NGD Squier Bullet HH Tele

Guitars, left to right:
1986 MIJ Fender Tele, murdered out by owner,
2013 Squier Bullet Tele, murdered out by factory.

I saw a deal on Musician's Friend and couldn't resist. It's a Squier Bullet Telecaster HH Blackout FSR and cost me $150. I was getting a new gig bag (seen in the background) and could not resist.

Honestly, I like the look of a maple neck on an all-black body (heavily influenced by Sting's video for "Fortress Around Your Heart" — I should get a black Strat with a big CBS headstock some day) so I've been thinking of getting a maple Squier neck off eBay for it.

I was a little worried, because I've played budget guitars from even decent brands that had issues, and getting a guitar you never touched is somewhat worrisome. The biggest issue I've had is frets that stick out of the side of the neck. But this guitar has none of those issues. As you might guess from the picture, I've played it out once. The humbuckers have higher output than my #1 guitar's single-coils, which means I'm going to have to set up another set of patches to my pedalboard so that the output is about the same.

Right now, it is my "working" guitar, as I'm not liking the stage buzz on my old Tele, I have to work out some issues and maybe get some new pickups for my Hohner Steinberger copy, and my white Tele copy has some fretboard issues above the 12th fret, making it only good for rhythm playing. That means I won't do any mods until I have another guitar fully functional. But, when I get to that point, I have so many ideas for this thing. Since it has a six-saddle bridge, I could easily put on a GraphTech Ghost system and fairly easily switch between acoustic and electric sounds on it. No, wait: Looks like GraphTech now sells 3-barrel Ghost saddles for Teles. They didn't before. Maybe I should put that in my #1? And when I do, switch to Seymour Duncan Hot Rails to up the output?

Or maybe not. I've been thinking of that mod for over a decade. Anyway, eventually I will have the HH set up for volume-tone-switch, like my #1, instead of switch-volume-tone. That's the non-negotiable.

Lap Steel Synth

I've been curious about getting a guitar synth setup and putting it on a lap steel for a while. This shows me that it'd be everything I'd want and more. The "Crazy Vibrato Opera Singer" patch, if used with single notes and not chords, seems like it'd be all the setup you need to simulate theremin playing.

That is, if you're playing it like Clara Rockmore, not Jimmy Page.

Tommy, John and Pedro: Sultans of Swing

I have always loved this song, from the first I heard it. I've not heard of Pedro Javier González before, but I know that John Jorgenson is a Hellecaster and that Tommy Emmanuel was given the coveted by c.g.p. by Chet Atkins himself, so he's among great company and acquitting himself well. 

Shiny!

Totally metal! I love the tone for shred, for blues and fingerstyle. Santa! I'll be good the rest of the year!