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Post subject: Building World's Largest Guitar on HDTV
Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:58 pm
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A few years ago I had this amazing gig as the guitar consultant building the world's largest playable electric guitar for the Discovery Channel series BIG! Discovery is re-running the series on HD, the guitar episode is on next week July 20 and 21.

It's pretty amazing seeing this thing being built - every part was made just for this guitar. We used the world's largest amp to try it out (a massive Ampeg.) For the conclusion we had a jam session with Peter Frampton!

There's parts of the episode in this video I made for Seymour Duncan who I called up to build the pickup.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qAyfSd9misA


Here's the BIG! Guitar Episode schedule:

July 20, 10 PM
July 21, 1 AM and 6PM

http://dhd.discovery.com/tv-schedules/series.html?paid=66.12344.24739.4083.x


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Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:11 pm
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Looks cool!!....I'd usually dismiss this kind of thing as spam, but I saw that episode before and it was pretty interesting.


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Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:34 pm
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That looks really awesome! Must have been fun working on that.


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Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:44 pm
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If it's in high definition, and shown on the weekend, I will most likely be watching it. I don't care what it is, it's probably on my tele. I'm drawn to HD programming.

I'll have to put it on the DVR, though, because July 20 is my graduation party. The guests won't be too happy if I'm inside watching TV.


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Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 2:06 pm
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It was very cool working on this thing - the show uses people from Monster Garage/Monster House (same production company for all 3) who are some extremely talented builders. One day I saw this guy fabricate from scratch massive tunings gears that turned out to be extremely accurate - and held with the insane amount tension from the wire we used for the strings (that were also in correct gauges for the size.)

Seymour built this massive custom pickup winder to wind the pickup - that in itself was insane - seeing this massive thing spinning, Seymour hand winding with construction gloves on 'cause the wire is moving so fast.

Definitely worth the watch.


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Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 3:18 pm
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Not to give away anything from the show, but what exactly did you use for a cable for the amp?

A 1/4 foot plug?


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Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 5:58 pm
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pohatu771 wrote:
Not to give away anything from the show, but what exactly did you use for a cable for the amp?

A 1/4 foot plug?


You figured it out - That's the one thing that wasn't big. We used a basic cable because the input jack on the Ampeg was a 1/4". The builders made a housing for the jack - but i don't think we even used it.


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Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:06 pm
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what did you use for strings and how did you make them??

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Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 7:40 pm
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for strings we used basic steel wire in the gauges corresponding to the size of the guitar - i think it was based on a medium-light gauge 'cause we wanted to reduce the stress on the neck.

we originally wanted to use piano strings, but the manufacturer wanted to be paid while the production company was saying they wanted it for free in exchange for their name in the credits or mention during the episode.

the steel wire worked pretty good, held in tune, sustained... actually the whole guitar worked perfect and sounded amazing.


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