Custom HotRod Strat Build.

[DrNomis_44]

Doc, looks freaking awesome! When do the sound checks go up?

I'll do a quick and dirty little demo of it shortly, I was planning on doing a demo that included drums, bass, rhythm guitar and lead guitar, but that'll probably take a bit of time, so I'll do one of the guitar by itself, with the Bias Amp Simulator plugin.


Here we go, here's a link to the quick and dirty demo I just recorded, the first half of it is just to show you what all the pickups sound like played clean, I start off with the neck pickup and progress through all the selector switch settings and end on the bridge pickup, the second half is to show what the bridge pickup sounds like played through a high-gain amp, I also include some whammy bar abuse, I'm actually surprised at how well the guitar comes back in tune after dive-bombs and pull-ups , anyway....enjoy, and let me know what you think:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...ter_2_Demo.mp3


Pickup Configuration:

Neck Pickup: Black Kent Armstrong Dual Blade Single-Coil Sized Humbucker.

Middle Pickup: Black Kent Armstrong Dual Blade Single-Coil Sized Humbucker.

Bridge Pickup: Tonerider Rocksong Full-Sized Humbucker.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


So, after listening to the quick and dirty little demo I recorded, I've decided that I'm happy enough with the sounds I'm getting from the three new pickups to call them all keepers, I honestly didn't think the HotRod Strat would end up sounding the way it did, so I'm feeling pleasantly surprised, the guitar works with all three channels of my Marshall amp, I even tried it with a couple of my pedals, my Red Jim Dunlop JD F2 Fuzz Face, and my DIY Gypsy Eyes Fuzz pedal, they worked, I found that the Fuzz Face can be a bit picky with pickups that are driving it, thankfully, it seems to really like the new pickups I installed in the HotRod Strat, it doesn't seem to like standard Single-Coil pickups though, for some strange reason, I'm guessing that the low input-impedance of the Fuzz Face circuit presents too much of a heavy load to them, anyway, I think the results I've gotten have exceeded my expectations, and I'm definitely going to use the HotRod Strat as one of my gigging guitars, now, all I need to do is create a headstock decal to put on the headstock.

[FrankenWashie]

Noice. Veery Noice. Great job mate, that sounds tasty!

[DrNomis_44]

Noice. Veery Noice. Great job mate, that sounds tasty!

Cheers mate, to my ears it sounds very fat, but it still retains that Strat character.


For some reason, I'm feeling a very strong need to go and buy a Boss DS-1 and a Boss OD-1 pedal on eBay, maybe it's because Joe Satriani used a Boss DS-1, or OD-1 on his earlier albums, and I subconsciously want to get that Joe Satriani sound.

[Simon Barden]

I've got a Vox Satchurator pedal (now discontinued), which has a modified DS-1 circuit and was developed with JS. The 'more gain' pedal/feature is very useful. A very nice sounding distortion pedal, if prone to be overly trebley if you don't keep the tone control turned down to around 10 o'clock. Certainly worth looking out for one of those on eBay. Not sure if the pad switch does anything on mine as I can't notice any change in level.

[Simon Barden]

Nice guitar sounds. Yes, neck and middle pups not as bright/clean as a Strat's, but then they're not meant to be.

A job very well done!

[DrNomis_44]

Nice guitar sounds. Yes, neck and middle pups not as bright/clean as a Strat's, but then they're not meant to be.

A job very well done!

Cheers for that mate, I always thought that the standard Strat Single-Coil pickups were a bit too trebly, at least all the ones I have tried in the past anyway, one of my goals with the HotRod Strat build was to build a Strat-shaped guitar that had a fatter sound to it, I also wanted a trem that would stand up to being abused and would still come back in tune, traditional Strat trems were never really designed to be abused like a Floyd, they were more meant for subtle use, but I guess that didn't stop Jimi Hendrix, incidentally, from what I have read about the history of the Fender Strat, it was aimed at Country and Western musicians, Bill Carson was responsible for the Strat's curved shape, and Leo Fender included his suggestions in the design of the Fender Strat, which was like a more up-market design compared to the Telecaster, which had a body that was more square-ish in shape, the crescent-shape cut on the back of the Strat body was one of Bill Carson's suggestions.

The other thing I noticed about standard Strat pickups was how harsh they sounded through my Marshall's overdrive channels, there wasn't much bass or midrange in the tone, with the new pickups, it's an entirely different story, I can quite easily live with the neck and middle pickups not sounding as bright as standard Strat pickups, that's fine, they do sound good when distorted, the neck pickup is real bluesy sounding.


I'll keep my eye out on eBay for a Vox Satchurator pedal, or, maybe I could build myself one, there most likely a schematic for a Satchurator on the internet.

One pedal I should build is a BK Butler Tube Driver, I made a 5-Knob Tube Driver before, but found that the fifth knob (bias) wasn't really doing anything useful, so I'm going to make a 4 knob version, hopefully next year.

Which reminds me, I should have a look for my Baja Real Tube Overdrive pedal tomorrow (it is based on the BK Butler Tube Driver) so I can try it with the HotRod Strat to see how it sounds.

