“The Jimmy Herring Strat”
6 lbs. 12oz.
Up for sale is a brand new Big River “Izabella“ Strat. After seeing a Widespread Panic concert I noticed that Jimmy Herring had a new set up in his Vintage White Strat. Originally i’ve always seen it with an HH setup, with two Lollar Imperials which were awesome in their own right. After doing some research I couldn’t find anything on the new three Firebird looking pickups, and realized I absolutely had build one! This “Izabella” Jimmy Herring Strat is probably in my top three builds to date. I wanted something that was for sure a Big River guitar, but still undeniablly a copy of his strat. This thing plays and sounds absolutely killer, and right on for Jimmy swapping out pickups, he’s an absolute animal!
Anyway the body is made from two pieces of Alder and was prepped; sanded, pore filled and sealed. Then it was given ten coats of our custom mixed Vintage White Nitro and left to do its thing. When it was ready, it was aged and wet sanding, buffed out, aged some more and given some awesome checking throughout. The bridge/trem is a Fender Vintage Narrow trem that gives you a little extra room and was aged in our shop.
The neck is a licensed maple neck, with a 9.5” radius, 22 medium jumbo frets, a C shape with a flat bottomed nut, and was finished in our vintage neck amber along with clear nitro. Then it wa buffed out to a super smooth satin finish. To match Jimmy’s headstock I went with a set of Kluson Vintage tuners and a three string string tree, both of which were also aged in our shop.
Under the custom aged cream 3ply pickguard I built a traditional 5way strat harness but with a twist. I really wanted to heat what these pickups sounded like with a blender with the added pickup pickup tones. I used an Oak 3way switch, 500k CTS pots with a blender pot at the 2nd tone knob, a .033 Mallory Mustard Cap, a John Suhr Treble Bleed, a Puretone 4prong input Jack, and Gavitt cloth pushback wire throughout. With the blender on “10” you have a traditional positioned Strat harness. With the blender activated, you can blend as much or little of the Neck and Bridge into any position. Here is what the wiring looks like with the blender on full at “0”…
Positions …
1.) Bridge + Neck
2.) Bridge + Middle + Neck
3.) Middle
4.) Neck + Middle + Neck
5.) Neck + Bridge
And the pickups for this one are absolutely incredible. I contactes Kerry at Onamac to see about building me three calibrated firebird pickups. These pickups are incredible! Here is what they had to say about them…
“Onamac Windery's Vintage tone Firebird mini humbuckers.
They are ballsy and yet remain clear thanks to the powerful bar magnets, one in each bobbin along with the sheet metal reflector plates.
Seemingly insignificant little pieces of metal the reflector plates have much to do with how Firebird pickups sound. One plate covers the bottom of the bobbins connecting the two magnets creating a larger more powerful magnetic field.
The second smaller strip is on top of the bobbins located below the "B" string area also connects the two magnets creating a powerful magnetic field in the treble string area contributing to the signature "bite" Firebird's are known for.
Thought of as unimportant the reflector plates are left out of many Firebird replacement pickups and their tone reflects it. (Pardon the pun)
Like Onamac Top Shelf humbucker line these are made with all the usual good stuff; our own alnico 5 bar magnets, 42awg plain enamel coils, maple spacers, custom made reflector plates, nickel silver base plates and covers in your choice of finish. Sets include new mounting hardware.
This set is the classic"Firebird Vintage" they are wound to 6.3k and 6.8k. And for those who want even more check out the hotter "Firebird Vintage Plus" set.
Yes three pickup sets are available. Drop a note at "contact us" and we'll talk about what you need.”
Anyway this Izabella Strat is flat out magical. I tried my best to recreate Jimmy Herrings Vintage White Strat also have the look and feel our Big River Izabella model. The end result is a tone machine like no other. The extra positions are so sweet sounding and usefull, I found myself playing positilns one and two more than the rest. Grab this one quick because it’s not going to be around for long. This thing is a destroyer of worlds!
**I couldn’t find much in the way of demos, so the demo is of Jimmy playing Little Wing on his FFF Strat! “