beej
Moderator
Some guitars just fit you like an old pair of jeans. My 1990 6-bolt Morse is one of those guitars.
It's come a long way from stock. The original lacquered neck has been stripped and skilfully re-shaped (by Tommy), the pickups have been changed a dozen times, all kinds of switches added (split/parallel/phase/etc.) the tuners upgraded to locking tuners, it's had a Graphtech piezo system, titanium saddles, I've Dremeled it for a 9V battery box ... I just haven't been able to stop messing with it.
I don't know when it started, but at some point it just didn't sound 'right', though I couldn't put my finger on the reason. I've tried all kinds of remedies. Recently I realized the bridge posts were quite loose, so I took this as an opportunity for more mods. Pulled the old ones out, plugged the holes, drilled & tapped them, installed longer stainless steel screws, removed the heads & shortened them, then tried a bunch of bridges & saddles, finally settling on the steel Callaham ABR. *BAM*! Acoustically louder, more bass & treble, super lively.
To celebrate, I re-wired it again. Pickups are back to stock except with a Bill Lawrence L200 for the neck single. Changed the 3-way toggle to a 5-way with the Y2D wiring scheme. Replaced the "add bridge" SPDT with a DPDT of the same make (Alco, so it has the same style toggle), wired it up to split the neck & bridge (using a Silent Circuit to reduce the hum) and removed the mini-toggles I was using.
Anyhow … brought it out with the band this week and it just smoked. I’m so stoked to have it sounding great again (it’s easily my favourite neck to play), just thought I’d share.
And now … some crappy pics:
It's come a long way from stock. The original lacquered neck has been stripped and skilfully re-shaped (by Tommy), the pickups have been changed a dozen times, all kinds of switches added (split/parallel/phase/etc.) the tuners upgraded to locking tuners, it's had a Graphtech piezo system, titanium saddles, I've Dremeled it for a 9V battery box ... I just haven't been able to stop messing with it.
I don't know when it started, but at some point it just didn't sound 'right', though I couldn't put my finger on the reason. I've tried all kinds of remedies. Recently I realized the bridge posts were quite loose, so I took this as an opportunity for more mods. Pulled the old ones out, plugged the holes, drilled & tapped them, installed longer stainless steel screws, removed the heads & shortened them, then tried a bunch of bridges & saddles, finally settling on the steel Callaham ABR. *BAM*! Acoustically louder, more bass & treble, super lively.
To celebrate, I re-wired it again. Pickups are back to stock except with a Bill Lawrence L200 for the neck single. Changed the 3-way toggle to a 5-way with the Y2D wiring scheme. Replaced the "add bridge" SPDT with a DPDT of the same make (Alco, so it has the same style toggle), wired it up to split the neck & bridge (using a Silent Circuit to reduce the hum) and removed the mini-toggles I was using.
Anyhow … brought it out with the band this week and it just smoked. I’m so stoked to have it sounding great again (it’s easily my favourite neck to play), just thought I’d share.
And now … some crappy pics:
