Vertigo Guitars and my custom strat

[MiniMurray]

K - the history first:

Located in Phoenix, Arizona - Vertigo Guitars is owned by Luthier Sid Slack. I met Sid after The Iron Maidens played at Alice Cooperstown when he offered to make me a guitar to abuse. He said if it could survive our show it would survive anything. After a couple emails we decided on this prototype.

 

[MiniMurray]

Curly maple bolt on, basswood body, original floyd rose, and white EMG's 81/85. Sid furthur customized it with coil tap split on the middle knob, seperate volume controls, one tone, and a handy LED located above the 5 way pick up selector that burns red when plugged in - no more licking 9 volts to see if there good!

I further customized it after the first show when i lost the black plastic off the 5 way and added duct tape \m/ c - you can hardly tell!

 

[MiniMurray]

 

[MiniMurray]

This guitar really sings The combination of the curly maple neck/basswood really compliments each other. the EMG 81/85 humbuckers that can be coil tapped is way cool - I'm finding the sonic limits are endless - hehheh like when you need to play FOTD country
The set up was done with the Buzz Feiten tuning system, which has eliminated my tuning and intonation problems. Lots of travel is hard on my guitars but Sid worked closely with me to insure that this guitar would be flawless, and his exhaustive work is now the source of lots of Maiden(s) fan's enjoyment!

 

[Doodoobubbachuck]

Nice! We've been enjoying it with you Sara!

 

[Red Shirt]

Nice Sara! Can't wait to hear you sing with it - hehe.. I like the Eddie-ette icon & MiniMurray sig.

 

[RoboCaster]

Sweet! I wish I had one; those maple necks are gorgeous under lights as well.

 

[spideyjg]

I thought you had a new toy Sara. Saw that in the PNW photo's and was curious.

Love the back of the headstock!

Although if he does another the Betty should go above the "Ver" on the front of the headstock, or on the upper horn.

Can't wait to hear it Saturday.

Jim

 

[Tap_Legion2]

Wow...thats a killer new toy.....I hope you give it years and years of abuse !!!

 

[Lord of Delusions]

No more licking 9v's? Sheesh, now what will you do for fun???

 

[Rendclaw]

and I'll be damned if it doesn;t look a lot like Dave's 58 Strat, without the middle single coil.....

Are EMG 81s/85s the standard for pickups nowadays? I was thinking of having them put in my Ibanez hybrid.. once I got the money together to do so, that is.

 

[nlukes]

Maple neck Strats rule!. Nice guitar.

 

[Schmidt_Rubin]

Nice!

 

[Sabbathking]

I can't view the pics Sara-all I see are those red x's in a box.Although I'll probably see the guitar on Friday anyway huh?

 

[Metallicat180]

I can't view the pics Sara-all I see are those red x's in a box.Although I'll probably see the guitar on Friday anyway huh?

Ditto - except I don't see shit! Glad it's not just me!

 

[spideyjg]

You need a photobucket account Sara. I guess folks firewalls or something are blocking the images from sarabaracuda.com.
So far photobucket seems to work everywhere and I have only heard of one person that couldn't view them out of many, many netizens.

Geek assist..

Jim

Prototype...

Front...

Rear...

 

[f22chris]

Very cool guitar, dont see white emg's very often

 

[Metallicat180]

Beautiful guitar!!! It really is!!!! Thanks for the help Jim!

 

[MiniMurray]

thanks jim for posting my pics - i think i have to uncheck some boxes on my host's settings or something

 

[MiniMurray]

Are EMG 81s/85s the standard for pickups nowadays? I was thinking of having them put in my Ibanez hybrid.. once I got the money together to do so, that is.

they've definately got a unique sound to em - the 9v preamp attributes to this making em reallly hot sounding with lots of sustain. i still have the stock pickups in my ibanez and they stand up pretty damn well to emgz - they just break up kinda weird in the midrange so i scoop it more on my amp.
i took the emgz out tho of my mexifender cuz there was no clarity - just mush - and put in a SD full shred and a hotrail which really helped.