Some time later I bought a Fender USA body, I'm not certain of the year, or model. It had the proper holes for a standard 11-hole pickguard and a vintage-style trem unit. But it's Candy Apple Red. One of Fender's most classic custom colors of the golden-age. So I have a good looking guitar body and a neck which is quite nice.
So I had a body and a neck, so all I needed were electronics and a bridge. I had a few false starts in assembly of this guitar. I have a set of Fender Texas Special pickups and other electronic components from other attempts. It should be known that I suck at soldering. But I am improving. I messed up a couple sets of pots and a switch or two over time, not to mention a few soldering irons. I have only recently discovered solder syringes and de-soldering braid. So my current soldering iron will last me a little bit longer.
Along the way, I decided to change out the tuners, as the original vintage-style ones, which were probably made by Gotoh or a similar Asian guitar component company weren't rusted out, but clearly had seen better days. They function and will probably eventually find themselves on another project of mine. But that's not going to happen anytime soon. The tuners I came across with were Gotoh made replacements for vintage-style Kluson tuners, like what have been found on Fenders in the '50s and '60s, just with one big difference. They have the auto-locking mechanism which has been found on Grover brand tuners which have been quite popular. This isn't as high-tech as the various PRS branded locking tuners, or those made by Schaller or
Sperzel over the years, but they still hold much more effectively than traditional tuners.
Fast forward to late last year... I had decided to take another attempt to assemble this guitar. I thought about salvaging the bridge, but opted to find a good replacement. One thing that stood out about the original is that it had a very heavy steel tremolo block, unlike many of the others I've come across. I hoped to find an affordable replacement. One fairly common replacement tremolo bridge looked to be the Callaham tremolo which also has a solid steel block. Awhile back I came across an online aftermarket parts retailer called Guitar Fetish. They sell a replacement tremolo bridge with a full-size block for less than half what Callaham sells theirs for, also they sell either a solid brass or steel block. I went with the brass to be different. I figure one day I can replace the saddles on the original bridge and install them on another guitar. Steel and brass supposedly sound quite different, but I was hoping for an interesting sounding guitar that had a slightly more interesting flavor than the usual Strat sound.
Now with a decent bridge, body, neck and tuners, I decided I wanted a particularly special electronics setup. Two of my favorite guitarists happen to use Candy Apple Red Strats quite frequently, Pete Townshend and David Gilmour. Townshend's guitars as of late have had some unique electronics featuring Gold-label Lace Sensor pickups and a booster circuit, a setup found on the old-style Eric Clapton signature Fender Stratocaster models, just the Clapton models no longer use Lace Sensor pickups . David Gilmour's red Strat has EMG pickups and two special circuits. Both setups aren't exactly cheap. I've used the EMG SA pickups without the Expander and SPC circiuts and I've also used the Gold-Label Lace Sensor pickups, without the booster. Both are great pickups with unique voices, familiar to Strat users but different and not as noisy. However to my ears, the SA's sounded a bit more like a traditional Strat than the Lace pickups.
I happened across Dragonfire brand pickups, which appear to me to sell a number of cheaper knock-offs off a number of expensive electronic setups. Among other setups, they had there was a knock-off of the EMG DG20 set. The EMG DG20 setup retails for just over $300, the Dragonfire version claimed to be the same but retails for less than half. I was intrigued, but not quite ready to spend the money. That is, until I came across a seller on eBay offering his previously installed set for auction. I gave it a shot, and ended up buying his set for one-third what the EMG set retails.
I installed the electronics, strung the guitar up and played around a bit. I won't say it's instant Gilmour tone. His sound is much more than just the guitar. His pedals and pickups are just as important as his guitars or amps. The only thing of note about the version of the Dragonfire DG20 knock-off set that I have is that the newer ones have 7-way pickup switching, which would be a nice addition to the setup, but having my hands on one without it, there's plenty of tone variation, so I don't feel as if I'm missing out. The current version of the DG20 has all components wired to a circuit board and every component seems to use an EMG quick-connect plug. The Dragonfire version, is all hard-wired.
Using the DG-20 through my Tech21 Trademark 30 or Trademark 60 on a clean setting, the SPC control sounds a lot more useful than the Expander. The Expander cuts mid-range tones and volume a little bit. When you're using a distorted tone, the effect is quite useful in tightening up the sound. Compared to my previous experience with real EMG SA pickups, which were connected to traditional tone controls, the Dragonfire setup sounds a lot more like a traditional Stratocaster pickup than I recall, and with the SPC engaged in some positions, it even has the familiar Strat "Quack".
More about the SPC, which I'm not completely certain on what it intends to do. The name SPC is short for Stratocaster Presence Control. It seems to boost certain treble or mid-range tones depending on how the knob is set, sort of like a parametric EQ. What I do know, is that I keep the EXP knob in the "down" set to around 5, sometimes I have it in the "up" position, wide open. The SPC, on the other hand I pretty much always keep in the "up" position and usually between 5 and 7, sometimes as far up as 9, 1 and 10 don't sound as effective as the settings in between.
I'm more than satisfied with the tone of this guitar. Strung up with .009-.042 strings, I have medium action, probably somewhere slightly higher off the neck than what Fender recommends, but it is very comfortable to play. I usually am not a fan of light strings, but the setup as it is works just fine. I keep the tremolo nearly flush to the body, barely a millimeter away from the body. Hardly enough for serious up-bend but enough to make some expressive bends. Combined with the locking tuners, I imagine once the strings are properly broken in, they'll keep tune somewhat better than a Strat with a fully floating tremolo and traditional tuners.
