MarkScudder

Sweet! I miss 80s Rush, period. Alex may not have liked it but his frustration made his playing extra emotional and desperate, which is a great sound for Grace.

Friend of mine just traded emails with Russ from Signature. The Evans passives were offered, but Alex used the actives. They were made by Fernandes, or for Fernandes by EMG, and Russ says the closest thing currently available is the EMG S; it's an active ceramic bar pickup that can be preamped at 9 or 18V.

I've got a good Hentor logo image you can print on decal paper. But just FYI, in case you want it to be accurate, the red one never had a custom/funny logo on the headstock. That particular Strat's headstock was painted and finished the same as the body, with a standard CBS-era Fender Stratocaster decal in gold.

I really cannot understand, nor can I accept, the mindset of anyone who doesn't think Rush can do whatever the hell they want now including break up, start making polka records, stop touring, take up needlepoint, and that they owe us nothing. They've earned the right to a retirement on their terms more than almost any entertainers, musicians, etc. in the world.

Believe it or not, a friend of mine just talked to Russ while I was typing this. He didn't ask who made the actives, but Russ said the closest current pickup is the EMG S series, which is an active ceramic bar that can be run at 9V or 18V. http://www.emgpickups.com/guitar/single-coil/strat/s.html

Thanks guys. As for dual signal chains, the only splitting is in software. There's one input, into my audio interface. It splits the signal. In fact, since I use Apple Mainstage as a plugin host, I've been working on actually splitting it out into three amp channels and pre/post effects to make the thing easier to deal with. My studio is a wreck right now, waiting for the weather to get nice so I can finish painting, but after that I'll make some videos, as my Hentor Sportscaster is now officially done, and not having anything better musically to do, I will be dialing this patch in more.

The pickups in the Signature Aurora were made for Fernandes by EMG.

 

A lot of things people are saying in here are correct:

 

Alex used different guitars and different amp setups on almost every album, and while you can get close with the same gear, every guitarist plays a little differently and Al plays like Al, I play like me, you play like you. You can play like you're pretending to be Al playing like Al, but I've heard a lot of people play Rush and they miss a lot of nuances. Like when prog-metal guys play YYZ; it's too clean because they're used to doing the Yngwie type stuff, and if you listen to the isolated guitar from Moving Pictures, Al's playing is actually kind of messy compared. People miss that. Real heavy prog-heads, the first thing they do is take the human-ness out of Al's playing. Learn the songs but when you play, feel it, don't think it.

 

Al used a Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion on Moving Pictures (Tom Sawyer, Camera Eye), the ESS-355 (Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta), and the Strats with stock (not Shark) necks and '59 Gibson PAFs (not Lawrence L500Ls) (Vital Signs, Limelight). He was using ultra-rare 100W Marshall Club & Country combo amps (2x12 x 4, two dirty, two clean, plus a Rockman, mixed in various combinations for different songs) as far back as MP, but exclusively on Signals/Grace and then mixed with a Dean Markley Combo and (I think) a GK combo with the speaker bypassed and run through a Club & Country speaker on various things on Power Windows. Signals was mostly the Strats - might have had Shark necks at this point with ebony fretboards - but still the PAFs. Grace Under Pressure introduced the Lawrence L500Ls in the bridge and the Letraset on the headstocks - "Hentor Sportscaster" for the white one, "Hentor Porkflapsocaster" for the black one, and as far as I know the red one's headstock was not modified. Power Windows brought back the Howard Roberts and Al had a couple of stock Strats at the time too, with three singles, though I don't know where/how he used them (remember the baby blue one in the Big Money video?). Alex said in interviews that the Sportscaster (white) had a cleaner, brighter sound, the red one was preferable for leads, and the Porkflapsocaster (black) was the workhorse, presumably why he used it for 3/4 of the p/g concert video.

 

Hold Your Fire was the Signatures with the active Fernandes/EMGs through GKs and the clean stuff was also run through a Jazz Chorus. He brought out the 355 again in places on Presto but it was mostly the Sigs but I just learned last night the intro to "Show Don't Tell" was the Hentor.

