Sunny Breaks

I got this a couple of months ago and I really like it.
The neck pickup has a fantastic sound – really smoking. A lot of the info I’ve read about the 07 reissue of the Pro says the pickups are wound hotter than the models produced a few years ago.
I’ve been banging on guitars off and on for a long time but have just recently taken an active interest in the technical side. I’m new to most of it, but I know my ears. When I switch from the Fender Jaguar to the Dano Pro, with the same settings on the amp, it’s easy to hear that the pickups have more oomph in them. Although it could be the semi-hollowness of the Pro also.

Also, I like the shorter neck. My arms are not short, but playing just feels more comfortable.
Maybe it’s got something to do with the way the neck is bolted on, but it has heaps of sustain. It’s probably got something to do with the way the neck is attached—there’s a lot of screws. In fact, when I have it strapped on and body is sitting against my kidneys in a particular way, I can feel the sound resonate which is pretty cool.

It handles distorted tones better than I thought it would. I thought it would mostly be in the realm of clean and slightly overdriven sounds but it goes well even with the Big Muff.

One of the things that’s not so great is that the tone & vol knobs don’t taper much at all.
This is one project I was thinking of. I haven’t tried my hand at soldering yet, but was thinking about getting a couple of tone/vol of from somewhere like www.singlecoil.com and replacing the stock ones. That wouldn’t be too hard would it? Would it? (I don’t want to fuck up my guitar!)

I was initially thinking that the bridge pickup wasn’t so great. The sound is definitely a lot thinner than the neck, but I’m starting to think that it’s just different. If I attempted to change it, it would probably end up sounding very similar to the neck—and there’s no point in making them sound the same.

But another thing I was thinking of doing was rewiring the middle position of the selector toggle. Right now it has both pickups on. What I’m wondering is if it can be rewired to that the two pickups run together, acting like one spread out humbucker. I read somewhere that kind of thing is possible but I’m wondering how difficult is it—do you have to mess with the insides of the pickups or is it just the wiring in between?

Anyway, I know this kind of guitar isn’t for everyone but I really dig it. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere around on the internet for appreciators of Dano Pros to gather. If I could easily add a discussion board to this website I’d do it. Let’s see if this blog post garners any interest.

[update]

In relation to Pat’s comment, here is a roughly drawn but measurement-correct diagram of where the neck is screwed on at the back.

I’m very tired but I feel like I should write here. I’ve recently been watching a lot of you-tube. I think I’m just starting to fully understand the implications of it. I have been watching people play guitars. It’s fascinating. Bedrooms. Facial expressions concentration. These countless anonymous (usually) white young men wailing on their axes, then sometimes talking about them.

In another leagues is watching famous people, in this instance talking about their Fender Jazzmasters. I don’t usually like to funk up the weblog with utoob windows, but as I said, the whole thing is being deliberated on by the committee. For the moment here’s a few.

Elvis Costello—I’ve only ever been mildly interested in his music, but this interesting hearing of the randomness involved with how he ended up with a distinctive looking guitar. I could relate to how he had a guitar for ages that just wasn’t very comfortable, but didn’t know that much could be done about it. He seems like a pretty don-to-earth kind of guy.

Nb. Ask Elvis if he will be compare/interviewer for my ‘people talking about their guitars’ TV series.

Next was J Mascis formerly of Dinosaur Jr. I always thought he was a wanker—don’t know why, just did. May have had something to do with the way he drawled the vocals in songs like Freak Scene, the only one I can remember.

However, I could relate to things that J was saying, like how he travelled hours to get to this guitar shop only to find that the one he had been saving up for ages for was actually 50 bucks more than he thought, so couldn’t get it. That happens to me all the time. J didn’t seem like a wanker at all.

Next was Lee Ronaldo of Sonic Youth talking about his Fender Jazzmaster. Unlike the first two, there is no Ronaldo signiture model Jazzmaster. In the past I’ve quite the Sonic Youth fan but everything comes and goes. Having dozens of guitars with different alternate tunings is a very convenient way to get around not having to learn how to play guitar. Ronaldo seemed kind of pretentious.

The last one (not embeddable) is Johnny Marr n’ his guitar. I never would’ve guessed it from those effector-driven razor licks from songs like ‘how soon is now’ but Johnny seems to be the ‘goofy but lovable’ type of person when I hear him talking about his kids and stickers from Wamart used to decorate his Jazzmaster.