Phil - who cut the hole in the esquire scratchplate.....what did he use...chainsaw???
The problem was that the original scratchplate had already been cut for a strat pickup which is a little longer than the firebird. Thats why the front looks like that. When you look at it from the other side of the room you can't tell, and it sounds great. I used the 4-way switch that BK supplies. It is nice to have the series/parallel for the 2 pickup combinations.
Would you say that Apaches are better suited to maple necks, or does it depend on the individule overall tone of the giutar.
I know that they sound great on this. The Irish Tours I have are a bit bright with my japanese Hank Marvin necked hardtail, but I worked out why when I spoke to Tim. I thought it would be cool to have a reverse magnet stagger (ala Hendrix) :oops: Combine that with a thick maple neck and a hard tail and you have a very bright guitar. I have a mexican strat that I was going to cannabalise for the Marvin (it is fiesta red), with a rosewood neck. I will put them in there and see how that works.
The apaches seem to have every tone in them. You can get a brighter attack by just playing harder. They are incredibly responsive to touch (stop the jokes already :roll: ). I can imagine that they could give a great rock tone in a rosewood guitar. The other thing about my strat is that there is really no lacquer on the neck! This probably mellows it a bit.
