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Fake RickenBacker 4001 Bass

Rickenfaker? Fakenbacker? Humm, call it what you want, the bass I recently discovered in a little mom-n-pop music show was most certainly not the Rickenbacker it claimed to be! On a recent trip to a small Kentucky town not many hours out of Nashville, TN my eyes caught something not often seen in this types of music store, a cool vintage-looking Rick 4001 bass. I took a quick look at the price and got a little excited … five hundred bucks! Here is the bass, I handed it to my buddy Brad to snap a quick pic of my “find”. Then I decided I’d try to determine its...

Thanksgiving 2014: Is it possible to be thankful?

Thanksgiving. Is it possible to be thankful in 2014? I think so, let’s talk about that. I’m 5-foot, 3-inches tall and that makes me downright short by national standards. It’s been proven time and time again that folks as short as me don’t generally get a fair shake. Let’s take a peek at the list of “disadvantages” folks like me have: Ladies tend to see short men as less attractive.Men tend to not want to be friends with short men.Short men are less likely to be hired for a job.Short men on average earn less than a tall man for the same job.And of course,...

The Daion Caribou Guitar Lovefest

Hello once again fellow tone-seekers! Sooo, I build electric guitar pickups … and amps … and am a part of this great WGS family that builds electric guitar speakers. However, this week I want to pay homage to an ACOUSTIC guitar! Hey why not? Acoustics ARE a huge part of the guitar experience, right? And, it’s probably been the better part of a couple years since I last featured an acoustic on this here blog (Read here). So ya ready? Let’s jump in! So first I’ll set the stage: It was a dark, rainy night in London when I walked across...

Tone Capicitors and RW/RP Pickups in Stratocasters

Hi fellow tone-seekers! I just had some EXCELLENT questions about Stratocaster pickups come in via my site, VaughnSkow.com. So good I think I might use tham in a blog :-) Q: Besides hum - does Non RW/RP mid pup really sound better and deliver more "quack" to in-between positions 2 & 4, than RW/RP? A: It is my experience that the answer to this question is NO. I offer the non RW/RP option on my historic 1954 & 1959 Strat sets for purists who demand it, but such purists would also demand a 3-way switch on their Strat … which means there would be no “in-...

WGS 10" Green Beret vs Celestion Vintage 10

Howdy-do friends and neighbors, ladies & gentlemen, educated and uneducated, those close, and those far away, folks from all walks of life, all manner of faiths, and from one end of the globe to the other … whew … I gotta catch my breath! I’ve got … news! Ya ready? It’s finally here … the long awaited 10” British voiced 10” speaker from WGS! Everybody say “wooo-hooo! Yea, I announced this thing nearly three months back, and then there was a difficulty obtaining some of the “special ingredients” and it got delayed … but not any longer. It’s here, it’s...

Sleaper Amps revisited ... Great Minds DO think alike!

Hello Friendly friends! Today I’d like to start out by pointing you in the direction of somebody else’s blog … yep, I’m turning you over to the competition! Not really … we’re all one big blogeriffic family :-) Anywhoo … I subscribe to Premier Guitar Magazine, and often read their weekly blogs. The one I just read is entitled Joe Bonamassa’s 5 Most Underrated Amps, and sittin’ pretty at No. 1 was the Lab Series L5. Wow, great minds really DO think alike! The Lab Series L5, L7, & L9 (which are all the same amps in 2-12, 4-10, & 1-15 speaker...

Guitar Tone: It's What's Under the Hood that MATTERS!

So, a few weeks back my sweet little wife asked a simple question that really got me to thinking. I was showing off the super-cool looking new WGS12L, and she simply asked: “what does it matter what it looks like, nobody ever really SEES the speakers in an amp anyway, right? Wow, what a packed little innocent question. Let’s talk about that. To ME, it MATTERS. Shoot, I just assumed everyone felt the same way I do, and truth be told, on this here forum, I am probably “preaching to the choir”, y’all get me. And that’s so cool! We’re like a dedicated...

Labor Day Thoughts circa 2014

Hi fellow guitar tone geeks, great to be with you all on yet another LABOR DAY weekend! I’ve been fighting a bit of a cold this weekend, and I feel soooo blessed! Say that doesn’t make sense, well, let me explain! You see, when I get sick, I get to be sick in a nice snug home with heat and air-conditioning, and running hot cold water, and plenty of readily available food (with pop-tarts and chicken noodle soup as highlights), plus I have a nice comfy bed with big fluffy pillows … like I said, I’m blessed; and grateful. Even on my most miserable days, I’ve got it...

The Crazy Crap We Do to Our Guitars

Hidey-Ho friendly friends! Confession: yesterday I committed a guitar atrocity … and it’s far from the first time, too! And … it was awesome! Yea, I know, I’m sick, right? Well … let’s talk about that. Here’s the way I look at it. Some folks who ride motorcycles are perfectly happy to ride a stock bike, while others love to hack, weld, and chrome-plate their bike into a one-of-a-kind ride … same goes for cars … and, I contend, guitars. Needless to say, I fall into the camp of the “self-modifiers”; take, for instance, my 5-pickup FrankenStrat (ie,...

Why The Pickups In Your Guitar May Suck

Les Paul's "The Log" circa 1946Hello my tone-addicted buddies! As some of you know, I’ve been in development on my own pickups for about the last two years. I’m not QUITE ready to announce anything of a terribly official nature yet … but soon! So … I’ve been spending hundreds and hundreds of hours dissecting pickups. Carefully measuring values, painfully unwinding coils, comparing the most minute of details, and I have come to an overwhelming conclusion: Most current production pickups SUCK. Let’s talk about that. I’m not quite sure just EXACTLY what’s...

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