The show that I was building this guitar came and went last Friday. I had the guitar intonated about 2 hours before the show. It was very tight but I was able to finish it and use it for the show. It was awesome. I am going to write up a review for this show as well as talk about our set a bit. First, the bands that played were The Unthinking Majority, Sleeps Six (my band), Corporate Saturday, Rockasaurus Rex, and Credible Witness. There was another band that opened up but they were not part of the battle and did I don’t think they told anyone their name.

I will begin with them then. They were cool. They weren’t an “official” band hence why they didn’t want to be judged. It consisted of a guitarist and drummer. The drummer didn’t really stand out to me. I no sense was he bad, but I’ve seen some incredible drummers around here and he’s not quite in that category. The guitarist, on the other hand, was incredibly good at guitar; very strong technically. There isn’t too much I can say about these guys because they played for about 15 minutes and it seemed like one 15 minute song.

The Unthinking Majority played first in the judged portion of the show. They were your standard alternative rock band. They did a couple Chili Peppers’ covers and they matched the rest of their set really well. Sound-wise they were very RHCP-style. The singer had a very controlled and powerful voice. One thing that caught my attention during this band and whole show was the vocals for each band; all were very strong. Like the show I went to last week where all the drummers stood out to me, it was the vocals that stood out this time. Overall, they were a tight band and although it was a bit generic for my liking, they were good at what they did and were awesome guys to talk to afterwards. 3/5

We played second and I hated our set. The sound guy kept screwing with my amp so I was either way too loud (to the point where I was annoyed) or not playing at all. It threw off a lot of timing within the whole band, especially at parts where only I played. I was also expecting to have a monitor but it just sat there for stage decoration or something because no sound was coming out of it. That made me angry. We got good feedback from the crowd afterwards despite all the technical difficulties. We had practiced a lot with the guitars and vocals because we knew each other so well so we intended to be very active on stage. We had major drummer problems over the last couple of weeks though so our last resort drummer had to learn very short notice and a lot of our last days of practice went to making sure he had it down, not our actual show. I also spent the entire show listening into my amp to see if there was any sound coming out so it didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Luckily Crystal (singer) is incredible and she could be heard well so that worked out for the best. I’ll leave us unrated.

Corporate Saturday played after us and pulled out an acoustic set. They were the battle winners and rightfully so. These guys are awesome at what they do and work so hard. The whole band is ridiculously tight and they know what it takes to put on a good show, including how to tell a good story. Said story had something to do with XXL women’s underwear, an Aero chocolate bar, and a band sleepover. I’ll let you imagine how it ended. Anyway, these guys have some of the best music in Windsor, in my opinion. I love their sound and they are all very talented at their respective instruments within the band. Rob is one of those elite drummers in the local region, Brendan can shred like no other (even on an acoustic guitar), Austen has serious vocal range, and Chris is short. Really, Chris is a great bassist with sweet backup vocal abilities. I’ve seen these guys twice since they wrote and released the new music and both times have been acoustic. I am so excited how it all unfolds when they play full band and I hope I can catch a show soon. 4.5/5 (I’ll leave that last 0.5 for when they amaze me with the full band)

Rockasaurus Rex was next up. I left. They consist of a bass player and a drummer and are really boring. They are both good musicians, but as a band they are lacking a lot of depth. There is only so much variety one can get from the rhythm section of a band and I found myself bored pretty quickly. 1.5/5

Credible Witness was the last band on the bill and once again they rocked the house. I’ve seen these guys so many times now and have been good friends with most of them for quite a few years now. Their live show never gets old though. Lead singer Walter is always a crowd pleaser and has a goofy attitude, always interacting with the crowd. Mike D (guitar) is one of the best guitarists I’ve met even though he kind of humbles himself playing in a pop/punk/rock band that isn’t very guitar-oriented. From what I’ve seen though, he has an incredible knowledge of theory and anything that has to do with anything related to guitars. Ryan (drums) has become one of the better drums I’ve seen around the local scene. He’s very controlled and knows what he’s doing; a huge step up from when we were in our little crappy pop-punk band together four years ago. These guys rocked and if it Corporate Saturday hadn’t taken the title, these guys would have won for sure. 4.49/5 (because Corporate Saturday had to win)

For a first show, it was fairly successful. One thing we told Crystal to do was make sure she talked to the crowd in between songs. She didn’t really and that’s where we lost points. I’m not too worried about it. As she gets more experienced with the band setting, it’ll come to her. We have two more shows this summer for sure (hopefully more) and so there will be a couple more reviews up as those shows come around.

