For the last 50 years or so I've wanted to play guitar badly, and now I can (badly) so instead I started buying, building, modifying and sharing - there are a lot of lefties in my family. Gave away my 1971 Yamaha FG-150 acoustic, two knockoff Teles (one pictured) and kept the Strat. I have a studio size Marshall amp. They aren't great guitars but the building and gifting is fun. Solo Music Gear in Concord has a ton of stuff.
SOLO Music Gear store is the best manufacturer and distributor of DIY Guitar kits, Strat kits, bass kits, bodies, necks and parts in Vaughan, CA. Shop now & build your own guitar!
www.solomusicgear.com
One of the coolest thing about the Fender design ethos is the endless modding and chopping and changing you can do. I started out with cheap(ish) Squiers and then doing a bit of fret work and replacing the pickups, pots, caps and wiring to end with a much better sounding and playing instrument. There's a great YouTube channel called
Dave's World of Fun Stuff where I learned a ton of tips and tricks about setup, repair and general instrument improvement. Goes nicely with his sardonic humour and general hoser vibe. Pretty sure he's done stuff with the Solo guys as well.
I have two Frankenfender basses left that survived the great bass purge:
The one on the left is PJ with a Squier maple body (yes, maple) from a Vintage Modified Jazz Bass model that weighs a ton but sounds great. The neck is off a Fender USA 60th Anniversary P bass, and is beautiful with a nitro finish. Pickups are EMG GZR P/J's with an Orange Drop cap, with the body routed (badly) to take the P in the correct P position (many PJ's push the P bridge pup up to where it would be on a J, but that means it doesn't sound like a P if you solo that one because it's on a different node). Had to get a pickguard from Warmoth that's slightly modified to still surround the correct P pup location. I threw on a Hipshot Xtender for quick changes to drop D (which I never use anymore) and it has a Badass bridge that does literally nothing for the tone or sustain and only adds even more weight to a bass that's already a boat anchor, but it looks cool. It's a super versatile bass, and can cop pretty much any Fender tone you want except maybe the soloed-Jazz-neck deep-bass reggae sound.
The one on the right is a Fender Nate Mendel signature body (roadworn Candy Apple Red) with a Fender Classic Series 70's Precision neck and black Allparts hardware. The star of the show is a Fred Hammon Dark Star pickup, which is a slightly hotter recreation of the famous Hagstrom Bi-Sonic pickup, as used by Jack Casady and Phil Lesh, but perhaps most famously by Berry Oakley in his Tractor Bass. Looks like a humbucker, but it's actually a single-coil with the smaller 'pole pieces' actually being adjustment screws for the larger 'true' pole height. It's much less of a Swiss Army Knife, but had a very punchy, mid-forward tone that's hotter than any single-coil has a right to be.
www.createastir.ca
