Drove to Leeds today with my non-functioning Fret-King guitar for my appointment with master luthier Gordon White of 'Single Coil Guitar Repairs.'
Gordon opened up the guitar there and then and quickly identified the problem as being a wire that had come loose from the jack socket. It seems that the jack socket isn't a particularly solid one and had rotated when the jack plug had been inserted, snapping off the connecting wire, hence no output from the pickups.
Armed with a soldering iron, Gordon reconnected the disconnected wire and then tightened the jack socket. Hopefully it will last a while longer but he suspects that I'll need to fit a better quality jack socket at some point in the future. A shame as the guitar plays and sounds really good but it seems that some aspects of the instrument have been neglected in favour of cheaper components.
Completed a mix of another new track for the 'These Stars Are Fire' album tonight. The track is titled 'Rockers Of The Rosy Cross' and is a fairly full on mass of guitars with a vocal. A slightly tongue in cheek reference to Rosicrucian esoterica but with a post-modern rock twist.
My recording gear still giving me the heebie-jeebies though...strange things happening with the automation and sound. No choice but to embrace it and incorporate it into the mixes. Needs must, and all that..Produces unwanted effects at times but, that's what it is and I have to roll with it. Perhaps it makes it more interesting?
Here are a couple more photographs from last Sunday's Whitby trip, already receding in the rear view mirror of life...
