reader guitar

Name: Terry Kempler
Hometown: White Marsh, Maryland
Guitar: Custom Yellow Active LP

A 6-string tinkerer found a guitar neck with a unique inlay design, inspiring this bright color scheme and some active-pickup experimentation.

It all started with this yellow inlaid neck I saw on eBay/Amazon from China. I loved the inlays and thought it would be fun to design a yellow-themed guitar.

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A spotlight on real-life DIY adventures, from a steampunk-inspired work of art to a tone-happy Strat-style to a 1961 Gibson restoration.

We asked our readers to get their mods out. Here are some of the coolest.

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The emerging parts market in the ’80s, a luthier friend, and a cousin who studied acoustic engineering helped this bassist create a one-of-a-kind instrument.

Thank you for allowing us to share our bastardized beauties with you. I built this bass with the help of my friend Drew in 1980 or ’81. It was an instrument born out of necessity. Stock instruments of the time weren’t keeping up with the musical progressions that were happening in the ’70s and ’80s, so if you wanted to advance your art, you had to get creative. Fortunately, parts manufacturers and inventive minds were there to accommodate.
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