Guitar Player // Recording Artist
I’ve written about my red and brown Gibson ES-346, and I’ve written about one of my my old Valley Arts guitars, so it’s only appropriate to write about my old custom built Washburn Strat, that has been my main guitar for more than a decade!
I’ve used this guitar on tons of sessions, and on every TV-show I’ve done for more than ten years. But even though I can be quite nerdy about guitars, there are several things I don’t know about this one – for instance the model designation.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my first appearance on the TV-show “Studio Jams”, episode #34. Today I’ll write about my second Studio Jams experience – episode #47.
As I wrote in my first post about Studio Jams I was very happy to be invited to participate – and being invited back was an even bigger pleasure. So when Producer Tom Emmi asked me if I wanted to do a Swedish show, I agreed instantly.
Tom told me that he would bring violin virtuoso Tracy Silverman, but wanted me to find the rest of the musicians. I hadn’t been living in Sweden for that long, so my network of Swedish musicians wasn’t that big. But I had connected to a Swedish drummer, Pontus Engborg on Myspace and Facebook. Pontus and I have a lot of friends in common from the L.A. scene.
Earlier on in this blog I have written about my red and my brown Gibson ES-346. I covered details about the individual models and their materials, plus how I acquired the two guitars. This post is about the new pickups and electronics I have installed in the red one and why I chose as I did.
Even though the ES-346’s were really nice when I got them, I missed the thin distinct single coil sound you can get from a Strat-type guitar. In addition to this, I started to get a little irritated with the sound of the stock pickups. The neck pickup had a boost in the upper midrange and the bridge pickup was a little too bright for my taste. I could remove the midrange boost in the mix when doing sessions, but live it really started to annoy me.
I have already written quite a bit about my two Gibson ES-346’s. You know all the nerdy stuff about the model and how I got them … this is a post about why I’m into that type of guitars … or more precisely short scale guitars.
My first “real” guitar was a Gibson Les Paul deluxe. For several years I played that guitar from early morning til late, late night. I must admit that I also had an eye for the Fender stratocaster after I’ve seen Eric Clapton live, but since I really digged Albert, B.B. and Freddie King I stayed true to the Gibson-team.
Some weeks ago I wrote how I got my red ES-346 and after last weeks concerts I got a lot of questions about my honey brown Gibson ES-346 – so I guess it’s appropriate to write something about that one too, so here’s the story.
When I wasn’t playing my new red ES-346 either in the studio or in the couch, I sat and surfed the net to find more info about the model – you know a typical male thing to do after the product is bougth 🙂
Only a few weeks after I bought the red one I found another one for sale! Ok, the model designation in the add was not ES-346, and the materials was not like the ones I wrote about when I told you about my red one, but the photo was of a honey brown Gibson ES-346!
A couple of years ago, keyboard player David Garfield introduced me to guitarist Paul Jackson jr. and thereby his Gibson ES-346 that he brought along with him for the gig. At the time the ES-346 was Paul Jackson jr.’s signature model. The guitar sounded fantastic and was super versatile. It had a full and massive tone like a Les Paul, with lots of sustain, and at the same time a warm and jazzy tone when it was needed. I was impressed and maybe a little in love.
After the gig I did some research and found that the model had been discontinued. I browsed the internet from time to time to see if I could find a used one, but without success.