A moat for the GOAT guitar design
Okay, so I was reading about AI and realised the audacity of Fender's strategy in claiming the S-shape (for Stratocaster) as entirely their own.
After seven decades and innumerable versions of the famous ergonomic double-horn shape, the recent moves to prevent others from using the design have put an ugly shade to the company.
Previously I thought that their decision was in response to the quality of Chinese counterfeits and my experience has been that Chenders offer a value that overshadows the original, especially since Fender guitars often lack the features they expect consumers to buy afterwards like better quality pickups and other parts.
The thing that occurs to me is that claiming the design, along with the legacy of Leo Fender in previous months, is it provides a moat for their business:
A moat is what protects a business from competition. The term comes from Warren Buffett’s image of a castle surrounded by water. The castle is the business; the moat is whatever prevents rivals from storming the walls. A moat might be a famous brand, a patent, a network effect, control over scarce resources, high switching costs for consumers, or a regulatory barrier that makes it difficult for competitors to enter the market. The deeper the moat, the easier it is for a firm to charge high prices, preserve margins, and survive imitation.
naviarhaiku648 – In the sky, the sound
So I wanted to revisit my track for the Junto this week and tighten it up, like a cherry blossom.
Using an alternate take of the drums, I gated the guitars and added some effects.
Disquiet Junto 0753 5 Minute Wait
The Junto project this week is to "Write outdoors hold music for a single-lane tunnel entrance delay."
As I had been jamming along to a track that's about the five minutes recommended for this assignment, it was easy to record that part.
Then I came up with a few chords that sorta fit, and recorded bass afterwards.
Saviorcaster
Actually, it makes a lot of cents given the sheer volume (pun intended) of musical gear sold to churches.
One of my favourite account signatures was on a forum while researching PAs that said "Turn it up for Jesus!"
Elsewhere on the internet, I was surprised that Rick Beato went straight for the top and argued that the new CEO should resign from Fender.
My feeling is that Fender has jumped from the pot and into the fire, but that few commentators have realised their existential threat developed from tackling the wave of quality Chinese-made counterfeit instruments.
Racism seems to be the only thing keeping a portion of Fender's fanboys behind the brand.
Nick Cave on pop
No one willingly wants to be indie. The great beauty of pop music is that it is a joy machine.
Disquiet Junto 0751 Gastropod Meter
The Junto assignment this week is "Imagine you’ve been invited to compose music for a nature documentary about slugs."
I decided it needed something squishy and found this video by Michael Verdi on Archive.org
Be off-Fender-ed!
Fender have been a topic of ire here in recent months
When the company won a copyright ruling in the EU earlier this year I thought things looked grim.
The iconic guitar brand is owned by an investment firm and it seems obvious to anyone who has tried a variety of products that they sell over-priced instruments to maximise profits.
So I was shocked when I saw an apology issued by one retailer, as it showed the brand were using their dominance to limit competition.
With the ruling against Chinese copies in Europe they were given an opportunity to further entrench their advantage to monopolise the market.
Stratocasters were patented in 1956 and Leo Fender died in 1991, so it is another example of how copyright law is harming innovation.
Can you imagine what guitars might look like if the market was not dominated with the message that designs from the mid-20th Century are the best available?
Many are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Telecaster, yet is it really a design to put on a pedestal and say there is nothing to improve?
(Nashville models with a Strat-style middle pickup say differently, obviously.)
When I had that thought it prompted me to consider ideas about what else could be done, such as adding pickups for individual strings and multiple outputs.
It will be interesting to see if the Fender brand becomes toxic to consumers, because they lost my support last year for less.
Disquiet Junto 0750 Let’s Get Heavy
The Junto prompt this week is to "record something epic," which I took somewhat literally.
I had a cheeky idea to record a bad cover of the song 'Epic' and claim it was something!
naviarhaiku642 – a moment before sunrise
Having never heard those footsteps for myself, I knew there was a broad scope for creative interpretation!
Disquiet Junto 0747 And a One
The Junto project this week is to "Record the first third of a trio."
This is a quick recording on my modified Nukulele electric guitar, where I mostly just jam on the D string.
Ableton Live seems to think it's around 117 BPM, which is where I usually land.
There are two outputs, each going through an Alexander effect pedal.
A Wav file and a Mov file are available.
I explain in the video below.
