Home of Tone Blog

Introducing Etwood Guitar Straps to the Home of Tone!

November 26, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

I have been following Adam and his work creating Etwood Guitar Straps for a while, and admired the strive for creating something unique, whilst ensuring quality was top of the agenda too. We connected and kept in touch, and very glad to say I am now proudly stocking his work here at the Home of Tone!

The Signature Series / Ground Bug deal!

October 11, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

'Ground Bug' deal!
Looking forward to installing your new pre-wired harness/wiring, but a little worried about making the ground connections to the pot casings? First time soldering and hear the horror stories of frying pots, or just simply want to neaten up your installs?

Then the awesome 'Ground Bug' will help with any of these concerns, beginner or pro modders alike. The Ground Bug is a pot washer that fits between the pot casing and the pickguard/body and has a number of lugs (much like with the main signal connections on the pot for example) to which you can very easily solder your ground wire connections too.

How-to guide - Shielding a '72 Telecaster Custom

July 23, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

Tagged: best way to shield a guitar guitar shielding How to apply foil shielding to guitar correctly how to foil shield a guitar shielding a guitar shielding a guitar cavity

In this article I'm going to feature how to correctly apply copper foil shield a Telecaster Custom (but the same methods/rules apply for shielding any guitar so I hope this helps you even if you aren't doing this to a Tele Custom!). I hope to briefly also touch on some of the finer details too so that hopefully you're not just copying how to do it, but instead learning about the parts and how they're working too. Always good to have some understanding of how your instrument works I think! I will be following this article up with a part 2, which will be showing you how to make a wiring loom for this model too, so sit tight for that article to be published very soon.

What types of pickup wires will fit into the Solderless harness connector blocks?

July 22, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

The RS Pro connector blocks I use for easy, solder-free pickup wire connections on my Solderless Series pre-wired kits have been tested with a wide variety of common pickup wire types, and comfortably will fit a wide variety of common pickup wire types.
Whether you have traditional single coils with cloth covered push-back style individual hot/ground wires, 4 conductor plastic coated wires or traditional braided 2 conductor seen on humbucker for example, they will all fit, but each will just need to be prepared slightly differently depending on which you have, for install. In this article I'll talk through what that prep work is, and how to install the wires into the connector blocks. I hope this helps make your install process that bit smoother.

How-to guide - Making a right handed Jazzmaster wiring loom

July 5, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

Tagged: how to make a jazzmaster loom how to wire a jazzmaster how to wire a jazzmaster loom Jazzmaster harness Jazzmaster loom Jazzmaster wiring making a jazzmaster loom wiring a jazzmaster wiring a jazzmaster loom

In this article I'm going to feature how to make a traditional wiring loom for a Jazzmaster, but briefly also touch on some of the finer details too so that hopefully you're not just copying how to do it, but instead learning about the parts and how they're working too. Always good to have some understanding of how your instrument works I think! But by all means, if you just want to get it made, skip through these bits and get to the wiring!

Introducing the Ground Bug by Swannell Guitars! A neat guitar pot ground wire solution

July 5, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

Tagged: Ground bug guitar parts guitar pot casing ground wires Guitar pot grounding guitar wiring How to ground wires to guitar pot casing Swannell ground bug Swannell guitars Swannell guitars ground bug

From the mind of UK based luthier, Jamie Swannell comes a really simple but genius helping hand for guitar wiring, the Ground Bug! This solder lug washer has some very handy uses indeed, from neatening up your wiring installs, to making ground connections easier and any future changes/mods/maintenance much easier too.
This is a simple washer design that fits underneath your pots and has extended lugs so that you can easily solder ground wires to. This is very useful for those that perhaps really struggle with making or consistently making ground wire solder connections to pot casings, drastically reducing the risk of damaging a pot from excessive heat for example. As with the Ground Bug installed, you simply solder your ground wires to any of the 8 lugs available.

The all new ThorpyFX ER-2 Uni-Vibe!

June 29, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

Tagged: Thorpy ER2 Thorpy FX Thorpy pedals Thorpy Uni-vibe Thorpy Univibe ThorpyFX ThorpyFX dealer ThorpyFX dealers ThorpyFX ER-2 ThorpyFX ER2 ThorpyFX UK ThorpyFX UK dealer ThorpyFX Uni-vibe ThorpyFX Univibe uni-vibe univibe

Introducing the latest from ThorpyFX, The ER-2 Uni-Vibe! In the signature ThorpyFX enclosure, in a sleek midnight blue and black design this Uni-Vibe looks as good as it sounds. So let's dive in and see what this thing does and how it sounds!

