Grateful Dead Music Forum

My Tiger guitar finally came home from Gary Brawer ... truss rod was fixed, bridge repositioned correctly, neck refretted and pleked, guitar rewired, slight mod to Waldo's buffer to bring the gain up to unity, and set up with the Jerry action and a brass nut.

Sounds better than the Strat I'd been playing ... plays much better than it did before, too. In fact, it's a pretty remarkable transformation ... you don't really realize what you were putting up with till something is put just exactly perfect, but the frets are so much better, the intonation is great and the whole thing just feels smoother. So what if it took twice as long as it was supposed to.



These are from Friday's show, and not particularly good efforts on my part ... it's funny how going from a 22-fret guitar the last 15 shows or so back to the 24 will give you fits. And the volume control and effects loop switch are wired the opposite way on my Strat, so that took some adjusting. Plus, my voice was completely shot. LOL. As always, guitar -> AxeFX -> board.

We're rehearsing tonight (for a change) and I have a couple of new patches to try out, one clean (1982 style), one pretty dirty (1985 style), I want to hear the difference switching mid-song. These cuts are with the dirty patch.

Vic:

I see your Bobby is playing an Ibanez Artist - something new?? How about some details on his guitar & rig?

Is the Artist the 24-fret model w/ flying finger pups and no mini-toggles? That would be a 2618.

tnx,
mk

He switches guitars quite a bit show to show; he has a Modulus Genesis (which is my favorite of the bunch), this Ibanez Artist (I think it has Seymour Duncan pickups in it), a cheap Ibanez (HSH) guitar with a whammy bar that won't stay in tune, and a blue Squier Strat. Any of which might show up at a given gig.

He plays through a Vox modeling amp, the 50-watter that came out about four years ago, and most of his effects come from that, but he also has a collection of pedals that you'd probably pass up if you saw them at a garage sale, a Roland DD-3, Boss flanger, Boss chorus, and a Boss overdrive, and I gave him a Crybaby wah for Shakedown Street.

It was hysterical, when he was touring with DSO in 2000-2001, he was playing through a beat up Dean Markley tube amp that worked about half the time the last time I saw it, those cast-off pedals and that blue Squier Strat -- the whole rig couldn't have been worth more than $600, including the guitar -- and he was pretty much knocking the 90s sound Weir was getting out of his Casio Modulus and huge rack of effects.

vic,
did you opt for the high garcia action?
if so how do you like it?

I did, and I like it fine ... it's not really that noticeable to me in the context of playing -- until I pick up my PRS Custom 22 with the action like butter. But the notes seem to articulate better, especially way up on the neck, and I've been playing a lot of acoustic guitar lately so it's still easier than my Martin.

Vic,

It's good to see that lefty Tiger back where it belongs. I will keep an eye on PD schedule and come check out the next Marlborough gig.

Edit: 1/29 looks pretty tasty

Excellent! please post more vids...

welcome, home to your tiger!

VIC!!

Sounds fan-freaking-tastic! I hope you all come to saratoga springs sometime!

Vic - What pickups are you using?

Three Super IIs ... Pure Jerry!

playingdead wrote:Three Super IIs ... Pure Jerry!

I thought you had mentioned earlier that you like his early Tiger sound best - which had IIRC dual sounds and the single coil in the neck.
The 3 super II's were what he had in Rosebud, right?
Also what role is the obel playing with your Axe fx rig?
Thanks man as always.

Tiger was originally equipped with Dual Sounds, he switched to the Super IIs in 1982. (When the guitar had the three creme pickups, those were the dual sounds.)

I do like that early Tiger sound, but I find I get it pretty well with the bridge pickup as a humbucker in my setup.

I have the effects loop wired into the AxeFX using the two sets of outputs and the effects loop feature on there ... took a while to figure out, but it works correctly. Basically, there are two chains in my Jerry preset, one with effects only, and a second with the amp-cabinet-reverb. When you engage the effects loop on the guitar, the whole chain is in the signal path, when the effects loop is out, it's just the guitar in to the amp-cab-reverb side. I can help you get that happening if you want ...

Must be nice to have it back. I'm hoping to do the same before too long...jsut a good feeling to know that the neck is set up just exactly perfect.
Enjoy and keep posting those vids.

Glad to hear you got the guitar back. I know what it's like waiting a long time for the shop to catch up;) Anyway as always sounding great. Also I'm curious we have knocked around the subject of Garcia's use of the Bridge pup in the humbucking setting, and I'm wondering do you just leave your bridge pup micro switch permanently in the humbucking position? I think that's what Jerry did and I even found a example of when you can hear him toggling to the bridge

http://www.archive.org/details/gd1988-0 ... .3383.shnf

check out GDRFB, a few bars in you can hear him switch.

Anyway sorry for the ramble. Nice to see that axe back where it belongs.