all the tuners are back on the headstock now!

they're all easy to turn now… but some of them are too easy, and tragically i know why that is, and it is due to one of my several unforced errors from being impatient last week. kids don't copy me i do not always act wisely

i think i managed to get the string winding right this time? this time i unwound and rewound a few times as necessary until i got it right. you have to hold the string tight while winding and pay close attention… once again i am grateful for https://youtu.be/UKFe8LpyBKA this video

okay it is weird it ended up with that many winds though, i assume this is an accident of the un-winding and re-winding i did

i think this string winding is less bad than my first attempt at least, but i will research technique better before next time

at long last, i now have a more or less fully-functional midi guitar <3

(i need to adjust the string action and possibly the sensitivity though, sheesh)

oh my god i measured the string action it's somehow set at over three fucking millimetres no wonder this feels so awful to play lmfao

time to fix that

will set it to the fender recommended 1.6mm as a starting point

halving the string action and re-intonating just the low E string, nothing else, took me an entire hour 🙃

this bridge is… not fun to work with

possibly interesting detail of this guitar's bridge: whoever designed it was clearly concerned that the low and high E strings' saddles might slip out of alignment if the screws aren't level, so there's actually little indents in the plate for the screws to sit in for those two

i would not say the Squier Stratocaster Guitar and Controller is a good guitar if you don't enjoy the process of adjusting tuning, relief, action and intonation, because unusually poor rigidity of the neck means you'll be doing a lot of those. but it's kind of relaxing

it took four hours(!) but the action is now in the pleasant 1.5~2mm range, the neck relief is good, the strings are in tune, the saddles do not wobble and intonation is acceptable. she's now quite enjoyable to play, acoustically at least!

just need to tweak pickup height now?

here's what a DI of it sounds like now ^^

even with more normal string action and pickup height, one of the middle strings (was it D or G? i forget) was still registering far too weakly on the MIDI output, so it was time to finally adjust the fabled undocumented sensitivity pots hidden cunningly next to the batteries

oh you want MIDI guitar do you? I'LL GIVE YOU MIDI GUITAR!!!

(followers with a keen memory may recall that it was in fact one of the General MIDI distorted guitar presets from the Roland SC-7, which you're hearing here, that originally convinced me to learn electric guitar. lmao)

now that my Squier Stratocaster Guitar and Controller is in shape, i can finally play Rock Band 3 Pro Guitar!

it's hard but i am having fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP4QQ5IDzxU

the real-time visual feedback as to what your hands are doing is excellent, i can keep my eyes off the guitar

that is, i suppose, an interesting advantage this game has over rocksmith

honestly can't believe how well the Squier is working now, i didn't notice a single fret tracking issue in the game which is so hard to believe considering the dire state this guitar was in when i got it. i'm really happy. going to have a lot of fun with my funny cyborg guitar