The ER-2 receives its name from NASAs high altitude, earth observing plane, which itself was derived from the USAF U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. Much like the ER-2 aircraft, ThorpyFX taken something awesome and made it more friendly, certainly more friendly for your pedalboard real-estate. The Univibe effect is a classic, loved by many, and something Thorpy have wanted to do their own take on for a long time. It was designed from the ground up to be Univibe perfection. They wanted to deliver decade spanning classic Univibe modulation that enables you to sound like as many of the classic records that use the effect, as possible. They decided to take it much further and create our dream Univibe, shrinking it and retaining a simplicity of use that belies the pure analog complexity within.

McNelly Pickups launch the 'Silvercaster' Strat pickup set

June 21, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

Tagged: boutique strat pickups John Mayer strat John mayer strat pickups Mayer strat pickups mcnelly pickups McNelly Pickups for sale McNelly Pickups UK McNelly Silvercaster McNelly Strat pickups PRS silver sky pickups PRS silversky pickups silver sky pickups Silversky pickups Strat pickups

McNelly Pickups over in Canada, one of the Home of Tone's longest represented brand, have taken the pickups designed for the Silver Sky PRS model and rebuilt them for traditional Strats with a signature McNelly twist. The pole pieces are radiused to 9.5" and matched with vintage Strat string spacing, offering a modern take on a classic sound.

Helping prepare and make ground wire connections to guitar pot casings video

June 20, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

Tagged: guitar soldering guitar wiring how to solder guitar pot casings How to solder guitar pots how to solder pot casings making ground connections to pot casing pre-tinning soldering soldering guitar pot grounds soldering guitar pots

The 'Quick Tips' series are back to basics, no frills videos to help guide guitarists through some maintenance and modding tasks. In this video I look at preparing and making ground wire connections to pot casings. This is something I know many dislike, or avoid altogether but I think with some simple steps it can be an easy task anyone armed with a soldering iron can master. So these are some simple and humble methods to try and help you achieve effective ground connections using lead free solder wire. I hope this helps my customers with the pre-wired kit installs, pickup installs/swaps, or from scratch re-wires using components from the Home of Tone too. These are just some of the methods I use everyday, there are I'm sure other ways to approach this, but these work for me and the parts/equipment I am using everyday.

Rebecca's Bronco Bass project

June 7, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

Tagged: Bronco bass bronco bass pickup bronco bass pickup mod Bronco bass upgrade Bronco bass upgrade kit Bronco bass upgrades bronco bass wiring bronco bass wiring harness Mcnelly bronco McNelly bronco bass pickup modding squier bronco squier bronco bass Squier bronco bass mods squier sonic bronco Squier sonic bronco bass squier sonic series bronco

Rebecca recently got in touch and ordered one of my pre-wired Bronco bass wiring kits, along with the awesome McNelly 'Broncomaster' pickup pre-wired too. She mentioned that the overall project was being carried out on one of the newer version 'Sonic series' Squiers, which I haven't been able to see in person yet. The minor/subtle changes in spec on these new versions look superb, revised string spacing and a smaller footprint tuning machine set further improve it as a solid modding platform bass.

How-to guide - Making a right handed Jazz Bass (1963 onward) spec wiring loom

June 5, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

Tagged: 1963 Jazz Bass wiring how do you wire a jazz bass how to wire a jazz bass how to wire a Jazzbass Jazz Bass Jazz Bass harness Jazz bass loom Jazz Bass wiring Jazz Bass wiring harness Jazz Bass wiring loom wiring a jazz bass

In this article I'm going to feature how to make a 1963 onward spec Jazz Bass wiring loom, but also touch on some of the finer details too so that hopefully you're not just copying how to do it, but instead learning about the parts and how they're working too. Always good to have some understanding of how your instrument works I think! But by all means, if you just want to get it made, skip through these bits and get to the wiring!

New release from Benson Amps, The Stonk Box!

May 16, 2023 — James P Gascoigne

Tagged: Benson Amps benson amps pedals Benson amps pedals UK Benson Amps UK benson fuzz benson pedals Benson pedals UK benson stonk box benson tonebender fuzz fuzz pedal stonk box stonk box UK zonk full zonk fuzz

Welcoming the latest Benson pedal to the range, The Stonk box! This is a thermally biased Tonebender Mk1 / Zonk inspired fuzz pedal, and brought the smiles on my first plug in test that's for sure, along with some surprise faces too thanks to it's versatility. From vintage Ge fuzz tones, to semi gated, from fairly clean boost to treble booster and fuzzy overdrive, it covers a surprising amount of ground and I've enjoyed finding them all within it's 4 controls.

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