-- Mike

This was possibly my favourite part of the process: installing the pickups. It really wasn’t that exciting and I mean, finishing the paint job and seeing it turn out beautifully was awesome, but putting in the pickups meant it was ready to go! I called up my friend Rob because he knows what’s up when it comes to electronics and stuff. I also do not own a soldering iron and this would have made the process impossible. So I went over to his house and we began installing the pickups. I had wiring diagrams ready to go, so we got started pretty quickly.

We started with the neck pickup. Seymour Duncan has a video where he installs all the pickups at once, but that’s really confusing. One pickup at a time is much more straight-forward. We desoldered the neck pickup from the switch and its ground wire from the volume pot. Then we took the hot wire from the pickup and soldered it to the switch and left the ground wires unattached so that we could save all the ground wires for one final solder at the end.

It was a very simple process and one that was repeated for the middle and bridge pickups. Attach the hot wires to the proper places on the switch and then solder all the ground wires to the volume pot. The last thing to do before screwing the pickguard back on was to reconnect the ground wire and the input jack wires. We soldered those to their respective places and we were done.

Some things to watch out for and/or make sure of when installing pickups:

·         Make sure all new joints are strong. After adding the solder, reheat the joint making sure to touch the wire or metal near the solder without touching the actual joint. This reheat will strengthen the joint. After you’re sure the joint is firm, give it a little tug to make sure the wire won’t come loose.

·         Be careful around the soldering iron. I’m sure this is common sense but it was new to me because I’ve never actually used one before. Obviously it’s hot (and I knew that) so don’t touch it, but also be aware of the smoke that it produces and avoid it. My friend said he’s cried many times after getting some of the smoke in his eyes.

·         If you’re guitar was wired like mine, your input jack will have two wires: a tip (hot) and a sleeve (ground). Both Rob and I almost missed that and nearly soldered them to the same spot.

That’s really it for the installation process. It was fairly simple and it didn’t take very long. The exciting part was putting it back together and testing it out. We got some killer tones out of it and it was really exciting! I’ll have some videos up with samples soon.

When putting the guitar back together, it’s mostly a reverse order of how you took it apart. Re-attach the neck, bridge, tuners, and all the other little screws that are needed. My buddy noticed while we were testing it out that the company did not cut either the neck or the cutaway straight as my neck isn’t aligned like it should be. Nonetheless, it still works perfectly fine.

So, pickups were in, strings were attached, sound was great. The only problem now was the intonation and some fret buzzing. I attempted to contact a guy I know to help me intonate it but he was nowhere to be found and I was in a rush. The only other option was to learn how to do it myself and so I quickly searched the Internet to find out how (http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/intonate.htm).

I began with the bridge saddles. I knew how they should look (as can be seen in that picture on the project guitar website) and I followed the instructions from the site and I was quickly intonated and very happy. I did notice however that after stringing the guitar, my bridge was now on an incline and looked almost like a Floyd Rose style bridge. To fix that, I loosened the strings and then tightened the springs that are underneath the backplate. Once they are tightened, retune the guitar and all should be well. One thing to really keep in mind when adjusting anything on the bridge is to loosen the strings. Adjusting the saddles, springs, or height adjustment screws (action) will change the tension in the strings and if you’re tightening the tension there is a likely chance you will pull your string too tight or it will break. That’s how I intonated my guitar.

The last thing left for me to do is fix some of the fret buzz. In my case, it is caused by a loose fret and so I need to take it in to have the frets hammered down. I don’t have the tools or knowledge of how to do this properly so I will entrust it to someone else.

Aside from that, this guitar is done and awesome. As I mentioned earlier, I will have samples up within the next couple of days. That’s it for project guitar number one. I will have some of my band updates on here soon as well as show reviews and possibly CD reviews as well.