 

If you want the Alex sound, never buy a guitar that "looks" like one he used. Look for things that would make them *sound* like the ones he used. When I was building my Hentor Sportcaster last year, it started as a '99 Squier with an agathis body. Replacing the bridge pickup with an L500L helped a lot. Replacing the body with an alder body dialed it in quite a bit. If I can ever afford to get the right neck (either from Freddy or somewhere else, it's impossible to get CBS-era headstocks with ebony necks for what I can afford), it'll get me the rest of the way there. (Freddy also insists that the Sportscaster had "mojo" compared to the other two, for what it's worth.)

 

Far as I know, only the Fractal Axe-FX II, through a recent software update, got a model of the Club & Country. No other effects unit or software models it. I use Guitar Rig 5, and I didn't figure out a way until I read that the Club & Country was Marshall's answer to the Fender Twin Reverb, which *everyone* models. So I took the amp section of a Fender Twin and ran it through a "British 2x12" cabinet model.

 

Remember, things get better as time goes on. A 2015 Squier isn't going to sound *exactly* like a '73 American Strat, but it's going to sound better than an old Squier. If you're strapped for cash, buy a recent Indonesian Squier with an agathis body, or better yet a Made-In-Mexico Strat with an alder body, get an HSS pickguard, and a Bill Lawrence (Bill & Becky, not "Bill Lawrence USA") L500L and you're as close as you can get without spending thousands of dollars. If you want a Moving Pictures sound, get a '59 PAF instead of the L500L.

 

If you want the Signature sound, uh.... um.... I heard one of the EMG single coil sets will get you close, but the Signatures had 18V preamps and strange pickup switching.

 

Most important thing is pickups, second most important is tonewood. Then you tweak your amps and effects to that. I'm speaking from experience, that's the only way not to drive yourself crazy.

 

Somebody (and by that I mean it'll have to be me) needs to put together a definitive Alex gear guide. So much of it around the internet is wrong, especially about the Hentors and Signatures. One great resource is the article transcriptions over at Cygnus-X1.net. There were a few really in-depth gear breakdowns in the 80s regarding Lifeson's rigs. http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/rush/bios.php

[never mind]

Yeah, the tech doesn't exist. But I'll play guitar on any GUP/PoW covers anybody wants to do, or anything Al played the Hentor Sportscaster on (with the L500L). I read last night he used it on the intro of Show Don't Tell, I never knew that. PM me.

On the studio Limelight video Alex plays a black Strat with a PAF in the bridge. This later became one of the Hentors after Signals, as did the white Strat used live that had the Bill Lawrence on ESL and the red Strat in the subdivisions video. All still had Fender on the headstock until GUP which is when the Hentor idea was put forth. :)

 

This is correct. The white and black Strats that became the Sportscaster and Porkflapsocaster, respectively, had some sort of Gibson humbucker in them (I'm sure Cyg is right about it being a PAF). Alex was trying to make his Strats sound like Les Pauls at the time. The Lawrence L500L has a different sound than the PAF that's a little hard to classify; it's almost in a sweet spot between sounding like a traditional humbucker and having two single coils (say like two Strat singles), one out of phase, turned on at once.

I play both bass and drums.

 

And you're 3,000 miles away. QED. :-)

I am one of the thousands of people who submitted vocals for the "Universal Choir," and I have been hotly anticipating this album for six months, since Dev released the guide tracks for "Before We Die," "Z2," and "Dimension Z."

 

The "Dark Matters" disc needs to be approached with the attitude that you can't outdo the first Ziltoid album, and you can't take Ziltoid too seriously as a concept. Despite the writing and performance, Ziltoid was meant to be a joke, a shock, and a slightly childish outlet. "Sky Blue" needs to be approached with the attitude that you also can't really outdo Epicloud. Both discs are "sequels" for a guy who doesn't do sequels; his best work is when he can go off in a completely unexpected, uncharted direction. That's the catch-22 about Ziltoid; the first Ziltoid record was so shockingly unexpected and funny in a "WTF?" sort of way that you can't outdo it if only because not expecting a record like Ziltoid was part of the fun in 2007. I think Devin was under a lot of pressure to satisfy Ziltoid fans. You can't ever do truly groundbreaking work in that scenario.