Reverb that goes places
I've been excited in the past by reverb models that offer recreations of famous spaces, like topline recording studios.
Then a friend invited me to listen to her performance while lying on the floor with my eyes closed.
She began a drone and my sense of the environment shifted.
I forgot where I was as the illusion of floating in a 'no space' pushed back the walls with a never-ending note.
Since then I've had similar experiences with classical Indian music and pondered the sense of spirituality that follows from losing sense of the self.
Another pickup experiment
This is just a test.
Disquiet Junto 0745 Double Down
The Junto this week is to "Do something you do too much even more."
I'm often noodling away on a guitar and sometimes recording these unedited performances to publish.
So my Junto recording this week has a recording within a recording with the Chase Bliss Habit pedal looping back on earlier parts.
This is my Nukuele guitar with four strings and a bass pickup under the D, so that part of the performance is also doubled with the second output going to Ottobit.
Anyway, I talked about this guitar earlier...
Naviarhaiku639 – nobody home
I made a few recordings, but this one using a guitar tuned BEBE worked best.
Nukulele
The idea was to add a pickup for bass, then I decided to use the DADA tuning that I've been enjoying.
Anyway, aside from the comments comparing Frankenstein and the effects of meth (but surprisingly no one proposing it's what the monster would look like on meth, or if Dr Frankenstein took drugs?), I anticipated someone would tell me to grow up and stop shit-posting for giggles.
However, I didn't expect it would be Facebook posing the question whether I should have messed with one of the most beloved guitar designs.
He is risen!
The Easter long weekend isn't over yet and the project has completed, aside from curing the liquid nails.
I had a set of Artist branded single coils from a better guitar that went with the brand names on the headstocks, as well as new split pickups for bass.
When gluing the bodies together I became concerned about the space between the necks, which brought the mahogany garden stakes next to me into focus.
The stake through the heart of the guitar monster is evocative, so I wiped back the black paint along the seam.
Easter long weeeekend
Naviarhaiku638 – darkness cocoons
I've taken to the idea that silence disappears, using a pedal to loop the ukulele.
New album: Bout
Last year I searched through files from previous years to compile my first album since 2021.
A lot has happened since then, and the music was diverse and a challenge to sequence for my new album: BOUT
It was part of a bigger project to gain skills in mastering audio that was supported by a Country Art Support Program grant from Western Riverina Arts and Create NSW through financial assistance from the NSW Government.
Disquiet Junto 0743 Make It Happen
Since watching a video of Angine de Poitrine I have been wanting a double neck guitar.
Then I remembered that guitar and bass can sound really conventional together.
So I have used an electric ukulele and a Chase Bliss Habit pedal with bass.
Throw the towel in
Aside from showing him how to use the tuning key, I mentioned Ringo's recording technique.
Now it looks like washing on a rainy day and sounds like Lars' cardboard boxes on Justice For All to me, but my son was into it and played solidly for about an hour.
Naviarhaiku637 – first light
While my photo doesn't show a fig tree, it was taken near one.
Disquiet Junto 0742 Sensitive Math
The instructions this week are to "Record a piece of music that exemplifies the “sensitive math” genre."
I decided the sensitive part was going to give a reflective feeling, while the math component would be varying time signatures.
Last night I did most of the composing and thought I'd come back and add a melody to be a focal point.
However, when I listened back, it seemed there was enough happening and decided a lead instrument would be too demanding.
Then I looked at Archive.org for a video to suit the track and realised it was perfect for a chick flick.
Wrangling angles
It really is refreshing to hear the zing on the low strings while taming the earache on the high ones.
I'm wondering if the angle on the pickup was originally a way to add more bite to dark-sounding wiring on early electric guitars?
Naviarhaiku636 – beyond the talus
Around the time that discussion was occuring for a collaboration between Naviar Records and Red Earth Ecology, many of those who would become involved in the Stay Cool workshops attended the Haiku Down Under event that brings together poets in Australia and New Zealand.
Lisa Germay was one of the audience and we shared a few emails after the event.
Lisa is a multidisciplinary artist who writes haiku and haibun in the traditional Japanese tradition, seeking moments of beauty in everyday experience.
This Australian living in Arctic Greenland gave a presentation that started the Stay Cool workshops, so it is fitting to share her poem and also photograph.
