Grateful Dead Music Forum

Hey Now!

Looks like my tiger project is getting near the end (started 3 years 1 month ago!). I just received a photo from my luthier with a proposed control setup. I was hoping to get some opinions from the folks here because I've seen some great knowledge share here and I only get to make the decision once

My vision is to have a Tiger - after a midi installation. One note - I prefer the mini toggle switches for the midi/mag/both and patch up/down. Here is what I got from the luthier:

[...] basically sending you a pic of a mock up of Rosebud. But what I did find is there is a lot more room to spread the controls out than Jerry did. His seem pretty cramped. [...] The nuts in the pic are used for placement of jacks and switches, etc.

I am not a fan of the placements he did. My thoughts:

- put midi jack on the side of the body
- 1/4" jacks same as Tiger (with plate)
- row of 5 mini-toggles. top 3 work as tiger, lower two for midi controls

Any thoughts?

Sweet looking guitar! My thoughts would be that for me, there is too much going on for one so yes I would move the Midi to the side and move the toggle in closer from the edge. I guess in the end if I went that far with a guitar I would make it as close to the real one as possible. There is alot of good close up photos on here now of tiger so maybe look at those and go from there. I hope that helps! Great looking piece though! peace JD

Ya JD - I hear you! It is super busy looking!

I have to make a trade off between looks and usability. I am using the graphtech ghost system and already axed the piezo components because they would add yet more controls! I thought about controlling everything via foot pedal so I could ditch one of the mini toggles as well. But when I play my GK-3 equipped guitar I am always using the onboard patch buttons.

My head is ready to explode so I figured I throw up a thread and get the community to save me from myself

That guitar looks amazing! Who is making that for you?

Sorry I don't really have any advice on the control layout except to have the things you will be using most often fairly close to your right hand (like the volume pot).

Jim

Thanks Jim,

Danny Ransom is the builder - he works out the back of Real Guitars right beside Gary Brawer (who isn't working on mine...but has been consulted on the wiring). They've both seen the real deal and took templates when it was in the shop. The inlay is done by Larry Robinson.

Here is a photo of a previous Tiger he built:

That is mind blowing. I've heard of Ransom. Didn't know he was making replica Tigers though. Do you know what that one sold for? Sorry to get off topic but that guitar is really beautiful. What a dream.

Thanks,
Jim

Ya a very long dream!! haha! Patience has been tough that is for sure!

I don't know what the earlier one sold for but I know it was less than what I am paying. When I contacted him about the project he said he and Gary had discussed it and couldn't afford to do them for the previous prices they were charging....my bad luck. My best guess it that earlier one probably went for $5k - $7k. Some interesting limits too - Larry won't do the eagle on the headstock and won't use the same number on the back inlay. Kinda cool that they have that respect for Irwin's original.

edit: Another interesting thing - apparently Ransom worked on Bobby's pepto pink guitar while working as a contractor for modulus.

double edit!! SMS Classic just arrived!! Woooho Xmas is early!

Ok. I should just be thankful for the custom guitar that I have (12 years old now). It sounds and plays great. It would just be so cool to have a guitar that looks so accurate but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen anytime soon.

Please post more pics of your guitar in the future though so we can admire it more.

Jim