Lil Rocker
Lil Rocker is a 24 inch scale length clamshell guitar with modified "V" styling and a beveled neck. It is light, and looks and feels fun to play.
Original Design: The original Lil Rocker design is extremely thin, with a 1 inch thick body composed of two 1/2 inch pieces of maple. The neck is part of the top piece of the body (neck-through design). In combination with the fretboard, the neck is 3/4 inch thick. Because the neck is so thin, the truss rod is inverted in order to save space. This means, you turn it counter-clockwise to pull the neck up and clockwise to push it back. Also, the tuners are extended out a bit (using washers) so that the strings will hold into the nut.
Updated Design: The original design proved to be too thin, so I updated the design to make the guitar thicker, at about 1.5 inches. This puts more break angle at the nut Also, the headstock is extended in the updated design to allow more room for fingering at the first fret. Otherwise, the design remains very similar.
In both the original and updated design, the neck curvature is anything but -- it is flat with bevels. I guess you could call it a modified U shaped neck. (I call it a half-octagon.) It doesn't feel uncomfortable and the even thickness of the neck makes it easy to reach most frets all the way down the board.
I've made two Lil Rockers so far, a pink snakeskin print and a red dyed version. Pictures below.
Original Design: The original Lil Rocker design is extremely thin, with a 1 inch thick body composed of two 1/2 inch pieces of maple. The neck is part of the top piece of the body (neck-through design). In combination with the fretboard, the neck is 3/4 inch thick. Because the neck is so thin, the truss rod is inverted in order to save space. This means, you turn it counter-clockwise to pull the neck up and clockwise to push it back. Also, the tuners are extended out a bit (using washers) so that the strings will hold into the nut.
Updated Design: The original design proved to be too thin, so I updated the design to make the guitar thicker, at about 1.5 inches. This puts more break angle at the nut Also, the headstock is extended in the updated design to allow more room for fingering at the first fret. Otherwise, the design remains very similar.
In both the original and updated design, the neck curvature is anything but -- it is flat with bevels. I guess you could call it a modified U shaped neck. (I call it a half-octagon.) It doesn't feel uncomfortable and the even thickness of the neck makes it easy to reach most frets all the way down the board.
I've made two Lil Rockers so far, a pink snakeskin print and a red dyed version. Pictures below.
Electronics
Lil Rocker shares electronics with Victoria. It has an embedded microcontroller with five encoder knobs:
In order to save energy, the guitar will go to sleep after 10 minutes of non-play. Turning any knob or turning the guitar off and on again will wake it up.
There is a micro-USB port near the neck to recharge the battery (a 18650 rechargeable li-ion). While charging a light near the port will glow red. When fully charged the light will glow green/blue.
- volume -- push to change overdrive styles (clean, overdrive, fuzz, distortion)
- tone -- push to choose pickup (neck, bridge, both, both with suboctave)
- modulation -- push to choose type of modulation (tremelo, chorus, wawa, vibrato)
- delay -- push to choose type of delay (slapback, echo, reverb, fuzzy echo)
- preset -- push to save current settings as preset. Push and hold for 4 seconds to reset the preset to its original values. There are 12 presets.
In order to save energy, the guitar will go to sleep after 10 minutes of non-play. Turning any knob or turning the guitar off and on again will wake it up.
There is a micro-USB port near the neck to recharge the battery (a 18650 rechargeable li-ion). While charging a light near the port will glow red. When fully charged the light will glow green/blue.
Holding Position
The most comfortable position I've found to hold the guitar while sitting is with the bottom on your right thigh. This puts the guitar at a higher angle than with other guitars and the fretboard might be a little farther away but not noticeably so. It also makes the controls easy to manipulate while seated.
When standing the strap will hold the guitar in a similar position or you can tilt the guitar down more if you like.
When standing the strap will hold the guitar in a similar position or you can tilt the guitar down more if you like.
Tuning
Because of the thickness and lighter maple used in the neck of the guitar, the tuning is a bit touchy because the neck is not as stiff as most other guitars. The best way I've found to tune it and keep it in tune when playing is to hold the guitar in the position in which you will be playing it while you tune it. After you tune it, recheck the strings to make sure they are still correct as well since tightening strings can bend the neck slightly.