one.falling.hope

OK, here we go.

Two weeks ago I walked into my local music store to grab some guitar strings; and there it is hanging on the wall - the pink Fender Squire Hello Kitty Strat!

And my girlfriend was no where to be found to stop me from making a purchase….

Before I knew what happened I was walking out to the car with two sets of strings and a new SQUIER Strat - a PINK one nonetheless!!

A little back story; last Christmas I saw these things on the shelf of my local Target stores for sale; they had the whole Squire Hello Kitty line; a Black HK Strat, the Pink HK Strat, and a Black Badz Maru Bronco bass (another HK character) - I became almost obsessed with getting the pink HK Strat simply for the RIDICULOUS novelty of the whole thing.

I mean; yes - I’ll admit I DO like Hello Kitty - but the sheer comedic value of me; coming in at 6ft tall, nearly 400lbs, long haired and mean - stepping up on the stage with this cute little pink Hello Kitty guitar to tear out some death metal was an image I just couldn’t pass up.

But she kept telling me NO, that I shouldn’t buy it and I have enough guitars as is.

…And she was and IS correct.

But there I was - a year later, with her nowhere to be found and the guitar within arms reach and the cash in my hand!!

I own a LOT of guitars - amongst them a beautiful MIJ early nineties Fender Jazzmaster and a 1994 Gibson Les Paul Custom. I never even considered looking at a Squire; much less purchasing one - ever.

That said; this guitar ROCKS. It was made in Indonesia and to be honest - the build quality, fit and finish and hardware is as good as or better than a great deal of the Made in America Fenders and Gibsons of the late 1970’s - 1980’s.

Specs:

Finish - Pink (Gloss Polyurethane Finish)
Body - Agathis
Neck - Maple, C-Shape (Satin Polyurethane Finish)
Fingerboard - Maple, 9.5” Radius (241 mm)
No. of Frets - 21 Medium Jumbo
Pickups - 1 Humbucking Pickup (Bridge)
Controls - Volume
Pickup Switching - None
Bridge - Hard Tail Strings-Thru-Body 6-Saddle Bridge
Machine Heads - Standard Die-Cast Tuners
Hardware - Chrome
Pickguard - 1-Ply White Hello Kitty Pickguard
Scale Length - 25.5” (648 mm)
Width at Nut - 1.61” (41 mm)
Unique Features - Script Hello Kitty Logo Artwork on Back of Body,Pink Dot Position Inlays,Large Headstock ‘60s Style Headstock
Strings - Fender® Super 250L, (.009 to .042) Nickel Plated Steel

For those of you who don’t know what Agathis is - and are used to seeing woods like Ash, Alder, Mahogany, Maple, etc.. Agathis is sometimes referred to as ‘budget Mahogany” - at least B.C. Rich would like you to think so (that was a quote off of their site) - what Agathis REALLY is, is a genus of Pine available quite widely in Asia.

Agathis is commonly used now a days in mid range guitars and is pretty inexpensive - but in this case inexpensive does NOT mean cheap; in fact Agathis sounds particularly good as a guitar tone wood it is definitely on the bright side, IMO (which is why I don’t know why B.C. Rich compares it to Mahogany?) and resonates VERY nicely!

The body on this Squire is a little bit thinner than on your traditional Strat; but as it is “designed” to be a childs guitar; I would expect that.

…In case I didn’t say this already; This is a $200 guitar!!! The quality of this thing just can’t be beat for the price!!

However; if I could find any faults it would be the pickup and the tuners. The tuners are liveable - but not my favorite. I intend to replace them next time I change strings - but in all honesty they are perfectly serviceable.

The pickup however is NOT. It is the WORST sounding pickup I think that I may have ever encountered - and a new one was ordered two days after Hello Kitty came home with me.

Picking out the right pickup for this guitar was kind of a chore because of how bright the guitars acoustic properties are; and also because of the Hello Kitty pickguard I would need to pick a white pickup - or it would mess up her face!!

I finally settled on the DiMarzio Air Zone. (description taken from DiMarzio’s site)

Ultra-fat PAF sound with more output. The dynamic range from soft to hard picking is very wide, and the combination of dual-resonance coils with the Airbucker magnetic field allows sustained notes to hang on to harmonic overtones longer, instead of becoming muddy as they fade.

