Hello again from the west coast of Ireland. That's the skull of a pilot whale. About three winters ago a dead pilot whale was washed up on the beach in front of the house. It was about 6m long and spent several months washing in and out with the tide. We wanted the skull and waited until a lot of the flesh had rotted away (it smelled aweful!) and then removed it, buried it at the bottom of the garden and waited for nature to clean it up. At the beginning of the month we dug it up and this is what was left. Next to it is a vertebra of a much larger whale that we found many years ago.

My excuse!

Due to spending so much time on getting the new website up (finally it is up!) this is going to be a short Newsletter. So no Tech Bit and I'm relying on the contributions of some customers for a lot of the content. I hope to resume normal service next month.

The New Website

After much work the new website is up. It is a work in progress so not every part is working as it should but I think I know where most of the faults are and will be working to correct them. Apart from the design, (thank you Sam and Preeti) which is very up to date, the main innovation is the community section called the Lounge. Here you can subscribe and then post pictures, videos and soundclips of your own and access those of other members. There is a chat facility also and other stuff. Have a look at it and see what you think. I believe this is a first for a guitar maker's page and I will be very interested to see how it develops. The usual pages from the old site are there too but presented in a different way and also some new pages. I'm new to blogging but this is something else I'll have to learn. I have to add new content, update some old content and pictures but this will take time. I am open to suggestions to improve it.

Tonnie van der Heide

Tonnie has bought two 7 string guitars from me. He uses the George Van Eps tuning where the seventh (lowest) string is an A an octave below the regular A. He is also a wizard at creating his own accompaniment. He has kindly written this piece for the Newsletter. There is a picture of Tonnie and one of his guitars on the website.

How to Buy, Own and Play a Custom-built Guitar
By 7-string jazz guitarist Tonnie van der Heide

Many even renowned luthiers hand build guitars, but do not necessarily custom build guitars. Many stick to a few standard types and let the customer choose between a few options. Thus, not all hand-built guitars can all be called custom-built guitars.

So if you are really looking for a guitar that should satisfy all of your wishes for playability, sounds and looks, find a real custom luthier. I surely found one in Chris Larkin. He followed most of my wishes and those he did not, he gave me sound advice why not. Moreover he has expertise in all the “trades” involved in guitar building, such as woodwork, paintwork and, last but not least, the electronics, needed for a good electric guitar. In my case I wanted e.g. to have a MIDI enabled 7-string jazz guitar with silk finish.

How to order

By the time most of us get as far as to think of having a guitar built to our own specifications, we have played, and perhaps owned, a number of guitars. This means that you will know what you did and did not like about these guitars. You can translate this knowledge and experience into determining the specifications of the ones you liked, like body size and body depth, scale length, neck width, action, fret wire type and size etc.

Then what about the looks? Sun burst, blond, custom color, shiny or silk finish? Also think of woods, headstock size and form, tuners, metal parts etc. I think that a guitar should look “the part”. It does not make you a better player, but it may do so in the eyes of the public and your fellow band members. Also, tell your luthier what kind of sound you are looking for, what kind of gigs you normally play and what type and gauges of string you prefer. I send Chris two sets of my favorite strings (at the time) to work with.

Once you have given this information to your custom builder, he will be able to give you advice and a price. Pick his brain; since he has probably built many guitars of the type you are looking for, he may give you advice on things that you might not even have thought about yourself. After you are in agreement, there is a waiting period, while the guitar of your dreams is being built.

After you receive your new guitar, you should play it as much as possible (you and your guitar should have a “honeymoon”). Don’t be afraid to adjust string height etc. until your guitar feels like a pair of “old slippers”.

Take good care of her.

Never play the guitar without a strap and be sure to either order, or fit your guitar with straplocks. Put her in her case as soon as you are done playing. If that is impractical, at least place her on a stand and keep her away from intoxicated and/or clumsy people; this could be one or more of the people you play with, or members of the public. Think of the humidity or dryness of the place you are normally storing your guitar and never leave her for a long period in the trunk of your car. If you are flying with her, detune your strings somewhat and put something between the loose strings and the fingerboard, a piece of sheet music will do. Wipe off the strings, fingerboard and guitar body after every gig or woodshedding session.

The pleasure of playing a well-cared-for and custom-built guitar will provide you with many years of satisfaction.

PS. For those of you who like to be inspired to think “outside the box”, please check out Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers”, especially chapter two “The 10,000-Hour Rule”.

Christoph Navratil - Part Two!

Last month Christoph wrote about his basses. He also included a piece about how he discovered what a good bass pickup a P90 guitar pickup makes. There was no space for it last month so here it is now.