 

From that point of view, Z2 is amazing. Part of Devin's personality is that he's self-effacing. So once Ziltoid gets big enough, Devin needs to poke fun at Ziltoid to keep it interesting and relevant. Knowing Devin and understanding this, I was able to attempt to manage my expectations for Z2. But it was hard even for me; the demos/guide tracks for the Universal Choir songs were so burned in my mind, it's taken some work to get used to the final versions. (I heard the leaked first mix too, and that didn't help.)

 

Parts of Z2, especially Dark Matters, feel like purpose-written bridges between disparate ideas. Like I said above, I think that's because Devin isn't a sequel guy. But there's some genuinely awesome stuff in there, and the best parts are when he's making fun of himself or the whole concept - the announcer guy, the Poozer in the wormhole, Ziltoid yelling "Oh crap!" when Captain Spectacular is shot, Ziltoid saying "oh, so lame!", the fact that Chris Jericho is Captain Spectacular in the first place, Ziltoid and the attorney, the ending, etc. It's supposed to be goofy. The fact that it's good is gravy.

 

It disappoints me that people demand anything from Devin, even with good intentions. Z2 will always sound a little forced, and in that sense fans got what they deserved, because Devin isn't a record-industry cookie cutter (that's a good thing, by the way). I have the three-disc version as well, but I rarely if ever listen to the version of Dark Matters without the dialogue. Why? The dialogue is part of the joke. It's part of the environment. There are killer riffs and excellent musicianship throughout, but the point of that stuff is that it is absurd to have this level of musicianship in something with a narrator and fart jokes. The absurdity and juxtaposition is what makes it funny, what makes it work. Anyone can riff with enough practice, and Devin has said millions of times he's a "good enough guitarist" to do what he needs to do, and most of his riffing was learned in high school because he couldn't get laid.

 

Anybody who doesn't understand this is always going to be disappointed with Devin. Me, I still laugh out loud every time I hear that stupid Poozer going through the wormhole, because it's so bad it's good, and I don't care who knows.

 

In fact I'd rather have a DVD-ROM of stems than a mix without narration. If I want to appreciate the musicianship let me listen to isolated instruments so I can really dig into what they're playing. Let me really appreciate the work that went into taking a thousand vocal submissions of varying quality (I know mine sucked!) and turning it into that monster on the record.

John Petrucci was my next guitar man-crush after Alex, and I played Ibanez for many years because of him (and their price point, natch). But the whole thing leading up to when Portnoy left just soured me horribly. The "reality show" documentary they released about finding a new drummer made Petrucci, and especially Rudess, who is still the "new guy," look like bitter, impatient pricks who wanted to control everything. I know that's largely marketing and advice from their label and the producers of those videos, but this is a band that has stood up to record label and media influence, and especially after Falling Into Infinity, were able to prove that they knew better than any external force. I had so many years invested in them that I couldn't just never listen to DT again, but if you were to look at my music collection, you'd think DT disbanded when Portnoy left (and to be honest I didn't like Chaos or Black Clouds, so they went off the rails after the 20th anniversary tour for me).

 

They learned a lot of chops from Rush, but they didn't learn how to be modest.

 

The other thing is that it seemed that Portnoy kept the band American-sounding (and to a lesser extent, British-sounding). What little I've heard since whats-his-nuts joined the band sounds like generic Norse math-metal. People claim he's a "better" drummer than Portnoy but he's not as human, as emotional. And there was always emotion in DT stuff, it wasn't always just cold math. I'm sure I'm in the minority if I don't like prog from Sweden and Norway, but I just don't. Portnoy's influences, that ranged from The Beatles to Pantera to Rush, balanced DT's prog ambitiousness with a traditional heavy rock vibe that I thought made them a better, more enjoyable band. Other than the chorus in "Breaking All Illusions," which is unfortunately wrapped in eleven and a half minutes of crap, I can't stand anything they've released since.

 

Unfortunately, I'm also not a big fan of anything Portnoy's been involved with since leaving DT. So it's just really tragic, I'm the only person left on earth who thought Portnoy needed DT and vice-versa, and they were perfect for each other, and I can neither stand new DT nor Winery Dogs.

 

I'm grateful that in 2006 someone introduced me to Devin Townsend; his excellent work fills my jones for Portnoy-era Dream Theater, Rush-esque tongue-in-cheek humility, and often-undervalued anthemic wall-of-sound emotional music. Plus he's operating in the post-industry era where he can crowdfund projects that wouldn't otherwise ever get financed by a record company, like Casualties of Cool and Z2. Dev has essentially replaced DT in the #2 spot of my favorite bands of all time.

