The Omnicaster
Stats
- Total cost: God only knows
- Body: Fender Strat-style, tobacco sunburst finish
- Neck: Peavey Reactor Ax, rosewood fingerboard with original 22 silver-nickel frets, pearloid dot inlays
- Tuners: Matte Black Sperzel locking tuners
- Fender LSR roller nut (replacing original plastic nut)
- Binding: None
- Pickups: DiMarzio“Fred" humbucker (neck position), Seymour Duncan“JB Junior" mini-humbucker (middle position), DiMarzio“Tone Pro" humbucker (bridge position)
- Controls: Five-way pickup selector, three slide switches wired for coil-tapping, two volume, one tone
- Bridge: Fishman Power Bridge with built-in piezo transducer accoustic pickup
- Schaller locking strap buttons
- Coop "Rocket Grrl" sticker
“Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.”
This guitar started coming together in about 1996. First I saw the body lying in the display case at Kashmir Music in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. It had no markings whatsoever that would have clued anybody in as to who made it. Then I saw the neck hanging on the wall at Uncle Bob's Music. Then I got somebody to put the neck on the body. From that point forward, my mind explored a whole galaxy of ideas about what to put in the middle. The original concept involved hard-wiring the guts of a first-generation Korg Pandora processor into the electronics and achieve pickup switching through touch-sensitive mounting screws. Well, none of that crap panned out, but I did manage to get my Jaguar coil-tapping control plate idea in there.
I can't take credit for much of anything to do with the building of this guitar, except for installing the tuners, the bridge, and the strap buttons…I think. It's been a long time. But I can say for sure that I had a lot of help from Jim Eanelli and William Paul.
In retrospect, there are a few things I'd do differently now. Back then, I was more into punk and metal than I am now, and so I did my best to get the loudest, nastiest, most badass pickups I could. These days, I'd rather have vintage-voiced pickups in there, possibly GFS or TV Jones pickups, and I may modify it to that end. Also, the Fishman Power Bridge turned out to be utter crap, at least for the "acoustic" sound it's supposed to give. I think I'd rather have a modern Strat bridge. Lastly, the LSR roller nut. Totally unnecessary and in some ways a hindrance to good sustain. I should have used a Graph Tech Tusq® nut.
