Randall MTS and Charvel Pro Mod in Action - Video

[Chubtone]

Yer my interweb hero

Great job as always...sounded awesome

You're my interweb hero. Look at your avatar. Rhoads sigs galore!!!

 

[rupe]

Yer my interweb hero

Great job as always...sounded awesome

You're my interweb hero. Look at your avatar. Rhoads sigs galore!!!

Would you think I was even cooler if I told you I had Doug Marks' Hawk album on vinyl?

 

[Digital Jams]

Speaking of Joe from Randall, did Randall ever introduce that small box 50 watter I played yet??


That amp was awesome and the price was right if Joe's numbers were right. I need to call him and hang at his studio again, killer place and awesome equipment in there.

 

[Anonymous]

Yer my interweb hero

Great job as always...sounded awesome

You're my interweb hero. Look at your avatar. Rhoads sigs galore!!!

Would you think I was even cooler if I told you I had Doug Marks' Hawk album on vinyl?

No, but he'll think I'M even cooler for posting a picture of me opening for Doug Marks' Hawk at the Roxy on Sunset even before they had an album:

No wait... no one would think opening for Hawk was cool... Nevermind...

Steve

 

[Digital Jams]

Yer my interweb hero

Great job as always...sounded awesome

You're my interweb hero. Look at your avatar. Rhoads sigs galore!!!

Would you think I was even cooler if I told you I had Doug Marks' Hawk album on vinyl?

No, but he'll think I'M even cooler for posting a picture of me opening for Doug Marks' Hawk at the Roxy on Sunset even before they had an album:

No wait... no one would think opening for Hawk was cool... Nevermind...

Steve

Oh I would be interested of you in all of your eyeliner glory with charvels and modded marshalls on stage opening for anyone!!!!!!!

 

[Anonymous]

Yer my interweb hero

Great job as always...sounded awesome

You're my interweb hero. Look at your avatar. Rhoads sigs galore!!!

Would you think I was even cooler if I told you I had Doug Marks' Hawk album on vinyl?

No, but he'll think I'M even cooler for posting a picture of me opening for Doug Marks' Hawk at the Roxy on Sunset even before they had an album:

No wait... no one would think opening for Hawk was cool... Nevermind...

Steve

Oh I would be interested of you in all of your eyeliner glory with charvels and modded marshalls on stage opening for anyone!!!!!!!

You really know how to make a man feel wanted.

Steve

 

[Erock]

woo, sounded killer Curt. Great playing too, rippin solo!

I have a question about those retros. Is the pickup height adjustable? I've played 2 of the regular new pro mod san dimas, and both had no room for adjustment with the pickups. They were screwed flush to the pickup cavity, no routes for legs, no springs/pads/tubing. I thought I played some kind of factory 2nd the first time, but this second one has the same thing unless I'm blind.

 

[Chubtone]

woo, sounded killer Curt. Great playing too, rippin solo!

I have a question about those retros. Is the pickup height adjustable? I've played 2 of the regular new pro mod san dimas, and both had no room for adjustment with the pickups. They were screwed flush to the pickup cavity, no routes for legs, no springs/pads/tubing. I thought I played some kind of factory 2nd the first time, but this second one has the same thing unless I'm blind.

Erock,
You are correct, they are direct mounted right to the wood. That's the whole point if you buy into that Van Halen belief that the pickups sound better screwed right to the wood. You can replace those pickups with any other Duncan that has the short legs and alnico magnets. I've been told the ceramic magnets are slightly taller but I have never measured them. The other thing you can do is just mod the darn thing. It's even got the word Mod in the name. Take that thing and make it whatever you want it to be. Any good luthier could easily add pickup rings and route underneath where the pickup feet go to make it height adjustable. That shouldn't be very expensive at all. Then you have a Pro Mod that is exactly what you want it to be and it looks different than the ones right off the wall. That's in the whole spirit of the early Charvel. Heck, my first Charvel survived two weeks before I took it in to have a Floyd installed and change the pickup. That was back in 1984.

Having a direct mount pickup that is height adjustable with rubber tubing like in a strat or with a spring between the pickup and the wood defeats the whole purpose of direct mount. Unless you dig the look of direct mount with no rings and want the adjustability.

 

[Chubtone]

Yer my interweb hero

Great job as always...sounded awesome

You're my interweb hero. Look at your avatar. Rhoads sigs galore!!!

Would you think I was even cooler if I told you I had Doug Marks' Hawk album on vinyl?

No, but he'll think I'M even cooler for posting a picture of me opening for Doug Marks' Hawk at the Roxy on Sunset even before they had an album:

No wait... no one would think opening for Hawk was cool... Nevermind...

Steve

Anyone who had ANYTHING to do with Hawk is instantly cooler in my book

And look how Steve's band made him stand near the amps so they all looked like they were about the same height. The only tall guy in one of my bands was the drummer so we made him sit down to play and he was still as tall as me.

 

[guitup too]

I got it from Inca Roads who got it from ttosh. I ordered a 37 mm brass trem black and trem stop today. Gonna set it up dive only. Looking to put a d-tuna on it too. Other than that I may try different pickups, although the JB/59 sound good. True oil and 0000 steel wool the neck and fretboard. The more I play it the more I WANT to play it.
Any idea where I could get brass pickup rings and jack plate?

I recently traded into the black retro mod Charvel in the video. It's on the right in the group shot. Killer guitar. The more I play it the more I love it.
Oh yeah, the clip sounds really good.

You ended up getting that guitar from TT? That was a great guitar. He has gotten rid of a lot of really nice guitars. I would hold onto that one. And the more you play it, the more comfortable that neck will get. Just use #0000 steel wool on the back of the neck, the fretboard and the frets when you change strings. It cleans the neck, makes it smoother and polished the frets. Just make sure it's the steel wool with four zeroes!