 

I have a particular memory of one time I met Dev after a show; take it for what it's worth. He was talking to fans, most of whom obviously thought he was a god. One asks him, "Devin, where did you go to school?" and he replies, "Vancouver High School, why?" The kid replies, "No, I mean for music." The kid literally didn't understand that most successful musicians in non-classical genres don't go to school, they have an independent work ethic that makes them excel. And this kid just couldn't understand that Dev didn't go to school to learn what he does. I think about that when I think about the new drummer in DT, who gave up teaching at Berklee to join DT, and has a sort of cold, academic vibe to his playing.

 

But everyone's different, I guess. It's just not my thing.

I have less than no idea.

Yeah. I have to clean it up but there's no other Rush fans around here who play bass or drums so I'm not motivated to do it, I'd rather just play.

Limelight/MP was Hiwatts, I think. Actually if you have a Matching EQ plugin, there's a way to get it close, because that tone was very barkey, very quacky. Go find the "isolated guitar" tracks from MP on YouTube and run them through the Match EQ, then get your GR patch as close as possible and play the same song through it. The Matching EQ should create an EQ curve that'll make your GR patch sound really close to Alex's guitar tone on that album.

I'm working on a p/g sound in GR 5 to go with my Hentor Sportscaster. It's a little bright (it matches the p/g concert video more than the album itself), but I'll try to tell you what I did:

 

First, a few notes: I am playing a homemade Hentor Sportscaster with a Bill & Becky Lawrence L500L. The guitar body is alder. Many people will tell you many things about how much or how little pickups and wood will color the sound. If you're playing a "superstrat" where the pickups are mounted right into the body, that will sound different too - there is definitely a component of Lifeson's 80s sound that has to do with the vibrations ringing around the body routs and against a plastic pickguard. Remember Alex also plays most rhythm parts with his volume knob at 4 or 5 and only rolls it to 10 for solos. This gives you a gain boost you control at the guitar. Also, I hack these things together by sound so there's a lot of things that could be optimized, but they're not yet. This is also always a work in progress, this is version 3 since I got the L500L and I'm sure there will be changes down the road.

 

Now, the rig:

 

First I'm running into a Fast Comp. Input 24.3, Attack 1, Makeup -3.8.

Next, Electric Lady flanger. Rate 0.44, Static off, Depth 2.68, Color 5 Dry/Wet 82%/18%, Rotate 0, Sync and Invert off.

Next, the Shelving EQ.Low Freq 142, Lo Gain -14.9, Hi Freq 5008, Hi Gain -11.1, Volume +8.7.

 

For p/g and the tour, Alex was running three outputs - Four Marshall 4140 "Club & Country" 100W 2x12 combo amps (two dirty, two clean), and a Rockman "through a locked parametric EQ" (unfortunately Alex never gave more info than that), and they were mixed in various proportions based on the song (which I don't emulate here). GR5 does not emulate the Marshall 4140. I got a similar sound by learning that the 4140 was Marshall's answer to the Fender Twin, and using the Fender Twin ("Twang Reverb") head with the "British 2x12" cabinet.

 

So set up two splits, one inside the other. Mine show up as a red colored one inside a green colored one. The red split should be entirely in the green "Split A."

 

Red Split A (Dirty Marshall):

Put in a Tube Compressor first, Volume -5.5, Sustain 5.57, Attack 32.1, Release 7.67, Threshold +15.4, Sidechain off.

Then a "Twang Reverb." Volume 10, Treble 7.76, Mid 10, Bass 4.61, Reverb off, Vibrato off, Bright On.

Delete the matching cab.

Add a Control Room, select the "British 2x12" cab. Air 0, Bass -9.7, Treble +7.3, Volume -17.4, Rib 121 -3.43, Con 47 0, Dyn 441 -2.5, rest of the mics off.

 

Red Split B (Clean Marshall):

(Note: No compressor here)

Twang Reverb, Volume 10, Treble 10, Mid 8.98, Bass 1, Reverb off or very low, Vibrato off, Bright On.

Delete the matching cab.

