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Electric Guitar Options
As far as body shapes shapes go, the options are endless. Here is an opportunity to be creative. Or you can use ideas from guitars that you like. Keep in mind that the size will affect the weight and the sound of the guitar. You may want body contouring for comfort, or routing out body cavities to reduce weight. Here are more options
Body woods Swamp Ash This wood was used by Fender in the early 1950s. It has a sweet bright biting sound with firm low end. It is warm and open sounding. Swamp ash is much lighter that its' cousin American Ash (used for baseball bats and tool handles). It is a porous wood with nice grain. Alder A light weight, highly resonant wood used extensively for decades, this is a standard for guitar bodys. Fender used alder for Stratocasters (except for blonde used ash) Alder is non porous and is great for opaque colors. It seems to accent the lower to midrange tones. Mahogany This wood has been use extensively by Gibson on many great guitars, including the Les Paul and the SG. It has a resonance similar to ash with nice sustain and a rich sound, but it can lack the clarity of ash. It tends to accentuate the midrange tones. Mahogany is an attractive wood but it is often used with a cap wood. Basswood Nice and light weight, with almost no grain pattern. Basswood has a balanced tone. It has a strong midrange with good definition and excellent sustain. Maple A beautiful wood when containing figure such as quilt, birds eye, or flame. Maple is heavy but when used as a drop top it can add beauty and bright clear high frequencys without adding weight. When used with Mahogany it can give a guitar the clarity that the mahogany lacks, or used with basswood the combination can be great. Limba Also called Korina, it has been used for Explorers and the Flying V. Limba is a great wood for solid body guitars, it is warm and clear and well balanced.
Fingerboards Ebony Usually black in color, holds up best to wear. Tonally poor. Rosewood Nice looking and can add a little sustain. Maple Has a snappy sound (a maple fingerboard must have clear coats of finish on it).
Buzz Feiten tuning system The Buzz Feiten tuning system was created to solve intonation problems. It is a revolutionary system that uses small changes at the nut and at the bridge to make your guitar more in tune. The result is that your guitar or bass will play in tune from the first fret to the last, with a sweetness and consistency that is impossible with standard intonation. For more information please use the link below.
Guitar Electronics Pickups When building a guitar for a specific player, I can use any pickups that you prefer including EMG, DiMarzio, Seymour Duncan, Nordstrand, Fender, Gibson or any other brand currently available. On solid body electric guitars that are made to sell in stores or for shows, I use Lindy Fralin pickups because they are hand wound in the USA and they sound great. For my archtop electric guitars I use Kent Armstrong pickups. They are known for their use in archtop guitars as the premier jazz pickup. Armstrong also offers a hand wound suspended pickup that I have used and it sounds amazing. Use the links for more information.
Piezo pickups Piezoelectric pickups are common on acoustic guitars but they can be used on electric guitars as well. They give an electric guitar an acoustic sound. Piezo pickups are mounted completely differently than magnetic pickups so both can be used on the same guitar, giving many sound options. L. R. Baggs makes a tune-o-matic style bridge with built in Piezo saddles, and Graph Tech makes Piezo saddles for the Fender style bridges. Fishman has been well known for their under saddle piezo acoustic guitar pickups for years and they are now offering piezo saddles for electric guitars as well.