The best way to describe the Air Zone is that it’s a vintage version of the Tone Zone. It’s got the same low string-pull as other Airbuckers for more sustain, plus it’s got the big bass response and cool harmonics of the Tone Zone. There’s a little less power than the Tone Zone, but more sensitivity and control. It’s a great match for very hot amps, allowing the player to take full advantage of the amp’s massive gain without turning the sound to mud or fuzzy noise.

- little trivia fact; the Air Zone is the pickup that Page Hamilton (Helmet, Gandhi, David Bowie) uses in his guitars.

OK - lets see some pics!

There she is “Before Surgery”

I bought the pickup from “Mike’s Music Shop” in Harrisburg, PA. via eBay (his eBay ID is banjomikez) For ~$75 shipped - and he included a TON of schwag; a nice stack of stickers - and a cool Seymour Duncan bottle opener / key chain (cool; because SD traditionally are my pickups of choice)

And here is the pickup - one thing to note; people with Strats / Strat style guitars want to order “F-Spaced” pickups - that means that the magnetic pole pieces will line up with the strings. Gibsons have a narrower string spacing; and the pole pieces don’t line up - back when I started playing guitar; this wasn’t an option.

And; Off to the bench! (new pickup lying in wait!)

Lets disconnect the old flaming pile of poop pickup

I was quite surprised to find that the electronics cavity was shielded with foil and conductive paint! - again this is sometimes something that you don’t even find in guitars costing $1K or more…

Cut the zip tie; desolder the hot lead, and just cut the shield wire for the pickup (its in there too well to bother with desoldering it; would probably heat up the pot to the point of damage)

Then we flip her over and take off her face!

yup; pink inlays on the maple neck - i dig it!

The old pickup (you can see that I didn’t even pull the plastic off before replacing it!!) is mounted in place; and height adjusted - with two screws that are hidden under the pickguard - set your p’up height BEFORE you put the pickguard back on!)

Here you can see the old and new pickups side by side - along with the foam that Fender used for pickup mounting / height adjustment / feedback damping - its really a quite effective mounting method.

If you have a keen eye you may notice that the pickup “dog ears” are different on the DiMarzio compared to the stock pickup, and this DOES present a small problem.

The Dimarzios intended mounting is via machine screws through a pickup mounting ring, ala Les Paul style. To make it work in this mount I had to put a taper drill bit in my dremel and open up the screw holes enough that the Squire mounting screws would pass through them. Also the screw hole spacing was a bit wider on the DiMarzio than it was on the stock pickup - I solved that by taping the DiMarzios dog ears on my desktop until the spacing matched up (one good tap on each side).

After that it was just a matter of transferring over the foam from the old pickup onto the new one; feeding the wire into the control cavity and screwing it down.

and put her face back on!

Back to the control cavity

Remove the solder on the lug of the volume pot with some desoldering braid

To run a DiMarzio as a standard humbucker you need to solder the black and white wires together (NOTE: other pickups may use the same COLOR wires; but are not necessarily wired the same way - check the manufacturers spec sheet for your pickup)

Then I put a bit of shrink wrap over it:

Solder the red wire to the input of the volume pot and the green wire and the shield to the top of the volume pot - and you are done installing the new pickup! (I left the extra length in the cable in case I end up moving this pickup into a different guitar some years down the line)

All buttoned up with the old pickup on top:

Nowto MY third issue with Hello Kitty; Fender chose to string it up with a set of .009’s - which I can’t stand. Those strings are TOO tiny in my opinion; and you’ll never get good tone or feel out of a guitar with those.

I normally string up my Les Paul and my Jazzmaster with Ernie Ball Medium Gauge .13-.56 strings; but I went a bit lighter with Hello Kitty and gave her a set of .12’s

After all of my modifications; and a drastic change in string gauges; a fresh set up was in order.

I had to turn the truss rod 1/4 turn (done in two 1/8th turn increments; with settling time allowed in between) to compensate for the extra tension on the neck; and I had to DROP the height of the saddles - DRASTICALLY to be honest - they were way to high.