-- Mike

I have finally finished the guitar! Everything is done and it sounds amazing! I’m going to quickly wrap up the paint process and then soon, I will add a pickup blog and a reassembling and setup blog.

  Body:

·         Last time I wrote, I had finished priming the guitar. As I mentioned in my “steps to come” part of that article, I proceeded with my layer of red. I applied two or three coats of red to the section I needed. There was no point in painting the whole guitar red when a portion of it would remain white.

·         After letting it dry for an entire day, I masked off my red stripes and then painted white. I was notified by a friend who paints guitars that white is extremely hard to work with and that I should use a lot. I later found out what he was talking about. I applied an entire can of white paint to the guitar and I am lucky I did. For some reason, the clear coat seemed to bring out the base colours so if there wasn’t enough white, this could have turned ugly.

·         So, I now had a fully painted guitar. I let it sit for two or three days before I began clear coating. I put on about 5 layers of clear coat one day and then 5 more another day. There was a lot of clear coat. You want to make sure you apply it thinly and evenly. I seemed to have a problem with that because I was outside and it was really windy that week. I ended up getting a pretty even finish; however it resulted in a few runs; but nothing that was too big or bad.

·         Once clear coating was done, I let it sit for a few more days. Then I did a very light wed-sanding job to make sure everything was evened out. It helped remove some of the bumps and even took out a bit of the run. It also removed some of the bug parts that happened to get clear coated into the paint job. After sanding, I used Turtle Wax Scratch and Swirl Remover to polish the guitar. Wow; did it ever get shiny!

And that’s that for painting the guitar. It’s really important to let it sit a few days between the painting, clear coating, and finishing of the guitar. Make sure the paint dries before you do anything to drastic. Now, mine didn’t turn out perfect, but for a first time at it, I’d say I’ve done well for myself.

Headstock:

·         When I left off last time, I had painted red and black on the headstock. After a day of drying, I sprayed on the white paint and let it dry for a couple of days, just like the body.

·         After drying, I got my brother to draw on a design for my headstock logo. I wanted something original and something that would mean something to me. After throwing out ideas, we stumbled upon pi. I have this weird thing about myself where I can recite 60 decimal places of pi and I used to be able to do it in less than 10 seconds. Just using a sharpie pen (0.1 fine), he wrote out 80 digits (which means I need to memorize 20 more decimal places) and drew on the Greek letter for pi. It turned out really well; I’m not sure how he writes so small yet so legibly.

·         I let that sit overnight before throwing on the clear coat the next day. Again, 5 coats one day and 5 another. Pretty soon it was shiny and done.

·         After drying for a couple days, I wet-sanded and polished it along with the body. It turned out so beautifully.

And now, my guitar is done and ready to be reassembled. After polishing, I did put the guitar back together. I put the tuners in (after drilling new holes for the screws – see pictures), put the pickguard on as well as the backplate, and attached the neck and bridge to the guitar. In the next articles, I will talk about installing the pickups and setting up the guitar (I intonated it myself!).

I attended a pretty awesome show last night. One of my top three bands, MEANS, came to Windsor and when I first heard about the show I was excited out of my mind. A month later – after signing with Underground Operations – they held a contest where a person from each city that is on their tour gets to have a pizza party with the band and all this free merchandise. I won for Windsor so this show was going to mean a lot and now I was going for free. Unbelievable! So come show day, my brother and I headed downtown to the venue. I was definitely ready for pizza. We were walking towards the bar when I noticed the entire band walking towards us (away from the venue). So I was thinking weird, where they going? I stopped and said hi, introduced myself and told them about the pizza deal. Apparently, Underground Operations didn’t do a very good job of organizing the pizza parties and that I was one of few winners who actually showed up throughout the entire tour. This lack of organization and communication left the band without funds for a pizza party. However, they were all for just hanging out and grabbing a $2.75 burger at The Beach. At dinner, we got to chill with some of the bands on the tour: Oceans, Farewell to Freeway, and MEANS. It was great and meeting the guys (and girl) was an awesome experience. My brother and I were pretty interested in their stuff (you know, living the musician life) and they were pretty interested in our stuff (school). We also talked a lot of hockey. It was cool. After dinner, we took a couple of the guys out to a local coffee shop called Mila’s Gelato (or something to that extent). If you’re in downtown Windsor, look it up. We got to know Matt (guitarist, MEANS) fairly well at this point because there were just a few of us out for coffee. Steve (guitarist, Oceans) and Kyle (drummer, Oceans) were also there with us. They were really cool guys and were around my age. It’s so awesome how an engineer like myself can only dream of being a full-time musician and how full-time musicians are in awe of what engineers can do. It was really cool to see. This was probably the first time I could just sit down with big, signed bands and chill. It was great.

