"The Ironic Indie Plunker" - Rubber-bridged CBG

 

Not my first cigar box guitar I've made with a rubber bridge (my first personal build for myself features a rubber bridge--I'll have to share that one sometime), but this one's different for several reasons. 

First off, YES, it DOES have pickups. Starting with a modified OEM high-output humbucker under the lid, which gets a LOT cleaner tone and overall decreased output due to the distance from the strings (the lid itself really has little-to-no effect on the magnetic field), which is going to the front volume control, and a pair of 1.25" piezo discs under the saddle going to volume control #2. 

Secondly, this was a cool opportunity for me to use one of the stainless steel sheet tailpieces like I used on the acoustic project previously, since I just needed a simple anchor for the strings, nothing fancy, and it worked PERFECTLY as not just a no-nonsense tailpiece but also as a means to anchor the center-block to the box on the rear. 

And thirdly, in a nod to the fad and its DIY origins, the bridge is literally a strip of plain black rubber, cut to width and notched slightly for the strings. As simple as it gets. 

The result? A stripped-down, simple instrument with an almost deadened "banjo-y" tone, perfect for some compression, reverb and delay to get those folk-indie plunky sounds everyone is crazy for when writing their ironic ditties of sadness and lament. It's a lower-output instrument, but with a compressor or simply cranking your amp/channel, you get a delightfully-lo-fi sound! I was going to leave off the corner protectors and not add sound holes, but I felt like it took away from the "finished" look, so I installed them. While it comes strung with regular old "roundwound 10's", I can't help but think it would really kick ass if someone put some flatwounds on it. One could also get a flat-top style wood-based bridge (Grover makes several affordable and cool options for this), swap out the rubber for a proper bridge/saddle and get a more traditional sound out of it.
Location: W4WVK Studios

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