2009 Best Year Ever!!!

This upcoming year we're going to increase transparency, begin the Re-Org in earnest, clean up our act, reconfigure our core competencies, pull the wool over our own eyes and maybe even grow up. Well....one out of six ain't bad!

(photo: Matt Zipkin attempts to decipher Gary's notes for installing two Thingamakits into Timmy Pizza's unsuspecting tele)

the cool mod completed

Here Justin Oakley shows off his completed modification: a brand spanking new Fender 12 string Strat, with an entirely non-stock pickguard/pickup configuration and wiring harness. We routed the pickup cavities in the body, installed his carefully chosen Lollar Jazzmaster-style pickups into a special order pickguard, wired & shielded everything, put it all together and performed a complete set-up by hand. Because Justin is very clear about what he wants the odds of personal instrument satisfaction are vastly increased. See our entry about his mod from Saturday, October 25th, 2008, for all the details of his control array.

these things happen...

...a noise was heard in the shop, not unlike the slow sliding of entropic dissolution or a machine taking itself apart. The sound of an endless crushing falling reverberance; inexorable, unstoppable and taking forever to end.

A stack of empty cases comes to rest. No one was hurt.

"It's exactly right!"

Here Chris Palmer is displaying his parts strat-style guitar with a freshly installed EMG 60 in the bridge position. Chris wanted the guitar's original pickup system to sound more sparkly in the high end. The original pickup sounded dull to him. Gary mulled over Chris's request and suggested the EMG 60 and Chris's reaction is recorded above. As Gary has mentioned regarding the fantastically subjective nature of pickup choices: "you give us adjectives, we'll give you answers."

what are the odds?

A man named Smith confers with us regarding the pickup in his Martin acoustic guitar. It's a normal day at the shop, well...busier than usual but progressing smoothly. Several minutes later another man named Smith appears to pick up his Martin acoustic guitar and it, too, has a pickup system that engenders some discussion. The two Smiths cause the shop mgr's. brain to misfire. Lunch: forgotten.

(above: the two Smiths. Richard[L] & Steve)

This 1976 Gibson Les Paul arrived at our shop for a much-deserved refret. During the refretting process the ever vigilant Tim noticed that the Dimarzio Super Distortion neck pickup had been worn away through years of heavy picking. By clicking on the picture to enlarge it, you can clearly see a small area of exposed winding on the end of the top of the right-hand coil. That winding, comprised of 42 gauge copper wire and thinner then a human hair, is extremely delicate and will practically snap at a glance. If that wire breaks the pickup is dead. It could be rewound or replaced of course but we offered to sidestep that expense by building up a protective shell around the hole by coating the area with a layer of cyano acrylate (superglue).