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a "new" guitar for the blueshawk
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late January 2004 - I am increasingly troubled by problems with my hands and wrists. I need a guitar that is -
 | able to produce acoustic tones - 'cos I can't really play an acoustic any more (strings too heavy / action too high) - see why here |
| light-weight |
| able to sound good with light gauge strings - good tone and powerful sound |
| capable of working well with low action - no string rattle or binding up when applying big bends |
| able to produce a wide range of convincing tones for the range of music my band plays - see the Big E music |
This is a pretty tall order - the Blueshawk does all of these, except the acoustic tones. I tried a Boss Acoustic Simulator pedal and a Marshall AVT amp (which includes an acoustic simulator) - but these were pretty unconvincing. I also tried/considered Parkers and Godins - but ruled both out for various reasons.
I bought a Tele Thinline in 2003 - just because I liked it, and added a Seymour Duncan Little '59 in the bridge - I had this pickup in several previous guitars and liked it very much. Later in the year I also bought a Nashville Power Tele (on impulse)- which includes a Fishman Power piezo bridge - I like Teles, it had a piezo bridge and was an amazing bargain - £400 used, but in perfect condition. Unfortunately it was incredibly heavy, and although the acoustic (and other) tone was good, I didn't enjoy the "power lifting" involved in playing it.
| It took a while to summon up the courage, but in January I started to think about the possibility of taking the Fishman Power bridge out of the Nashville, and putting it in the Thinline. This was not straightforward because it was different kind of bridge - an "ashtray" on the Thinline, a chunky six saddle job on the Nashville. The underside of the Power bridge also has a printed circuit board where the individual piezo saddle elements terminate. I also needed to transfer much of the Nashville's control circuitry - the pre-amp for the piezo pickups, the piggy-back tone/volume for the magnetic pickups, the piezo volume control and the fancy stereo jack socket which switches the pre-amp on/off. I also fitted a five way switch to allow for some extra tones. |  |
| After some very careful measuring, note-taking, and convincing myself that I could back-track at any point, I started to strip down the Thinline and the Nashville. I had a fair bit of woodwork to do on the Thinline body -
I swapped over pickups where necessary, transferred and rebuilt the control electronics and gave the whole guitar a complete setup.
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I am delighted with the results - about as flexible and playable guitar a guitar as I could have asked for. The acoustic tones from the piezo bridge are better than they were in the the Nashville - more transparent and woody sounding. An unexpected benefit is the two magnetic pickups combined out of phase - which produces a tone that is a dead ringer for Pete Green's classic tone. All this, and no swapping guitars between songs, no broken back and no sore fingers and wrists. Fantastic! - But the Blueshawk is still high in my affections and will be played regularly.
