A Change Can Save a Guitar

Hi folks. This time I am going to tell you a story of a guitar. It is one of my guitars, and has the distinction of saving itself from the For Sale bucket more than any other guitar I own or have owned.

Back in the mid-nineties (excuse me for not remembering precise dates) I went on a minor tear of buying Fender Artist model guitars, particularly Stratocasters. I wanted four, and got three, the Jeff Beck Stratocaster was never bought as it was unobtainable at the time, and when it became available, I was already down another path.

I did get an Eric Johnson (best Strat ever), an SRV Signature and an Eric Clapton “Blackie”.

That ‘56 Eric Johnson is still my favourite Stratocaster. I liked it so much that last year when the semi-hollow EJ was released I bought one of those. It’s a great guitar too but my original EJ is still my favourite Fender Stratocaster.

The SRV was also golden from the word go. I immediately strung it with heavy strings, had it setup fresh, defined its default tuning to open E Flat and learned in very short order to love the reversed placement of the whammy bar. Back then a Pau Ferro fingerboard was “exotic” where today it is common as rosewood becomes increasingly expensive. It was and still is a great guitar and remains, except for the strings true to release, although I have gone to lighter strings while maintaining open E Flat, since I could not hear a difference between 13s and 11s but fingers could tell the difference.

Ruh Ro Shaggy

The Eric Clapton Strat was a different thing entirely. Back then, I knew a lot less about guitar construction than I do now. While I was assured that the guitar had a Custom Shop set up, which was then tweaked by the resident guitar fixer upper at the guitar shop, I would play it and not enjoy it. I figured it was just a bad guitar, and I really was not excited by the sound no matter which amplifier I played it through. I assumed it had to be me, since the venerable Mr. Clapton liked the Gold Lace Sensor pickups and the TBX tone circuit with 9V battery stuffed into the spring cavity. The guitar came with a vibrato arm, but I never mounted it because EC did not do so, and said erstwhile fixer person, put a piece of wood in the bridge cavity to lock the bridge in place.

I was ready to sell it at a loss. Then for reasons unknown, I took it to a different guy for a complete setup. He was quite direct in his thoughts about the existing setup and for a nominal fee made the guitar actually playable. Due to working hours and limits at the time to being able to plug in and play amplified, for the next couple of months, when I picked it up, I played it not plugged in and I came to appreciate its natural unplugged tone. It was open and harmonically rich, more than any other Strat that I owned. By this time I had acquired a Suhr and a Tom Anderson and they with the EJ were my go to Strats. Yet that EC sounded so nice acoustically.

Still, when I plugged it into the amps that I was using at the time, I kept coming away underwhelmed. It just didn’t sound good. Back on the wall it went, to hang for some years as I purchased and played other guitars. Finally earlier this year, I got tired of looking at a guitar that I had not touched in years. Old is not vintage, and while the last tech to touch it did a great job, I didn’t like the tone plugged in and was not playing it. Time to go.

Saved by a Knuckle

Then I reached out, sort of last chance, to Tim Mills at Bare Knuckle Pickups. In the last couple of years I had started to think about making parts changes to rejuvenate older instruments with new pickups, new controls and conversion to 50’s wiring as brought to my attention by the eminent Kevin Martell. I had heard Bare Knuckle Pickups on That Pedal Show and liked the difference that I was hearing so had tried a set of PG Blues in one of my older PRS Custom 22s that had PRS Dragon I pickups installed by the original owner. I always found them very dark and to my ear rather muddy. The Bare Knuckles changed the guitar to fun again, so I wrote to Tim about the Strat.

He was quite diplomatic about the Lace Sensors and suggested that it would be worth my while to replace them and their complete control kit with a new loaded pickguard with his preferred Strat setup. Remember that I loved how the guitar sounded acoustically and that it played a dream at this point. It was only plugged in that sounded horrible. This made sense as I would have all the original parts still together if things did not work out. I could restore the Blackie to stock and sell it, and use the Bare Knuckle config in a different Strat. There certainly were and are options around here.

Tim spent time with me via email and built a full drop in pickguard for me, using I believe his Apache pickups and new pots and a new switch. We also talked about how I hate the common rolloff to mud in Strat tone controls and he said that he would use a different cap set in addition to his 280k pots, instead of Fender standard 250k pots.

Usually I would get Kevin to do the work, but this time the work involved removing the strings, removing the old pickguard and the circuit board for the TBX thing and desoldering the output jack. This I could do myself and did.

Once all was in place I noticed a couple of things. First, I had failed to tell Tim that the Blackie Strat had fewer mounting holes for its pickguard and so the new pickguard has holes where there are no holes in the body. In the end, I could care less. Second, I had no idea of what a huge cavity existed in the body for the TBX circuit board, and once all that stuff was pulled out, there is this awesome little resonant chamber underneath the pickguard. That harmonic overtone that I had loved was even richer. I am not saying you should go route out a chamber in your Strat, but it makes a difference in this one.

The real game changer was the electric tone of course. The Bare Knuckle pickups are light years apart from the Lace Sensors, in my opinion, light years superior in every way. Yes I have lost (no loss to me) that TBX tone circuit (I prefer to get my drive from an amp or a pedal) and now my pickups look like “normal” staggered pole Strat pickups. I really don’t get all excited about look, I really only care about tone and playability, hence my lack of use for anything that is fake aged.

What I know for fact is that my Blackie is nowhere near the auction block anymore and while it is no longer a true mid nineties Eric Clapton Blackie Signature, it is a really pleasurable to play and fine sounding Stratocaster. And that is all I need.

Huge thanks again to Tim Mills of Bare Knuckle Pickups. A great man and fabulous pickups in combination with incredible customer attitude and service delivery. If you are not familiar with Bare Knuckle, you need to get familiar. Now is good.

Thanks as always for reading and until next time peace.