"second rehersal"

Once again I packed me gear in the car and headed of to the old yellow house in Haninge for yet another rehersal session. This time I picked another road, that made the trip much faster and shorter. So me and "Builder Bob" sat down playing drums and guitar, lucky for me I didnt forget to buy earprotection, a gadget much needed sitting a meter from this hard banging man and his drums.

crowded rehearsal basement in Haninge

Later that afternoon "miss october" arrived to the house. Possibly a bit nervous. One of her main hobbies is to sing at Kareoke-bars and the thing with singing in a band was totaly new to her. My attemt to make her sing "Itsy bitsy spider" failed totaly but soon she became used to the idea of singing for only two guys in a rehearsalroom.

 "miss october"

Time passes by in a hurry when you have fun and on my behalf the session was a huge sucess for the three of us. As far as I can see it the band now does have three talented female vocalist´s. Its now a question if We, the guys playing does have the same amount of talent.

A question popped up at me Facebook regarding the importance of the make of a musicinstrument. Among guitarplayers theres always been some kind of stardom connected to different Guitar makers. Something that have lead to some old guitars have the value of a nice car or a house today, if its the right brand on the headstock. Can a lowpriced guitar become a great guitar?

for many young guitarplayers in Scandinavia their first cheap elctric guitar.

priced in 1964 at 50,oo euro

Italian made EKO sold at app 60,oo euro

A great guitar? todays value app 300,oo euro

this old Fender Stratocaster could be yours for 1500,oo skr in 1965

 and has today a value of app 100000,oo skr! Agreat guitar?

I would say Yes, to that. Years ago a freind of mine bought a cheap Fender Stratocaster copy. It looked like the real thing but wasnt near the original in quality. So we exhanged the tuners, a new set of microphone and revired the electrics of the guitar. After a couple of hours adjusting the guitar it proofed to be almost as good as the real thing. All to a price of far less then half the price of an original Fender.

Fender Stratocaster Jaguar edition 2005, 

priced new at more then 4000,oo euro

Top of the line at Gibson in 1968 was this Barney Kessel guitar.

costing 900,oo euro new. (app 3  to 4 month sallery at the time)

Some weeks ago I found me self owner of a guitarshaped piece of wood. I was in the small town of Köping where "Gitarrdoktorn" does have his store and workshop. The guitar as such was brand new, but had been scrapped caused by a small crack in the top surface near the neck (see pic). There for it was useless and couldnt be sold. Together with a set of secondhand tuners and a new set of string it was soon put back to a nice guitar. Could be useful in during sailing in our boat, at no cost at all it could even be used as a paddle!

small crack near the soundhole

Some minor adjustments was made before I fitted a Schaller micrphone in its soundhole. Still there was a big hole left at the guitars sidesurface where originaly a preamp was fitted. The guitar showed of to be a really nice guitar much better then I thought to beguin with. So a piezo unit was found second hand and fitted. 

My question was at this stage should I use only the new microphone or should I keep them both. I went for the last sollution and instead of connecting the two different units yet another hole was drilled to cater for a second guitar cable. Some kind of weird Stereosound, or what?

The Schaller microphone 

and the instrumentpanel to the piezo microphone installation.

The result is a really nice guitar with a wide range of sound buildt in coming from two separeted microphones. Giving both the sounds of an acustic guitar and an electric. All to the price less then a new set of tuners!!!

Stereo-cable connections.