I’ve had my American Standard Stratocaster for 18 months or so now. I’ve never been a massive fan of Strats, even though I’ve owned a few over the years. This guitar was really purchased so I can have some true single coil sounds when recording.

Straight away I put Fender locking tuners on it, as I just prefer the way locking tuners work and they make strings changes so easy, as well as keeping the guitar in tune.

And then I decided that I hated the Fender tremolo arm. Its so long and awkward. So I started looking into shortened tremolo arms and thats when the lightbulb went on.

I can’t say I’ve ever really gotten into Pink Floyd that much, but I’ve always liked David Gilmour’s style and in particular his black strat. I first became aware of him when I was around 13 and on holiday in Italy. Pink Floyd were doing a show in Venice and I was there sightseeing on the day of the gig, so I was aware of the furore around the sound levels and the claim of potential damage to the city.  The gig was on the TV in the hotel that night, so I saw some of the show.

Anyway, back to short tremolo arms! Gilmour uses one and it makes the trem so much more useable.

And now, I’ve got around to creating my tribute to Gilmour’s most famous guitar.

Before:

During, showing the wiring on the black, single ply WD pickguard. The controls are a pre wired, solderless system that means I dont have to use my terrible soldering skills! Pickups are Bare Knuckle Apaches with a base plate on the bridge pickup for a bit more output.

With the pickguard in place

And finally finished. I’m pleased with the results and the Bare Knuckle pickups sound fabulous. They give a rich, deep, fat 50’s single coil sound and I can finally use the bridge pickup without the treble slicing my head off. The switching system has a pull pot on the volume that allows the bridge pickup to be added to any pickup selection. With the Colossus fuzz pedal, the guitar sings like you wouldn’t believe 🙂

Look out for a video demo of the guitar next week

I thought I’d post a picture of my latest, and ever changing pedalboard and one including the recently acquired Colossus fuzz and the SL Drive.

This works for me at the moment, but I am missing my volume pedal a bit……

This pedal is awesome! It really does nail the Marshall sound and it has ample amounts of gain on tap.

I enjoyed channeling some Jimmy Page for this video 😉

A brief video demo of one of my new pedal acquisitions. Thank god I’m not on camera on this one, but the hand is mine!!

Its an awesome sounding pedal on first play and I’m looking forward to integrating it fully into my rig.

Two new pedals have arrived today. The first is the Xotic Effects SL Drive which seeks to emulate the Marshall Super Lead/Plexi type sound. This will be a solo boost for me, or maybe used with a clean amp.

The second is the Mojo Hand FX Colossus Fuzz. I’ve never really got on with fuzz pedals and haven’t yet found what I consider a keeper. I’m hoping this will be it.

I’ll have a review up of both, some time next week

Learning where the notes are on the fretboard, is an important skill and one you’ll need once you start playing with other musicians and guitar players.

All guitar players will hit the wall in terms of creativity, at some point. Here are a few tips on how to get over said wall!

I thought I’d put together my top 10 tips for guitar players. Please be gentle, I’m new to this video making lark!!

So this is my new website. I’ve been a bit wary of putting myself out there this much, but I decided it was time to go down a new avenue with my music and guitar playing.

I hope to be soon offering my guitar playing services for session work and I will also be offering a full-time guitar tuition service in the near future. I have very limited availability at the moment as far as lessons are concerned, but please get in touch via the contact page for further details. I can offer lessons to complete beginners or, for people who have been playing for a couple of years and would like some advice on how to take their playing further.

In the coming months, I will be posting videos of gear reviews and demos, and also some brief tutorial videos, in an attempt to pass on some of the benefit of my (many!) years of playing. I hope I’ve learnt something worth passing on!

The site will be expanded on in the coming weeks and I hope to add a shop, to make available some of my new music and also albums from the bands I am involved with.

The Music section of the site has the first three “solo” tracks I have recorded, so please check those out.

It will be an interesting ride, so please stick with me and stay tuned for updates.

Thanks!

Simon