After the brass pickguards, the white ones are also available now. Just like on Mark Knopfler’s red Schecter Strat, they are made of white enamel aluminium, they feature three mini toggle switches, one volume poti and one tone poti with chrome or gold knobs (e.g. Mark Knopfler’s blue Schecter – played on stage by Hal Lindes – had gold knobs).

Just two potis are great: you can finally rest your right hand closer to the bridge to get that funky, crisp attack like Knopfler.

Probably there will be other pick-up choices (e.g. Seymour Duncans) available soon. Note however that with standard (= non-tapped)  pick-ups you won’t get those 27 sound combinations.

Here are some first pictures.

Check it out in the shop.

Related articles

• First demo of the VFS-1 pickguard
• The VFS-1 – New pick-up for our Schecter-style pickguards
• Demoing pickup combinations of the Schecter style pickguards
• Limited Alchemy Edition of the white Schecter pickguard
• Schecter-style loaded pickguard now shipping
• MK-Guitar.com presents: Loaded Schecter F400-style pickguard

Here you will find an alternate take of the Sultans of Swing first  solo from the recording session for the first album at Basing Street Studios in February 1978. Unfortunately the quality is more than poor, you might guess where it is coming from…

It is not so much different, but it is for sure not the take  that was released. This can maybe heard best between 0:15 and 0:22 where the phrasing and some notes are different, similar to some live versions or to the version from Pathway Studios.

And that’s the neck pick-up, I’d think the FS-1, isn’t it?

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"Buy me a beer" - donate for the site via PayPal. Or buy a backing track in my online shop :)

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• Rhett Davies and the sound of the first Dire Straits album
• Sensational: Sultans of Swing guitar track solo – without backing tracks – from Guitar Hero 5
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The Schecter-F400 loaded pickguards normally came with Schecter’s F500T pick-ups. The ‘T’ stands for tapped. So, what is meant with this, what is a tapped pick-up?
A normal Strat pick-up consists of six individual magnet pole pieces wrapped by a coil of thin wire. The original Fender design had about 8,000 turns (varying to some extent, the vintage ’54 pick-up was specified to 8,350, while a 1978 Strat pick-up had about 7,600 turns). This will result in a coil of about 6 kOhms. Compared to a humbucker like Gibson’s PAF the Strat sound is rather thin and weak with lots of treble, which is not ideal to get a heavy distortion from most vintage amps. Adding more turns will result in a louder and at the same time fuller sound (more midrange, less harsh treble). This was the reason why pick-ups like the DiMarzio FS-1 or SDS-1 were invented in the early 70ies. They had a coil with almost twice as many turns, which means about 12 – 13 kOhms. Great for distortion, and a great fat and warm sound for clean stuff. However, you cannot recreate the crisp original Strat sound with these.

The solution that combines the best of both worlds is the tapped pick-up. David Schecter was probably not the person who invented these, or used them for the first time, but probably the one who made them popular in the late 70ies. The idea of a tapped pick-up is to make a coil with the standard number of turns first. Next a second coil is added around the first one, wired in series with the first. Consequently a tapped pick-up has three cables: ground, normal coil output, and the output of both coils in series (which is equal to one coil with the double number of turns). Of course you need some switching system to select the normal or double coil, ideally individually for each pick-up. Here the three mini toggle switches of the Schecter Dream Machines came in. Each of them has three positions: up is the first coil for a standard Strat sound, in the middle position the pick-up is off, and in the down position you have the full coil. As you can combine the three pick-ups in any coil position, you will get 27 individual sounds this way.

For my loaded Schecter-style pickguards, I use handwound pick-ups by Germany’s pick-up specialist Harry Häussel that are based on the F500T design. Check them out in this site’s shop.

Related articles

• Why do certain pickups like Stratocaster pick-ups from the 50ies or the Schecter F500T die so often?
• MK-Guitar.com presents: Loaded Schecter F400-style pickguard
• First demo of the VFS-1 pickguard
• How close is the VFS-1 Pickup to the Original Fender Vintage and the DiMarzio FS-1?
• The VFS-1 – New pick-up for our Schecter-style pickguards
• Demoing pickup combinations of the Schecter style pickguards

I recently watched a few Youtube videos by Tomas Dolby about recording for his new album. One track – 17 Hills – features Mark Knopfler on lead guitar. There is one video in which Thomas tells about recording the guitar at Mark’s British Grove Studio. Mark recorded various  guitar takes for this song, and Thomas explains how the recording session developped – “and how to give direction to a demigod” (quote from Thomas).

It is quite interesting to hear the different takes in comparision. They reveal Mark’s approach of jamming along the song, and reacting to Thomas’s suggestions. The guitar sound is still very direct with lots of dynamics, still without all the effects they will put in in the final mix. Enjoy!

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