The intonation on the factory setup with the .009’s was actually PRETTY good (the G and B strings were both a little sharp as you went up the next - but again; this is a $200 guitar sold as a childrens “toy” )

But after going to the .12’s it needed considerable adjustment. Surprisingly I was able to get the intonation 100% SPOT ON!! And I tune to Dropped “D”; which usually doesnt have enough compensation in the bridge for the 6th string on ANY guitar.

I was able to get (in my opinion) incredibly low and comfortable action; perfect intonation; and a straight neck… Oh yeah and great tone; plugged in or unplugged.

Here are some pics of her all put together after the mods:

If anyone is wondering what to get someone who is trying to learn how to play guitar; I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend a Squire these days (UNBELIEVABLE!)

Of course to make it a real “player” you need to do a few tweaks.

No; this guitar isn’t on the same level as a boutique instrument but I wouldn’t feel bad saying it is just as playable and enjoyable as my Jazzmaster, and MORE playable than some more expensive instruments that I have played.

To put this into perspective; my TOTAL investment in this guitar after the pickup and new set of strings is ~$280.00!! I spent just about that much upgrading the pickups alone on my Jazzmaster!!!

And it plays so well that I had to fight myself to put it down and write this post!

Always in a quest for getting a little bit better sound out of the equipment that I have on hand - for as little money as possible - I turned to the internet looking for any advice on tweeking my speakers.

I have a pair of Radio Shack “RCA” branded Linaeum tweeter equipeed speakers. They used to be sold as “Optimus LX-5″ speakers from Radio Shack. with the name change they replaced the driver with a much better driver than the LX-5’s original driver - and thats about it.

These speakers sound pretty good, but have way too much upper bass emphasis. I found several tips online - one of which was to fill the speakers port hole with drinking straws.

I tried this, and did not notice enough of a difference to make it worthwhile.

So; I opted to add some mass to the drivers and to the speaker face to dampen unwanted resonance and also to add some poly-fil to the cabinet.

Adding polyfil to the cabinet, in laymans terms, essentialy makes the driver think that it is in a bigger box.

So, here is the speaker:

After popping off the grille you need to remove the rubber cups on the front panel and remove the four screws that hold the plastic front to the aluminum cabinet:

And, here is the inside of the cabinet as it was manufactured:

And the driver board:

First thing I did was to add some mass to the driver basket to reduce resonance.

I used Ideal brand “DuctSeal” which is available in one pound bricks, it is a non hardening putty designed to seal around air ducts, outside electrical boxes, etc.

I used it to smooth the transition between the basket and the magnet; and also on the basket itself.

then I tapped all over the driver board to listen for areas that resonated “wrong” and applied DuctSeal in the apropriate areas to eliminate the reasonance.

Then I turned my attention to the cabinets themselves:

Following along with the straws inside of the port holes; I tried adding foam to the port holes as well:

But, these pieces of foam were promptly removed after the speakers were reassembled; as in my opinion it was just too much, and made the speakers sound far too “nasaly”

Having had sucess with my speakers; I turned my attention to the absolutely worthless Radio shack RCA branded subwoofer that I am using.

First off; I removed the driver:

Then to stiffen up the cone I “painted” it with “Mod Podge” - which is a sealant / glue / finish product that is available in most craft stores. One of its intended purposes is to “seal” jigsaw puzzles together after they have been assembled.

While the “Mod Podge” was drying I applied some DuctSeal to the subwoofers driver:

For the heck of it; I applied some Mod Podge to the cardboard tube in the subwoofers enclosure:

Then I also added some poly fill to the subwoofer enclosure. Typically this is not needed in subwoofers; but this subwoofer was exceptionally “honky” with an emphasis in the upper mid-bass.
My additional reasoning was that this subwoofer is only worth about $10.00; so even if I screw it up- no big deal.

And; reassembled:

The improvements gained by these modifications were nothing short of amazing.

These speakers sound like something easily costing two to three times what these speakers initially cost.
I noticed when I was working on them that I could probably notice even more of an improvement if I were to swap out the ferrite core inductor for an air core inductor and replace the caps with better quality caps.

That will probably be my final upgrade to these speakers before I ultimately upgrade to a better overall speaker.

All in all though; this took me about an hour start to finish and its like haveing a brand new system.
I would say that it was well worth it.