Griblin Engineering

"Serious Tone for the Serious Musician"

Principles of Hot Rodding

There was a time when I thought that all I needed to make me a better musician was a Fender Stratocaster. Of course, not just any Strat would do. I wanted a clone of Eric Clapton's favorite Strat, "Blackie", with a black lacquer body, maple neck and the shimmering bell-like tones that careers are made of. Convinced that destiny was calling, I packed my wallet and drove to the local music store where they had one, yes, just one, black, maple-necked Strat. The salesman and I discussed it and were in agreement that this guitar was meant for me.

We performed the ceremonial emptying of my wallet, packed up the guitar, and I headed home with my dream axe in hand. Once home I turned on (the amp), tuned up (the guitar), and began squeezing strings like there was no tomorrow. For about a half-hour I was in single-coil heaven as I tried out all the pickup combinations - the meaty transparency of the neck pickup, the biting brilliance of the bridge pickup, and the classic, sweetness of the "out of phase" tones - when a strange thing happened. A small, nearly imperceptible voice in the back of my head whispered "This guitar doesn't sound as good as Clapton's guitar." I had my dream guitar, but I didn't have the dream tone to go with it. This one experience changed my whole outlook on guitars and tone and forced me to consider the idea of guitar modification more commonly known as Hot Rodding.

What is Hot Rodding? In it's simplest form it would be to make your guitar look, play or sound better. This definition, however, does not capture the real essence of this kind of modification. The beauty of hot rodding is that you not only take the instrument beyond where the manufacturer intended it to go, but in the process add your own ideas and your own character to create a completely unique instrument that is all your own. You do need to understand that there are limitations as to what you can do with your guitar. You can't take a PAF and put it into your Strat and expect it to sound just like a Les Paul. There are too many other factors which give a Les Paul it's signature sound. The pickups used on them are just one factor. You also need to realize that not all guitars are good candidates for hot rodding. Putting a Floyd Rose tremolo on a vintage Strat, for instance, would be a bad idea. Don't make changes on collector's guitars or on guitars that are expected to become collector's guitars. If you do make any changes on these types of instruments, make sure that it is something that can be easily reversed.

Here are the three basic categories of hot rodding:

	Sonically - How does the guitar sound overall? Is it the tone that you want to hear? Listen to each one of the guitars pickups. Do you like them all? Just one? None? If you could improve them would you make them hotter, sweeter, brighter, fatter, quieter, etc.? Would you like more versatility, i.e. trick wiring options, better tone controls, etc.?
	Playability - Does the guitar stay in tune? Are you getting rattles and buzzes when you play? Are you breaking strings? Are the frets too low? Too high? Can you adjust the action where you want it? How's it sustain? Do you have dead spots?
	Visually - Do you like the way your guitar looks? What would you change, the pickguard? Hardware? Body color?

Remember the whole idea is to create your ideal guitar. Years after I bought my first Strat I learned that Clapton's Blackie was the result of his taking apart three different Strats and putting all the best pieces on one guitar. I guess if it's good enough for 'Ol Slowhand, it's good enough for me.

Home Page