guitar butchery... what extreme mods have you done?

[beerski]

has anyone ever tried to install a touch sensitive cut off switch on the body of their guitar? i know tom morello has one of these, but im curious about real-life installation. i think it would be cool to be able to mute the signal momentarily to create rhythmic pauses and crazy sounds.

[cold & ugly]

to myknowledge he doesnt have such a thing.... i know he does have a three way pickup selector... like on most les pauls....

say ur using the bridge pickup...set the neck pickup to no vol or tone and flick the switch up and down to get the 'rhythmic' shtuff.... thats how i do it.... and i think thats how he does it



.... oh and i think he uses a digitech whammy... which is great for weird sounds.... same as the Digitech XP series pedals.. at least i think thats the name..... there discontinued now.. but they actually did remake the whammy....

[hewesy]

He has a form of grounding pad built into the guitar, by the jacksocket, on his "arm the homeless" guitar.

He used to just pull the jack socket in and out to achieve the same effect, but they discovered that if he did it live, due to all the different electrical phases etc (ie amp in one phase, pedals in another) there was a large chance that if he did it live he'd earth himself into the venues electrics, not a good idea!!

His tech and few electronic guru's built him the cut off pad, basically a small metal plate (properly earthed!) which, when touced, cuts off the guitar signal, allowing him to do various on/off and morse code sounds.

His rig is pretty well covered on here, both his main Rage rig and the later Audioslave setup.

If you want one, please please please get it done by a pro, we don't want to lose any members!! There's a lot of kick in your home power supply, let alone a venues 3 phase set up!!

(EDIT, he does use the same method as listed above, using the toggle switch and one volume set to 0 to do the mockingbird and coyote sounds, but does also have the above pad for other effects).

[fiveways]

I had my tech wire one in.....It took him 20 minutes and he charged me $10 for the switch. It works very well.......

[flipperbaby]

i just broke my secong hand guitar body in half and tabed/glued/nailed it bacl together....i guess the outcome is a mod..:D

[BobaFrett]

have any of you guys seen the cutoff swith on bucketheads allwhite les paul? ill try and find a video. it looks like its just a button that its place of one of the pots.

[J*Dizzle]

Originally posted by BobaFrett
have any of you guys seen the cutoff swith on bucketheads allwhite les paul? ill try and find a video. it looks like its just a button that its place of one of the pots.

I did it on my Tele. (http://guitargeek.com/chat/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73717&highlight=buckethead)

[BobaFrett]

yeah dude im currently reading your thread very carefully as ive always wanted a momentary killswitch in my iceman....thanks alot for the info...

[J*Dizzle]

Originally posted by BobaFrett
yeah dude im currently reading your thread very carefully as ive always wanted a momentary killswitch in my iceman....thanks alot for the info...

No problem, its a really cool toy to have, but it still pops when your not playing a loud note, which kinda sucks.

[Supergrunged]

I wanna see a Tube Screamer, or an SD1 built into a guitar.

[fat-robot]

My guitar is butchered like this: Toggle to put the neck pickup in and out of phase and single coil. Toggle to make the bridge pickup single coil or humbucker. Plus my humbuckers are wired out of phase with eachother. I've got a couple of extra holes from previous switches/future switching.

I just use the toggle switch trick. If I get a tele I will install a mute button.

[ashjamben]

just adding to the killswitch conversation, i remember watching a video one one of matt bellamy's mansons and the pick up selector, which was the same as a les paul one, was disabled in the middle position and he could use that as a killswitch.

[olddawg]

One of my very first real guitars was a cherry finish 1966 Mary Ford model LP which was essentially an SG Special with P90s. I was in High School and wanted humbucking pickups on it so I routed it with a hand chisel and put a set on it. It looked fine and I eventually traded it for an Ampeg acrylic clear guitar that I again eventually traded for a 59 LP Jr doublecut which was stolen in a studio robbery. I wish I would have never chopped up the SG/LP and kept them all.