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Mod Garage

Eric Johnson and “Virginia.”

Dig the details of the shredder’s iconic guitar and recreate EJ’s wiring.

Hello, and welcome back to Mod Garage! You’ve probably heard about Eric Johnson’s passion for the smallest and oddest details when it comes to guitars and tone. There is a longstanding urban legend that EJ is able to hear what type of battery is used in his stompboxes and how long his guitar cables are. Regardless of whether or not that’s true, it speaks to his reputation that he really cares about his tone, down to the smallest details.

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"It's maybe the most important thing to me that the solos [I record] are things that I haven't done a million times," country guitarist and singer/songwriter Brad Paisley shares on this episode of Shred With Shifty. "That's getting harder and harder to do." But as Paisley walks host Chris Shiflett through his solo on "Mud on the Tires," the centerpiece of the interview, it's clear that Paisley can improvise melodies that don't necessarily need to clear that bar in order to hook and make a lasting impression on his listeners.

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Welcome back to Mod Garage. This month we’ll have a look at a special Stratocaster wiring that’s known as the Ricky King wiring. Born in 1946, Ricky King is a well-known German instrumental guitarist who was very popular in Europe during the ’70s and ’80s, with some top-charting hits like “Verde,” “Le Rêve,” “Mare,” and “Hale, Hey Louise.” King, whose real name is Hans Lingenfelder, was also famous for his “toothpaste smile” when performing. I don’t think Ricky King was very popular in the United States, but his personal Stratocaster wiring is an interesting one, so I think you’ll have fun with this.

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Fig. 1

This mod enables variable splitting of humbucker pickups, allowing you to easily blend your desired amount of humbucker and split-coil tones.

Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. As a follow-up to the “Tapping and Splitting: What’s the Difference?” column in the October 2021 issue, this month we’ll take a closer look at variable splitting of humbuckers that’s also known as the “spin-a-split” mod. This mod can be applied to all humbuckers with a 4-conductor wiring because we need access to the start and end of both coils. You can’t do this mod to humbucker pickups with a standard 2-conductor wiring. Most humbuckers can be converted from 2-conductor to 4-conductor wiring; however, you need to open the pickup for this, which can be a delicate job. That job is best left to a guitar tech, because destroying the pickup is easy to do.

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Fig. 1

Photo courtesy of singlecoil.com

Here’s a workaround to get a similar configuration without having a third pickup. Plus, this serious tone weapon can be integrated into any given Telecaster wiring.

Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. After writing the column about the Brent Mason Telecaster wiring in October 2021, I received a lot of requests from you about a more practical and non-invasive version of it. Well, you asked, and the Mod Garage delivers.

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