The ShadowMusic Web Community

Hi All,

While digging out my "Guitar Theme" sound file, I found the email sent to me by a very kind person (Thomas Wnorowski) who told me about all the Billy Mure / Ricky Nelson / James Burton recordings and who happens to be a great innovator in guitar sounds.

He has come up with an amazing pickguard upgrade for Strats with 35 pickup tones which has been granted an award by the US Patent Office.

I let you check out his website, you would probably better understand the technicality of it than me.

http://www.awesome-guitars.com/



Here is a video of a UK star guitar player named Matt Roberts testing a guitar with the upgraded pickguard:



Abel

Matt Roberts is doing no favours to the guitar by demonstrating its "35 tones" with distortion switched in all the time.

Reminds me of the USA guitar website where in-stock guitars are demonstrated on web-based videos featuring a teenaged sales assistant who applies the same heavy metal approach to every electric guitar, no matter how inappropriate (even a Gibson ES-175).

JN

Hi Jim,

I agree with you on this one even though the guitarist is excellent, distortion is in the way and you really have to pay attention to distinguish differences
in the sound. Is Matt Roberts well known in UK?.
Also, going through the 35 sounds, I wouldn't use only chords, but probably also some gentle, slow and clear scales covering
the full spectrum.
That said, I think the product is worth the try and I am thinking about getting an upgraded pickguard (if I pass my wife' s custom's, it's the hardest step).
Besides the sound combinations which is appealing to me, they also do look good and vintage and it's sure to attract people's attention.

Cheers,
Abel

I didn't get past the first dozen tones, some of which were indistinguishable from each other. A very poor demo, I'm afraid.

About as exciting as watching wet paint dry!!! I fear many young daft wee laddies will part with their cash on this one for little improvement on tone. Doubt if Leo Fender would have been impressed either!!!

Mike

I think that the Strat already gives us enough of a selection of tones combined with the amps of today.
How many tones could you actually want or indeed feel you need?
Then, as most of us in here have more than one guitar, that gives us even more options.
As for the demo....Yeah, it was pretty poor and the distortion becomes boringly painful
Reminded me of some of the guitars in the sixties that had umpteen switches on the scratchplate that did almost nothing for the instruments sound and only complicated matters.
Hugh.

If you want lots of different sounds from a Strat, get a Roland GR55. You don't have to do anything to the guitar, other than fix the Hex pickup in place next to the bridge, & you'll have almost every sound & instrument at your fingertips.

Tony.

Hi all,

Eric,
You should record something with a saxophone, or organ or even violin patch.
Check this very unusual video:

It's an Algerian song with Accordion, Piano and Violin preludes) with heavy RAI flavor I did with the GR-20.

Also I am getting my upgraded pickguard today or tomorrow.
I am very excited. I will have my bass player put it in for me, it should be fairly easy.
The pickguard comes in ready to install and no soldering required.
I am sure to find quite a few sounds I have been looking for for a very long time.
The problem is that my bass player is 35 miles away and very busy, so that's going to take some time, but what I intend to do
once I pick all the different sounds I prefer, I like to create from scratch a fast tempo theme ala Les Paul with at list 6 guitar harmony lines.
I can't wait.
Of course, I will try to find an early Hank sound better than what I had so far.
I will post my findings in the Videos section, but don't expect something soon.

On an sadder other note, I had my neck steroid shot yesterday to remover the numbness in my right hand.
It will take a week or two to find out the results.

Blessings,
Abel