My dream guitar

As you may know, I am an avid electric guitar player.  My current axe is an older model from the Ibanez GIO series.  Though it gets the job done, it is by no means perfect.  The perfect guitar, however, is exactly what this post is all about.

I set about designing my dream guitar with one simple, guiding philosophy in mind: as much control over the produced sound as possible without sacrificing quality of tone.  A working title for the design is the Transmitter (a really bad pun on Broadcaster).  Unlike many mutton-as-lamb "signature" models, The Transmitter has quite a few customizations.

Body

There have been a couple of times in my life where I had the privilege of playing a Fender Telecaster.  Though I'm not as big a fan as some of the twangy tone produced by the Tele's slanted bridge pickup, I do believe that it is the most comfortable instrument I have ever played.  Its comfortable and attractive body, enduring design and rich history have made the Fender Telecaster my favourite guitar.

It is a touch on the heavy side, though, so I'd go with a lighter wood such as Ash, or maybe even an f-hole as found in the Telecaster Thinline as seen below:

Neck

In keeping with the philosophy of maximum control over sound, I should prefer a 24-fret neck.  Modern Telecasters have 22 frets, an increment to the 21-fret neck of classic Teles, but 24-fret variants do exist, such as the Bajo Sexto Baritone Tele.  However, taking into account the preference for a lighter body, this could result in an instrument which is unbalanced and neck-heavy, especially considering the longer 25.5" scale length Fender tends to use - and which I prefer for its tonal qualities and comfort for my larger hands.  With this in mind, I'm happy to compromise with 22 frets, seeing as that's what I'm playing right now anyway.  Fret size should be jumbo.

The neck radius should be 12" (stock Les Paul).  For additional control, all frets from the 17th upwards should be scalloped, similar to the Ibanez shown below (I believe it's a JEM series [As kindly pointed out by Matt08642 on Reddit, this is probably an RG1570]), which features scalloping from the 21st to the 24th fret:

As far as fretboard wood is concerned, you generally get two types of people: those who believe the choice of wood affects tone, and those who believe this to be an urban legend.  I fall in the former category, and would prefer a neck and fingerboard of maple for its (perceived) clarity, definition and control.

Electronics

And thus we get to the real meat-and-potatoes of the design.  It should come as no surprise that the Transmitter will be electronics heavy, seeing as I am a techie, and recalling my mission with the guitar: total sonic control.

A major part of the setup will be the transplanted electronics from a Line 6 Variax guitar: a saddle-mounted piezoelectric pickup feeding a per-string signal to active electronics.  These electronics model the tone of 25 classic guitars, from a 1928 "Tricone" resonator, to a selection of classic and modern Stratocasters, Les Pauls, Dreadnoughts, and more.  Yes, that's right, it also models acoustic guitars.

Before you ask; yes, I do know of the Fender VG Stratocaster, but I'm a fan of Line 6 products and trust their impressive modelling capabilities.

The tone and volume pots from a Variax respond - I believe - appropriately to the guitar model being used, and so their presence in the Transmitter is crucial.  This means that the Transmitter will have two sets of pots: tone and volume for the Variax electronics, and tone and volume for the "proper" pickups.

The Transmitter will have a variation on the Fat Tele (or Tele HS) pickup configuration featuring a bridge humbucker and neck single-coil.  These will be used by the humbucker and "driver" pickups of a Fernandes Sustainer FSK401 kit.  The pickup configuration I have in mind is shown on the right (this Tele also features a Bigsby tremolo unit - classy!).


Originally I considered a Floyd Rose tremolo system - which wouldn't be impossible to use with the Variax electronics, as Ibanez have at least two models using a Floyd Rose with a piezo - but the amount of wood that will have to be removed from the body to fit the unit is just blasphemous.  Keep in mind that some space will already have to be made to fit all of the active electronics, and removing so much wood from the body will have a disastrous effect on tone.  In any event, even though a locking tremolo unit will give me more control over the sound, I'm not a whammy bar user in the least and will be more comfortable getting similar effects from a Digitech Whammy pedal.  A better option in almost every regard.

In total, the Transmitter will have six pots: the Variax tone and volume, the "normal" tone and volume (from the Fernandes kit), the Variax guitar model selector, and the Fernandes sustainer intensity pot.  In addition, two toggle switches:  one for the Fernandes pickups and a "modelling" one for the Variax piezo.  Throw in a killswitch, and I'm in woodshed heaven!  Sure, this is a very complicated interface, and it sure as hell ain't gonna be pretty, but I'm willing to live with that for the level of control it'll give me.

