In these videos I am a/b comparing two different guitars side by side: Mark Knopfler’s famous sunburst Schecter Dream Machine Strat and my pink part-o-caster, built from a Japanese Squier body in metallic pink with a nice bird’s eye maple neck I bought on ebay some time ago (actually a noname product), equipped with the loaded Schecter-style pickguard with the F500T pickup replicas, and with a prototype of the coming brass Dream Machine tremolo bridges (to be released as it seems at the end of this month, note that this prototype is not finished yet, the release version will be available in chrome or gold plated, like Schecter).

Of course these guitars do not have too much in common, the body wood and the kind of laquer alone (poly on mine 🙁 )  are reason enough so that they can never sound 100% identical – besides one has a value probably 50 times as much as the other –  but of course I was curious how my guitar compares to the Telegraph Road Schecter, especially to see how close I can come with the F500T-style pickups in my pickguard. (After measuring various  specs on the Mark Knopfler guitar pickups, I meanwhile even updated my pickups to have not only electrical values of a Schecter guitar but of this particular Schecter.)

Both guitars re-amped with identical settings

As I recorded the Schecter directly into a portable recording device (via a buffer that avoids the normal treble loss you will encounter when recording a guitar directly into such a device), I could do the same later with my guitar, which means both were recorded not at the same time and in different countries, but with the same cable into the same buffer and into the same recorder. I then re-amped both guitar samples with the same software amp, of course with 100% all identical settings, not even a volume match. This way I got two absolutely comparable files, with the same signal chain except the guitar itself.

When I had the chance to play the Mark Knopfler Schecter, I filmed about 20 minutes. I tried to play the same licks on my guitar so that I can edit both videos to put the same licks side by side for ideal comparing. This video might also be of great help to see in how far it is the guitar that matters (“Do you need the same  guitar to get that sound?”), or do only all the other sound factors matter, or just the player  (“It’s all in the fingers”). All in all I am pleased with my 1,000 Euros guitar against such a famous piece of rock history, however, there are moments when that Schecter sounds so beautiful, just listen to the tone on the Tunnel of Love licks (2nd video towards the end, well, it IS the Tunnel of Love guitar  (live version) 🙂 ).

some chords on the different pickups, various licks and tunes, Where do you think you’re going:

Sultans of Swing and Tunnel of Love stuff:

More info on the loaded Schecter-style pickguard