 

So we walked back to the venue for the beginning of the show. Local band I Am the Vine was opening. We caught the last two songs of their set. They were pretty cool. However from what I heard it was typical drop-D power chorded hardcore music and it wasn’t really my thing.

Next was Oceans and I was excited to see these guys mainly because I got to hang out with some of the guys. They didn’t strike me as the most amazing band or anything, but they were enjoyable. I think it was the vocals that brought it down a bit. I’m picky for extremely strong vocals (which is ironic because I’m not a very good singer) and this just wasn’t my style. I commend them for their awesome work though; and touring with my favourite band is a plus!

Farewell to Freeway was next up and they were pretty good. A great mix of vocals and they were really strong vocals as well. Drummers who can sing well and play amazing always inspire me and this guy was on the ball last night. They had sweet stage presence and an awesome sound (and a really attractive keyboardist as well). They were a bit more melodic than the previous two bands because they had so many singers available to them and I really enjoyed that. We purchased their CD and I am quite pleased with how it sounds.

Kathleen Turner Drive played after FTF. They were alright; nothing special. I made a joke to my brother saying the singer looked like an ugly version of Rody Walker (Protest the Hero) and had a very similar resemblance about him. I’m not sure why so many artists have taken on the douche bag front man approach like Rody Walker has, but it’s really getting old. They were strange. Enough said.

Ligeia played next. I’m still not sure how to pronounce that. They were pretty cool; nothing overly advanced or technical, but I found myself head banging along with their tunes. Unlike most bands, they had only one guitarist. Sometimes I find that this hinders musical creativity (one guitarist can only play so much) but some bands can make it work and these guys did just that.

Finally MEANS hit the stage (I was arrived for dinner at 5:30 and they started their set between 10:30 and 11:00. It was long night). They, once again, blew me away. Matt has such powerful vocals as well as insane guitar-playing abilities. Dylan can scream and jump like very few I have ever seen before. They played a mix of old songs and new songs and I was very happy with their song choices.

 

One thing I noticed that I enjoyed about each band was that they all had really good drummers. I’m pretty sure that all six drummers left good impressions in my opinion. Drumming is essential, especially in this genre of music, but everyone was rocking last night.

A couple things I didn’t like were the stupid scene/hardcore kids and skinny jean shorts. First of all, the little “hardcore” kids who think they’re gangster and tough need to realize there’s more to life than hardcore dancing. They also look like retarded chickens as they “dance”. Walking back and forth across the floor does not make you tough; ever. Seriously, whatever happened to straight up mosh pits? Secondly, skinny jeans have slowly become accepted by me. However, cutting them into shorts is perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever heard of or seen. They’re stupid and make me angry.

Lastly, the one thing I was kind of disappointed about (and I say this at almost all big shows I attend) was that I didn’t really know any of the bands before the show started except for MEANS. It’s really hard to get into bands when you have no idea what they’re about or what they’re going to play for you. Next time I’ll know. That is why I always make it a habit to see my favourite bands more than once. I have seen Protest the Hero four or five times, The Human Abstract twice and now MEANS twice.

 

Overall it was a good show. I got a sweet new t-shirt (for free) as well as CD (for free) and I got my fix of metal for the month. We went around saying our goodbyes to the band members we really had the chance of meeting and then we took off. It was a great night. My ears are still ringing and I can say that anyone who stopped by A&W today was most likely fed up with my inability to hear their orders.

 

In guitar news, I am so close to being finished. I am having my pickups installed tonight/tomorrow and then it will be finished. I will have the next part of the paint job blog and a new pickup blog ready to go within the week. Stay tuned!

 

-- Mike