And rightfully so. Never ever set off for any gig (let alone an important one) without a spare that’s fully functioning and fit for purpose.
While you’re at it, think out the rest of your gear. What happens if your pedalboard stops working, or your amp? Modded or box fresh, the best work in the world won’t account for a failure that you couldn’t foresee. Worth thinking about.