'Coyote Dancer' original strat mod with Slantbucker

[dugg]

This axe started life as a Grizzly kit. It has an alder body, rock maple neck with indian rosewood FB with abalone inlays. Pickups have alnico 5 polepieces and are wound to about 5.5k. I mounted the middle pickup next to the bridge and moved the whole 'slantbucker' assembly closer to the bridge than stock. Then I wired a DPDT on/on/on mini toggle to switch the two coils of the slantbucker between; parallel, series and single. Then I wired it up as a two pickup guitar using a 5 position mega switch to choose; Neck alone, Neck and Slantbucker in parallel, Neck and Slantbucker in series, Neck and Slantbucker in series out of phase, and Slantbucker alone. A total of 13 combinations, six of which use all three coils and four of which use two or more coils in series. With the Slantbucker in series with the neck my meter reads a whopping 15.75k and my amp complains sweetly. Two low impedence single coil pickups with magnet pole pieces wired up as a humbucker is a unique sound. Seymour D makes a humbucker with magnet polepieces. I can't remember what the name is, but you can hear the sound samples on the SD site.

[dugg]

Oops, my pic link din't werk.

now?

[dugg]

OK, so I found another axe with what looks like a 'slantbucker'. It's called a John Jorgenson Telecaster. Here's a video, you can clearly see and hear the sounds. The bridge 'slantbucker' sounds amazingly similar to my Coyote Dancer. I will be posting a vid with sound demo as soon as I can rope one of my shreddy friends into making it.

YouTube - Back on Terra Firma - John Jorgenson

[dugg]

Here's some tunes played by my friend Dean. On Red House he uses the 'slantbucker' in series and on Riviera Paradise he plays with the neck pickup which just sounds similar to stock. I think his amp is a small (12W?) Fender and there's some sort of distortion pedal, I think it's an Ibanez tube screamer, but I'm not so hip on that stuff so I'll need to ask and post back.

Redhouse =

YouTube - RedHouse

Riviera Paradise =

YouTube - RivieraParadise

[thaus]

Hey, pretty cool variation on a strat-type guitar. It sounds a little more tele-like in the neck position though to my ears!

[dugg]

Thanks thaus. It's funny that you say it sounds like a tele because the combinations of the neck and bridge SC's are very tele sounding too.

[dugg]

I made some more mods to the Coyote Dancer recently and improved it even more, if that was possible. I moved the old middle RWRP SC (the neck most coil of the slantbucker) to the neck and replaced it with a new GFS alnico5 boutique strat (RWRP) SC that has a slightly lower output. The result is, humcancelling now in positions that use the single bridge and neck (except the out of phase position, which is now NOT humbucking), and a better volume balance between the slantbucker and neck SC. Also, bringing the output of one coil down makes both coils of the slantbucker a tad more imbalanced, which to my ears improves the tone a bit. Sort of more 'hi fi' sounding, as if a loudness curve were applied, especially with slantbucker coils in parallel.

In my post title, I boldly claim my design to be 'original'. I said this because I hoped someone would come along and show me that I'm not, but that has not happened in over 600 readings. It's odd that this simple reconfiguration has not been tried before, because it solves many of the weaknesses of the stock Strat, and greatly expands it's tonal palette while retaining the 3 original stock SC's. While responses to this post have been cold (except thaus!), the exact opposite happens when people actually play the Coyote Dancer. The instrument itself is very addicting, and I already have two local requests for them, both from very accomplished guitarists.

[hendrixfan]

nice guitar man,sorry i,ve missed your posts before now,sounds cool,switching options sound very interesting too

[Jimi Hendrix]

I love the sound of that guitar dugg! thanks for the vids, i agree with thaus...it's certainly a cool variation on a s-type.