[technomancer]

Originally Posted by ohio_eric

USACG is a small company, I think it's like eight employees. They do pickguards but onoy like once a month and in fairly small batches. They apparently refer a lot of their pickguard buisness out to other companies just to speed customers' orders and lessen their work load slightly. Rob wasn't too sure they could squeeze in the extra load or that people would want to wait.

Ok I guess that makes sense... though I think I'd probably have them do it just to be 100% sure it would fit correctly

[ohio_eric]

Maybe they will decide to do pickguards. I can't say for certain. I kind of hope they do. But they've been so cool to us so far I hate to get too pushy.

[ibznorange]

maybe they should do the initial pickguards, and then have the design duplicated from there?

[Jason]

IIRC Shannon has a buddy that makes killer single coils for 7's. Shoot a pm

[Jeff]

I would love a 7-string strat. How traditional is this going to be? In other words, I am all for a traditional strat, but would still like a S-S-H config, like the Big Apple Strat from Fender.

[ohio_eric]

The pickup routing is up to the end user. So if you want a SSS or a SSH it's all good.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by scott from _actual time_

yes, Rio Grandes are the only non-custom option, now that Anderson doesn't make their 7-string pickups anymore, and they sound great. Duncan Custom Shop will make 7-string strat single-coils and 7-string Tele bridge and neck pickups.

Honestly, if they're going to use any existing pickup for a route template, I'd vote for the Blaze single for the simple fact that given the number of UV's on the market any maker who wanted to get into the seven string singlecoil market who made a pickup that WASN'T compatable with the Universe would be crazy.

[ohio_eric]

Originally Posted by Drew

Honestly, if they're going to use any existing pickup for a route template, I'd vote for the Blaze single for the simple fact that given the number of UV's on the market any maker who wanted to get into the seven string singlecoil market who made a pickup that WASN'T compatable with the Universe would be crazy.

The downside wth using the Blazes as the template is this, who's actually going to use on their guitar? I have a feeling most people are going to go the RioGrande/BKP/Duncan Custom Shop route.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by ohio_eric

The pickup routing is up to the end user. So if you want a SSS or a SSH it's all good.

That's cool. Hard to say what I'd do though, because while the neck-middle tone is probably my favorite strat tone, the middle-bridge (with bridge being a single-coil) is really killer too.

Regardless, this is a cool project, and it's good to see USACG doing this, since Warmoth is absolutely stubborn about changing even the damn scale length on theirs.

Why those retards don't realize 25" is not an ideal scale for 7-string, I'll never know.

[eelblack2]

Originally Posted by ohio_eric

The downside wth using the Blazes as the template is this, who's actually going to use on their guitar? I have a feeling most people are going to go the RioGrande/BKP/Duncan Custom Shop route.

The lack of a flanged route (blaze single) as standard for the single coils would be a pain in the ass to most people I think. You can always drop a blaze single into a flanged route but not the other way around. Just my 2 cents.