Huge improvement in tone

[fbecir]

Hello

I own my EBMM Steve Morse signature since 2001 and I was struggling to achieve exactly Steve's sound. It was surprising because I own exactly the same guitar and I wear sleeveless shirts when I play.
So I decided to investigate the difference between Steve's number One guitar and mine. I made a discovery : the plastic part on the pickup selector is not the same on the number One :

On the production model, you have a Strat style tip. On the number One you have a Tele style tip.

Thus I decided to change the tip on my Morse. Here is the result :

Of course, I made several tests :

• with a tip from a '55 Tele (pre CBS era)
• with a tip from a '69 Tele (CBS era)
• with a tip from a modern Tele (made in China)

As you can imagine, the difference in tone between the 3 tips was evident. Of course the pre CBS tip was the best sounding.

Now, my Morse sounds exactly as Steve's number One. Now I can play easily all Steve's songs (in fact, I'm currently playing Tumeni Notes while I'm typing this post).

If you read this post to this point, you can have 4 opinions :

1. this Frenchman is completely crazy. You cannot trust Frenchmen
2. this Frenchman is doing an April fool (and he has really too much free time)
3. this Frenchman is right : every part on a guitar has an influence on tone
4. this Frenchman is right and Music Man is wrong : Music Man should give the option to choose the tip of the guitar you buy (and Music Man should also open a custom shop and make huge discount for European customers)

If you have the first opinion, please enjoy your Liberty Fries.
If you have the second opinion, you are wrong.
If you have the third opinion, please join the The Gear Page (The Gear Page - Powered by vBulletin). You will find a lot of friends who are able to write pages on this sort of topics (just don't use the word "Dumble". I don't know what it means but it's a sort of magical word that can provoke havoc).
If you have the fourth opinion, well perhaps you can send a PM to Big Poppa ...

Happy First of April

 

[metalmarty]

Don't forget the long hair man, can't play rock without the manes. Just doesn't sound right without 'em! Made a mistake a couple of years back, shaved my head. Can't play for **** anymore.

True story!












No really!

 

[DrKev]

Dude! Do you touch those dirty knobs with your clean hands??

Marty, from now on I will call you Samson!

 

[banjoplayer]

Good, post, good discovery, I saw this before but didn´t give it that attention.
Did you try the sounding of a pieco of velcro behind the bridge?

edit: and the relic finish?

 

[agt]

Your research has produced an amazing discovery! Thanks for the info.

 

[bazxkr]

Typical Frenchman... you overlooked the most obvious difference in your guitar to complete Steves sounds !
You have not taken an angle grinder to the neck plate and machined away that heavy radius.

Please do that and post pictures plus your comments if the sound is the same as the masters now !!!

(and no cheating with photoshop LOL)

If it works will do it to mine
Cheers & happy April 1

Vaz

 

[Danserrano]

Great read. Thx lol

 

[LawDaddy]

Best post ever. (Of course, I could be joking...)

 

[threeminutesboy]

François t'as craqué ou quoi ?

Beleive me I don't know what you smoke, but if you want to share it looks he can bring you pretty high

 

[Jack FFR1846]

Nice find. I continued your test. I took the switch tip off of my Al SSS and put it onto a cheapo Chinese Squier Strat. The tone immediately improved to the point that I had to be sure it wasn't a fluke. I brought it to Guitar Center. They were flabergasted by the tone out of that thing. They compared it to a stock Squier, a MIM strat, an American strat and as chance would have.....Eric Clapton walked in with his strat. They were all blown away by my Al tip equipped Squier. I sold it to Eric for $350,000. I went immediately to DuBaldo's to pick up a few new Musicmans. This is a true story. It's on the internet....it must be true, right?

 

[Slingy]

Something is wrong, when I put on the muscle tee people just point and laugh, they must be having a good time.

 

[dannymusic]

your research dollars at work....

 

[owkenobi]

That was awesome.

 

[BrickGlass]

This is a huge problem. You surely need to sell that guitar. Preferably to me.