[Simon Barden]

Here's my current pedalboard. It will be changing slightly very shortly.



I've gone for mainly mini-pedals so I can fit more on. A lot of them are the Tone City pedals from Andertons, which are generally very good for their price. I wanted to fit my old Boss CE-1 on , but it just took too much of the board up, so bought a fairly generic chorus pedal for the time being. But I've got a Boss CE-2w on order (been waiting a couple of months as they don't import in huge quantities and sell out as they hit the shops) which is supposed to do all the CE-1 + CE-2 sounds, so when it turns up in about a week, I'll be fitting that plus a Boss RV-5 that I've got, in place of the existing chorus pedal (move the trem before them) and use those, in conjunction with two Blackstar HT-5s for a small stereo rig. The Sumer Orange phaser is a bit 'meh' and quite noisy, so plan to replace that with the fairly new MXR mini Phase 95 pedal, which does both phase 45 and 90 sounds.

The TS-808 Tube Screamer I've owned from new in 1981. My first ever pedal was a Colorsound Tonebender Fuzz, which would be worth quite a lot now if I still had it, but I really hated the fuzzy sound at the time (through my transistor 2x12" Marshal Lead Combo), so sold it on a long time ago.

The red Wild Fire distortion will also go, as it does nothing that the other three distortion/heavy overdrive pedals the SL Drive , Hot Plexi (both Marshall based) and Black Tea (AC30 based) don't give me. It's not bad sounding, but just a bit boring and less detailed in comparison to the others.

[wokkaboy]

Nice array of pedals. Lots of sound choice

[DrNomis_44]

Here's my current pedalboard. It will be changing slightly very shortly.



I've gone for mainly mini-pedals so I can fit more on. A lot of them are the Tone City pedals from Andertons, which are generally very good for their price. I wanted to fit my old Boss CE-1 on , but it just took too much of the board up, so bought a fairly generic chorus pedal for the time being. But I've got a Boss CE-2w on order (been waiting a couple of months as they don't import in huge quantities and sell out as they hit the shops) which is supposed to do all the CE-1 + CE-2 sounds, so when it turns up in about a week, I'll be fitting that plus a Boss RV-5 that I've got, in place of the existing chorus pedal (move the trem before them) and use those, in conjunction with two Blackstar HT-5s for a small stereo rig. The Sumer Orange phaser is a bit 'meh' and quite noisy, so plan to replace that with the fairly new MXR mini Phase 95 pedal, which does both phase 45 and 90 sounds.

The TS-808 Tube Screamer I've owned from new in 1981. My first ever pedal was a Colorsound Tonebender Fuzz, which would be worth quite a lot now if I still had it, but I really hated the fuzzy sound at the time (through my transistor 2x12" Marshal Lead Combo), so sold it on a long time ago.

The red Wild Fire distortion will also go, as it does nothing that the other three distortion/heavy overdrive pedals the SL Drive , Hot Plexi (both Marshall based) and Black Tea (AC30 based) don't give me. It's not bad sounding, but just a bit boring and less detailed in comparison to the others.

Which reminds me about the pedal board I built a few months ago, it measures roughly about 80 cm by 45 cm, I actually started a thread about it not long after making it, and I posted some pics of it, here's a pic of the finished pedal board with about 16 of my pedals on it, what you see in the pic is one configuration I came up with for my signal-chain, I'm in the process of designing a better one though, anyway:




The top of the pedal board where the pedals go, is covered by carpet tiles, and the pedals attach to the carpet tiles by adhesive velcro, this way you can easily remove the pedals if you want to re-position them.


Here's what my most current layout looked like, I'm going to be adding a couple of FX looper pedals to the board, one is to switch my tuner and Boss Compressor/Sustainer in and out of my signal-chain, and the other is to switch between two different paths, one has all my vintage-style pedals, and the other has the more modern-style pedals:




In the above pic are the following pedals:


DIY Rangemaster Vintage Treble Booster.

DIY Octavia.

DIY Axis Fuzz.

Jim Dunlop JD F2 Fuzz Face.

Jim Dunlop Crybaby Wah.

Korg Pitchblack Tuner.

Boss Compressor/Sustainer.

Ibanez TS-808 (Reissue).

Boss Blues Driver.

Radial Tonebone Hot British Distortion.

Rawlin 5-Band E.Q.

Danelectro Cool Cat Tremolo.

Moen Pretty Dolly Delay.

Boss Super Chorus.

D.C. Power Brick.


I also have a few other pedals and things in my collection, some, I built myself, these include:

Jim Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Wah.

Gypsy Eyes Fuzz (DIY Band Of Gypsys Fuzz Face).

DIY Univibe with a three-position voicing switch.

DIY Baja Real Tube Overdrive.

DIY Big Muff Fuzz (The four-transistor Triangle version).

DIY Doctor Overdrive pedal.

DIY Ray Gun Chaos Fuzz.

Zoom G2 Digital Modelling Pedal.

Digitech RP50 Digital Modeling Pedal.

Zoom 9002 (works but the output sockets are a bit faulty).

Korg PX5D Pandora.