Part 1: Choosing a Guitar to
Customise
In choosing the right guitar to customise, the main things to bear in mind are
preference, playability and acoustic sound.
Preference
There were certain minimum criteria I was looking for in a Strat. Chasing a very
traditional Strat sound meant that I needed a maple fretboard with narrow frets and an ash
body. While it is possible to get a replacement neck with the right woods, neck profile
and frets, it’s not possible to try them before you buy them. So much about a neck is
subjective, so while it may sound good on paper, there is no guarantee it's going to be
what you are looking for. Also, the price of many replacement necks is high, so it could
push your budget over the limit.
If a guitar has more of the features you want when you buy it, you will have less to do
to get it up to your standards. If you insist on noise cancelling pickups, then it will
often be cheaper to buy a guitar which already has them installed as standard than to buy
a less expensive guitar and fit them as replacements. Of course, if you get an amazing
deal on a guitar and it could still be worth it, so it's important to weigh the options
carefully.
Also, be prepared to have an open mind on some points. It's easy to make a list of
exactly what you want and ignore anything else. A good example is that I prefer an ash
wood finish, showing the grain. If I had stuck to this religiously, I would have not found
the alder bodied guitar finished in a vintage white I eventually bought - and it's a
wonderful instrument.
Playability
The neck and fingerboard have to feel right, and there is no substitute for playing the
guitar to make sure that is an instrument that makes you want to play. While it is
possible to get replacement necks with any number of neck and fingerboard profiles as well
as a range of different sized frets, it’s not possible to try them before you buy
them.
The setup also has a large effect on how a guitar feels and it takes some experience to
differentiate between setup issues and hardware ones. If you are unsure, get the sales
staff to set the instrument up before you buy it, that should rule out the possibility of
any horribles that are caused by setup.
Acoustic Sound
Getting a guitar that sounds good acoustically (before it’s plugged in) is
one of the most important factors. If the basic tone is substandard, it’s not worth
the time and expense to try to correct things by hotrodding. You can change pickups all
you like, you'll just get a better representation of a bad guitar sound.
If it's a guitar you already own, chances are you'll know what it feels like to play,
but many electric guitarists never take the time to play the guitar unplugged to find out
what it sounds like. I suppose for many folks it defeats the purpose of an electric guitar
to play it unamplified!
To evaluate what the guitar sounds like, just sit down and play it. In normal playing
position, you will mostly hear the direct sound of the strings with some of the body, neck
and pickguard/scratchplate tone combined. A trick to hear the body and/or neck
contributions is to lean the guitar forward while playing (you can play without watching
your hands, can't you?), so the back of the body is facing you. This cuts out most of the
direct sound from the strings and will enable you to hear the sound that the body adds to
the tone clearly. If you move your head closer to the back of the neck, you will hear the
contribution that it makes to the sound.
I looked at the new Deluxe Players Strat and the Lite Ash Stratocaster as possible options
- both looked good on paper (well.. actually electrons - I found them on www.fender.com).
The Players Strat looked like a good bet, with noiseless pickups, a modern 12"
radius fretboard, the S1 switch and included gig bag. Sadly, the maple fretboard model was
not available locally yet and while I might have compromised on the fretboard wood, the
modern "C" shaped neck wasn't to my liking either. It's a great guitar for the
price, but it wasn't the one for me.
The Lite Ash Stratocaster looked good specs wise: Birdseye Maple neck and fingerboard,
light ash body (when somebody says light ash, I presume it's southern swamp ash - my
favorite body wood), Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro pickups, a two stud trem and a natural
finish. It sounded like exactly the guitar I was looking for - add a Graph Tech Trem Nut
and on paper, it's my guitar. The birdseye maple neck and fingerboard were an added bonus
and it had abalone position inlays in the fretboard. Then I saw and played it. So heavy it
could have been a '70s three bolter, the "birdseye" maple had about three
solitary eyes, the finish was so thick it could have been applied with a trowel and the
acoustic tone inspired me not to plug it in. Sad really.