Her presentation can be viewed here or a summary can be read at ree.org.au/2026/02/17/stay-cool-with-lisa-germany/
The Stay Cool project will culminate in an exhibition in the city of Griffith, Australia from 20 April that will include QR code for visitors to hear the compositions contributed by the Naviar Records community.
Disquiet Junto 0741 Balance Beam
The Junto assignment is to "Write music for bell and drone."
I shared Marc's prompt with ChatGPT and asked it to create lyrics, which I recorded while creaing music.
Sound of greasy wood
Yesterday I took my shot at installing the neck gifted by Stefan onto the blank from China. Using charcoal from a life-drawing class to mark the existing boltholes on the neck to the heel, then drilled narrow holes through a neck plate.
It might be sycamore, the body is light but I've enjoyed wiping layers of oils onto the wood grain and seeing it gain a sheen. The bolts secured the neck, which has an eco rosewood fretboard that grates a little like a blackboard under bending strings.
The pickups are yet to be wired, so I've only heard the intonation by strumming and the action is still high. However, the sound beams in a way that's like an acoustic guitar. When I lift another electric guitar the body sounds muted in comparison to this greasy blank that I only just screwed a bridge onto.
While I trying to think how to describe it, I remembered an interview with T Bone Burnett:
It might be sycamore, the body is light but I've enjoyed wiping layers of oils onto the wood grain and seeing it gain a sheen. The bolts secured the neck, which has an eco rosewood fretboard that grates a little like a blackboard under bending strings.
The pickups are yet to be wired, so I've only heard the intonation by strumming and the action is still high. However, the sound beams in a way that's like an acoustic guitar. When I lift another electric guitar the body sounds muted in comparison to this greasy blank that I only just screwed a bridge onto.
While I trying to think how to describe it, I remembered an interview with T Bone Burnett:
"I don't allow any synthetic surfaces anywhere around (in the studio). I don't like modern guitars because they're laminated. If you get an old-time guitar from the '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s or even '60s – you can scrape the lacquer off.
"The new guitars are laminated, so you're already in a plastic age. You're already in an age of controlled sound, rather than an age of raw, free sound. And that's everything."
This guitar resonates in the planks that make the telecaster-shaped blank in a way that's distinct. I look forward to hearing how it sounds in front of an amp.
Naviarhaiku635 – can you hear the stars?
Originally my piece had vocals, but I thought it suited Naviar's sound to go for a more minimal instrumental.
Disquiet Junto 0740 Polychord Amorous
The assignment is to write a piece of music based on a chord progression of polychords.
Polychords were a new term and I explored combinations of three-note chords on the guitar before arriving at two progressions.
The first is a kind of A over E, I guess, which is followed by a C7 and something.
I recorded two accompaniments on guitar as I ran through lyrics, which riff on pairing chords.
One of the influences on my playing this week is Nile Rodgers, particularly the way he'll split a big chord.
Going deep
I've been recording responses to the Disquiet Junto for over a decade
Most weeks there are dozens of recordings and I've learned as much from how the members respond, as I have from undertaking the tasks.
These activities are often musical, sometimes other audio formats, and interpretation is a lot more flexible than one might initially expect.
Some weeks it turns out worse than one hopes, but some weeks the results are surprisingly sublime.
There's a lot one learns along the way, but one of the highlights is when one sees something unexpected.
Just as we have many roles in our lives, there can be many versions in our audio productions and I feel I've explored other lives.
And some weeks, I see the prompt and can't help but watch my mind race ahead with possibilities.
Like this week I saw the title and got a way toward having a track finished before the prompt was published.
However, then the assignment arrived saying "Make music focused on sympathetic strings, or something akin to them."
And I realised that I'd misread the title as "Deepest Symphonies"!
Quackology
Over a few months I've sampled a variety of guitar pickups
It
began when I sensed a relationship between the bar magnet on the
underside of a pickup and a strong attack in the sound it gave to an
amplified guitar.
Different
pickups are often distinguished by their resistance, which accentuates
the placement along the strings from the neck as higher amounts are
favoured closer to the bridge.
While there are
many aspects one would expect, such as dynamics and presence, I found
the presentation of characteristics lack a specific quality.
There
are charts showing brightness and darkness, treble and bass, harsh and
muddy -- okay, I made up the last one -- but I can't think of any
mentioning quack.
