10Stine's 'Distinguished Gentleman' with Dragonfire H-90 Pickups
One thing about my personality is that I can’t leave things alone. This guitar, originally a Fender Squier Affinity Anniversary Fat Strat, has gone through so many changes over the years and I think, I think, I am now settled on a final design. I am excited about this guitar and it’s new configuration. Let me tell you about it.
Allow me to introduce to you the 10Stine’s Distinguished Gentleman. This guitar is a former Fender Squier. The neck and body are from the Squier although the body had to be re-routed for new configurations. The pickguard is a Dragonfire pre-configured two pickup H-90 back pearl and white. The H-90′s are modeled after the Gibson P90′s and sound incredible. The guitar is rough sprayed silver and the neck has been adjusted for speed. The weight and balance of the guitar is superb.
Why, the single coils? Well, I have never had a guitar with these types of pickups. I wanted one but to do so would mean I had to buy an original Les Paul that came with these types pickups. Of course I would never be able to afford one and I just did not feel inclined to buy the pickups and put them in another guitar. After all, they were single coils, why would I waste my time on single coils? One day I was browsing Dragonfire’s site when I was looking for the Active pickups for my Warlock and stumbled across these. Intresting enough you could only find these pickups in a pre-wired pickguard for a Strat. You could not buy them separately. Bummer. But, I decided that since I was planning some changes for my strat I would give it a try.
The Distinguished Gentleman sounds more like a Les Paul than my Les Paul’s do. Why? I have no idea. I suspect it has a lot to do with the modern design for the Les Paul’s today than that of many decades ago. Having owed several Les Paul I have often felt that the neck pickup was a bit of a waste. The pickups sounds muddy and weak unless they have 490′s. I know that most good sounding Les Paul’s have a modified pickup configuration. I can now see why the old Les Paul’s are so sought out, they sound great. But the Distinguished Gentleman has all of the grit and attitude that the old Les Paul’s are famous for. This guitar performs exceptionally in all forms of music including shed. The front and rear pickup is wired out-of-phase so that when you have the selector in the middle position the hum gets canceled out. The only flaw I can find in this guitar is that when you do full step or more string bends you will fade out fairly quickly. In other words, your bends don’t work well especially in the neck pickup.
