NGD: RS Guitarworks Huffcaster

[todd richman]

On Wednesday, Thanksgiving eve, my newest dream guitar arrived and it is impeccably built and a dead on recreation of the heavily modded '63 Strat that Dann Huff used during his L.A. Studio days of the 1980's and with his band, Giant. It all began a few months back when I rediscovered my love for the big rack era of guitar tones-Lukather, Landau, Farris, Huff, etc. As I was redesigning my amazing L.A. Sound Design pedalboard to capture those heavily processed studio sounds, I thought it would be awesome to have a few Superstrats built with the classic single-single-humbucker configuration and Floyd Rose tremolo. I discussed this with Roy Bowen (the R in RS) and we devised the plan for what has become the "Huffcaster." Here is the thread from RS that shows some pics of the finished guitar:

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/sho...fcaster&page=2

Scroll down on page 2 for some shots of this gorgeous guitar. The finish in person is this rustic sunburst that has this amazing almost illuminescent ambering that really highlights how gorgeous the sunburst finish is. As for the tonal versatility-wow! With the 3 mini toggles to set the humbucker in series/parallel/split configuration and coil taps for the 2 stacked single coils (those are the original version of the Duncan bridge position Hot Stack from the early 80's), the tonal variety is all there from those glassy Strat cleans and funky in between sounds to the greatest lead humbucker sound from the custom wound Duncan JB-not an off the shelf pickup by any means! MJ wound this to replicate her early wound JB's that Seymour became famous for with the guitar gods of the 80's.

Big thanks to Roy, Scott, Billy and the entire gang at RS Guitarworks-they made it happen and their work is always amazing. Next up is that Lukather modded 3-single EMG Strat we talked about Roy! And the Valley Arts via Suhr Cherry Sunburst Luke replica too!

The only thing tough to find for this guitar was the original early 80's Duncan Hot Stacks which are both bridge position just as in Dann's original guitar-thanks to David Phillips (rackdoctor) and Matt Valencia (Matt5150) for getting me those pickups from their stash! Big thanks to MJ (You are the best and a legend too!!) at the Duncan Custom Shop for winding me an old school early 80's spec JB for the humbucker and thanks to Dann Huff for the inspiration for this guitar and the entire new rig, pedalboard (L.A. Sound Design) and all.

In case you want to see the original Huff guitar in action check out the videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6LPQNDId4Q

[Rebel-Guitars]

That's a sweet guitar!! Congrats!!

[todd richman]

Thanks. You have some sweet guitars yourself!

[big mike]

Looks AMAZING!!!! Nice job RS as usual, killer killer fiddle.
Enjoy todd! What's the specs on your new pedalboard/rig?

[Blessed Tone]

Great looking guitar, Nice job RS !!

[ChazMania]

crap on a stick.......that thing looks incredible! congrats on your NGD!

[todd richman]

Thanks for reposting the pics Mike.

The new L.A. Sound Design board is basically designed to replicate the 80's rack tones of players like Huff, Lukather, Steve Farris, Landau, etc and will have these things:

Boss FV-500L (Pre volume)
Boss FV-500L (Wet volume in Parallel Looper)
Demeter Fat Control (Tyler Midboost Spec Custom Ordered)
Vintage MXR Dyna Comp
Boss DC-2 Dimension C
Boss HR-2 Harmonist for +/- detune
Yamaha UD-Stomp Modulation Delay (Geoff Guthrie custom presets)
TC Electronic Nova Reverb
Kingdom Amplifiers Parallel Looper (UD, Nova Reverb and Wet Volume Pedal in parallel to Mesa MkIV efx loop)
Musicom EFXIII Audio Controller
Boss TU-12H Tuner (dedicated tuner out on Musicom)
Custom L.A.S.D. Interface and Power Supplies.

The Musicom not only stores presets of effects pedal combinations but will also select and store the 3 channels on the Mesa MkIV, plus the amp graphic Eq function along with sending MIDI program change to the UD-Stomp for each preset I set up on the Musicom-the UD is running exclusively into the parallel looper and into the amp's loop so it is not running in a loop on the Musicom but will still receive MIDI info from the Musicom. It should be all wired up and ready to go in a few weeks-it is out in L.A. now.

[big mike]

Sounds pretty cool man! WOW, you found a dimension C?

[todd richman]

I did and a mint one at that-used to belong to a TGP member actually. Preset Mode 4 into the Boss Harmonist with a little circular delay setting on the UD-Stomp is pure clean tone bliss.

[gerryguitar]

hey Todd, good call on the HR2, essential for those Huff/Landau tones..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7fVdG7Zd3A

my little attempt.

[todd richman]

Thanks Gerry. Your demo sounds amazing BTW! The HR-2 is perfect when combined either after the Dimension C or in conjunction with some of the Tri-Stereo Chorus patches that Geoff Guthrie programmed into my UD-Stomp-instant Huff and all the other guys from that era. Basically all the Richard Marx, Kenny Loggins, Boz Scaggs, etc music from the mid to late 80's had that tri-stereo chorus running into an SPX-90 with the patch called Pitch Change C.

[todd richman]

Gerry-forgot to ask-where did you set the HR-2 (all knobs) for the detune on the video and also for the companion video you did with the Arion? You really nailed the tones that it takes my Demeter Tyler midboost, Dyna Comp, UD-Stomp plus the DC-2 and HR-2 to accomplish with those pedals-nicely done!

[gerryguitar]

Originally Posted by todd richman

Gerry-forgot to ask-where did you set the HR-2 (all knobs) for the detune on the video and also for the companion video you did with the Arion? You really nailed the tones that it takes my Demeter Tyler midboost, Dyna Comp, UD-Stomp plus the DC-2 and HR-2 to accomplish with those pedals-nicely done!

Todd, its really very simple, set the key to E and detune -3 on voice A and -5 on voice B, then just set whatever level you want, bit of Boss CE2, reverb and delay to taste.... voila..!!!!

I've used this on recordings and you'd be very surprised at the results... instant Huff/Landau on cleans, add a little compression and you're there..

[todd richman]

Thanks Gerry. So you aren't just setting it to the detune +/- setting?

[DANOCASTER]

Nice Todd !!

NOW there are no excuses - it's all down to YOU.. LOL

let's hear some clips when you get this fired up