Add a Control Room, select the "British 2x12 V72" cab. Air 0, Bass -15, Treble +15, Volume -1.2. Dyn 57 -12.3, Con 47 -1.9, Dyn 421 -3.9, all other mics off.

 

Set the pans on the Red Split Mix to center, and set the crossfader 80/20 to Split A.

Underneath the Split A mixer, but BEFORE the Green Split B starts, put a Stereo Tune (it's the closest thing to a Roland Dimension D we have). Mix 100% Wet, Split 682, Drift 55%, Spread 80.7%.

 

Now, on the B side of the green Split (Rockman):

Transamp: Volume 6.84, Bass 0, Treble 2.59, Drive 10, Amp 100% Tweed. Stereo Off, Clean Off, Cab&Mic On, Mic Pos 2% Far, Hot 4.91.

Parametric EQ: Volume 0, Freq 1 72Hz, Gain 1 17.9, Q1 0.5, Freq 2 1227Hz, Gain 2 +0.9, Q2 0.5.

 

Set the pans on the Green Split to center, and set the mix to 78/22 to Split A.

 

Now insert a Tube Compressor below the splits. Input 12, Threshold -31, Ratio 8:1, Attack 0, Release 1.22, Gain -5.

Then insert the Chorus/Flanger. Set it to chorus mode, Speed 0.17Hz, Intensity 6, Width 6. Sync Off, Stereo Spread On.

Next, the Psychedelay. Dry/Wet 84%/16%, Sync On (this allows you to map your foot controller to tap tempo), Time 1/4, Reverse Off, Detune 0, Feedback 49.8, Pitch 0, Stereo Time 0.69, Detune off, Cross Feedback 100%.

 

After that I put in a Solid Dynamics compressor (it's from an add-in pack) to act as a final, soft, opto-style leveler. May not be necessary. If you want it: Soft, Ratio 4, Thresh -17.9, Release 0.1, Fast Att Off, Lin Rel Off, Gate, Range 0, Thresh 0, Release 0.63, Fast Att Off.

 

Here's what it sounds like playing through "Territories," which I know isn't on p/g. Not my best playing but suffices for this demonstration.

 

This could use some improvement; it's very noisy. What I like about it though, is when you roll the volume back, the "dirty" amp gets out of the way and you get this nice smooth blend to a half-dirty, half-clean tone. Knock it back to the middle switch position (neck + middle, humbucking), and you get a nice tight, spanky single coil sound that's at home with quite a bit of 80s pop as well as Rush. Lot of different sonic possibilities with just the volume control and pickup switch. Of course you can adjust the crossfaders to taste - that was the point of this particular rig. A technicality: Alex ran his rig in mono during this time, but between overdubs and live sound, I'm sure it was split somewhere and widened.

 

And here's a quick sloppy combination of a bunch of screenshots of the rig. I think I got it all. Let me know if you end up improving it at all. Chorus and Lifeson go together well in any situation anyway.

 

Hope this helps.

 

http://i.imgur.com/iYtc8Jp.jpg

Freddy's diagram is correct, and the StewMac switch is what I used. They were on clearance when I bought them around this time last year, so they're probably very hard to find now.

 

I just got my Olympic White nitro and put a few coats on. An ebony neck is still out of my price range, but this is what it looks like now. Sounds spot-on, too.

 

The only thing I don't know about yet is the finish. Fender didn't clear-coat Olympic White guitars because it yellows the finish. So I'm not sure if I just need to put another few coats on or what, the finish feels very "unfinished." If I buff it, will the paint provide a clear-coat-like protection, or is this thing always going to be easy to ding up and scratch?

 

http://i.imgur.com/zVDX8rZ.jpg?1

So I thought I'd show you an ongoing project I have to build a Hentor Sportscaster for myself.

 

First of all I'm starting with an Indonesian Squier for two reasons: First, money is tight right now and I can't spend extra on a new guitar itself, and 2. I've never done mods this complex before and I wanted to get it right on a cheap guitar before I do spend money. Now that I've unraveled some of the mysteries of the Sportscaster, I can replace stuff like the body and neck when I can.