The quack of a pickup is a
characteristic that exists on a similar spectrum and becomes more
pronounced as one progresses from neck to bridge.
A
quack is one expression of this sound, which begins more like a burr
that becomes more throaty and pronounced as distortion adds harmonics.
I
think telecasters are renowned for this honky character and I suspect
the harmonics with placement of the bridge pickup are central to it.
However, many highly-wound and higher-output pickups seem to also accentuate this sound.
In
my explorations I feel as though there's a scale of quack that begins
with the Texas variety of pickup, then extends into bluesier and rockier
characters as much as country.
As satisfying as the character sounds with a Tweed style distortion or a Marshall grunt, it's not always ideal.
For example, a serve of twang wouldn't sit with that classic stratocaster sound in the soaring leads of Clapton or Gilmour.
It's just a different flavour, yet the quack isn't as easy to pick as guitar builds.
I've
figured out that I like single coils more than ceramic pickups, which
use the bar magnet, and am now trialling double coils.
When
I began installing different humbuckers I found that some had a twang,
while others gave a harsh blast or a deep and thick sustain.
This is why I feel like a quack rating system is needed, and it could be represented with ducks.
I haven't paddled very deeply into the waters of humbucking, but I expect the pond is full of many styles of quack.
Potato Cake
Also amused by the "fig leaf" sticker placed over the counterfeit branding of this purchase from China.
You can feel the cheaper materials in the shiny neck and plastic tuning pegs, as well as hearing a hum from the bridge pickup; but we live in an age where cheap guitars are made by automated routing in countries that don't respect IP -- so the playability is basically comparable with another Chinese guitar aside from copying the famous Swede.
Or a combination?
The name "potato cake" comes to mind, because they're called scallops in some parts of Australia.
Disquiet Junto 0738 Speak Not
The assignment this week is: Saying something without saying it.
Somewhat appropriately the phrase ‘I think therefore I am’ came to mind.
I’d spent the morning helping my son with his composition assignment and he had a riff-driven song that was going to be a scaffold.
After lunch the phrase developed into a call-and-response riff, which suggests that my son’s scaffold also became my own.
The phrase was answered, "I am therefore I think."
As this bassline from my phrase took on soul with organ and horns, and the percussion was another cue from the source/riff track.
All parts were programmed in Ableton Live and the video is from NASA.
Les Telecaster
Naviarhaiku632 – slowly gliding
Further inspiraton was sought from Seamus Heaney's republic of conscience.
Disquiet Junto 0737 Opening Ceremony
My child has musical homework and we were discussing the option of using an existing track to scaffold a feel.
The track they chose seems unlikely to me, since it’s nearly 50 years old, but it’s been a week for revisiting old songs and I’ve been enjoying the swing in this one.
I’ve heard that James Brown thought every instrument should sound like a drum, so I’ve made as many into percussion as I could handle in this cover of a Dr John song.
Naviarhaiku631 – Spring day
A bit tangentially related the to haiku shared by Naviar this week, as I wrote a song inspired by this poem and added a video of my recent haiga exhibition.
Disquiet Junto 0736 Feed Me
The Junto assignment is to: Write a piece of music emulating the dopamine engine that is social media.
This is the last of the Chinchin videos that I downloaded from Archive.org and they’ve been fun to mix with my tracks by matching the tempo.
I reached for it when I had the image of an automaton doomscrolling being all robotic.
Like the video, all the song fragments came from my folder of unfinished Live files.
Then I had the idea of mashing it with the song I've been working on this afternoon.
It's not terrible and seems tangentially related to the subject matter.
Naviarhaiku630 – one leaf falls
Disquiet Junto 0735 Spectrum Analysis
The Junto assignment this week is to "Write music inspired by a crayon" or specifically a colour.
It's been hot enough to melt a crayon in Leeton this week with temperatures in the mid-40s.
My colour is soft blue as I found myself fantasising about the winters in Canberra, where I grew up.
There you have those bright high-altitude skies, where the sunlight seems crisp yet the air is frigid.
It brought to mind the crunch of frost and with it the "blonde assassin" in Emily Dickinson's poem, as well as the happy flowers and their impermanence.
So I riffed on her imagery and arrived at something about unrequited love, then riffed on the guitar.
Naviarhaiku629 – autumn storm
The poem shared by Naviar Records came to mind, so I played in Live with adding a bass and synth part.
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