Chasing That Vintage Tone on a Working Musicians Budget...

Local Music Gear Feature Story 

Written By: Jac Harrison

Since the beginning of time, mankind has been trying to replicate "stuff" that we have observed to enhance our lives making it more enjoyable. "Stuff" like harnessing the power of fire to cook our food to insure that it is safe to eat, using river-rock and gravity to purify our drinking water to prevent bacterial infection, and in this case -- the most important of all, making your guitar have that vintage mojo to achieve the tone of the gods (I got choked up just saying that).

About ten months ago I had this crazy idea that I could put together a guitar that had the same characteristics of a traditional 1954 Les Paul, but with a few modern amenities that I have become accustomed to. My goal was to make this guitar a usable instrument and not a watered down novelty like the "reissues" that flood the market place today. Originally; I commissioned a NY based luthier to build a guitar to my specifications, but he turned out to be difficult to work with, so I used a guitar that I already had in my personal collection that was 95% of what I was going for with the commissioned  build.  The only real difference between the donor guitar and the commissioned build was that the commissioned build was a five piece neck through body (a modern amenity that I would have enjoyed) and the donor is a set neck, like the original had in 1954. With that said, this is my step-by-step "manifesto" on how I turned my 2012 Jarrett Zaffiro in to a 1954 Les Paul tone clone ....

Giving New Life to Your Vintage Guitar Without Diminishing its Value.

Local Music Gear Feature Story 
Written By: Jac Harrison

Guitarist... we are a strange bunch. We search high and low to find a guitar that we fall-in-love with, and then after a few weeks we decide that the guitar that we couldn't live without a few weeks back, is not the best. Kinda sounds like every relationship I have ever been in, but unlike a woman you can modify the guitar to your liking legally. Now there are many ways to "hot rod" your guitar, from pickups and electronics to hardware and accessories  -- but when "hot rodding" a vintage guitar there are a few things you want to keep in-mind. To start, I like to stay away from all permanent installation products that modify the original design. If the mod requires a drill, saw or glue just don't do it -- go buy a new guitar.Your vintage guitar is an old lady, so she is suppose to look like and sound like she has some age on her. Some mods are like giving your grandmother a face lift and a boob job -- so ask yourself, who wants a hot grandmother? I don't, my grandmother looks and sounds like a grandmother, like she is supposed to. Now with that in mind, you also want to make sure that your vintage guitar is in full working order before you start your mods.

POS Re-Build, Tackling a Fender Squier Strat Bullet for a good cause ...

Once a quarter Local Music Gear has a POS (Piece of Shit) rebuild. This is when we take the most God-awful, poor excuse of an instrument and give it new life. We do this to show our readers that cannot, or will not, spend big bucks on an instrument how to make one that rocks within their budget. 

For this POS rebuild we did not have to go out and purchase a guitar. We had the pleasure of rebuilding one for a woman that is a little down on her luck due to ongoing health problems. Good for us her guitar was a Fender Squire Bullet Strat and that happens to be one of the biggest pieces of shit guitars I've ever seen --making it a perfect candidate for this series. 

So to me this was a no-brainer. We get a donor guitar for the editorial series -- and she gets it back with some serious modifications making it a playable instrument.