Knowing the shop I got this from, that might not be as unfair as it sounds.

The guy who runs the shop I got it from goes to Argos on occasion and gets the squier strat-packs, then sands off the headstock decal and slaps a Fender logo on there. Then bingo, 200% mark up.

Not for the people buying D:

ooooooooh pretty!!!

nice strat.i love to get one of those one day

I love strats, if I were to ever get one I would go for a white one with a maple fretboard. If I were to ever get one I would have to buy a vintage one that cost loads and I just wouldn't use it enough to spend the money so I would buy a guitar more suited to my style.

This one's a Mexican strat, though a fair amount of money has gone into all the little customizations that I've made to it. It's pretty versatile, since those Quarter Pounder pickups kinda get the best of humbuckers and single coils.

Ah nice, had a look at the "before" picture as well, it certainly looks badass now!

A friend of mine has a mexican fender strat in white, with a maple fretboard and that thing is lovely. It's only got single coils though so it's not as beefy as I would have my own one if I got one.

I have fiddled with a couple of my guitars, not to the same extent as you have here mind. I have changed all the hardware on my Gibson V apart from the Scratch-plate and I've changed a pickup in my Caparison but that's pretty much it. I've left most of my stuff unmodified. I have a PRS that I won't go near with any sharp objects, let alone take apart. I'm too lazy and not good enough with soldering to fiddle with stuff more!

With the Strat I wanted something that looked unique, but still kinda had the overall feel of a proper strat, hence all the modification. I've a few other guitars, and they're all as they were when I got them since I got the specific model for a specific job. Schecter 7 string, which is nice, and an Ibanez I got purely because it has a Floyd Rose style trem on it. Any pictures of your PRS? I think if I had the money for a proper high end guitar, that's what I'd end up going for.

Yeah it has a real vintage look to it but does stand out, especially the scratch plate! I have a Schecter 7 String as well, a Blackjack. Great guitar for the money that, I have an Ibanez 7 string, but I've never been fond of Ibanez. They're a bit...scratchy? I guess. I have a Caparison (which is my favourite guitar) for the Floyd Rose, the floyd on that thing is brilliant, easy to restring and you can batter it to your hearts content.

I can certainly get one for you, I'll post a link on here in a bit. If you want something with a bit of class then PRS is the way to go, you can get the SE ones which are a lot cheaper, but are really nice guitars. Mine plays really well, sounds awesome clean or distorted and looks great. Just hasn't got the character my Caparison has got.

My Schecter is an Omen Extreme. Doesn't have the active pickups, but it still sounds better than some of my more expensive guitars. I have a 12-string acoustic from Ibanez, which is in dire need of a new set of strings right now. Their older stuff is good, but they've been increasing in price and declining in quality lately.

I prefer passive pickups to be honest, I always find that active ones have no character and sound a bit "meh" when clean and I like good clean tones. My favourite pickups are the BareKnuckle Warpig. I have one of those in the bridge of my Caparison, which also has a coil split and that thing is a monster haha, really beefy distortion but really smooth clean.

Definitely agree with that statement about Ibanez, they are pandering too much to the whole "shred" thing that's knawing at young guitarists a bit too much nowadays. Love 12 strings though, they sound awesome.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/925.....che=1353009826 - my PRS

I got a new bass today, and that has active pickups, but that's the only thing I have with them in. Sold my Squier P-Bass because I found myself needing a 5-string more and more.

Ah cool, what did you get?

5 strings are awesome, both of my basses are 4 string sadly. I have a Fender P-bass that a very good friend gave me when he bought himself a Warwick, but I admit I barely play, it's only when I need to jot down a bass line for song I've written as I don't tend to play bass casually really.

It's a Yamaha RBX375 in Dark Oriental Green. Bonus points for the initials of the colour being "DOG". Not had much chance to play yet, but it sounds better than the Squier from what I can tell, and the extra string's gonna be great for recording stuff with my 7 string. Not gonna have to trust the plugins to cover that range anymore.