Humbucker pickup wiring options A humbucking pickup is essentially two single coils wired together. They cancel hum by being magnetically out of phase and when a noise signal is picked up from an external source it is picked up the same by both coils, the coils are then wired so the electronic polarity is reversed. This puts the noise signal out of phase and the guitars signal back in phase. The noise signal is canceled. But these two coils can be wired in other ways to give you some very different sounds. Series out of phase is the standard described above. It has a strong sound with lots of bass and little unwanted noise. Series in phase has less power, it sounds thin and is does not cancel the hum. Parallel in phase is also not humbucking and has a thin and weaker sound. Parallel out of phase is a strong sound that resembles the sound of a single coil pickup but it is hum canceling. Coil cut switch This control shuts off half of a humbucker so that it gives a single coil sound. Phase reverse switch This control reverses the polarity of one of the pick ups. You may be familiar with the in between positions of a Strat switch. B.B. King uses this effect with humbuckers. In both situations there is some cancellation of frequencys, creating that cool tone. This only works when using two pick ups. Blend Pot This is a different way of mixing two pick ups. Turn fully one direction you get all bridge pick up and all the other way you get all neck pick up, in between you can mix the two as you choose. Parametric EQ This allows you to choose the specific frequencys that you want to boost or cut. This is mostly used on Bass guitars. High Pass Filter A capacitor is added to the volume control. This keeps the output from becoming muddy at lower volume settings. By-Pass Switch Even when a volume or tone control is turned all the way open, there is still some of the signal bleeding to ground. By useing a by-pass switch the signal is routed around these controls to the output jack. This gives the full power of the pickup without signal loss. Series / parallel switch This can be used on a single humbucker to change the wiring from one coil to the other, giving the typical thick bass heavy sound of series, or switching to the brighter sounding parallel, like a single coil sound but with less noise. Or the series / parallel switch can be used with two single coil pick ups. Switching to a series wiring can give a thicker and louder sound. Active electronics Active electronics can add a stronger signal and can have less noise. They require a 9 volt battery.
Scale Length Scale length is defined as the distance from the face of the nut to the twelfth fret, times two. Typical scale lengths for guitars are 24.625", 24.9", 25", 25.4" and 25.5". The Gibson Les Paul uses a short scale length and Fender Strat uses a long scale length. The length of the vibrating string affects the sound and feel of a guitar because when the string is longer it requires more tension in order to bring it to pitch. This greater tension will add more punch to the sound. A shorter scale length will be a sweeter sound. The longer scale length also will spread out the harmonics, giving them more room to open up. This gives the guitar more complex harmonic sound that could be described as a shimmering sound. The tighter harmonics of shorter scale lengths give the guitar a fatter and warmer sound. The weight of the string will also be a factor in the sound and tension. A heavier string will also require more tension in order to bring it to pitch (A 440). And this will affect the sound in the same way that longer scale length will. Heavier strings can add a stronger signal for the pickups. This can add volume. Sometimes you must use a different gauge of string in order to get the tension that you need. You may have seen a five string bass with a short scale length. If the lowest note is a B, it will be necessary to use very heavy strings in order to create enough tension so the string does not simply flop loosely. For a five string bass with a low B, a longer scale length is better, but this can cause problems for people with smaller hands. Guitars with alternative tunings may have similar issues that can be solved by changing string gauge or by using a guitar with a longer scale length.
Finishes Opaque solid colors Essentially paint. No wood grain is seen through. Transparent solid colors This can be applied as a stain or a dye directly to the wood or by adding color to a topcoat. Wood grain is seen through the finish although the color is altered. Sunburst A sunburst can be black or red or any color. It is distinguished by how the color blends from one into another. The color is brighter in the center of the body changing to a darker shade at the edges. Clear coats Just a clear protective coating that lets the true character of the wood show. I usually use McFadden lacquer but some bass players like the feel of an oiled finnish.
Hardware Bridges You can choose any bridge currently available, like the Floyd Rose, Bigsby or Kahler tremolo or the Fender style tremolo or a tune-o-matic style used on many Gibson guitars or any other hard tail set up.
Tuning Machines I offer only high quality name brand tuning machines. You can choose Gotoh, Grover, Schaller, Kluson, Spertzel, Hipshot, or Planet Waves. Locking tuning machines are nice if you have a tremolo without a locking nut system. It helps to keep you in tune. They also make changing strings faster, you don't have to wind the string more than a half turn on the peg.
Fret wire If you have a preference you can choose fret wire that suits your style. I prefer wider frets on electric guitars for the added sustain. Higher frets make bending strings easier and they can be redressed before they need to be replaced, but some people like the lower frets because it lets you slide up and down the neck with ease. On electric guitars that I make for sale in stores or for shows, I use a wide pyramid shaped fret wire.
Case I offer several options for a case. Guardian makes a quality case and Ameritage is a premium option.
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