 

So the guitar is a 2001 Indonesian Squier, with two humbuckers. It has a flat/matte black finish and had a black headstock. It also has a two-point trem already on it, as opposed to the six-screw trem standard on most Strats, which makes it slightly closer to a non-fine-tuner Floyd. I was already using this guitar to try out mods, and when I took this picture, I'd already put two push-pull pots in it, for coil cutting on both humbuckers, and a standard Les Paul-style toggle switch, that combines the two pickups in the middle. Had it strung with heavier gauge strings, and was using it for a project in open C tuning.

 

http://www.markscudder.com/trf/IMG_2671.JPG

 

I got a set of Planet Waves locking tuners, so I took the original tuners off, sanded down the headstock to bare wood, and installed them. I had another Squier with silver string trees so I replaced the black ones with those.

 

http://www.markscudder.com/trf/IMG_2675.JPG

 

I also sanded the back of the neck down at this point, and discovered that Alex was right about that too. The feel is so much better. Smooth, not sticky. May do it on all my guitars.

 

It took me quite a while to find the right pickup switch for this build, because it's a special "three way" switch that's actually a DPDT. It was really difficult to find because it's not a "Gibson toggle," which lets you switch between two pickups or both; and it's not a DP3T switch, like the 3- and 5-position "blade" switches that come on Strats or Superstrats. When I finally found the right switch on StewMac, it was on closeout - so I bought three.

 

Of course, that doesn't mean I know how to wire it. I've never been able to wrap my head around switch logic, and it's further complicated by the fact that Lifeson wired these Strats to be Neck, Neck + Middle, Bridge. It turned out to be pretty easy but days of Googling didn't reveal anything. It was as if no one but Lifeson had ever done anything like this. Freddy G had posted a picture of a completed pickguard for one of his Hentors, but the angle made it difficult to see where all the wires connected. It took both my wife and me staring at that picture for a good half-hour and figuring out the hidden connections through the process of elimination. After we figured it out it seemed so simple.

 

Like I said, I've always had trouble thinking like a switch. I'm practical, so I expect there to be one lug for each switch position. What you have to do with this one is view it as two completely separate switches that are thrown at the same time. So you wire it up so that one side of the first switch selects the bridge pickup, the other side selects the neck, and you set up the other switch to simply turn the middle pickup on and off based on whether the switch is in the middle.

 

Freddy posted this schematic today, which jives with what I discovered from his earlier picture:

 

http://i361.photobucket.com/albums/oo56/FreddyGabs/HentorSwitchSchematic_zps77af905f.jpg

 

So, time to rout out the body so I can mount the switch and wire it up. The switch is almost 2" deep so a lot of wood had to come out. I also routed two pathways for wires, so I could get all the pickup wires to the switch. In this picture, some of the routing is done, and you can see a guide for the rest of it etched into the wood.

 

http://www.markscudder.com/trf/IMG_2727.JPG

 

I opted not to use the top pathway, after I got into trying to solder wires to those tiny switch lugs. Instead I decided on a wiring harness, where I permanently soldered a wire to each terminal I'd be using, and ran all of them back to the original electronics cavity. Then I'd solder the pickup wires to those wires, and seal the joints with shrink tubing. That way, if I ever needed to replace a pickup (as I will when my L500 arrives), I don't have to get in between those tiny switch lugs ever again.

 

(This picture has the wrong pickups in it, specifically a Duncan Hot Stack Plus in the neck, which has since been replaced with a stock Strat neck pickup, and a DiMarzio Super Distortion, which has been replaced with a stock Fat Strat humbucker until the L500 arrives. Please also ignore anything that looks like a crimpable butt end connector, I was trying something that didn't work the way I wanted it to. But you can clearly see the finished switch rout, and the general wiring.)

 

http://www.markscudder.com/trf/IMG_2737.JPG

 

Now I'm waiting for parts. I have a new Warmoth pickguard (no pot/switch holes) and a cream L500L on the way. Why cream, when Alex's black Hentor had a black L500? Because the next thing on the to-do list is to replace this body with a white alder Strat body, when I have the cash and can find a good one on eBay. What little I know about re-painting a guitar body tells me it's more trouble than it's worth, and with bodies going on eBay for under $300 it's probably better to wait until I have the cash. The other pickups have plastic covers on them that come in black or white, and I have some white ones standing by for the day I get a new body. Also, I know that GuitarFetish has cheap Strat bodies, but they're not alder, so if I'm going to spend money I might as well go for the right wood, too.

