Donkey Kong Guitar

  • Thread starter Thread starter Scott Baxendale
  • Start date Start date
Scott Baxendale

Scott Baxendale

Well-known member
My friend Killick Hinds, a Avant Guard jazz musician, commissioned this guitar from me about 7 years ago. It is Fretless and has 5 pickups in it, including one in the headstock and one behind the bridge. The game control buttons actually function as kill switches for different sections of the electronics. I was surprised as to how easy it was to switch to playing fretless. The inlays are position markers.
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That's certainly an interesting design. The inlay work made me thing of some of the stuff that Maudie Moore had done over her many years. How much sound does the pickup between the bridge and Bigsby actually add? I have a DeArmond/Guild and a Heritage H525, each with flying tailpieces, and the string area behind the bridge adds to the sound.

I don't know if I could really get into a fretless guitar, the pink really doesn't do it for me, but back and neck are phenomenal. It would be a shame to hide such beautiful wood under a layer of pink paint!
 
TalismanRich said:
That's certainly an interesting design. The inlay work made me thing of some of the stuff that Maudie Moore had done over her many years. How much sound does the pickup between the bridge and Bigsby actually add? I have a DeArmond/Guild and a Heritage H525, each with flying tailpieces, and the string area behind the bridge adds to the sound.

I don't know if I could really get into a fretless guitar, the pink really doesn't do it for me, but back and neck are phenomenal. It would be a shame to hide such beautiful wood under a layer of pink paint!
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The pickup behind the bridge sounds great! It has a separate volume control and one of the kill switches. You can get some amazing sounds playing there with the Bigsby. It also has a piezo pickup embedded in the headstock with its wires running inside the neck into the body. If you kill the regular pickups and use the headstock pickup with the behind the bridge pickup it sounds like you are playing the guitar through Caribbean steel drums. It’s really different. The fretless is easier to adapt to than you would think and it’s kinda like slide but not.

If you saw Killick I think you would understand the pink. I’ve never had any problem painting wood with colored finishes, though. The top was spruce. I did the flame maple is a nice burnished stain to make the grain pop in contrast to the pink lacquer top.
 
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