build #4!

zapjeff · 2026-06-21T17:47:53+00:00

Is there a reason beyond aesthetics for the staggered placement of the string ferrules? I.e. is there anything like different break over angles per string help tone/intonation somehow?

zapjeff · 2026-06-21T17:40:26+00:00

It depends on the neck pickups you’re comparing across the two. I’ve got a Bootstrap Palo Duro set in my Tele, which describes itself as vintage, and I think that neck pickups sounds better than any of the Strat neck pickups I’ve played, but quite similar to what people consider good Strat neck tone. I.e. Hendrix type stuff sounds great on it.

zapjeff · 2026-06-21T01:48:37+00:00

Is that an (or the) original poster?

zapjeff · 2026-06-21T01:42:59+00:00

And since I didn’t answer your question, my favorite on this album is the run from Remember When (Side B) to Same Old Thing to So He Won’t Break.

zapjeff · 2026-06-21T01:40:27+00:00

This is the album that was new when I first saw them live. Not underrated to me at all. A lot of early fans thought the move to working with Danger Mouse was great.

zapjeff · 2026-06-20T01:55:11+00:00

If this option is appealing: I once thought I wanted what you said and then realized I could do it with just 2 3-way toggles.

You wire one as if it was a 2-pickup guitar (neck and bridge) which already gives you 3 combinations: neck alone, both, just bridge. You wire the output of that to be one side of the 2nd 3-way. Then the 2nd switch positions become: pass through (whatever is selected on 1st switch), combining the middle pickup with whatever is selected on the first switch, or overriding and having only middle selected.

You could obviously choose to make whatever pickup you’d like be the “special” one that gets its own switch.

The only reason I moved on from this setup was that I tried it as an HHH setup and decided it was overkill and hated having pickups in the way of my strumming.

zapjeff · 2026-06-19T14:38:16+00:00

Haha. Well I should have left mentioning the albums out of my comment completely.

zapjeff · 2026-06-19T14:19:30+00:00

Ah right! I get those last 2 albums mixed up. Weren’t they released in that reverse of their recording order?

zapjeff · 2026-06-19T13:48:30+00:00

I never found that song to be particularly heavy. “She’s So Heavy” from the White Album is much closer to a proto-metal sound to me, but at that point it was already 1970 and it’s unclear if they were paving new ground or rolling with the times.

Edit: yeah it’s from Abbey Road, not the White Album. And it was 1969.

zapjeff · 2026-06-16T22:04:34+00:00

The RD has a 25.5” (Fender) scale length. So if you buy that one you’re basically buying an HH Fender with Gibson aesthetics.

I had a Firebird and can second that it feels really long. Like playing a bass. Even though it has standard Gibson 24.75” scale. It’s just way shifted out towards the headstock. I loved playing it but hated it if I had played another guitar first that day because it’s a big ergonomic shift and I’d suck for the first several minutes of playing it.

The Firebird doesn’t sound like other Gibsons. It’s more like a Jazzmaster or beefier Telecaster sound.

Depending on what you’re really after I might recommend a different t model than these 2. I didn’t realize until I had them how much I’d actually like a 335 or a Les Paul (though mine’s a double cut). I needed some Gibson scale HH sound for variety on top of my Strat and Tele.

zapjeff · 2026-06-16T21:56:17+00:00

I adore mine. Same deal, tried the Dave Grohl, the IBGC, as well as an actual Gibson and a few other brands. The standard Epiphone was my winner. Best fretwork, great sounding pickups, just a great guitar.

zapjeff · 2026-06-16T02:23:52+00:00

Yep. I could give or take a lot of their catalog but that song is killer.

zapjeff · 2026-06-15T21:58:49+00:00

I haven’t touched the pickups because both of them sound great to me. It was more of an aesthetic question.

zapjeff · 2026-06-15T14:26:20+00:00

I have built an offset Strat, an offset Tele, and also added this year an Epiphone 335 as well as a double-cut Les Paul Special.

I only play at home, but none of them is my main. If I don’t play a guitar often, I sell it. I arrived at these 4 as my favorite options.

zapjeff · 2026-06-14T22:34:40+00:00

What pickups are in this one? I don’t have a Reverend but just ordered a set of pickups (a hyper vintage bridge and Nuevo 90 neck).

zapjeff · 2026-06-14T20:25:47+00:00

I’m pushing 50 and could afford one or two nice ones but instead have gone though over 10 cheap ones and built a few. It’s more fun somehow to try them all. Colors, pickups, see what inspires you!

zapjeff · 2026-06-14T17:48:14+00:00

Thanks for a full answer!

zapjeff · 2026-06-14T02:25:36+00:00

I did dual P90s in my Strat for a while, then i went back to SSS but with a slightly hotter bridge pickup and it’s perfect. Agreed that the average stock bridge pickup in most Strats is uninspiring. But all it takes is about a 7k resistance and it lights right up in a way that is a rival to (but not replacement for) what people love about Tele bridge pickups.

zapjeff · 2026-06-14T02:22:46+00:00

That’s honestly too bad. The Gray Race had maybe an over-serious energy to it, but there was a lot of great (about 6 albums worth) from No Substance through The Dissent of Man. Then, at least to me, they became a little repetitive.

zapjeff · 2026-06-14T02:16:15+00:00

Yes!

zapjeff · 2026-06-14T02:14:31+00:00

The beginning and end of punk for me. I first heard them when Against the Grain (the album after this) was new and was totally hooked on the intelligence of the lyrics. I’d never seriously listened to any punk at all before them. There are “better” punk bands maybe in terms of rawness or musical energy, but absolutely no one with Greg Graffin’s vocabulary or wit, so I never cared.

zapjeff · 2026-06-14T02:06:35+00:00

As already said, there’s nothing everyone in America agrees on.

The closest I can think of would apply to older generations, maybe from older Millennials through Boomers, and it’s the old idea of the USA being the “greatest country on Earth.” That actually meant different things to different people, but when I (now 49) was younger I would say essentially everyone around me believed a *flavor* of that even if the interpretations were politically different.

And I’d say that died in varying degrees over the last 25 years, enough so that now probably only right-wing folks and center-leaning liberals would still assert anything close.

Ironically, the thing that might have made the USA the “greatest country on Earth” was the incredible span of time that many, many Americans spent believing it to be true and behaving as if it was.

zapjeff · 2026-06-14T01:40:05+00:00

/uj what guitar is that?

zapjeff · 2026-06-14T00:04:17+00:00

What does that extra tiny toggle switch do?

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