And again, thanks guys. All the nice comments are encouraging.

I just got an email from Joe at Randall and they put this video on the front page of their website..... that's pretty cool for a doofus like me.

 

[Chubtone]

Any idea where I could get brass pickup rings and jack plate?

I think I have the rings. Not sure about the jackplate. Send me a PM and I will look into it.

 

[Erock]

woo, sounded killer Curt. Great playing too, rippin solo!

I have a question about those retros. Is the pickup height adjustable? I've played 2 of the regular new pro mod san dimas, and both had no room for adjustment with the pickups. They were screwed flush to the pickup cavity, no routes for legs, no springs/pads/tubing. I thought I played some kind of factory 2nd the first time, but this second one has the same thing unless I'm blind.

Erock,
You are correct, they are direct mounted right to the wood. That's the whole point if you buy into that Van Halen belief that the pickups sound better screwed right to the wood. You can replace those pickups with any other Duncan that has the short legs and alnico magnets. I've been told the ceramic magnets are slightly taller but I have never measured them. The other thing you can do is just mod the darn thing. It's even got the word Mod in the name. Take that thing and make it whatever you want it to be. Any good luthier could easily add pickup rings and route underneath where the pickup feet go to make it height adjustable. That shouldn't be very expensive at all. Then you have a Pro Mod that is exactly what you want it to be and it looks different than the ones right off the wall. That's in the whole spirit of the early Charvel. Heck, my first Charvel survived two weeks before I took it in to have a Floyd installed and change the pickup. That was back in 1984.

Having a direct mount pickup that is height adjustable with rubber tubing like in a strat or with a spring between the pickup and the wood defeats the whole purpose of direct mount. Unless you dig the look of direct mount with no rings and want the adjustability.

ahh, thanks for the info man. Luckily for me, I really love the BK holydivers in these guitars, so that's what would be going in. It's alnico, and I like it closer to the strings, so I could keep the action where I want. I just thought it was kind of strange that they weren't adjustable. I was just thinking aesthetics though, I didn't consider the EVH thing with direct mounting them. That makes a lot more sense now. I wonder if it's coincidence that I really liked the stock JB in both of them too, where I wasn't that thrilled in a couple previous San Dimas I tried that were adjustable.

 

[Brian Keeley GTR]

That sounded great, man!! Sick chops!!

 

[RockNRun]

^^^ and the tag is hanging there one sec, then poof, it's gone.

Great slice of music regardless! Tone was slick, playing even better, nice and clean (big fan of that). The phrasing is tasty, only I didn't like having to "wait for it." I heard several different influences, I especially liked the Rhoads feel starting at around 2:25 (you liked it too apparently as you started to rock back in the chair, lol) where it starts off simple enough with a pentatonic thing but then moves onto a nifty wide interval ascending/descending hammer riff - that was cool and placed perfectly as it broke up the scalar picking ideas.

 

[rupe]

Yer my interweb hero

Great job as always...sounded awesome

You're my interweb hero. Look at your avatar. Rhoads sigs galore!!!

Would you think I was even cooler if I told you I had Doug Marks' Hawk album on vinyl?

No, but he'll think I'M even cooler for posting a picture of me opening for Doug Marks' Hawk at the Roxy on Sunset even before they had an album:

No wait... no one would think opening for Hawk was cool... Nevermind...

Steve

Yer now my #2 interweb hero

We need a Doug Marks appreciation thread

 

[rupe]

 

[thenine]

Well now! That was smokingly good.

FYI I like Holy Divers in these guitars as well. Also I have a couple of direct mount guitars and I put some foam under the pups to make them "adjustable" (at least if they are too low you get a bit more upward mobility).

 

[Chubtone]

4 cameras or one camera moved around for multiple passes? For some of the shots the guitar is between your legs and others it's on the right leg, some continuity issues with the filmmaking there...

WHAT? No Oscar or Emmy or Grammy or whatever they give the top film makers for me? It's tough enough for me to just play the guitar without worrying about the stuff you film makers think of. LOL. I was going to put a burning sled that said "Rosebud" on it in a fire at the end, but that ended up on the cutting room floor.

Obviously, one crappy old camera moved to different positions while I was recording different takes. I was going to just use whichever one looked best but then got a crazy idea to use them all. Gee, it was a lot of fun trying to sync that up

Finally my niece's boyfriend spent an hour or so doing that for me. I think in the future, it will be just a one camera shoot.

 

[Chubtone]

^^^ and the tag is hanging there one sec, then poof, it's gone.

So now we have Siskel and Ebert here? That hang tag paper is highly combustible and it just burst into flames and disappeared during one of those takes.

Great slice of music regardless! Tone was slick, playing even better, nice and clean (big fan of that). The phrasing is tasty, only I didn't like having to "wait for it." I heard several different influences, I especially liked the Rhoads feel starting at around 2:25 (you liked it too apparently as you started to rock back in the chair, lol) where it starts off simple enough with a pentatonic thing but then moves onto a nifty wide interval ascending/descending hammer riff - that was cool and placed perfectly as it broke up the scalar picking ideas.

Thanks for breaking it down and dissecting it a little. I don't know if anyone has ever done that to one of my solos before. I've certainly done it to about 10 million solos though. Thanks buddy!
.

 

[Chubtone]

Hawk was extremely underwhelming when I saw them live. I had learned so much from Doug Marks a few years earlier and thought he was just going to tear it up as he was great at playing those Rhoads and EVH licks. But his own playing was extremely pedestrian IMO.