different prototypes it ultimately had to come
down to what felt right. But you’re right, I play
pretty light. All I could do was play the guitar and
see what worked for how I play. I’ve monkeyed
with that whole thing, my guitar comes with 9’s
on it, and I’ve played with using heavier gauge
strings and running no boost or mid boost,
tone knob dimed more like you would on a
conventional Strat. Its funny, if you try that, how
the character of it actually changes a little. So it
comes setup for how I like it, but again by nature
of the fundamentals of the design you can get
it to do those other things too, you just have
to take a different approach. If you put a set of
11’s on it and slap that bridge down, because
part of that light touch thing that you’re sensing
is the floating bridge. But I’ve locked the bridge
down and kept everything kind of bright on it,
and its pretty scary how different it’ll feel if you
want it to.
[WM] What are the things you really needed
this guitar to do?
[Lincoln] I don’t like to pedal dance a lot, so
I really wanted a guitar that would allow me to
say what I want to say without having to touch
much, or anything, in most cases. Which is
what it is now. I played the first official prototype
of it last Christmas for our Christmas production
and played the entirety of “Miraculum” without
touching a pedal or changing a preset. Which
is crazy because that song has a ton of
dynamics and changes from that clean neck
I even found as I recorded my Christmas album, without it fretting out. I needed the trem to stay
what the guitar sounds like if I turn the boost in tune. It is shockingly solid considering that it’s
on and back the volume down. I found myself not a Floyd. It’s not a locking nut. It does have
playing like that quite a bit. If you turn the boost locking tuning pegs, but you can’t tell. When
circuit on without the mid boost turned up at you look at them, they’re vintage style tuning
all, you’re just giving the guitar more output. pegs. There’s no big mechanism on them, they
It’s like have a volume knob on your guitar that just lock. It does an incredible job with all of that
goes from zero to twenty instead of zero to ten. stuff, and I needed it to sound great, play great,
There’s a lot of range you have to play with it, its be stable, and have lots of flexibility in the tone,
crazy. You can have the boost circuit on, back and it checks all those boxes.
the volume way down because of the treble
bleed mod… where it lets that top end through, [WM] I ran across a photo of you and Norm
and you can get this great clean tone. Then if Stockton that reminded of the role that musical
you want to thicken it up you can add some of interaction plays in making music breathe. I
that mid boost. love tracks and they do a lot to serve teams
in so many ways. That said, there is a danger
I needed it to be able to do those things. in relying upon them too much. How do you
I needed it to play really well action wise. I approaching using them at Bayside, but without
needed to be able to beat on it and bend on it losing the art of musical interaction?
pickup double stop thing in the beginning, then
there’s that Beck-esque section in the middle,
to basically full shred humbucker giant rhythms.
And through the whole thing I did not have to
touch a pedal. I needed it to do that, I needed a
guitar that could say a whole ton of stuff without
needing anything else.
Lincoln Brewster’s “Miraculum”
96
Norm Stockton + Lincoln
November 2019
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