 

(This body, far as I can tell, is agathis, for what it's worth.)

 

The other problem with this body is that the wood is broken around one of the trem posts. Did I mention this was a pawn shop guitar from an area with no music scene, and I got it from the guy who found it in said pawn shop? It moves a little bit but the pickguard fits so tightly against it that it effectively doesn't move when the guitar is assembled, but will someday come apart from the stress of being disassembled and reassembled.

 

I'm also not sure what I'll do about the trem. This sort of Fender trem is essentially the same as the non-fine-tuner Floyds that Alex was using originally. Those Floyds did not require the now-ubiquitous body rout, or a locking nut. I prefer these trems with locking tuners anyway. Alex never bends up anyway, even with contemporary Floyds. A lot has changed since 1982, and as far as I can tell, I can put a Wilkinson trem in it for half the price of these "reissue" non-fine-tuner Floyds, and it's essentially the same trem. I have a guitar with a Wilkinson bridge and locking tuners and I love it. The biggest problem with the stock trem is the bar anyway. It sits higher off the bridge than Floyd/Wilkinson bars, has that awful plastic end on it, and unless it's screwed into the bridge until it doesn't move, there's too much play in the socket to do anything subtle with it, and Al does a lot of subtle vibrato of chords with the bar.

 

Maybe all I want is the blessing of other Rush fans to put a Wilkinson in it, I don't know. Once I figured out what a non-fine-tuner Floyd was, I couldn't believe that anyone would buy one over a Wilkinson.

 

So that's the Hentor story so far. I'm happy with how close it'll look and sound when the pickguard and L500 arrive, and I'm happy that it can be upgraded when I have the money to get a white alder body and a neck with an ebony fretboard. I also much prefer the switch location; I'm always bumping blade switches in the traditional position and inadvertently switching pickups. The one upside is that the guitar has been played for years and the neck feels nice.

 

I'm modding another Squier in parallel with this one; to replace this one as my open C tuning guitar. It'll have only humbuckers in it, but I'm Hentoring the pickguard. I only ever use one master tone control, and I want the pickup selector switch on the lower horn. I have a Warmoth pickguard for it on the way too. Instead of Neck, Neck + Middle, Bridge, it'll be switched Neck, one of the pickups coil-cut, Bridge.

 

And I made sure to flip the jack plates on both.

 

http://www.markscudder.com/trf/IMG_2758.jpg

Thanks Freddy (and happy birthday). I should have posted that I figured it out from your one picture of the assembled pickguard. I recently lost my Mom to ovarian cancer and while working on guitars has brought me some peace, I haven't felt much like being social about it, so I neglected to post here that I'd figured it out.

 

So Cyg was right about the jumper, and it turns out I'd found the right switch. It took about a half hour of me and my wife staring at the pickguard photo to figure it out, and I'm sort of shocked that I did. The guitar sounds right, now just waiting for my L500 to arrive, and a new Warmoth pickguard so I can only drill the holes I need.

 

I will post a build thread shortly, but for now here's a picture of my Hentor as it is right now.

 

http://www.markscudder.com/trf/IMG_2758.jpg

 

The wood-grain Strat is actually a more interesting story that I'll post about sometime, too.

After much research, it appears that this is the switch:

 

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Switches_and_knobs/Right-angle_Metric_Toggle_Switch.html?actn=100101&xst=2&xsr=i-1217

 

One of the comments mentions it has extra lugs which make it "perfect for 3 p/u guitars".

 

Being impatient, I wired my HSS Strat the Hentor way tonight and it can be done on a double pole 3-position switch (I used a Cor-Tek or whatever those ones in the Korean superstrats are) and you can do it by wiring the neck pu across terminals 1 and 2 on one pole, and the middle pu on terminal 2 on the other pole.

 

The Gibson pickup diagrams you posted are for their ubiquitous center-common switch, where the middle position simply combines the output of two pickups. That's the switch that has been getting in my way all the time I've been searching. Apparently I need to buy a hundred of those Stewmac switches so I never need to wade through all this again! :-)

 

Worst part is, every electronics/industrial supplier makes DP3T switches, but not in the "right angle" form factor that fits in the horn of a Strat. Oh, Lerxst.

