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LIGHT FANTASTIC
I’ve been fortunate enough recently to gig locally, walking to the venue. I had already began the process of ‘light-sizing’ my rig, starting with the Vox Cambridge50 combo you gave glowing reviews to, appreciating the performance and minimal weight. I also acquired a secondhand Line 6 HX Effects unit from a fellow musician. I immediately set about configuring it to emulate a handful of gig-ready stompbox ’boards, the fascination being to see what I could manage without in terms of my existing collection of analogue and digital pedals. Hence, I was interested in Guitarist issue 465’s Board Games with Ryan Haynes asking about this very subject!
Ironically, having never put a pedalboard together through sheer idleness, the first thing I thought about when getting the Line 6 was acquiring a small pedalboard kit and power supply, which I duly did.
I then assembled my fave pedals on the ’board, connecting them through the send-receive loop on the Line 6, and now I have the best of both worlds and it all fits into one heavy-duty carrier bag! Combined with the ‘one-finger required’ Vox amp, which gives me the amp models, and one or two guitars strapped around my neck, I can walk to the local gigs and pretty much get any sound I want, new or old, and for an incredibly small outlay in relative terms. Steve Broadhead, via email
Hi Steve, thanks for your thoughts on lightweight rigs, which are becoming so tempting these days. We’ve been especially impressed by the innovative cabs made by Brighton company Barefaced, which definitely punch above their negligible weight. We also liked the Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 floor amp, which is so potent and capable for the money. Pair it with a Barefaced 1x10 and you’d have an incredibly lightweight yet powerful rig. There’s plenty of other ways to go, of course, with modelling combos a fair bit lighter than their valve counterparts, though things like neodymium speakers and light cabs can slim down the heft of traditional amps a fair bit. That’s great news as there’s no upside to backbreaking gear if you can get equally great tone in a lighter package.
WHOSE HOFNER?
When I saw the Hofner Senator on page 71 of Guitarist magazine issue 465 I had a bit of a shock as I thought it was a picture of mine till I saw the pickup and controls. My guitar is acoustic only and was built in Germany in 1956 and its serial number is 2841. It was originally bought from Yardley’s Musical Instruments in Snow Hill, Birmingham, but I obtained it in 1967. Neck like a baseball bat with no truss rod. Love the guitar, though.
Richard Hollis, via email
Thanks for sharing, Richard – editor Jamie used to have a Hofner Senator (who would call a guitar that these days, for a start?) and regrets selling it for £75 to an Edinburgh guitar shop many years ago. It was a bit of an ornery beast but a pleasure to play while sitting on the couch, and had a nice tone. As always, the key is to embrace the quirks of such instruments and make the most of the fact they sound anything but generic.
ORIGINAL AIN’T ALWAYS BEST
It was interesting to read about modified vintage guitars in issue 465. In the 1980s, I was desperately looking around Tyneside for an old Tele and an old Strat. All I could find was a 1967 Tele with two DiMarzio humbuckers chopped in (bridge cut in half), and a 1963 Strat with a Jazzmaster pickup in the neck position, and two Strat pickups at the bridge, wired as a humbucker. They were great and affordable – and I spent months finding replacement parts to restore them to standard models. Guess what? They weren’t as good workhorses once they were returned to ‘normal’. Doh! They were okay, but those previous hardworking owners had done things for a reason: to update their sounds, have more punch and get the job done.
I have a couple of vintage and Custom Shop things these days, but, as a nod to those that came before, I have a parts-built S-type guitar with that same Jazzmaster pickup at the neck and a Burstbucker at the bridge – fitted in a half-Tele bridge assembly. It is a guitar that can do anything – for me, at least. My advice is to keep an open mind… just like I didn’t.
David Brewis, via email
Thanks for those observations, David. The guitar world has arguably delaminated into separate pursuits these days – with pure collecting as one strand and musical utility another. Not so long ago, all players cared about was whether a guitar met their musical needs – so lots of wince-inducing mods did indeed get made in the name of functionality. As you point out, from a player’s perspective, the guitar often came out more usable and versatile as a result – even if present-day collectors and vintage Fender fans might shudder.
THE ‘CUSTOM SHED’
If you can’t have your own signature guitar, building one from a kit is maybe the next best thing. It’s achievable and, rather than simply copying an existing model, you can even create ‘the guitar they never made’.
That was the thinking behind my slightly tonguein-cheek build, the ‘Couch-o-Tune Coronation 12 Custom Shed’. The starting point was a 12-string S-type kit at around £100. The first mod was to extend the plain headstock to one based on Fender’s wonderful hockey-stick shape used elsewhere, but not, surprisingly, on 12-string Strats. An extension in a matching wood was shaped and glued on, using biscuit joints to add the necessary strength.
Next, a couple of millimetres were sanded off the face of the guitar body and headstock. Onto both were glued a thin veneer of wonderfully figured Lacewood. In fact, both sides of the headstock were veneered. As well as going for looks, that also covered up the hockey-stick joint. The local Men’s Shed in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire offered all the equipment and expertise I lacked, and even provided that wonderful scrap piece of Lacewood veneer. A Les Paul may use a thick maple top but a veneer opens up an affordable range of beautifully figured woods – car dashboard and furniture makers have been doing it for years. Titebond was the adhesive of choice.
The Fender Strat-style arm contour meant sanding the new top down to size and created a strikingly differentlooking guitar, highlighting that feature. The top horn also created an issue – and an opportunity – as the veneer was a tad rough round that edge, so I had little option but