Aesthetics

Finally, what some may consider to be the most important element of a guitar: its appearance.

I'm not a huge fan of the more outlandish guitar designs; the shape of your average BC Rich axe or the chrome finish on Satch's signature Ibanez are just too much for me.  Forgive the elitism, but I want my instrument to look like an actual musical instrument.  My first instinct was to go with a classy tobacco sunburst finish, but such a finish - evocative of a Stradivarius - suffers a jarring incongruity with the cutting edge technology on board the Transmitter.

Instead, being an admirer of Dave Gilmour's famous "Black Strat", I've opted for a modern but not obnoxious black finish featuring a black pickguard with white detail.  Identical to the Telecaster Custom below:

Well, that pretty much covers it, my dream guitar.  If any luthiers are reading this and want to build me a prototype, you'll get no complaints from me!

Muse: The Resistance

Being a Muse fan, I have been looking forward to their new album, The Resistance, for a while.  It was finally released on September 14th, and, although a very strong effort, is a bit of a mixed bag.

Muse have long shown a penchant for flirting with excess; from the title track off 1999's Showbiz, to Origin of Symmetry's Rachmaninoff-esque Space Dementia, to the pseudo-epic Knights of Cydonia from their last outing.  Well, The Resistance is quite literally excess of symphonic dimensions.

The loud and funky Uprising opens the fare on a note which is rather, well, loud and funky.  It seems to pick up where Supermassive Black Hole left off and does little beyond proving that Muse haven't forgotten how to kick out a good din.  The opening bars feature a theremin-esque Phrygian melody which, lest my ears deceive me, reference the original Doctor Who theme music.  How prog!

The next two tracks, Resistance and Undisclosed Desires, left me a bit cold.  The former's preachy lyrics alienates and the latter can't seem to decide if it wants to be R&B or eighties' New Wave.  Desires' dubbed vocals and slap bass make me wonder if Bellamy's been shooting up with Dave Gahan.

The first major highlight of the album is the colossal United States of Eurasia.  Bellamy clearly wants to be both Brian May and Freddie Mercury on this track, with lushly multi-tracked vocal harmonies and a proper guitar solo that sounds like it was actually played through a VOX AC-30 amplifier.  Eurasia segues into the melancholic piano piece Collateral Damage - which is actually just a loose interpretation of Chopin's Nocturne in E flat major.

Guiding Light is another stand-out track.  Another eighties throwback, this tender power ballad enters the fray with reverbed snare drums and eventually delivers possibly my favourite guitar solo on Muse's entire discography.

The scary pipe organ opening Unnatural Selection promises much, but the song quickly devolves into a rather standard and pointless modern rock song.  MK Ultra left me equally bored.

I Belong to You/Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix made me feel as though I were listening to a tarantella in 4/4.  European folksy with a funk beat, it's fresh and interesting compared to the preceding couple of tracks.  It then develops into a montage of the popular aria from the French opera Samson et Dalila.  It also features a solo by what, I think, is a bass clarinet.  So good, so pretentious, so prog!

Finally we get to the album's big sell: the three-movement rock symphony Exogenesis.  An ambitious and long (close to fifteen minutes) piece featuring, I am told, over 40 musicians.  It evokes a calmer and more hopeful tone than the rest of the album.  If the prior eight tracks describe a world collapsing, then Exogenesis represents leaving it behind.  Traveling into the terrifying but promising unknown of deep space.  Entirely composed by Bellamy, it's his magnum opus and features more Chopin and Liszt inspired moments.  Stirring, clever, captivating and haunting.

The first half of the album is largely hit-and-miss featuring nothing we haven't heard before, while Exogenesis is so good that it could be boxed and sold on its own merits.  The Resistance is not a bad album by any means, but an album whose musical scope doesn't quite match the lofty heights of its concept.  Oh, and those pompous and preachy lyrics don't help.  Fantastic stuff, but progressive rock is all about doing something which is both good and inventive, and you won't find much of the latter here.

While I'm pleased with The Resistance, I'm hoping that for their next studio outing Muse return to playing to their strength, which is despondent, symphonic space-rock.

3.5 / 5

Eat your heart out, Alex Lifeson

So while I'm supposed to be recovening from serious illness, I find myself bored shitless and running out of ways to amuse myself.  Finally, I plummet to the level of submitting to YouTube a video of myself playing YYZ by Rush.  At least I had fun.

You'll go to Hell...

For what your dirty mind is thinking.