Spectrum Custom Dreams

[jazzyvee]

After clapping my eyes on this guitar a few weeks ago, I am dreaming again of a custom guitar.
Whilst it's true I do more bass now than guitar, I have played guitar longer and am more confident in getting a guitar made the way I want rather than being able to spec a bass to blow my existing Series basses out of the water. I currently have a Series I guitar and a single filter based Orion guitar that I toured with for about a year so have had the opportunity to learn what my alembic preferences are.



For a guitar, prefer to change tone by changing pickups and fine tune it with a knob and so find single volume and tone solution to be more natural and simpler.
My starting point would be a spectrum body with an elan headstock, Europa style electronics with single filter, 3 position q-switch with bass/treble boost & cut.


Pickups I'd like 5 in a layout like this PRS 513 with 21 or 22 frets



A standard strat style 5 position switch to give me
1 = 2x neck pickups together
2 = 2x neck plus middle
3 = 2x neck and 2x bridge ( no middle pickup)
4 = 2x bridge plus middle
5 = 2x bridge.


Two extra switches/blade switch/or rotary series pointy knobs so that when the bridge or neck positions are selected I can choose which of the two pickups at each position can be selected. Both, outer or inner.
DS-5 powered with 5 pin series socket on the front and standard jack on the lower bout.


Hardware in chrome or blackened for a more subdued look depending on the woods.
I prefer the sound of a strat with a whammy even though I don't use it a lot so i'm still thinking about that and if I decide not to go for a whammy then a concealed hardware bridge although one like Phil Lesh's would be awesome but expensive. "Hey this is a dream right?"


Woods I'm thinking something dramatic close up but subtle at a distance so a dark wood top maybe something like burl cocobolo or walnut, blackwood, redwood or amboyna, whichever one of those is CITES safe, over a thick maple accent stripe like Stanley Clarke has on his basses, and the back in 5a quilted maple with continuous backplates and through neck showing all the way.


Side LED's and backlit headstock logo and initials inlaid at 12th or last fret. backlit logo somewhere on the body maybe behind the bridge like #12 or on the upper half of the body adjacent to the neck pickups. No battery option for LEDs only battery option for powering guitar when not using the DS-5.

Neck maple and ebony with the same dimensions and string spacing at the nut and bridge as my strat ultra, body woods I'm not sure maybe standard mahogany or flame maple but with a hollow core like a series instrument.
Food for thought.

[edwardofhuncote]

I'm not guitar player, or educated about guitars enough to appreciate your technical specifications, but the design ideas sound breathtakingly fantastic. Especially the backlit appointments... has that been done yet?


Go for it, I say. 

[jazzyvee]

This one from the custom archive has a has a backlit inlay http://www.alembic.com/info/fc_cheshire.html and there are a few more with the body inlays with some led's in.
Check out the teeth!!!
I guess having been a strat player virtually all of my guitar playing life it's a guitar that fits me quite naturally and I can get what sound I want quickly and intuitively, two filters slow me down which is one of the reasons I don't use my Series guitar live much. If I'd been used to Les Paul style guitars I guess the signature electronics would work better for me.

[tbrannon]

Sounds like a really well thought out design.    I like your idea on the DS5 cable for power.

[jazzyvee]

I was thinking again about the 5pin socket aspect of this and how to allocate the 5 pickups between the bass and treble outputs from both the guitar and the DS-5.
With a two pickup instrument this is simple as you can Neck, Bridge and both and therefore I can see that having a 4 pickup layout with 2 at the neck and two at the bridge working fine too.

However having the middle pickup makes it a tad more thought provoking as to how to allocate that pickup.
I use a Roland JC120 for most of my guitar stuff so it might be better to have the guitar wired so that it sends the same signal down both channels of the 5 pin cable so essentially I have two mono channels with the output of all selected pickups. I can then have the effects in one of the channels and clean on the other and balance the level with the controls on my amp rather than have two volumes on the guitar. I guess it's a bit like using a Y cable on a standard jack socket to do the same splitting.

[JimmyJ]

Jazzy, fun stuff to think about and you're on a good creative roll here.  It's been many years since I've done any brainstorming about custom designs but I still have all my scribbled drawings from back in the day. 

Here's a thought - our pickup selector switches are available in different formats including more switch positions.  I had one of my basses made with: Standby, A, A+B, B, A+A and B+B.  So in theory, you could have: Standby, bridge, bridge + middle, middle, middle + neck, neck ... and maybe an "all" position.  If you start thinking about a stereo output then the combinations get even crazier.  Maybe the middle pickup always comes out of channel A and channel B operates like a normal mono mix of bridge and neck... etc, etc...

Also, your idea of using one output just for effects and blending at the amp can work well because you can set a chorus or reverb at "100% wet".  When you turn it on it only adds the effected sound to your clean sound, slightly boosting your overall output.  That involves some mods to the pedal or pedal board so that "bypass" is actually "mute", but it's a super clean way to use these types of additive effects.

Carry on, keep going, Alembic can build whatever you can dream up!


Jimmy J

[jazzyvee]

Interesting comments Jimmy and food for thought and if there was a strat style blade switch I think would be quicker because it's familiar and I can just knock it into place rather than have time to grab a knob and the standard three position toggle switches for the twin pickup selection at the bridge and neck..
As for the pedal board I have currently a Boss LS-2 switcher pedal in my board for keeping some of the pedals out of the loop until I need them and that has a series of options. So I could do A + B Mix and bypass which would allow me to add the second channel from the DS-5 and use the the level controls to balance the effect output so that there isn't a big spike in the volume. I think?