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BillFranco.com

Guitar, Music, and Other Cool Stuff

My Gear

Here’s how I make the cake!! Some of the icing is in there as well.

Acoustic Guitars:

The Goodall (Model AKCJC #3653), 2007

This is a Grand Concert made by James Goodall while he was in Hawaii. It was an Alaskan Sitka Spruce top with Koa back and sides. The neck is mahogany and the fingerboard, bridge and truss rod cover are Pheasant Wood. The bridge and nut are bone (possibly even a legal ivory).

It has Gotoh tuners. The aesthetic additions include Agoya around the sound hole and for fret markers and a flame Koa laminate on the headstock. The Goodall “Flying-G” logo on the headstock is also made of Agoya.

I have yet to be in a situation wherein after hearing it, someone – either a sound engineer or another guitarist doesn’t say “WOW!! What is that?! It sounds fantastic!”

I bought this guitar while I was studying classical guitar with John McClellan. John was able to get it for me directly from the distributor, saving me a great deal of money – which was not exactly abundant when I was in college. It has a Cedar top with Rosewood back and sides, Mahogany neck and Ebony fingerboard.

Manuel Rodriguez Classical (Model C, serial# 00504), 1991

I acquired this guitar from a distributor in Springfield, IL through my classical guitar professor, John McClellan. I did my recitals on this thing and it has always been very good to me.

Electric Guitars:

I have used Warmoth Guitar bodies and necks almost exclusively for the last 25 years. I’ve had a great deal of help from both Skip Goez and John Ferber at Goez Instrument in building/restoring (for the Dagocaster) and servicing these workhorses.

Below is a description of the guitars:

“Dagocaster”

I built her in 1985, mostly by trial and error. She’s my main baby, and has been so since her creation. I had wanted a guitar to give the “Van Halen” sound, but with neck and middle pickups as well.

Well, I succeeded with this thing!! The Floyd Rose is from when they started to sell them aftermarket – not that it is collectible, but look at the wear – that thing’s got some mileage!

So much mileage in fact, that in 2006, I spent almost a year of Saturdays refurbishing this guitar after the wood in the body had started to wear out – as well as to give her a facelift.

The Dagocaster now sports the Italian flag only on the back, with the regional flag for Campagna (home of Napoli, my birth town) on the face.

Sadly, while this has been the go-to guitar for everything, the body’s pretty worn out and now it’s for home and studio use only.

This guitar may not be able to take the rigors of the road anymore. I will say this; probably no guitar has seen more intensive “use & abuse” (aka “Love”) as this guitar, and it never let me down. I just can’t bear to let my sweet baby die an undignified death .

Here are the specs:
Warmoth swamp ash body
Warmoth Pro maple neck with flame maple fingerboard (1 5/8” nut, 10″-16″ compound radius, 22 frets, self-shaped neck profile)
Schaller mini tuners (chrome)
Floyd Rose locking system (chrome)
Dunlop 6105 frets
DiMarzio PAF Pro in neck position
Seymour Duncan five-two in middle position
Seymour Duncan JB in bridge position
Switchcraft & CTS switches, pots, and jacks
Q-Parts knobs (chrome w/green and red abalone)
Custom nitro-cellulose lacquer finish

“Tele”

I had promised myself that I’d build myself two guitars after selling my house, and this one was first. I had wanted a Tele for a while, and so here she is. When I went to the Warmoth web site, they were running a sale (this never happens as the prices are already more than fair and the demand is SO high). Here’s the run-down:

Warmoth 1-piece extra light Swamp Ash body
Warmoth Vintage Modern 1-piece maple tele neck w/ abalone inlays, and a V-contour (1 5/8” nut, 10″-16″ compound radius, 22 frets)
Gotoh tuners (gold)
Dunlop 6105 frets
DiMarzio Twang King in the neck position
DiMarzio Chopper in the bridge position
Switchcraft & CTS switches, pots, and jacks
Gotoh standard Tele bridge (gold)
Gold Tele knobs, control and neck plates
Slight honey-amber shalack finish

From what I’d learned when I built the Beast, I knew I didn’t want a typical hard finish – which would smother the guitar’s ability to truly vibrate and produce the best tone possible. This guitar SCREAMS! Currently I use it on just about everything I can unless I need to use a vibrato bar on something.

“The Beast”

This guitar was built from Warmoth parts that I bought specifically so I wouldn’t be heartbroken if the baggage handlers destroyed it. I just went to Warmoth’s site and got an alder body and maple on maple neck from their “Screamin’ Deals” section. They were incredibly cheap.

Since I had very little time to build the guitar before leaving for a European tour, I sealed the body with tung oil only – a great discovery!

Warmoth alder body
Warmoth Pro maple neck with maple fingerboard (1 5/8” nut, 10″-16″ compound radius, 22 frets)
Gotoh tuners (chrome)
Floyd Rose locking system (chrome)
Dunlop 6105 frets
DiMarzio Chopper in neck & middle position
DiMarzio Norton in bridge position
Switchcraft switches, pots, and jacks
Standard Fender top-hat style knobs
Tung oil finish

It is a big, thick, fat sounding guitar – maybe as fat sounding than a Les Paul w/ P90s, but with a cutting tone as well.