P is for Bass

How a P-90 became a bass pickup I was familiar with P-90s as pickups on some special, mostly vintage, guitars. As relics from ancient times, before the mighty PAF was born. You won’t see many P-90s on guitars these days. Anyway, there are some guys who prefer the sound of fat single coils, one of them a friend of mine here in Vienna. By the way, Chris seems to be another one, if you take a closer look at his own personal guitar. Here’s the story of how I learned to love P-90s.

A friend of a friend whose friend...

I own a vintage Rickenbacker bass built in the same year that I was born. I always liked playing it, but I was never really satisfied with its amplified sound. I think over the years I tried almost every single available replacement pickup, but none ever felt right. One day Harry (El) Fisher told me a story he’d heard from a friend whose friend was once the bass tech for Kurt Hauenstein – better known as Supermax – years before. Kurt had a similar sound problem with his bass back in the 70s and they replaced the pickup with a guitar P-90. I was not sure whether this could work at all, but as Harry had a spare pickup I decided to give it a shot. The worst case was a couple of hours’ work with another unsatisfying sound.

“It’s not allowed”

There were quite a few musicians in Vienna who thought I’d gone completely mad. “A P-90 is made for six strings, not four, the strings are not positioned over the pole pieces,” were just a few arguments I heard. “To mount a P-90 on a bass is blasphemy, it’s just not allowed,” was the one I liked most. In a way it sounded like the Catholic church proclaiming homosexuality can be healed. Anyway, this massive wall of denial I was facing inspired my inner rebel even more. So in the quiet of an early summer night, when all the Defenders of Guitar Faith were gigging, sleeping or drunk, I silently sneaked into my workshop, installed a P-90 on my bass, plugged it into my Hiwatt rig – just another Guitar Hero no-go – and let it roar. What came out of my amps was the sound I’d spent years looking for – smooth, warm, massive, brutal if needed. It felt like the P-90 was replicating every single inch of natural sound the bass had in it.

Right on time

This all happened during a time of brainstorming and discussing directions and the details of what ended up as the Razerbird. Fortunately, it was early enough to bring the P-90 idea into the Razerbird project. The P-90 again turned out to be a perfect fit in combination with the two other pickups on the Razerbird. The Vee II Bass once again was a special design and we took the whole thing a step further. Kent Armstrong made some custom boomerang shaped P-90s for the bass to match the overall design idea. Thanks to guys like Chris and the Armstrongs who are willing to push the boundaries I ended up with a very special - one-of-a-kind - instrument.

By the way, after talking to Supermax a few weeks ago I found out that he never had a P-90 on his bass. So what turned out to be a successful experiment started with one of those great “friend of a friend’s friend” fairytales.

Christoph is currently working with 3 bands and you can read about them in these links.

Stranzinger

El Fisher

Your chance?

If you would like to write a paragraph or two about your Chris Larkin and get a chance to shamelessly publicise yourself and/or your project in the Newsletter send your effort to me along with a suitable pic/video/soundclip/url/link, etc., and I'll see if I can include it. It does not have to be about how good your guitar is (even if it is!) but maybe something about a situation it got you into, a gig experience, the design process or anything related to it. Use your imagination! I have some good ones lined up for future Newsletters but I want more!

Stocklist plug!

I finally got to finish the experimental Syra 4 string 3 pickup bass. The three custom made pickups are positioned at the 24th fret, in the P Bass position and close to the rear J Bass position and selection is by a 5 way 'Strat' type slider. So you get each pickup alone in positions 1,3 and 5 with 'out of phase' combinations in 2 and 4. I'm absolutely delighted with the sounds - it does exactly what I was expecting. The neck pickup has a deep, super smooth, round reggae tone. The middle pickup sounds, strangely, like a PBass and the bridge adds a hard mid-edged tone. The combinations are useful and interesting. 5 different voices before you touch the very effective passive tone or active EBS Pre active EQ.

Construction is the usual Syra with bolt-on maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. The body is poplar which makes it lightweight and resonant. Colour is translucent baby blue. It plays as well as it sounds and is available from the workshop now. Contact me for more pics and details.

Also available the ASAD that was featured last month and the two guitars below. More details on the Stocklist

Email me for further details.

That's all for this month. Shorter than usual. If you have any suggestions for the Newsletter please send them to me. If you think anyone you know might be interested in this Newsletter please send it on to them with their permission. If you do not wish to receive future issues please email me with unsubscribe as the subject and I'll remove you from the mailing list. If you are a new reader and would like to subscribe to get future editions please email me with subscribe as the subject. There is an archive of previous Newsletters on my website.