Neck, Neck/Middle, Bridge is correct. However I can't find the right switch or a wiring diagram that shows how to do it. All the "Gibson-style" toggle switches are for two-pickup setups, and the middle position just combines the two. Far as I can tell there's no way to wire it for three pickups.

 

It's strange, because it seems a bunch of people have built Sportscasters, yet there is literally no information on how they're wired, and where to get this elusive Gibson switch that's not a Gibson switch.

 

I may be being hard-headed, but at this point I have no interest in building one with two switches, a second to cut in/out the middle pickup. If Alex did it (and Alex doesn't manufacture custom toggle switches in his basement), then it's possible. And if Freddy's doing it, it's possible.

I never fully figured out that part, but I do like to play through ASOH (the video version) as practice, so I've tried to recreate the tone. I play mostly SuperStrats. The Signatures that Alex was playing at the time had 18V active single coils, so the super-bright sound starts there, and that's where most of the character is.

 

That being said, my go-to emulation of the "Lerxst Sound" period has been to use two different amp models (in software or a modelling processor) and switch between them, as I assume Alex did physically at the time. My crunch/lead amp varies with mood, I prefer a variac'ed Plexi sound in general, and it fits my playing style. But for the clean parts I switch totally to a Roland Jazz Chours model. You'll have to use compression before the amp, and run the treble/presence up to taste, and use the "bright" switch on the amp model. That was one moment, I believe, where there wasn't a whole lot of delay, but just reverb. Alex's delay at that time was very obvious (the solo in La Villa from ASOH being the best example). I'm not near a copy of HYF or ASOH right now but if there is delay, it's really quiet. The resonance is a combination of compression, reverb, those obnoxiously active pickups, and Alex's touch as a player. But for the elements you can control, a Roland Jazz Chorus model with compression before and reverb after, and using a single coil, or split (position 2 & 4 on a 5-position switch) will get you most of the way there.

So I mentioned in another thread that I was going to start buying parts to build a Sportscaster, but the money's just not there. So I'm doing a "first draft" on a Squier so I'll have the experience to do it right (and probably just move some of the parts over) when I have the money to buy a MIM Strat or whatever.

 

But I'm stuck at the switch.

 

So many people have said Alex used a "Gibson switch" or "Les Paul style switching" that I went out and got a Les Paul switch. Then I found where Freddy G. said the wiring is Bridge/Neck + Middle/Neck, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to do that with a two-position common-center Gibson switch. Then I read somewhere that it's a special 3-pole switch used in the three-humbucker Les Paul Deluxe. I googled for an hour for "three position Gibson switch" and got nothing, plus a lot of links to normal, two position Gibson switches.

 

Nobody seems to have a wiring diagram for this either, and so I'm sitting here ready to solder, I might or might not have the right switch, and can't find this answer. I sent _pete_ an email a few days back but haven't heard from him. Anybody have any idea?

 

If it was a SuperStrat I'd just experiment, but my temperament doesn't do well with having to wire it up one way, assemble it, put strings on, try it, then take the strings off, disassemble it, try it a different way, reassemble it, put strings back on it, etc. Probably the #1 reason I hate working on Strats. Anyway, if anyone could point me in the right direction, this is driving me mad.

 

-mark

This is the first time I've mentioned this here, but I have been doing this semi-regularly recently, and did it for the entire production of my previous album.

 

I am doing a live production session tonight starting at 6pm EST (about 90 minutes from this post), and I will be mixing previously recorded acoustic guitars for an all-acoustic project I'm currently working on. I hope sometime this weekend I can start recording vocals, and then this particular project will be done. Beyond that, I've got a heavy, metalish project in the wings that I want to get to.

 

It's free to watch and chat. You don't have to create an account or anything, it'll ask you for a name the first time you type something. If you make music, or you have been thinking about doing the home studio thing, or if you want to see how it's all done, or just hang out with some like-minded people who are into DIY or independent music, I hope you'll stop by. I should be working until about 11pm EST.

 

(One of the songs is a Rush cover, btw.)

 

The stream is up right now for testing, so you can connect and see if it works for you, test out the chat, and then everybody should be there at 6pm EST sharp and we'll get to work.

 

http://www.markscudder.com/live

 

See you there!