Ah nice, Yamaha make some great instruments. It's an awesome colour from what I've just seen on Google haha! I'll give squier's the playability but I've never been keen on the sound, but then I've only ever played one years ago so wouldn't be able to judge really.

I love 7 strings, I'm not a fan of downtuning 6 strings, lowest I like to be is in drop D (Prefer standard though) but my Gibson Flying V is in Drop B for some of my band's old songs. I love the 7 string because you still have standard tuning but then you have the super low tuning as well. I keep my Schecter in Drop A for the low growls haha.

But a 5 string bass will definitely compliment the low tuning a lot more, will give it a lot more drive! Look forward to perhaps someday hearing one of your songs with it on there!

I mess around with open C sometimes purely because I'm really into Devin Townsend's music at the minute. If I tune the 7 string to that, the B goes down to a very low G, and doing the same with the E string of the bass would've sounded pretty awful. Even with active pickups and strings designed for being very low, the 5 string couldn't possibly go any lower than that.

Devin Townsend is AWESOME!! Hahahaha, that's great to hear! I haven't tried open C tuning, but I keep meaning to have a play around with it.

I went to see him at the Retinal Circus in Camden a few weeks ago, don't suppose you went to that did you?

I was trying to get tickets for ages, but they'd sold out by the time I heard about it. I'm going to see him in Manchester next month, though. Definitely gonna pre-order the Retinal Circus DVD when that happens. I'm working on a couple of SYL covers right now, and I've already pretty much finished a cover of Hide Nowhere.

One of my friends bought me a ticket, which was very, very generous as I know the tickets sold out really quickly. Was a great show, he is awesome live and his music is so bonkers and brilliant at the same time. Hahaha, Ziltoid made an appearance as well. He played some SYL which I was really surprised about, he played Love? which was amazing to watch live.

Will you be posting them on here do you reckon? Would like to hear that

Aye, they'll end up here eventually. One if them is finished save for the vocals and the other just needs the bass and keyboards.

Will keep an eye out for those then, I look forward to hearing them! Will you be using your new bass for it?

It's the only one I have right now. If I could've kept the other I would probably have made it into a fretless. Hopefully the Pod'll be able to handle it.

Fretless basses sound wonderful, you can really get a nice smooth tone out of them. Do you use a Line 6 pod then for your recording do you?

Aye, it's a pod studio, which is pretty much just a re-branded Toneport.

Good little bit of kit that, what recording software do you use out of curiousity?

I need to get better recording equipment really. I have a really old version of Cubase that is stuck in a really old computer. I use a Zoom FX pedal for the effects and just plug it into the mic port on the PC. Sounds okay (I have a couple of songs on here I recorded using this) but it's not ideal. I would like to be able to mic up or plug in my live gear but there is no chance of that happening any time soon haha

I use Reaper and put up with the nag screen that shows up. It's easy to use and served me pretty well.

I have to admit I've never used that. I've used Line 6's own program "Riffworks" it's basic but it gets the job done. I like Cubase a lot for what I need I want to upgrade it but my PC is a pile of crap and I don't want to clog up my laptop with anything as CPU hungry as recording software. It does sound pretty tight considering it's a demo. Particularly the keyboards, they haven't distorted at all and sound really sharp.

PodFarm is great. I have the heavy metal amp pack, which is great, too. Easy to work with and a lot of scope for customisation.

Easy to work with and customisation = win. I hate how limited I am by my little old footpedal.

I have an AxFx for big shows and an Engl Powerball rig for the smaller ones and I would love to be able to mic up my Engl, as it sounds ferocious. Really need to look at getting some PC modelling stuff really so that I can make my shoddy demos sound a little more professional like yours do.

I've borrowed amps at the gigs I've played at, though that was for convenience more than anything. A friend of mine let me use his Mesa Boogie.