Category Archives: Blog post

Frankenstrat Project – Mary Kaye white body by Patrick Querleux

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Here’re some pics taken at Patrick Querleux‘s workshop last time I went to check on the Frankenstrat Project guitar he is building for me. He had finished a couple of days earlier the Mary Kaye white on the EG Solidbody provided body.

We chose that color because we thought it would fit perfectly the beautiful wood grain of that piece of Ash.

It looked so great I almost asked Patrick to finish the guitar right away without waiting for him to varnish it !

We finally decide he would put a light water varnish on it to protect the body.
FrankenStrat Project - Patrick Querleux luthier - EG Solidbody body

FrankenStrat Project - Patrick Querleux luthier - EG Solidbody body FrankenStrat Project - Patrick Querleux luthier - EG Solidbody body FrankenStrat Project - Patrick Querleux luthier - EG Solidbody body FrankenStrat Project - Patrick Querleux luthier - EG Solidbody body

Next steps : the varnishing, the drying and the final setup.

Pierre.

Participate in the #tribegram_guitar challenge on Instagram

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Fan of guitar and instagramer? This challenge is for you! The principle is simple: you post a single photo of a guitar on Instagram with the tag #tribegram_guitar and you subscribe to @theguitarchnnl on Instagram.

The best photo (judged by me) will win the box DVD / Live CD The Aristocrats. Deadline June 16.

A big thank you to @tribegram to organize this challenge.

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Anders Thidell (inventor of the True Temperament) interview (MusikMesse 2013)

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One of the new guitar technology I really want to check out at the MusikMesse 2013 is the True Temperament fret system invented by Anders Thidell and played by guitar greats like Alan Holdsworth, Steve Vai, Mattias Eklundh and many more.

I had the great pleasure to chat with Anders for 15 minutes, here’s the interview :

Mattias IA Eklundh Caparison Apple Horn with the True Temperament frerboard :

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Enjoy,

Pierre.

Video teaser of the Riff Shooter pedal conceived by Judge Fredd and JMB Experience

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In order to wait until the full soundseeing, here’s a video teaser of the Riff Shooter pedal that Judge Fredd conceived in collaboration with JMB Experience. I only had the time to play with it for a short while but I can assure you it sounds awesome. I can’t wait to get a unit to review it.

As the name Riff Shooter kind of implies, this pedal is an overdrive. The possibility to voice the sounds is pretty big yet it remains very easy to operate. The “Shoot” switch allows to turn on and off the pedal. The “Patate” switch is a boost you can activate to have a higher volume for a solo for example.

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The Hellfest : a hell of festival!

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The Hellfest festival has become a must for all that concerns heavy music. It takes place West of France in Clisson.This year I think the program is very attractive with some of the biggest names in heavy rock like ZZ Top, Europe, Whitesnake or Def Leppard as well as other bands like Gojira, Korn. In all it’s more than 150 groups that will feed the torrent of decibels 21-22-23 June 2013 in Clisson.

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For the first time, I’ll cover this festival with a Press pass to bring a maximum of picture, audio and video. This should be fun!

Who’s going? Why don’t we organize a Guitar Channel meetup at the festival?

Pierre.

Video setup to record soundseeing

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This is the setup I use to make video soundseeings for the show. The MOTU Ultralite mk3 interface plays the lead role since it serves both as a preamp for Shure SM58 for vocals for comments and as a mixer for the output of Torpedo CAB Two-Notes.

Setup soundseeing TGC

Note that the camera used is a Lumix GH2 with a 14-42 lens. This camera has a stereo mic stereo input required to make a good sounding video.

Be careful though as this input is very sensitive and is quickly saturated if you are not careful. It is possible to display a VU meter on the display of the GH2 but unfortunately it is not accurate at all so it’s close to useless to accurately judge the input level. The only solution is to test and to write down the good settings.

Another limitation of the GH2 is that it does not have a headphone jack to monitor the sound. So I use a headset connected to the audio interface itself for monitoring during recording. This headphone jack is available on the GH3, the GH2 successor.

That’s how it looks like during recording:

SoundseeingVideo

If you have any questions about my setup, please post a comment below or on the Facebook page or via Twitter @theguitarchnnl.

Pierre.

Frankenstrat Project – The body, the neck, the vibrato and the luthier

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Here is a series of pictures documenting the evolution of the Frankenstrat Project at the moment where I have the neck and body supplied by EG Solidbody and vibrato provided by Hantug.

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I read a long time ago somewhere on a guitar forum that a test to do to check the quality of the couple body / neck was to see if the body would hold to the neck without any screw.

Test result: it holds as you can see in the picture below.

FrankenstratCorpsManche

Patrick Querleux, luthier of project inspecting the 3 elements that I brought him. Note that he found that the body and neck were very well made by EG Solidbody as well as the vibrato by Hantug :

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After discussion with Patrick we agreed it would be a shame to use a completely opaque paint on the body because it would hide the beautiful Ash wood grain. We therefore opted for a white Mary Kaye style, ie translucent kind of white

Next step: preparing the body and the neck.

Pierre.