“Ms. Pretty”

While the Dagocaster was being refurbished, I needed a professional grade guitar to work with. Having gotten a very good refund on my taxes as well as saved I went directly to Warmoth and ordered the following:

Warmoth Pro wenge neck with ebony fingerboard (1 11/16” nut, 10″-16″ compound radius, 22 frets)
Schaller locking tuners (gold)
Wilkinson bridge (gold)
Fender/Wilkinson roller nut
Dunlop 6105 frets
DiMarzio PAF Pro in neck position
DiMarzio Cruiser in middle position
DiMarzio Norton in bridge position
Switchcraft switches, pots, and jacks
Q-Parts knobs (gold w/ blue abalone)
Blue dye front & solid black polyurethane finish from Warmoth

This guitar has a twang to it that’s very Tele like, and it has a bit of the “Van Halen” sound to it as well. Interesting mix and very good for cutting through.

“The Rev”

This is the second guitar that I wanted to build after selling the house. She’s a reverse strat – basically a lefty strat routed and set up for a right-hander. I had wanted one of these for AGES, but they were considered custom orders from Warmoth. I was VERY happy when they became a standard offer. I bought the body during the above mentioned sale, but the neck I wanted wasn’t available, so I had to custom order that. Here she is:

Warmoth 2-piece extra light Swamp Ash body
Warmoth Vintage Modern 1-piece maple reverse CBS neck w/ abalone inlays, and a ’59 roundback-contour (1 5/8” nut, 10″-16″ compound radius, 22 frets)
Schaller locking tuners (chrome)
Dunlop 6105 frets
DiMarzio Cruisers in the middle & neck position
DiMarzio Chopper in the bridge position
Switchcraft & CTS switches, pots, and jacks
Gotoh Fender American Standard vibrato bridge (chrome)
Gold & black strat knobs, control and neck plates
Slight honey-amber shalack finish

Fender 60s Reverse Stratocaster

I bought this guitar strictly as a tool when I was hired for a summer tour with Anthony Gomes. Its use is as a traditional single-coil strat. The original pickups were horrible, and Anthony wanted it to have Lollar pickups. So it does. Pretty traditional 1-piece maple neck with a 7¼” radius.

Guitar Amplifiers:

1975 Marshall Mk. II model 1987 50w (serial #5591G)

There’s a great story about this amp. I bought this amplifier when I was very young and had a friend of mine – Obeid Khan – modify this amp to get more gain (hey, it was the 80s, and everyone wanted the same mod EVH supposedly had). It was the best amp I had ever owned and I always felt that this was supposed to be played.

With my son, Michael, in his early years, I had felt that it was better for me to be his dad than a gigging and traveling musician, so I entered the suit-&-tie-guy ranks as a corporate financial professional. Because I really did believe the amp was spectacular and should be heard, I sold it – and lamented doing so from the moment it was gone.

Years later (11½ years, to be exact) I needed a Marshall for a touring gig (again with Gomes) because that was the sound desired. I put the word out for a Marshall “like my old one” and kept my eyes and ears open.

An old friend of mine, John “JP” Pennington saw the head in Goez Instrument Repair on consignment and I wasted no time going down to see if it was indeed my long lost love. Sure enough, it still had the same tape with my settings marked on them and the serial number was exact – IT WAS MY OLD MARSHALL RETURNED LIKE THE PRODIGAL SON!!

It’s true, if you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours.

Reason Bambino 8w/2w (serial #

My good friend Obeid Khan, after leaving Crate amplifiers (where he designed the tube amps) decided that he could take his experience and build a great boutique amp that he wasn’t allowed to do at Crate; he succeeded and the SM line of amps was born. He took the SM series into a low wattage combo amp and head, and the Bambino arrived!

It has Normal, Bright and Stack Mode channels. Basically it’s a two channel amp where you can run the two channels in series if you’d like. AMAZING! Basically, he’s manufacturing the mod he did to my Marshall with the added ability to switch between channels.

In addition to being a great low power amplifier, the Bambino has several features that take it’s usability to a new level. A front panel switch allows you to select between the full 8-watt output or 2 watts. And a balanced line out with sophisticated cabinet emulation, allow for direct recording, re-amping or plugging into Front-of-Head for bigger venues. There is even a Headphone out with Level control for silent rehearsing and recording.

Here are the specs:

Tube Compliment: (2) 6AQ5, (3) 12AX7
Output: 8watts switchable to 2watts.
Operating Class: Class AB Cathode Bias, Push Pull
Channels: Normal, Bright, StackMode
Normal – Volume, Tone, Pull “Thick” switch
Bright – Volume, Treble, Bass, Pull “Bright” switch
StackMode – Normal & Bright channels active, plus Stack Volume
Balance Line Out – Electronically balanced on a TRS ¼” connector
Head Phone Out – ¼” stereo out.
Level Control: For Line Out and Head Phones
Speaker Simulation Circuitry: Inductive load network, cabinet response emulation
Internal Load: for safe silent recording and rehearsal
Footswitchable: Two button footswitch is optional

1964 Fender Showman 80w (Blackface era)

After getting back into gigging and touring, I knew I needed an amp that had a little more meat, and I wanted to have a solid clean sound as well. Scott “Shakey” Raymond turned me on to this baby, and it’s been a solid workhorse for me. Of course, I have to use pedals to get any kind of overdrive sound, but the clean sound is hard to beat.

Fender Blues Jr. 18w

I wanted and needed something small and portable for gigs that were quieter and for teaching. After dragging my son, Michael, to the area Guitar Center, I picked this after Michael played five different amps while I had my back turned – this one was the winner. I’m not using this one so much anymore as the Bambino fulfills its role in much better fashion.